Reunion time for boys of '98

Nine of the team that won the Under-16 European championships in Scotland three years ago will be reunited in Flancare Park, Longford, this evening, when Don Givens casts an eye on the pool of talent available to him for the future.

Ireland's under-21 boss hands out five new caps at this level in his starting line-up alone and with all but one of the players expected to be on the bench also new to this level there are likely to be many other debuts before the night is out.

The Irish and Cypriots are effectively playing off for third place in a qualifying group dominated from early on by the big guns from Portugal and The Netherlands and the home side needs a point from this evening's encounter to stay ahead of Sofoullis Styliano's team in the final table.

"The important thing, though, is that it's a new beginning," said Givens yesterday. "I knew all along that this was a decent group of players coming through. They're going to be with me now for a while, although one or two are going to have to look at their situations at club level if they want to take the next step, on to the senior squad. The fact is that I'm picking them while they're in their clubs' reserves but Mick won't."

Amongst this evening's starting line up, only David McMahon and Brendan McGill (who is in the squad) are missing from the team that beat Italy in Scotland in 1998. In their places come Sunderland's Thomas Butler and Celtic's Mickey Doyle.

Ireland v Cyprus

Murphy (Tranmere Rovers);

Thompson (Nottingham Forest),

Goodwin (Celtic),

O'Shea (Manchester United),

Foy (Nottingham Forest);

Butler (Sunderland),

Miller (Celtic),

Byrne (West Ham),

Doyle (Celtic);

Barrett (Arsenal),

Reid (Nottingham Forest).

The United Arab Emirates beat Qatar 2-1 in Doha last night, to go second in Group B and regain course for a play-off place in the Asian zone.