Squad news: Republic of Ireland Under-23 manager Pat Fenlon has named a 20-man squad ahead of their crucial International Challenge Trophy fixture against Belgium at Dalymount Park on Tuesday, October 21st (7.30pm).
Fenlon's men just need one point from the fixture to qualify for the finals of the tournament after they defeated Slovakia (2-0) and Northern Ireland (1-0) in previous matches.
Should they advance to the finals they will face either Italy or England.
Fenlon's squad is made up entirely of players from the eircom League of Ireland, giving domestically-based young players an opportunity to test themselves on the international stage.
Bohemians' Gary Deegan gets his first call up as does Galway United's Jay O'Shea. The news comes in the same week O'Shea scored twice in his side's 3-2 victory over Cork City as well as earning his first call-up to the Republic of Ireland Under-21 squad.
"We need one point from this game to qualify for the final but we will approach the match as we do any other and go out to win it," said Fenlon. "We have lots of good attacking options in the squad. There are some real quality players in the league and I think we have picked a very impressive squad here."
Republic of Ireland Under-23 squad (v Belgium)
Darren Quigley, Barry Murphy, Seamus Coleman, Gavin Peers, Ger O'Brien, Conor Kenna, Shane Guthrie, Conor Powell, Darren Murphy, Paul Keegan, Killian Brennan, Stephen Rice, Stephen O'Donnell, John Paul Kelly, Ruaidhri Higgins, Gary Deegan, Mark Quigley, Denis Behan, Ger Rowe, Jay O'Shea
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)