Staunton wishes you were here

Republic of Ireland tour to the United States: Emmet Malonereports on a tour that has gone pear-shaped for Steve Staunton as he heads Stateside with a reserve national side at best

In Ecuador, like Ireland, they might well be asking themselves this morning just why it is the national football team is heading to the US. There, concerns will understandably focus on the recent case of Vincinio Luna, the team's co-ordinator who was released from jail a couple of months back after serving the best part of a year for his role in a human-trafficking ring. Luna's crime, it seems, was to assist those attempting to reach the US in order to work by providing them with documentation to the effect that they were part of the federation's official entourage for games there.

It makes you look at the pictures of Steve Staunton arriving in New York with all those able-bodied young men you've never heard of in a somewhat different light now, doesn't it? Assuming, however, that the Irish players who boarded the plane in Dublin really do intend returning home after next Saturday's game against Bolivia in Boston, it's difficult to see how much they, or their manager, will have gained from the 10 days spent Stateside.

The trip would primarily appear to be an upshot of the avalanche of criticism encountered by Staunton in the aftermath of desperately poor performances against the Netherlands and Cyprus towards the end of last year. The Louthman, still less than a year in the job, attempted to explain away the fact that, even he conceded, the Irish defenders repeatedly looked as though they had never played with each other before, by citing how few opportunities they had had to do so under him.

Predictably enough, members of the media took it in turns, by way of reply, to ask him why it was then that he had chosen to take his squad to Portugal for a bit of an end-of-season kickabout in the sun before a solitary game against Chile when a couple more friendly games might have served him a little better.

This time around, Staunton is not going to be quite such an easy target for he and his employers have accepted an invitation to play two modestly-ranked South American sides a long way from home. It's not, however, a prospect that seems to have caused too much excitement amongst the squad's senior players, most of whom had made alternative plans (births, weddings and, one presumes, lie-ins) by the time the trip was confirmed in the spring.

When naming his squad a couple of weeks back Staunton insisted that his more established players had required no persuading to come which sort of begs the question: why are only two (assuming John O'Shea makes it tomorrow) travelling? As of Thursday night, the inclusion of the Waterford man and that most trusty of servants, Kevin Kilbane, provided the fig leaf that helped to cover the true extent of the squad's modesty. Between them the pair have 116 caps while the rest of the panel combined, as it stood on Thursday evening, had just 32 between 19 of them - or an average of 1.7 each. The Wigan winger, meanwhile, accounted for seven of the party's 10 goals at this level with Kevin Doyle (two) and O'Shea (one) having chipped in with the others.

Doyle, as it happens, is just the sort of player who should have benefited most from a venture like this. Ideally, the Reading striker, an enormous talent coming off the back of a very fine season, would have been clocking up international experience surrounded by more seasoned performers. Instead, he is likely to be the fourth most capped player in New Jersey next week.

A couple of others, like his club-mate Stephen Hunt, do have something tangible to gain from the coming week, as the 25-year-old readily accepts. "Kevin Kilbane is going and he plays in my position so I'd better go!" he said with a laugh after arriving into Dublin. "On a serious note," he continued, "I've only got three caps for substitute appearances and I've played over 25 games starting for Reading. I ain't going to be remembered for that.

"I probably won't be remembered for the American tour either but if it helps me get into the team that wins the rest of the games in the qualifiers, then it can get you recognition for years to come which is what everybody wants."

Had the manager persuaded more established players to travel then Hunt's performances might have been a little easier to evaluate. And those travelling should not forget the inspirational tale of Mick McCarthy, who having forsaken the honour of being his brother's best man in order to fly half-way around the world and play for Ireland in one invitation tournament went on captain and then manage the national team, or the cautionary one about Dave O'Leary, who declined to travel for a similar event in 1986 and languished in the international wilderness for more than two years, missing a European Championship finals tournament along the way.

In time, of course, Staunton should actually benefit from the familiarity he establishes with the newcomers on this trip even if very few are likely to feature in a competitive international until at least the start of the next qualification campaign and it's not quite a foregone conclusion that he will still be in charge then.

More immediately, from the players' point of view, there is the prospect of going to Giants Stadium with a man who featured there for Ireland in one of the greatest games in this country's sporting history.

That is, of course, if US immigration didn't smell a rat as the young lads sought to slip past them in JFK late last night.