Youth team manager Brian Kerr hopes to maintain his remarkable rate of success with Irish underage teams, but enters unfamiliar territory with his under16s for this coming week's UEFA championship finals which begin in Scotland tomorrow. It is the first time Kerr has taken this age group to a major finals.
And it's been made doubly difficult as he must attempt to qualify from a very strong group without, arguably, his three best players.
Blackburn's flying winger Paul Forsyth, Everton midfielder Gary Dempsey and Thomas Butler of Sunderland are all unavailable due to injury, while Arsenal's Graham Barrett, though in the squad, has also been hampered with injury of late.
One late withdrawal from Kerr's original 18-player squad was Huddersfield Town's Dwayne Mattis from Cork suffering with a back strain. He has been replaced by Jonathan Douglas of Monaghan United.
"We've done well to qualify and are in a very strong group with hosts Scotland, Finland and Spain," said Kerr as the squad departed for their base at Dunblane yesterday morning. The Republic are in Group C and will play all three matches at Stirling Albion's Ground, Forthbank.
They begin their challenge against hosts Scotland tomorrow (kick-off 3.0), meet Finland on Tuesday (7.30) and finish their group games with Spain on Thursday (7.30). Group winners and runners-up from this 16-team tournament go through to the quarter-finals.
Ireland U-16 SQUAD: Goalkeepers: Joe Murphy (Tranmere Rovers), David Madden (Tramore Athletic). Defenders: Jim Goodwin (Celtic), John O'Shea (Waterford Bohemians), Keith Foy (Nottingham Forest), Brian O'Callaghan (Pike Rovers), Ian Rossiter (Galway United), John Thompson (Home Farm), Des Byrne (Cherry Orchard). Midfielders: Kevin Grogan (Manchester Utd), Jonathan Douglas (Monaghan United), Graham Barrett (Arsenal), Liam Miller (Celtic), Shaun Byrne (West Ham United, captain), David Warren (Mayfield). Strikers: Brendan McGill (Rivervalley Rangers), Andrew Reid (Nottingham Forest), David McMahon (Newcastle United).
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)