Visit to Russia tops Irish agenda

Mick McCarthy will learn the final details of the task that awaits his team in the next European Championship qualifying campaign in the middle of next month. That is when representatives from Group 10's five sides sit down in Dublin to work out a schedule based on the international dates available between this September and October of next year.

Speaking after yesterday's draw which left the Republic of Ireland in a group with Russia, Switzerland, Georgia and Albania, though, McCarthy reiterated his hope that he could pursue a similar strategy to the one that proved so successful in World Cup qualification, taking on the top teams first. If he gets his way, in other words, the campaign will kick off with a trip to Moscow in early autumn.

"I'll go to Russia in September no problem," he said. "It won't be too cold, that's one good reason for going at that time. But, more importantly, our strategy of playing Portugal and Holland away from home early on paid dividends and that's what I want to do again."

McCarthy certainly didn't get the collection of comfortable and straightforward away trips which he had said he was hoping for earlier in the week. For, while Albanian capital Tirana may not be nearly as grim as it was when the Irish last played there in 1993, neither it nor Georgia's capital Tbilisi promise to be terribly welcoming during the 18 months ahead.

The Swiss should prove much more difficult opponents than Albania and Georgia but the Russians do appear to be the only serious rivals to the Irish for first place in the group. In any case, McCarthy will have a first-hand opportunity to assess the growing strength of Oleg Romantsev's side in a couple of weeks (February 13th) when they come to Dublin to play a friendly match.

He would, he conceded, know a little more about them after that and, of course, the World Cup finals but the manner in which they have performed in recent qualification groups - narrowly third to France and the Ukraine for Euro 2000 and fairly comfortable winners ahead of Slovenia and Yugoslavia more recently - suggests that making it to Portugal 2004 will involve another hard road for the Republic.

McCarthy went on to suggest that this group might be less of a shootout between the favourites than the three-way battle from which Ireland recently emerged to secure a place in the World Cup finals.

"I thought last time, and was proven right, that all of the top teams would beat Estonia and Andorra home and away. I'm not so sure this time. I think Georgia and Albania are a different proposition. I think it is a more even group and I know that when I saw Albania play England they caused them problems, but I know nothing about Georgia or Switzerland."

He may know nothing about them but he made it clear he was not complaining. For a while during the draw, he admitted, he was sure that the Irish were going to wind up in the same group as Macedonia again and that was not something that he was getting overly excited about.

On balance, he admitted, he was happy with the way things had turned out. "Just because we are top seeds doesn't suddenly make us better than Poland, England, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Ukraine, the Netherlands and Turkey. But I've always been confident and felt we could do well, perhaps even more so now."

Overall, the draw threw up one of the most evenly balanced collections of contests in recent years and there were few complaints afterwards.

Things certainly might have been worse for England, whose top seeds are Turkey, or the Netherlands, who are ranked behind the Czech Republic in Group Three.

Scotland will have to hope that the German decline of recent seasons continues, while their own is reversed by new coach Berti Vogts, but there seems little prospect of either Wales or Northern Ireland making an impact on groups that are topped by Italy and Spain respectively.