Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy today stressed that Ireland's impressive away draws will mean nothing if they fail to defeat Estonia on Wednesday at Lansdowne Rd. He will not be naming his starting 11 until the day of the match, although the speculation is that he will field an unchanged side from the one that started against Portugal on Saturday night as he has no injury worries after the 1-1 draw in Lisbon.
Only two of the squad sat out today's training session with both Richard Dunne and goalscoring hero Matt Holland still feeling sore after the match in Lisbon, but neither is in danger of missing the game at Lansdowne Rd. After the session Mick McCarthy emphasised that the two great results achieved in Holland and Portugal will count for little if Ireland don't win on Wednesday.
"We know we have to win this one or the two results in Holland and Portugal won't mean a great deal in terms of trying to qualify."
Although McCarthy's side are strong favourites for Wednesday's game, Estonia are expected to pack their defence in the hope of securing a point and Ireland may well find themselves having to eke out a result.
"Estonia will come with a physical game and sit in there," said McCarthy. "We'll have to grind them down but we must be aware they have two big strikers who can cause us problems.
"We've excited people with our last two results, we're unbeaten at Landsdowne Road in competitive matches during my time in charge and there will be some who will expect us to roll them over. But if in the end we get a scrappy 1-0 win I'll settle for that even though we certainly won't set out to do it that way."
Estonia currently top the Group 2 table with 6pts from 3 games after beating Andorra 2-1 on Saturday to complete a double over the minnows. But they have already lost 3-1 at home to Portugal.
Filed by Seán Folan
