Stephen Kenny has admitted that his side will need to adapt their style to handle the soaring temperatures that are expected for Saturday's game in Armenia.
The Republic of Ireland open their UEFA Nations League campaign with an away fixture at the Republican Stadium in Yerevan, with conditions expected to test the Irish side as much as their opponents will compete.
Kicking off at 5pm local time, the pitch-level temperatures are expected to be approaching 30 degrees, and while Kenny said that he did not want to make too much out of the weather, he acknowledged that it would be a factor.
"It’s something that we’re going to have to take on board and adapt to," said Kenny, speaking at the pre-match press conference in Yerevan.
"We had the opportunity to train yesterday at match time at 5pm and today at 5pm, so it can give us some perspective of what it will be like tomorrow, so that’s something we can adapt to.
"The players are looking forward to the game. We’re not making it a big issue, but we will have to adapt parts of what we do.
"We trained in it yesterday, we’ll train today and we’ll gain some experience from that."
Recent FIFA and UEFA tournaments have incorporated water breaks into the match programme in certain sweltering conditions, however, the Ireland manger is unsure that the game in Yerevan will merit the break in play.
Kenny did stress, however, that while it would be better to be playing the game at 7:45pm, he is thankful that the game was not scheduled for earlier in the afternoon.
"Maybe not, depending on the temperature," said Kenny when asked whether water breaks had been confirmed. "It has to be over a certain temperature to get water breaks, and at the moment it's below that.
"We'll have to adapt aspects of our play, but we don't want to make it a contentious issue.
"The match is not at quarter to eight, which would be ideal, but it’s also not at three o’clock, so we have to get ourselves ready, take the elements on and be positive in our approach."
The third instalment of the competition, which began in 2018, Ireland are yet to win a game in ten attempts, while narrowly finishing above Bulgaria in the last edition to avoid relegation to League C with the third-tier teams.
And when reminded, despite the team’s run of good form through the latter stages of the failed World Cup qualification campaign, it still appeared to irk the manager somewhat as to being judged on results in a campaign that is best remembered for the Covid cloud that followed the team throughout.
"We had a situation where after coming back from a Euro play-off, we had to play Wales," recalled Kenny. "We had a call late at night to say that five of the starting XI couldn’t play because they were close contacts and two of the players on the plane couldn’t play.
"We were one of the few countries at the time that were adopting those rules on close contacts – two metres, so for two windows we really had minus ten players.
"All the games were either drawn or lost by a goal, so the players acquitted themselves well at that time considering the circumstances.
"It’s not fair to assess that campaign at all, completely unfair. I know people want to criticise that period and people went after us in that period.
"But I think we have shown over the last year, the players have played brilliantly, the Irish public really identify with this team now, it’s a new style of play, it’s a vibrant style of play.
"The majority of our performances have been very good, we’ve scored 23 goals from March to March, we’re Improving as a team and have blooded a lot of young players.
"They have given us options, there is a lot of competition for places now and that’s important, and I think we are going to continue to improve as a team.
"Anything we get out here in Armenia, we will have to earn it. We are not a team who can assume anything, we have to earn everything that we get."
Looking ahead to the game, temperature aside, the manager will be buoyed by the fact that he has a fully fit squad to choose from for the opening game of a four-fixture series, while Josh Cullen has been cleared to play despite initial beliefs that he was suspended.
Regular goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu is expected to remain in goal for the beginning of the campaign and the Manchester City man, who spent the last season at Portsmouth on loan, was the only concern, but appears to have recovered from a back issue.
"Gavin Bazunu had a back injury, he hurt his back, but he seems to be okay. I think we will have everyone available for selection," confirmed Kenny.
"We respect Armenia here in their own stadium, any result we get, we’ll have to earn and that’s what we intend doing."
Follow Armenia v Republic of Ireland (Saturday, 2pm) via our live blog on rte.ie/sport or on the RTÉ News app. Watch live coverage on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player commencing at 1pm with live radio coverage on RTÉ Radio 1.
