A BEHIND-CLOSED-DOORS friendly to be played on 4 June between Ireland and Northern Ireland was confirmed yesterday.
It will be the 10th time in total the teams have met and will take place just over four years since their last encounter in the Nations Cup.
A glance at the lineups that day reveals how much the sides have changed since then, with Robbie Keane, Seamus Coleman (then deployed on the right wing) and arguably Stephen Ward and Shay Given the only players who remain first choice with the current management.
Hull’s Paul McShane was played at centre-back, while Crystal Palace’s Damien Delaney featured alongside him. Meanwhile, Reading’s Stephen Kelly and Burnley’s Stephen Ward are the full-backs.
Along with Coleman, Kevin Foley, now of Copenhagen, MK Dons’ Keith Andrews and Keith Treacy, who is currently a free agent after being released by Barnsley back in January, were all included.
Reading’s Simon Cox joined Keane up front, as Ireland ran out 5-0 winners, with goals from Keane (2), Ward, Cox and an own goal by Craig Cathcart.
The bench is similarly intriguing — it featured Millwall’s David Forde, Liam Lawrence, now with Shrewsbury Town in League Two, Ipswich’s Stephen Hunt, Andy Keogh of Perth Glory, Orlando City’s Sean St Ledger, Blackpool’s Darren O’Dea and Darron Randolph of Birmingham.
Of course, the game was essentially an end-of-season friendly, so it was by no means Giovanni Trapattoni’s strongest starting XI, nonetheless the line-up gives a fascinating insight into the manager’s thinking at the time, with many players having fallen well off the Irish team’s radar since then.
And for the record, the time before that when the sides met was in 1999, as Mick McCarthy’s Ireland were beaten 1-0 at Lansdowne Road.
Here’s how the team looked that day….
Shay Given; Stephen Carr, Alan Maybury, Kenny Cunningham, Phil Babb; Lee Carsley, Mark Kennedy, Mark Kinsella, Damien Duff; Niall Quinn, Robbie Keane.
Subs: Alan McLoughlin, David Connolly, Keith O’Neill, Tony Cascarino, Graham Kavanagh, Gary Breen, Alan Kelly, Dean Kiely.
