Ireland look to be pitch perfect

The Republic of Ireland will hold a training session open to the public on June 5, the squad’s first full day at their European Championship base camp in Gdynia in Poland.

And local sources here are predicting it could attract as many as 10,000 people — the majority of them Polish — to the 15,000 capacity all-seater home of Second Division side Arka Gdynia.

Irish football writers were yesterday given a tour of the compact stadium, which was only completed last year, and first impressions were definitely favourable, even as sunshine briefly gave way to snow on a typically changeable April day by the Baltic Sea.