Back on rocky road to the Euros

Ahead of the resumption of European Championship qualifying with the game against Gibraltar in Faro on Friday, the Irish team will get its first taste of its new training base when they commence preparations at Abbotstown on Monday morning.

To judge by a recent sneak preview, they shouldn’t have any complaints about the immaculate Pitch Number One which, one of six — including an all-weather pitch — in the FAI’s new National Training Centre, is being reserved exclusively for use by the senior men’s and women’s teams.

Since the squad will be bussed in and out from their hotel, it ought not to be of any great concern to them that all around them in Abbotstown they will see evidence that the long-awaited National Sports Campus, while certainly taking impressive shape, is still a project under construction.