Cunningham will guide young guns through World Cup minefield

A LOT of the talk in the Irish camp this week is about experience. Ireland begin their World Cup campaign without a quartet of midfielders. All those friendlies in the past year suddenly make a lot of sense.

Of course, we still have Kenny Cunningham. The skipper is so experienced at this stage that he talked about this possibly being his last major championships campaign yesterday and nobody batted an eyelid.

It has been a year of team-building and blooding young players, but it has also been a year for Cunningham to enhance his importance to this team