Kerr’s focus on Cup rivals

THE pity of last night’s press conference with Brian Kerr at Lansdowne Road was that it couldn’t have been held back for 24 hours, until France and Israel had done exchanging shirts - and hopefully points - in Tel Aviv.

Kerr will fly back to the Middle East to take in the game today and only then, after all four games of this mini-round robin international week in Israel, Paris and Dublin are over, that the Irish manager will truly be able to make a judgement on how far down the path the last five days leaves his team from Germany.

As for last night’s assignment, well that was never likely to set the pulses racing and so it proved. China hit town on the back of a 3-0 spanking in Spain and, when nine of their eleven starters took the field with sleeves tucked down over their knuckles, you wondered just how stiff a breeze it would take to knock them down.