St Ledger remains a doubt for Ireland

GIOVANNI TRAPATTONI continues to sweat on the fitness of Sean St Ledger for tomorrow night’s World Cup qualifier against Cyprus, after the Preston centre-half suffered a reaction to the knee injury he incurred playing for his club last Saturday.

However, Assistant Manager Liam Brady has expressed confidence that the player will still be fit for the fray. Speaking before the squad flew to Larnaca yesterday, Brady said: “Sean trained yesterday afternoon and trained very well and was feeling fine. But this morning it was a little bit sore in his knee where he took a bit of a bang in that collision with his own goalkeeper. So he didn’t train again – we just wanted to leave him out of it as we were doing a lot of shooting and a 10 v 10 at the end where there was going to be a lot of tackling. But we’re confident he’ll be fit for the game on Saturday.”

Brady said that tonight’s training session in the match venue would be the deciding factor in the player’s availability for selection. “If he comes through that I think he will play.”