Trap lays it on the line to players about drinking habits

AS the Irish squad trained yesterday for the firsttime at the start of what Giovanni Trapattonicalled the “the most important week of the qualifying campaign” it was clear that the manager was not leaving anything to chance on or off the pitch.

With a new artificial pitch being laid at Ireland’s Gannon Park training base, we learned that the manager had asked for the work to be accelerated so that the squad can train on it before stepping out onto a similar surface in Moscow next Tuesday.

But, rather more unexpected, since he volunteered the information himself, was the revelation that the manager had called a meeting of the players before the recent friendly against Croatia in which he asked them to be more responsible about their drinking habits.