No Irish grounds for concern

LATE breaking news from this small capital city shoe-horned into the high Pyrenees: rumours of the distress of the Andorran pitch appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

The Irish team finally got to train at the Estadi Communal here in Andorra La Vella last night and, after he’d availed of a chance to walk on it, former Ireland manager Eoin Hand was able to allay a lot of fears about the state of the surface. “It’s fine, there’s a few bobbly bits but there’s plenty of grass,” he reported.

Certainly, as viewed from the distance of ground’s only stand, the pitch looked in reasonably good nick, although it is substantially shorter and narrower than the norm.