Mixed news for Republic

Mick McCarthy’s Republic of Ireland camp received mixed news today concerning midfielders Mark Kinsella and Colin Healy.

Charlton man Kinsella trained as normal having sat out yesterday to rest his knee and is set to start against Cameroon on Saturday.

But the bid to bring out Celtic’s Healy as a replacement for Roy Keane finally bit the dust when FIFA turned down a request from the FAI on grounds of ’exceptional circumstances’.

‘‘Kins is fine,’’ said McCarthy. ‘‘He trained today with no problems. He rested his knee yesterday and anybody at this stage who wants to just take it easy and be right for the game can do so.

‘‘Ian Harte had a blister on his heel so he didn’t take part in the five-a-side, but they have all done the work, the game now is the important thing.

‘‘Jason McAteer trained today and I hope he is going to be okay. We’ll see how his knee reacts to doing the full training session, but he got through it okay. It is still a little tender but you’d expect that with the tackle he received and the nature of the injury.

‘‘I want Jason to play, but I’ll only pick him if he is 100% right. I need a bit of input from him but I shall also be monitoring what he does and the treatment he’s had.’’

Brendan Menton, general secretary of the FAI, confirmed bad news regarding Celtic midfielder Healy.

He said: ‘‘My information is that our request has been turned down. We made a case for exceptional circumstances - rather than on medical grounds - but we weren’t confident we would win it, and that has turned out to be the case.

‘‘We have a squad of 22 players and Mick is happy to work with that. There is no point in knocking our heads against a brick wall, we need to get on with it and look forward.’’