Morling names Murphy in Republic U17 squad for UEFA Qualifiers

Republic of Ireland U17 manager, John Morling, has named a 17-man squad ahead of the UEFA Championship elite qualifying phase.

The Irish will compete with Denmark, Greece and Latvia in Greece from March 23-28 for the one available place in this year’s eight-team UEFA Championship finals.

The finals take place in Serbia from May 3-15.

Included in the squad is Reading striker, James Murphy who is Ireland's top scorer in the campaign to date with two goals while Celtic youth star, Paul George will give John Morling extra options up front after recently declaring for the Republic.

John Morling said: "We are all really looking forward to these games. The squad are in confident form following our training camp in January which was followed by an extremely valuable double international versus Italy in February."

The Irish eased to qualification from the first qualifying phase last Autumn, emerging from a group containing Albania, Malta and Norway.

They continued their preparations for the elite qualifying phase with a valuable double international friendly versus Italy in Lecce last February, where they lost 1-0 in the opening encounter before reversing that score-line two days later courtesy of a Mikey Drennan strike.

"I was extremely happy with the performance of the team against opposition with the quality of Italy but the challenges that await us in the form of Denmark, Greece and Latvia will be very different. The group is very even and every team will feel that they can qualify so it will make for a very competitive group," Morling said.

The 2010/11 European U-17 Championship finals will also will serve as the qualification tournament for the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2011.

The three top-ranked teams from the two groups will qualify for the FIFA U-17 World Cup Mexico 2011.