'Hopefully everyone will have their time to shine' -  Hallgrimsson looks to strike balance against

STRIKING A BALANCE: Head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson and Nathan Collins this morning at the Stade de Luxembourg ahead of their friendly against Luxembourg. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Ireland’s rookies will get their time to shine against Luxembourg but Heimir Hallgrimsson won’t compromise the need to finish the World Cup preparations on a high.

Back-to-back wins over Bulgaria in March were followed by an impressive showing against Senegal on Friday when Ireland came within eight minutes of beating the nation ranked 19th in the world.

Those numerals are opposite for the second part of the double-header. Luxembourg may be 91st in Fifa’s rankings but their sole victory in the last 11 games was a notable one, slaying Sweden in March.

Luc Holtz’s side are in the news locally due to the manager continuing to select Gerson Rodrigues despite the star striker being convicted of domestic violence against his former girlfriend Emily Boland. Protesters in attendance at Friday’s defeat to Slovenia were forcibly removed, with the federation subsequently issuing an apology for the heavy-handedness.

Hallgrimsson doesn’t intend overhauling his team in the final audition for the qualifiers kicking off against Hungary on September 6.

They also face newly crowned Uefa Nations League champions Portugal and Armenia in a six-match sprint campaign from September to November.

Josh Honohan, John Patrick Finn and Max O’Leary are in line to make their debuts.

“The purpose of this camp was to look at new faces and we will make some changes, even though we were really happy with the performance against Senegal,” said the Icelander.

“Hopefully everyone will have their time to shine but we'd like to keep some consistency too and build on what we've been doing well.

“I think we probably played one of our best games as a team and we don't want to miss that in the game against Luxembourg “As everybody knows, this World Cup campaign comes and goes really quickly.” 

Repeating the good aspects from the Senegal game and eradicating some of the lapses that cost them late on is the manager’s prioriy.

“We are growing as a unit,” he asserted.

“We are saying the same thing over and over again, probably boring for the players to listen to because we are saying the same thing over and over and I have said before that it's basics first before details.

“The excitement comes from that. We can feel that we are growing every time we play.

“Being comfortable against Senegal was one step taken. We can have the same against Luxembourg, so it shouldn’t be up and down performances.

“Consistent performances are what we need.

“Luxembourg could have scored more goals against Sweden, so I wouldn’t look at it as a shock to the nation if we would not get a good result here.

“A win here would be really good for us at this stage. I hope nobody is taking them lightly.”