Ireland lick wounds and re-group

There was a little bit of wound-licking going on at the Irish team hotel yesterday with the players resting in order to recover from the physical exertions of Sunday night and at the same time making a point of trying to look upbeat in an attempt to shake their obvious disappointment with the result.

On average those players involved in the game against the Mexicans lost five pounds in weight over the course of the 90 minutes. Robbie Keane, whose relentless running up front was always a problem for his opponents, lost seven. Yesterday a concerted effort was made to get some of the weight back on the players.

The squad took a morning off from training and relaxed around the Premier Hotel where they were being encouraged to eat good-sized meals and, in particular, consume large amounts of water. Other than the tiredness, though, there didn't seem to be any serious after-affects.

Goalkeeper Alex O'Reilly, who had some breathing problems at half-time and cramps in his calf muscles during the second period, was fine, while Jason Gavin, who was stretchered off during the second half, looked comfortable as he wandered about the foyer.

Gavin received some bad bruising to his shin when he clashed with the Mexican number nine, Jesus Mendoza, but while many of the other players within earshot of the incident thought that the Middlesbrough defender had suffered a broken leg, it turned out afterwards that they crack they heard was only his shin-guard snapping.

"It's seems to be all right," said Gavin, "Overall, though, it was a disappointing night for us. It was a bad start for us to give away a goal so early.

"After that we had plenty of chances to get back into the game and we just couldn't find the net. They were very skilful, but Brian told us to hold back off and let them play in the first half and then to push on in the second. I thought that worked out fairly well, but we just couldn't seem to score when we were on top."

Gavin's injury gave the Irish bench a few anxious moments. A key figure in the side over the past couple of years, he spent much of this season laid up after an operation to repair damaged ligaments in his left knee. That injury came just as he was making some progress in the battle to break into the first team at Middlesbrough. "At one stage I thought I might even miss this trip, but the club physio, Bob Ward, was always very reassuring. He said that if I worked hard and kept at it I'd be okay and while I don't feel 100 per cent yet, I am fairly fit again."

After these championships, he heads back to Middlesbrough for the last few weeks of the season where, quite possibly, he might well be given a chance to show what he can do in the first team.

Whatever happens he is determined to make it at the club which Ronnie O'Brien left recently after declaring publicly that Bryan Robson's ability to repeatedly go out and spend large fees on big-name players was a serious impediment to the younger players who were waiting for a break.

"Well Bryan's brought in four or five 18-year-olds this year, given them chances in the first team, so I don't think you can say that. I think that Ronnie was a bit disappointed that he wasn't even holding down a regular place in the reserve team and so he wanted to get out, but sure it's worked out well for him anyway with the move to Juventus."

Brian Kerr, meanwhile, is confident that Gavin will be fit and ready to play in tomorrow evening's game against Saudi Arabia, a match which the Irish must win if they are to avoid taking on Australia at the weekend in the heat of the afternoon with first round elimination staring them in the face.

"I think we need four points and the Saudis looked the weakest team yesterday," said Kerr, "but you can never tell in these tournaments. In Israel a couple of months back the Hungarians lost their opening game - I think it was 6-0 - and they went on to win the tournament.

"As it is, though, it looks like we need four points to go through, while three might do us - the US went through with three in Malaysia. The fact that we're playing Saudi Arabia in the evening again is a help, but it's going to be very tough against the Australians at four o'clock on Saturday."

The kick-off time against the Saudis raises the possibility of another floodlight failure, a suggestion which Kerr greeted with a "nothing would surprise us at this stage" comment.

"We can only hope that they get it sorted out because last night was terrible. The other thing was that once it did happen, because we were behind and we'd lost the momentum we'd built up in the game, you were half hoping that the game didn't get finished and we'd have to play them again. Then there was the fear that they'd make us go out there today, which they might have done.

"In the end I thought we were unlucky not to get something out of it, though. To be honest I don't think the Mexicans were the sort of team that we would have had too many problems with in European conditions, but the sort of work we were doing in the second half when we were on top, I seriously don't think we could have kept that up for the whole 90 minutes." Tomorrow, against a weaker Saudi defence and with Damien Duff back in from the start, he hopes they won't have to.