If there was still some lingering disappointment in the Irish camp at these European Youth Championships with their performance in an erratic game against Georgia the previous night it was tricky enough to detect as the players went through their paces in the day's only training session yesterday.

The draw against the eastern Europeans means that Brian Kerr's side must beat the Italians if they are to progress to Sunday's final but the size of the task didn't seem to weigh too heavily on the players' young shoulders as they enjoyed a light hearted run out in the warm sunshine.

Players and coaching staff alike made it clear afterwards that they saw the poor defensive display which led directly to two of the Georgians' three goals as an aberration and Kerr hinted that he will stick with much the same team for this afternoon's televised (Eurosport at 5.15) group decider.

The Italians, on the other hand, will have to make at least one change for a game they need a draw from to reach only their second title decider at this level. Milan's 19 year-old midfielder Mattia Rinaldi, scorer of his side's final goal in Wednesday's 3-3 draw with Spain with miss today's game after picking up his second booking of this tournament.

Though impressed with his players' determination to squeeze a result out of that game, Italian coach Rosario Rampanti might consider one or two other switches, however, particularly in view of the fact that the ill-tempered game with the Spaniards was promptly followed by a large scale punch up between many of the opposing players in the area between their dressing rooms.

Rampanti remained untroubled by the post-match fracas yesterday, expressing his unaltered impression that his team will not only beat the Irish today but go on and lift the title on Monday because, he commented frankly yesterday "we are the best team here."

While most of the coaches spend their time here trying to keep their players' feet on the ground, Rampanti, who enjoyed a moderately distinguished playing career with spells at Torino, Bologna and Napoli but who has yet to achieve anything of real note from the sidelines, says that his greatest challenge is reminding his players that "they are the best," and because of that "we will win . . . we must win."

It's the sort of stuff that generally draws a bemused grin and "we'll see about that" comment from his Irish counterpart and yesterday Kerr was being more prudent when it came to making predictions.

"To be honest," he said after a training session which Trevor Fitzpatrick missed due to a knee problem "I'd prefer to be in their situation than ours because the bottom line is that there are two ways they can make the final and only one way that we can.

"Having said that, this team's record had been decent enough over the season. They've played seven, won five and drawn two so there's certainly no reason for them to go into the game thinking that there's any reason why we can't beat them."

The experience of the qualifying tournament in Dublin last autumn is, he admits, a help in the circumstances. On that occasion, with a place in the play-offs seemingly slipping away Colin Healy snatched an injury time winner against Russia and suddenly the defending champions were on their way again.

"It's been mentioned a couple of times through the week, the fact that it took a special bit of character to pull the result out like that and I think that will stand to us, the knowledge that the game doesn't have to be won in the first minute, it can be won in the last minute too . . . although, ideally we'd like to win this one a little bit before that."

On this occasion, it seems, the match will have to be won without Fitzpatrick who remained in the hotel during yesterday's run out and is pessimistic about his chances of being fit again in time. Gary Doherty (blisters), Jason Gavin and Clive Clarke (both calf injuries) were all struggling a little yesterday but all are expected to start today when Kerr has hinted he will stick with much the same starting 11. "We made a couple of changes after the first game and they seemed to work out well enough," he says. "The players that are there now have good stamina and we're happy with them but we'll have a good look at the Italy-Spain game before we make a final decision on the line-up."