IRELAND captain Robbie Keane is one of five senior players to have been allowed leave the squad and return home early in the wake of Saturday’s win in Cyprus, while the team’s other scorer at Nicosia’s GSP Stadium, Kevin Doyle, is one of those being considered to lead the side against South Africa in Thomond Park tomorrow night.

Along with Keane, Shay Given, Richard Dunne, Kevin Kilbane and Stephen Hunt have all returned to England, mostly for family reasons, while Darren O’Dea, the Celtic defender currently on loan to Reading, yesterday joined up with the squad at their Tipperary base.

Manchester United’s John O’Shea is a slight doubt for tomorrow’s game after taking a knock in Cyprus but should be okay to start while Caleb Folan, Andy Keogh, Liam Lawrence and Leon Best are all set to feature against the South Africans, according to Giovanni Trapattoni with either Doyle or Damien Duff set to captain the side.

The changes will give the Italian another chance to look at some of the players on the margins of his squad although they may not do much for tickets sales for the friendly game which FAI officials estimated yesterday is on course to attract a crowd of “something over 10,000”.

Asked about the prospect of playing in front of such a small crowd, Trapattoni said he was unconcerned. “Yes, I know the situation, the stadium will be a little bit empty but it is normal with the world crazy, with the situation at the moment, that one sells less tickets.”

Useful as it might be, the game might even seem a distraction for Trapattoni who leaves early the following morning for Turin and the meeting between Italy and Bulgaria on Wednesday night. The Ireland manager sees that match as “probably the last chance for Bulgaria to qualify for the play-offs,” and the 70-year-old insists that, despite the threat they still pose to Ireland, he hopes they can upset their hosts by winning or at least taking a point.

Trapattoni puts his side’s chances of qualification at this stage at “50 per cent” and maintains that Ireland could yet progress as group winners rather than having to settle for a place in the play-offs. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we were to beat Italy in Dublin as long as we were in good condition,” he says. “but if we do go to the play-offs then our chances are still good.

“But maybe we’re jinxing ourselves by talking about these things,” he continued. “Because anything can happen, we could have injuries to key players.”

Italy might too while they will also have concerns about the possibility of losing out to suspensions given that 12 of their players go into Wednesday game on bookings.

“It’s a difficult situation and I said to my players to be disciplined, not to react to any provocations,” said Trapattoni yesterday. “When I played, there was a tackle and bang, people said, ‘Wonderful!’ but now, when the referee shows a red card it’s not so wonderful. And if you are missing one or two or three then it is very dangerous for qualification.”

The Italian, fresh from watching part of the All-Ireland hurling final on television and clearly quite enchanted by the spectacle which he described excitedly as “incredible” said that he heard his countrymen had not played well in Georgia, a view confirmed by one of the team’s stars, Gianluigi Buffon, who said the manner of the team’s win – they needed two own goals from Kakha Kaladze – underlined the extent to which they are still suffering in the wake of a desperately disappointing Confederations Cup.

“The first half was not up to scratch, above all in terms of character and initiative, as we made some really elementary mistakes,” he said. “That gave Georgia more confidence to push us. They put pressure on us like crazy in the first half, but inevitably used up their energy and we emerged in the long run.

“We are certainly paying the price for the slaps in the face we got in South Africa,” said Buffon in relation the team’s defeats by Egypt and particularly Brazil over the summer. “Even if we have 1,001 reasons for that defeat, clearly to lose that badly leaves something behind in terms of confidence and self-belief. We can only get that back by winning matches and continuing to notch up results.

“The result is very important in these games, especially ones tonight that on paper might seem easy to some.”