Roy Keane is set to ease the problems of both Alex Ferguson and Mick McCarthy in Austria tomorrow when Manchester United embark on their second defence of the European Champions League against Sturm Graz.

After a preliminary test at the weekend, Keane believes that his hamstring injury has cleared sufficiently to give him a realistic chance of returning for the first time since the Republic of Ireland's 2-1 win over Yugoslavia on September 1st.

He is due to have a further test this morning but Ferguson is sufficiently encouraged to include him in his tentative plans for a game in which he must make do without hamstring casualty, Ryan Giggs.

"Roy was happy enough with the way his leg held up when he trained last Friday and he had another satisfactory session on Sunday," he said. "There is always an element of risk in returning from injuries like this but at the moment, things are looking good for him.

"No decision will be made until he's had another run but if Roy comes through that, we'll have quite a bit of experience in central midfield with Paul Scholes, Keane and hopefully, David Beckham in there."

For McCarthy, who plans to announce his squad later this week for the European Championship game in Macedonia on October 9th, the news of his captain's impending return to action could scarcely be better timed.

Keane's presence is regarded as central to Irish hopes of getting the result that will sustain their hopes of qualifying for the finals and his performance in Austria will be monitored by the management team.

The news of Ireland's other priority patient, Shay Given, is less encouraging for while the goalkeeper is back in training following an operation on his knee, there is no indication yet as to the date of his likely return for Newcastle United.

Apart from Roy Keane, the other name bearing heavily on McCarthy's thoughts these days is Gary Kelly who, like the Manchester United midfielder, survives from the team which played in the World Cup finals in the United States five years ago.

Barring the unforeseen, Kelly will be among the 22 players named this week to make the return trip to Skopje, scene of an infamous World Cup defeat for the Irish in March, 1997.

Since captaining the team in the scoreless draw against Mexico in May of last year, Kelly has started just one game for Ireland - in Croatia earlier this month. And that was mainly due to the fact that the manager chose to rest several players for the middle segment of a demanding three-match programme. At the time, he hadn't made it into any of David O'Leary's starting line-ups at Leeds, an omission which was subsequently redressed when he played in the first leg of the UEFA Cup tie against Partizan Belgrade in Holland last Thursday.

Since then, he's made a lengthy substitution in the 2-0 win over Middlesbrough on Sunday, valuable match practice for a man who was out of the game for a year because of a problem with his shin.

The more pertinent calculation for McCarthy perhaps, is whether he can continue to go with two out-and-out wingers, Mark Kennedy and Kevin Kilbane, as in Malta or if the blend needs to be coarsened a little to take account of the different priorities in Skopje.

Although a win is the priority for Ireland, they cannot afford to approach the game with anything other than caution, determined to defend in depth when necessary and yet, sufficiently flexible to be able to hit on the break.

In that situation, the equation to be made is whether Kelly offers more in attack than either Kennedy or Kilbane defending and, if the Leeds man gets the right-sided position in midfield, which of the pair will get the job of complementing him on the opposite flank.

If McCarthy has already made a decision in the matter, he is not prepared to share it with the public at this stage. Nor is he prepared to speculate on his choice of cover for his two established forward players, Robbie Keane and Niall Quinn.

Keith O'Neill, back in the Middlesbrough team at the weekend, will come into contention for a place in the travelling party. Another less obvious candidate, perhaps, is David Kelly, the veteran Tranmere striker who hasn't figured in the team since the World Cup play-off against Belgium in Brussels two years ago.

Kelly (33) produced his best performance since then when scoring three times in Tranmere's 5-1 win over Coventry City in the opening leg of their League Cup tie last Tuesday.

"When Robbie Keane came on the scene, he more or less pushed me out but I've never given up hope of getting back in the squad," said Kelly.