Robbie Keane is set to return to the Republic of Ireland team as Mick McCarthy prepares to bring all his resources to bear on Malta, in Wednesday's European Championship qualifying game in Malta.

After gambling and losing in a 1-0 defeat by Croatia on Saturday, the Republic of Ireland manager now finds his margin of error reduced to nothing as he prepares for the last big push in an attempt to qualify for the finals of the competition in Holland and Belgium next summer.

In Zagreb, he took the controversial step of leaving Keane, Niall Quinn, Kevin Kilbane and Mark Kennedy out of his starting line-up in the belief that they needed a rest before embarking on the make or break assignment in Valletta.

Quinn and Kilbane were introduced in the closing stages of the game as the Irish sought, unsuccessfully, to escape with a scoreless draw. However, in spite of the fact that Keane warmed up on a couple of occasions, he was not offered a chance of getting involved in the action on the pitch

His fitness problems have cleared however and now, refreshed by a short break, the scorer of Ireland's first goal in last Wednesday's 2-1 win over Yugoslavia, is certain to link up once more with Quinn in what the manager regards as his most potent front-line partnership.

McCarthy surprised even some of his confidantes by making six changes, two of them occasioned by injuries to Roy Keane and Denis Irwin, from the team which functioned so well in beating the erstwhile Group Eight leaders at Lansdowne Road.

Inevitably, it exposed him to charges that he had sacrificed the chance of beating a Croatian team which looked far from invincible on the night, to enhance their chances of outplaying Malta and banking six points from their three games in eight days programme.

That's a risk he is prepared to take in the belief that Croatia, at home, will beat Yugoslavia in the last game next month, leaving Ireland to win their remaining fixtures in Malta and Macedonia to make certain of topping the qualifying table.

"It's impossible to play three games in eight days with the intensity and pace of the match with Yugoslavia at Lansdowne Road and that influenced my team selection," he said.

"We need pace and fresh legs to get the result we want against Malta on Wednesday. In short, we must reproduce our performance against Yugoslavia, all over again here in Malta."

Miroslav Blazevic, the Croatian manager, cast doubts about Ireland's ability to recover psychologically, from the shock of conceding an injury time winner in Zagreb. But that's not a line which McCarthy is willing to accept.

"That's not in the character of this team," he said. "We all felt hurt, very hurt to lose in those circumstances but that's life. We were bitterly disappointed on Saturday night but already that's beginning to harden into a determination to win on Wednesday."

Disturbingly, no fewer than four Irish players, Lee Carsley, Steve Staunton, Alan McLoughlin and Kevin Kilbane were booked on Saturday, the highest total in any one game in recent years. But McCarthy does not seen that as the start of something sinister.

"There was nothing particularly nasty about any of the incidents, the cards were more a reflection on the type of game it was," he said. "It means that we have put extra pressure on ourselves but I think the players already carded, are mature enough to live with that situation."

Robbie Keane and Mark Kinsella were previously yellow carded in the competition and a further booking for any of the seven here in Malta, would automatically put them out of the game in Skopje on October 10th.

After two games in 72 hours and two long journeys to add to the strain, McCarthy surprised everyone when he asked his players to go through a 60 minute training session.

Today, however, it will be business as usual as the players assemble for early morning training and those with minor injuries report to the team physiotherapists, Ciaran Murray and Mick Byrne. As ever, Byrne remains central to the morale of the squad and yesterday he was able to inform players that he had become a grandfather after his daughter, Siobhan had given birth in Dublin.