Even if the result may not have suggested it there was much to please Mick McCarthy in Coventry City's performance when they put their expanding reputation on the line against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

After numbering Manchester United and Liverpool among their conquests in recent weeks, Gordon Strachan's team came back to reality all too quickly when surrendering an early lead to lose 3-1 to the home team.

It was scarcely an occasion to substantiate Strachan's claims that they are capable of surviving comfortably in the top half of the Premiership table, and yet in the displays of two of their number, Gary Breen and Willie Boland, McCarthy will have found at least some encouragement.

Boland, never less than a formidable competitor in several appearances in the Republic of Ireland Under-21 team, returned for Coventry after injuries and caused the manager to re-assess his midfield options.

Almost certainly, however, the more significant performance came from Breen, who, in a situation in which the visitors found themselves under increasing pressure in the second half, did sufficiently well to merit nomination as Coventry's man-of-the-match.

It confirmed his rehabilitation from a difficult period in which the promise of his early career at club and international level was often lost after he had moved to Highfield Road to fill the gap in central defence left by another Ireland player, Liam Daish.

Within weeks of succeeding Jack Charlton and committing himself to a rebuilding programme, McCarthy had identified Breen as one of those with the presence to make a successful transition from the under-21 to the senior squad.

That judgment was proved sound as the Coventry defender marked one of his early appearances in the side by scoring against Holland at Rotterdam, never the easiest of venues for visiting players to make an impact.

His decline at Coventry had possibly less to do with an unnerving incident in which he suffered a hand injury after being attacked by hooligans as the tactical switch which saw him shunted to a flank role at the back.

That ill-suited his style and with his confidence apparently undermined his influence in the national team dwindled at a corresponding rate until McCarthy finally dropped him after the costly 3-2 defeat in Macedonia last April.

Among other things, it gave the manager the option of using Ian Harte alongside Kenny Cunningham in the pivotal positions in defence and the new formation functioned so smoothly in subsequent games that apart from the Romanian fixture in Dublin in October, when McCarthy put a shadow team in the field, he has never got back.

Now, however, the pendulum is beginning to swing the other way. While Breen continues to put together a fine recovery, Harte's career is on hold at Leeds United where George Graham appears to be wholly unmoved by the youngster's record at international level in 1997.

In spite of Harte's first-team status with Ireland, Graham has consistently ignored him in his choice of teams this season at a time when another of the club's young Irish players, Alan Maybury, would seem to be making a far bigger impression on the manager.

As yet, that lack of club football has not impinged on Harte's Ireland career, but clearly it's a situation that cannot be sustained indefinitely. With Breen's claims for a recall growing by the week, it may make for some difficult decisions by McCarthy when he comes to naming his team for the first of the European championship warm-up games in Prague on March 25th.

For Boland, yet to receive a summons to the national senior squad, the more likely target is the B fixture against Northern Ireland, planned for Tolka Park on February 12th.

The manager has indicated his intention of using that game, primarily, to look at players at the fringe of higher honours and the young Coventry midfielder would appear to fit that description.