SOCCER:HAVING SEEN his side score the biggest win since he took charge Giovanni Trapattoni believes Ireland have progressed to the point where they could have gone to the World Cup with realistic prospects of securing a place in the knock-out stages.

Still overly reliant on a core group of key players, though, the Italian was not making any bold predictions over the weekend regarding their chances of making it to Poland and Ukraine for the European Championship finals.

Trapattoni provided an upbeat assessment on Saturday of his squad’s two-week training camp and friendly wins over Paraguay and Algeria, claiming to have close to doubled the pool of players pushing for places in his team since taking over and suggesting the door remains open to those who are prevaricating over declaring for Ireland.

Ultimately, however, he reiterated his regular complaint regarding the need for more of his squad to be playing regular first team football in England and suggested that, given the limited talents available to him, there is no option but to press on with the rather restricted tactical approach that made Ireland hard to beat during the World Cup campaign but which didn’t in the end deliver enough wins to secure qualification.

“I think that we, with this group (the one France was drawn in) we could have qualified,” he said. “We have shown ourselves to be a good team in the last three to six months and we could have aspired to playing beyond the pool stages.”

The last two weeks would have been a more intensive affair had there been a trip to South Africa around the corner and so the likes of Paul Green, Keith Fahey and Greg Cunningham may well have benefited from the failure to reach the finals.

Green might even have done enough to play his way into the squad in August and beyond with his performance on Friday night, while the lack of options at left back may help to keep Cunningham firmly in the reckoning after what was a generally solid debut from such an inexperienced player.

Trapattoni was asked about Séamus Coleman, the right-sided defender who, having made fractionally more progress at Everton than Cunningham has to date with Manchester City, was absent over the past fortnight because he was on loan to Blackpool and helping them win promotion to the top flight. The Ireland boss more or less dismissed Coleman’s chances of winning a place in his squad any time soon, insisting: “We have three or four at right back, where we need new players is on the left”.

Though not a defender, Fahey could certainly add to the options on that side of the pitch but the suspicion lingers the Birmingham City midfielder shows too many signs of a creative streak to challenge for a place in Trapattoni’s central midfield.

The availability of a player of Tottenham’s Jamie O’Hara’s ability would at the very least exert some pressure on the regulars in the manager’s eyes but with the midfielder still reluctant to give up on an England career, Trapattoni did not sound like a man who was expecting a phone call.

He recalled, as it happens, having been in much the same situation with Mauro Camoranesi when he was in charge of Italy in 2003. On that occasion, he said, he had phoned the then Argentina coach Marcelo Bielsa about the Juventus defender and was told he was considered surplus to requirements in Buenos Aires. Upon being told this, Camoranesi promptly declared for Italy.

Asked if he might adopt the same approach in relation to O’Hara and phone the England manager, Trapattoni flashed a hint of a smile and replied: “It’s my opinion that there’s no need to ring Fabio Capello”.

Great praise, indeed.

The upshot is that while there may be a little bit of a reshuffle down the pecking order, Trapattoni’s starting line up come the autumn is likely to have a very familiar look about it albeit with some of the old faces possibly redeployed slightly across the defence.

Pressed on who might have done well enough in recent weeks to head away with genuine confidence of being back for the Argentina game, the Italian shrugged. “We cannot say to you today,” he said, “that in August I will eat prosciutto, chicken or meat.”