WOLVES STRIKER Kevin Doyle is out of the Republic of Ireland’s end-of-season programme, including the European Championship qualifier against Macedonia in Skopje on June 4th. The striker aggravated the knee injury he suffered in the previous meeting between the two sides while playing for his club on Saturday and now faces several weeks of treatment before taking a break for the summer.

The loss of Doyle will come as a major blow to Giovanni Trapattoni who is already without a number of regulars for the qualifier – most notably Richard Dunne and Damien Duff – and who has come to regard the 27-year-old Wexfordman as one of the key figures in his team.

The recurrence of the injury is also a major setback for the player who felt he was on the verge of full fitness again after a long lay-off. Doyle had been laid up since the win over Macedonia but looked set to play some part in the last chapter of his club’s bid for top-flight survival this weekend when they face Blackburn at Molineux. Wolves are currently fifth from bottom, one point ahead of Birmingham, Blackpool and Wigan with West Ham already relegated.

Doyle actually appeared to have come through his run-out during the tail end of the win over Sunderland last Saturday without any problems but the striker said afterwards that he had been playing through some pain for the last 10 of the 20 minutes.

It has since been estimated that he has set himself back by around three to four weeks, completely ruling him out of Ireland’s four match programme, which also includes games against Northern Ireland, Scotland and Italy.

It is his absence for the Macedonia game which will trouble Trapattoni most, with Robbie Keane’s form since he went to West Ham in the January transfer window already a concern for the Italian ahead of such an important match.

The management team will take some consolation from Shane Long’s latest strong performance for Reading last night but they will be desperately hoping now that Doyle’s former clubmate comes through the Championship play-off final at Wembley on May 30th without any problems

Trapattoni’s other striking options at present are Jonathan Walters, who has also finished the season strongly, Anthony Stokes and Caleb Folan, but the veteran coach has never seemed keen to rely on the Celtic player and has rarely been able to depend on the now American-based Folan.

Simon Cox has been called up since the original squad was named and looks likely to make his debut in one of the Carling Nations Cup matches.