SOCCER/Rep of Ireland v Italy: With the growing array of pre-season tournaments wrapped up, and Sunday's Community Shield out of the way, there was further evidence yesterday that the new Premiership campaign is almost upon us as Brian Kerr named his squad for the traditional August international friendly.

Because of the timing of the game Kerr has been obliged, as he and so many other managers are at this time of the year, to name his 23-man panel without seeing anybody play and so there were even less surprises than usual in the panel for next week's first visit to Ireland by Italy in some 20 years.

Roy Keane will not be travelling to Dublin for the game, although whether that qualifies as a surprise is open to debate. Kerr said yesterday that the Manchester United midfielder is suffering from slight hamstring and groin strains because of which the club had requested that he be rested. With bigger fish to fry a few weeks down the road, the Ireland boss has readily agreed to the request.

"They have a lot of matches coming up over the next few weeks so we've agreed to it, but we have plenty of midfielders so it's not a huge concern," said Kerr. "I'd have liked to have had all of the players but I understand the situation.

"Roy's played a good few of the friendlies since he came back and I think we've all handled the situation well. It's difficult for him when the games are coming up fast and furious as they will be over the next while so it makes sense to let him get a bit of a rest if he needs it."

In addition to Keane, Kerr could be without Graham Kavanagh, who tore ligaments in his foot during a friendly game last Tuesday night. The 31-year-old Dubliner is now a major doubt for Wigan's game against Chelsea on Sunday afternoon and, as he concedes, if he misses that then he is highly unlikely to be involved against the Italians.

The midfielder is, however, waiting to see if he can have an injection into the foot that would get him through the Premiership game and, as Kerr said yesterday: "Sometimes a lot can happen between the Monday and the Saturday of the first weekend of the new season."

Kerr, in any case, did not look overly concerned about the situation yesterday, observing: "There's 23 there and we usually end up with a decent enough number for this friendly each year so I'm sure we'll be all right."

Richard Dunne is included in the panel after the foot injury he sustained in the wake of a barney with team-mate Joey Barton on a pre-season tour turned out to be less serious than initially suspected while Gary Breen returns to the panel having missed the World Cup qualifiers in June.

This game, he said, will provide welcome preparation for the visit of France on September 7th with the Italians expected to play a similar brand of football to that of Raymond Domenech's side.

"In their last game, against Norway they played 4-4-2 while in the one before that, against Scotland, I think it was more 4-3-3, but either way the style won't be that difference and they'll certainly be of similar quality. It's a good game for us to have and the aims are to win, to play well and to generally come away the other side of feeling better ourselves, believing more strongly that we can beat the French . . . which isn't to say that we're not confident on that score now."

Asked about the return of Zinedine Zidane, Claude Makelele and Lillian Thuram to the French set up ahead of the September match, Kerr sought to look on the bright side, suggesting that perhaps, after already playing 29 or 30 players in six games, it shows a little of panic. Makelele's the only one to have played in a qualifier so far so it'll be 32 or 33 players by the time they've played us. Of course, the players in question are more than capable of making the squad better, but there'll be other players sitting around wondering whether these guys are going to be taking their places.

"Maybe we will have to approach the game slightly differently when it comes around, but they have such a depth of talent to choose from and there's nothing we can do about that. When it comes to playing them we'll just have to rely on what we can do ourselves."

Kerr added that as he prepares for the final phase of the qualifying process, he is reasonably happy with the position his team are in. "Of course, I'd like to have more points, but I'm sure all of the journalists in the other three countries are saying the same thing, that their teams should have more points too.

"The group has developed into two leagues and in the top one everybody's drawn with each other but everybody's moaning. We're on top now, but we won't be when France come here. The worst-case scenario, though, is that we'll be level with France and two points behind Switzerland with a game in hand and it be a lot worse at this stage of the competition."

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND SQUAD (v Italy, Lansdowne Road): Given (Newcastle Utd), Kenny (Sheffield Utd), Colgan (Barnsley); Cunningham (Birmingham City), Breen (Sunderland), O'Brien (Portsmouth), O'Shea (Manchester Utd), Carr (Newcastle Utd), Harte (Levante), Finnan (Liverpool), Dunne (Manchester City); S Reid (Blackburn), Miller (Manchester Utd), Holland (Charlton Ath), Kavanagh (Wigan), Kilbane (Everton), A Reid (Tottenham), Quinn (Sheffield Utd), Duff (Chelsea); Doherty (Norwich), Elliott (Sunderland), Morrison (Birmingham City), Robbie Keane (Tottenham).