SOCCER: As Mick McCarthy took a surprise hand in England's preparations for their game against Australia tomorrow evening in London, Brian Kerr enjoyed his first real opportunity to study at first hand the full panel of players with which he must attempt to revive Ireland's hopes of qualifying for the European Championship over the months ahead.

Sven-Goran Eriksson had invited McCarthy to England's training session when they met at a game on Saturday, and, after initially assuming he was supposed to look on from the sidelines, McCarthy spent most of the squad's run-out observing the proceedings with the Swede from the centre circle. Such is his standing with the former Lazio coach he has apparently been invited to pop in at Upton Park again this morning.

Kerr's role with his side to date has been similar, with the Dubliner allowing Chris Hughton, Noel O'Reilly and Packie Bonner to run the training sessions while he takes in precisely what he has to work with in his new role.

By last night, he said, he had settled on perhaps seven of the team that will start against Scotland at Hampden tomorrow evening. The remainder of the line-up, he said, he would take a little more time over, but Kenny Cunningham, who he said would have retained the captain's role had he been fit, looks to have been excluded from those deliberations after missing yesterday's session due to a recurrence of the ankle problem.

Aside from training, yesterday was taken up with a couple more team meetings.

"We've had six or seven of them already," grinned Kerr. "But I suppose I thought that when we had everyone in today it would be a good time to properly introduce myself and the new coaching staff, as well asto explain what everybody's role would be. We took a bit of time to set a few targets for the year, too.

"Obvious enough stuff really," he added with a chuckle, "win a few games, qualify for the European Championship, you could make the list up yourselves."

With much more important games looming, he admitted he would not be overly disappointed if the team failed to win tomorrow evening.

"But," he insisted, "it would be nice. For a start the people who are going to this game are paying good money to see it and it matters to me that we give them some sort of value for money.

"On a more personal level, it's my first game in charge, it's a very special occasion for me and I'll be making that point clear to the players."

One player who might also see the occasion as a little special is Colin Healy, the young Celtic midfielder who will see it as a rare opportunity to start a game in the city where he would like to play a good deal more club football.

Kerr said Healy has admitted since joining up with the squad he has not played nearly enough competitive games for his own liking of late, and the suggestion seemed to be that the 22-year-old might not be quite sharp enough to figure in the Republic's starting line-up tomorrow evening.

"Colin's suffering because he's not in Celtic's first team," observed Kerr. "Martin O'Neill clearly doesn't feel he's good enough for the Celtic team at the moment, and who am I to question Martin's judgment in relation to one of his players? If you ask me whether Colin is good enough to play in somebody's team, though, then I'd have to say that I don't think there's any question about it.

"I think for next year at least Colin has to either start getting into the Celtic team or looking at whose team he might be good enough to get into, because in the longer term we really need as many of our players as possible to be playing first-team football."

The man Healy almost replaced in Ireland's World Cup squad, meanwhile, always gets a mention at some point in the manager's press conferences these days and, sure enough, Kerr was asked about reports to the effect that Roy Keane may have decided to make himself available for the games in Georgia and Albania.

Keane's adviser, Michael Kennedy, said yesterday afternoon he was not aware of any decision having been reached yet, and Kerr insisted he too is in the dark in relation to the Corkman's intentions.

"All I can say is that I haven't had any calls," he said with an amused look but the slight resignation, too, of a man who, just a couple of weeks into what he describes as the best job in the world, is already growing tired of least one of its aspects.