We hope what transpires in Zurich this afternoon will bring Mick McCarthy a little luck. The manager said on Saturday that he didn't want to name which of the second-placed sides he would like to play. It might motivate them. All over Europe, managers were expressing the view that they would like to play Ireland. Young and hapless, so why not?

Mick McCarthy has reached the banks of his Rubicon. Two games in deep winter played out for the highest stakes. Eight balls go into a bag in Zurich this afternoon. Only the one bearing the name of Italy carries the possibility of easily digestible defeat.

The other teams are all stronger than McCarthy's, but in two weeks, when the hype is highest, that will be an unutterable truth.

We could have had better preparation than this weekend's. Saturday afternoon in Lansdowne Road with the rain sheeting down and the visitors huddled together for warmth seemed only remotely connected to the sun-splashed television production which will be next summer's World Cup. The atmosphere was damp and surreal and the entertainment slightly counterfeit. When Haghi's free kick slapped the back of the net, you could see the surprise in the faces of his colleagues. Not at the fact that a 35-yard shot had dropped in over the goalie's hands, but that they were on their way to a flawless qualifying record when all they really wanted to do was get in out of the cold.

They conceded a late goal with a shrug of equanimity. Romania's work was done long ago. Saturday was a walking expedition without baggage or directions.

For Ireland, the climb has only just begun and the qualifying series can be looked back on now as some sort of 10-match preamble.

What has been learned? Well, beginning at the end, if people in Derby really call Lee Carsley the Roy Keane of the Midlands he must be quite the lad in night clubs, because he bears little resemblance to El Diablo Roco on the field. Carsley wasn't bad on Saturday, especially as the game progressed and he grew in confidence. But then Saturday wasn't one of those swirling, hurly burly occasions where grown men could get lost overboard. Saturday was for toe dipping. Carsley looked hard-working but short of pace. The loss of Keane will be cruelly felt.

We have had such riches at midfield that the current collection of loyal but grey servants seem diminished by their past. One suspects that McLoughlin, Townsend and Houghton will be included for the play-offs should they escape injury or any of the ailments which afflict the aged. None of them plays Premiership football, their combined ages tot up to more than a century's worth, yet they are easily the best we have unless Gareth Farrelly and Willie Boland happen to burn their thumbs on the Salmon of Footballing Knowledge between times.

What formation they are included in and for how long each plays is a more moot point. One suspects that the comforts of familiarity and recent success will lead McCarthy back to the diamond system to which he was devoted at Millwall. Houghton is easily our most accomplished and creative passer of the ball, but his legs will hardly stretch to 90 minutes of genuine galloping.

Given that the three justified ancients will snip in and out as their legs desire, it seems likely that Gary Kelly and Steve Staunton will vie for the other midfield places. Jason McAteer's petulance used to be the greatest of his problems. Now, with the absence of first team football beginning to bite, he looks to have forgotten most of what he knew about football. McCarthy has been unlucky with his personnel in many respects, but the failure of players like McAteer and Babb to develop into reliable internationals has been especially crippling.

Saturday's dabblings suggest that, despite being a full back by nature, Kenny Cunningham is still ahead of either Gary Breen or Phil Babb for a central defensive position. Breen is back playing first team football in his regular position for Coventry City, but didn't look on Saturday to have acquired the aggression or confidence he is going to need. Ian Harte, a personal favourite of the manager, is likely to start with his good performance against Lithuania being cited as justification.

And what of Paul McGrath, newly beatified on Friday night? A lot of water and other liquids have flowed under the bridge since he last wore a green jersey, and, in the aftermath of his departure from the international scene, certain parties central to that incident have been less than honest with themselves. Suffice to say that for a once-off, all-or-nothing occasion, the big man fits all criteria. Hugely experienced, playing first team football, a genius. To tuck him in the back of the three-man central defence and let him mop up everything would be the best course of action. The fear, however, is that tactical formations and grudges have evolved too far for that. Nowhere has McCarthy's misfortunes been more luminously underlined than in attack. To have Niall Quinn, Jon Goodman and Keith O'Neil missing at the same time is unfortunate. To discover, as he did on Saturday, that Mark Kennedy won't make a striker borders on tragedy.

What Kennedy will make is a moot point. He has reached a strange sort of limbo. From being the most expensive teenager in Britain he has become a curiosity, 21-years-old, 15 senior international caps, and his announcement that he is available for transfer is greeted by nothing but the echo of his own voice. Had he spent the past two seasons among peers or team-mates who value maturity more highly, he might have been great. Currently he risks becoming an exotic footnote in Ireland's soccer history. More over Paul Byrne.

That leaves Connolly, who will be the genuine article, and Cascarino, who performs the miracle of the loaves and the fishes with his rationed talent every time he plays.

And that's about it for offensive options. We didn't see enough of Mick Evans to make a judgment on Saturday, but that we didn't see much of him is probably a judgment in itself.

That leaves what is coming through. Even though his most recent performances for a middling Wolves side have shown a dip in form, the clamour for 17-year-old Robbie Keane to be given a senior jersey in the next 12 months or so is likely to be unbearable.

Mick McCarthy has so few options that our expectations seem cruel. It has been a thrill to watch his young side develop fitfully around him over the past year or so. They deserve success, but most are either too young or too old for it just now.

There are about three-and-a-half million people who know precisely what Mick McCarthy should do for these play-off games. Only McCarthy gets off the bar stool for the blessing or the blame. He doesn't get paid enough to be at the centre of such a cruel public theatre. He deserves the bonus of a little luck this afternoon.