Able bodied defenders may be thin on the ground just now but confidence, says Mick McCarthy, is one thing that he and his players are not one bit short of as they count the days until Saturday's World Cup qualifier against Holland in Lansdowne Road.

Still, Damien Duff scoring the winner in a 1-0 win over the under-21s yesterday can't have done any harm. Both the source of the goal and the fact that Don Givens' side had the good sense to lose helped to keep the spring in the step of the Ireland manager on a day when a handful of his players had to sit out training for one reason or another.

Ian Harte, as it happened, was only scheduled to arrive in Dublin last night and McCarthy admitted that he wasn't sure what sort of shape the left back was in.

"I spoke to the physio at Elland Road last night and he says that he feels better than before the West Ham game at the weekend," said McCarthy, "but he still hasn't run on the ankle, he's stuck to doing fitness work and stuff like that."

Last but one to arrive was Manchester United skipper, Roy Keane, who got up early to catch a flight to Dublin but was then too tired to take part in the practice game. Kevin Kilbane (blisters), Andy O'Brien (sore foot), Alan Kelly (thigh) and Dean Kiely ("a little bit of a knock") also missed out but McCarthy remained bullish that all would be fine come three o'clock on Saturday.

While two of the goalkeepers were rested, the manager confirmed that the third, Shay Given, would start at the weekend despite the couple of early season hiccups he has suffered in appearances for Newcastle United. "Shay's fantastic," said McCarthy, before adding that, "some of the things he does in training take our breath away. He made a mistake? Well, I haven't heard of anyone who hasn't."

Elsewhere, Harte's fitness would make seven or eight of the starting names and their positions clear cut with the back four and central midfield all pretty much nailed down.

McCarthy says, however, that he won't publicly name his starting 11 until the morning of the game with the approach to be taken up front presumably the main reason for keeping his Dutch counterpart in the dark

With Kilbane resting, Duff started yesterday's training game on the left flank and played there for a half an hour but the various combinations were, "mixed and matched," after that said McCarthy who remarked that in addition to Robbie Keane, Niall Quinn and Duff, "Connolly and Clinton did well too, so all our front men are in good shape."

McCarthy, in fact, while taking care to pay all due respect to the visitors, who arrive here this afternoon, insists that the obsession with the quality contained within the Dutch panel has become something of an unhealthy obsession in these parts.

"They've got good technicians, players who can cross the ball, good headers of the ball, players who can hit the target from long range but so have we. I'm sure that somewhere there's probably a room full of journalists talking to their coach about how he intends to deal with Roy Keane."

When it was suggested that the events of the past few days might unsettle a central figure like Jaap Stam, McCarthy chortled.

"Look, he's old enough and wise enough to deal with it all. If he was one of my players I know that I'd expect him to perform and anyway, if I'm to believe what I read in the papers he's now going to earn £75,000 rather than £50,000 a week. I'd be doing cartwheels."

Louis van Gaal, meanwhile, described Tuesday's decision by the Italian FA to ban Edgar Davids for five months "a setback". We'd taken account of this scenario already, though. That is why I named 19 men in the original squad."

Davids' lawyers yesterday confirmed they will be appealing the decision and still hope to have the ban overturned but with the next hearing not expected to take place until at least tomorrow week, the midfielder is certainly out of Saturday's game and the one against Estonia in Holland next week.

And Giovanni van Bronckhurst, the Arsenal midfielder who scored his side's equaliser six minutes from time in Amsterdam last year has predicted that the Dutch can make it through to next summer's finals.

"It's a match that we need to win," he said, "or else we are out of the World Cup.

"We've dropped too many points already but we have a very strong squad for this game and we are used to getting to finals the hard way."

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland players will be grounded in the team hotel after Saturday's World Cup clash with Denmark to avoid any repeat of the Prague debacle.

Goalkeeping coach Tommy Wright and David Healy, Michael Hughes, Peter Kennedy and Glenn Ferguson were detained by Prague police over a fracas in a night club following the team's last match in the Czech Republic in June.

PWDLFAPt

Ireland853018518

Portugal743018515

Holland742121814

Estonia822410168

Cyprus822412248

Andorra80084250

Results to date

Estonia 1 Andorra 0; Andorra 2 Cyprus 3, Netherlands 2 Republic of Ireland 2; Estonia 1 Portugal 3; Andorra 1, Estonia 2; Cyprus 0, Netherlands 4; Portugal 1, Rep of Ireland 1, Republic of Ireland 2 v Estonia 0, Netherlands 0 Portugal 2; Cyprus 5, Andorra 0; Portugal 3, Andorra 0; Andorra 0, Netherlands 5; Cyprus 0, Republic of Ireland 4; Portugal 2,

Netherlands 2; Cyprus 2, Estonia 2; Andorra 0, Republic of Ireland 3; Netherlands 4, Cyprus 0; Republic of Ireland 3, Andorra 1; Republic of Ireland 1, Portugal 1; Estonia 2, Netherlands 4; Estonia 0, Republic of Ireland 2; Portugal 6, Cyprus 0; Estonia 2, Cyprus 2.

Remaining fixtures

September 1st - Andorra v Portugal, Republic of Ireland v Netherlands; September 5th - Netherlands v Estonia, Cyprus v Portugal; October 6th - Netherlands v Andorra, Portugal v Estonia, Republic of Ireland v Cyprus.