It might be a measure of the defensive options still out there for Brian Kerr that, when it was confirmed Leicester City's Alan Maybury had failed in his attempt to shake off a pelvic injury ahead of this weekend's game against Israel, the Republic of Ireland coach added a striker to his squad.

Cardiff's Alan Lee, who arrived last night, is due to take part in his first training session this morning, and at the rate potential right backs are falling by the wayside the 26-year-old could do worse than slip in somewhere at the back of one of the practice match teams and show the manager what he can do.

Though he was unlikely to have started against Israel on Saturday, Maybury's withdrawal is, in the circumstances, a setback, coming as it does on top of Steve Carr's suspension and the injury to Richard Dunne, who has considerable experience of playing in the position at club level.

Even if Steve Finnan fails to shake off his thigh strain before the weekend, however, Kerr still has a couple of options open to him, with Steven Reid, who trained in the position again yesterday, having performed solidly enough on Sunday in Glasgow, and, more obviously, John O'Shea now free to switch to the right side of the defence as a result of Ian Harte's return to the squad.

Finnan, though, still looks a possible starter after arriving in Dublin yesterday, even if he did little or nothing at the squad's first training session that would suggest he will be a significant contributor at Lansdowne Road.

"We'll see how it goes in the next day or two," said Kerr of Finnan as the session ended. "We had a look at him today and he wasn't able to train, so we'll see how he is tomorrow. We'll have a better idea then how he's coming along because he hasn't done anything since the Champions league final."

The Liverpool player, then, remains a doubt.

Still, at least he was at training in Malahide, along with the 17 players who took part and Joe Murphy, who didn't.

Damien Duff was absent, though there is no injury scare in relation to the Chelsea winger; rather he was, somewhat bizarrely, on the other side of Dublin being photographed with the prime minister of St Lucia for a nixer at a property exhibition which had been lined up before it was decided to have yesterday's training session at the later than normal time of 5pm. The only other notable absentees were Carr and Roy Keane, both suspended for Saturday's game and both expected to rejoin the squad tomorrow.

The Israelis, meanwhile, began acclimatising in England yesterday with some light training at their base near Colchester and a trip to London's city centre for some sight seeing.

Striker Pini Balili missed the former, while the team's star midfielder, Yossi Benayoun, did well to make the latter after a lengthy hold-up with his luggage after a flight from Spain the previous night delayed his arrival at the team hotel by several hours.

The darling of the Israeli media subsequently laughed off their suggestions that the airport cock-up might have been the result of an Irish conspiracy to prevent the Racing Santander player linking up with the squad. He went on to insist he and the rest of the squad are determined and optimistic about their chances of causing an upset in Dublin, where they will arrive tomorrow.

"It was a bit of a problem at the time, but no, nobody could prevent me from concentrating on this game and I'm focused now," he said. "We will all give it our all and we believe we can make a lot of people (back in Israel) very happy."

Benayoun's Spanish club endured a difficult season in La Liga but did at least finish safe, seven points clear of Harte's club Levante, who were relegated on the last day of the campaign.

Even that represents some measure of success for relative minnows in a league dominated by a handful of giants, and so the 24-year-old Benayoun is used to knowing what it feels like to be part of a team of underdogs as he prepares for the Ireland game and he, like many of his team-mates over the past few days, is defiant.

"I feel that we will draw strength from the situation and give everything for Israel on the day," he says. "Lansdowne Road is a hard place to play, it's a good home for the Irish. And on paper they are a much better team than us, but I don't think that that will have any effect on us.

"If we can play well, especially in the first few minutes, then I think the pressure will be on them because of the crowd, and that's when maybe we can turn things to our advantage."

It is an upbeat assessment of the visitors' prospects, given they have yet to beat any of the serious contenders in this qualification group.

But as has been pointed out in Israel, neither have Ireland . . . so far.