A year into his tenure, and a matter of months after some Irish supporters might have made a case for putting him up against a wall, the Steve Staunton revolution appeared to start in earnest yesterday as he called seven uncapped players into his squad for next week's game in San Marino and dispensed, for the time being at least, with the services of Andy O'Brien, Liam Miller and Clinton Morrison.

Though his selection is clearly influenced by the absence of a number of established stars due to injury, the panel of 24 represents as dramatic an influx of young and unproven talent as there has been in almost a decade.

Several of the rising young stars who had been tipped to make the cut yesterday, including Anthony Stokes of Sunderland, Reading's Stephen Hunt and Stephen Quinn of Sheffield United, have indeed been included but Staunton has also found room for Shane Long, Darron Gibson, Andy Keogh and Darren Randolph, all highly-rated but still a long way from having established themselves as capable of playing at international level.

"Like we said at the beginning," said Staunton yesterday, "there has to be a point where we're going to get the younger crew in. We believe that these boys are ready to come into the squad and hopefully over the next 18 months, who knows, they might form the backbone of the squads of the future."

Clearly few of the seven has any serious prospect of featuring at the Serravalle Stadium next Wednesday but the omission of Morrison, combined with the absence through injury of Kevin Doyle, certainly means that there is a slot available up front.

Given the quality of next week's opponents Staunton may, assuming things go well, give debuts to a couple of players in other areas of the field late in the game in which case the hope will be that this match may be remembered like the friendly against the Czech Republic in Olomouc in March 1998 when Mark Kinsella, Graham Kavanagh, Robbie Keane and Damien Duff all made their international debuts.

Kavanagh, Doyle, Andy Reid and Shay Given are ruled out of this trip by injury. There are no such excuses for O'Brien or Morrison, though, with the pair omitted from the panel on the combined basis of lack of first-team opportunities and loss of form. O'Brien, Staunton said, has simply not played enough football with the central defender having only "the odd reserve game" to show for his last few months at Portsmouth. The verdict on Morrison appears more damning with the striker having played 90 minutes at the weekend for Palace only to be left out anyway.

"Generally he hasn't been playing," said the manager, "but we had him watched on Saturday and his form hasn't been great. I told him that he needs to work on getting himself back to his best."

In his absence and that of Alan Lee, Stokes, Keogh and Long will all hope to leapfrog Stephen Elliott in the pecking order to start alongside Robbie Keane in the team's attack.

"The pool of talent available to us is wide all right but it isn't experienced and the only way we can give them that experience is by playing them. Hopefully the situation will be helped if we can line up another B international and another couple of friendlies."

A trip to the United States for a couple of games in May, he confirmed, remains a possibility but nothing has been finalised.

Asked about one of the most highly rated of the newcomers, Darron Gibson, Staunton revealed he had consulted Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson before including the 19-year-old midfielder.

"I like him as a player," he said. "He's a big strong lad who can do a bit of everything. He reads the game well and is a good passer of the ball. I spoke to Alex about him and he felt that coming into the squad would be good for him. As for playing, though, he feels it might be a bit early for him yet."

Republic of Ireland squad (v San Marino, Wednesday, February 7th, 7.45. Live on TV3)

Henderson (Brighton), Colgan (Barnsley), Randolph (Charlton Ath); Finnan (Liverpool), Harte (Levante), McShane (West Brom), Dunne (Manchester City), Carr (Newcastle Utd), O'Shea (Manchester Utd), Douglas (Leeds Utd), Carsley (Everton), McGeady (Celtic), Duff (Newcastle Utd), Kilbane (Wigan Ath), Keane (Tottenham), Ireland (Manchester City), Gibson (Manchester Utd - on loan with Royal Antwerp), S Quinn (Sheffield Utd), Keogh (Wolves), Hunt (Reading), Stokes (Sunderland), Elliott (Sunderland), A Quinn (Sheffield Utd), Long (Reading).