Aus Vs Ireland- Mouthwatering Match-Ups

Hey just wanted to get an Irish view point of the friendly match coming up as in Australia friendlies are the only games we look forward to usually.... Australia are on a high after beating England (all so long ago) but i suspect Ireland will be a tougher opposition as the players have much more to prove.

Farina has basically said it will be the same XI which ****es alot of aussie fans off since we have players on the bench provento be better than ones there. e.g. Grella for okon, Bresciano for Skoko.

Kewell Viduka

Chipperfield Skoko Okon Emerton

Lazaridis Popovic Moore Neill

Schwarzter


The only change to this expected to be made is maybe tiatto on for one of the left sided players or kalac on for scwartzer who has had a great intertoto campaign.



some of the interesting duels has gotta be :-

Moore Vs Keane- Moore in my opinion is a great defender strong and takes no nonsense but i suspect he'll be always on his backfoot against keane who will be trying to run at him all day.

Viduka Vs Breen- Viduka has never played to well for Australia bu he has a knack of drawing defenders out leaving space for Kewell to Exploit evenif breen isnt marking him.
Duff vs Emerton- I expect this to be the major duel in the match both are very attacking players extremeley fast skillful while also are there to help out the defence. I suspect the player to end up ontop of the other will be the deciding point in the match. I just hope from an aussie perspectve that you select harte ahead of o'shea emmo will rip him apart (im a leeds fan) IMO duff is more potent then emmo but emmo has a greatcross on him but wouldnt score as much as duff.


What are some of ur thoughts??? what XI are ireland liely to play and what formation?

Personally I think it's futile at this stage to speculate on either line up as both squads will almost certainly be decimated by "injuries" and player withdrawls after the weekend.

Best case scenario for Ireland, IMO, would be this team :

Given (GK)
Carr (RB)
Cunningham (CB)
O'Shea (CB)
Finnan (LB)
Reid (RM)
Holland (CM)
Healy (CM)
Duff (LM)
Keane (CF)
Morrison (CF)

However, there's virtually no chance of all of that 11 being available, and even if they were Kerr wouldn't drop Breen from the team (more's the shame) or play Finnan left back.

i think Cunningham is more likely to take Viduka as he's physically stronger, if that leaves Breen alone facing Kewell:rolleyes: , hopefully O'shea will be there instead.

surprised to see Lazaridis down as a full back, Reid could cause him trouble.

hope it's a good game though.

Completley agree with Nige, that's the team I'd absolutley love to see, he's tried Finnan at left back against Norway so maybe, hopefully, he'll try it again.

As expected the defections are beginning to roll in. Reid and Carsley are out for Ireland and Moore is out for the Roos.

Kerr has also intimated that he may be reluctant to play people who had a game yesterday - which would affect Finnan, O'Brien, Given & Duff.

Holland, Richard Dunne and Ian Harte too, if those are the only two drop outs though hopefully he'll put Finnan in Reids position in the starting line up put above, move O'Shea to left back and give O'Brien a chance at centre half, O'Brien deserves a chance and by all accounts is playing the best football of his career beside Woodgate.

Moore is out for Australia, likely to be replaced by Vidmar.

Starting XI


Colgan
Carr
Breen
Cunningham
O Shea
Finnan
Holland
Kinsella
Duff
Doherty
Keane

Bit gutted to see Kinsella in there over Healy, but at least Kilbane is out. Will be interesting to see how Finnan does wide right.

Healy and Morrison are out as they had interupted pre seasons through being injured in Morrisons case and not having a team in Healys, both are expected to come on at some point.

Kewell has been pulled out by the Roos.

Suddenly they don't look quite as threatening.

We need to start dropping Breen and we also need to start playing Steven Reid.

So drop gray breen, move john o'shea to centreback, stick steve finnan in at left back, and play steven reid at right midfield.

stephen Reid wasn't available unfortunately, agree with your assessment of the defence though.

kerr's reasons for starting colgan were well thought out, although it's a shame we don't have a number two keeper playing at a higher level (or do we?;) )

great to see duff wide left, i think morrison will get a good run out tonight, i think kerr likes the idea of robbie and him as our front two.