Ireland - the new era...

Happy St Patricks Day to all Irishmen, plastic paddys and alcoholics - Éirinn go Brách!!

With another 6 Nations bagged focus turns to the football team next week, and we find ourselves without a manager. John O'Shea is in temporary charge with Lee Carsley, Willy Sagnol, Gus Poyet and Robbie Keane the frontrunners for the job.

We play Belgium (Saturday) and then Switzerland (Tuesday).

The Kenny era wasn't great, however there are a number of young players on the verge of stepping up.

In goal there is a battle between Gavin Bazuna and Caoimhín Kelleher. With the Liverpool man impressing with his rare opportunity he will surely play at least one of these games. Interesting to see if he stays as #2 at Liverpool next season or tries to establish himself as a #1 somewhere. Could be key in this battle.

In defence 22 year old uncapped Jake O'Brien has been a key part of the Lyon revival. Festy Ebosele is getting regular game time at Udinese and should add to his 2 caps. Nathan Collins hasn't had the best of seasons with Brentford, while Dara O'Shea is part of the pretty awful Burnley defence. Liam Scales has established himself at Celtic but was injured for yesterdays game, while 21 year old Andrew Omobamidele has started to get game time with Forest.
Stalwart and captain Seamus Coleman is still in the squad with fellow experienced Robbie Brady and Matt Doherty.
Championship top scorer Sammie Szmodics must surely make his debut this coming week. Also looking for a debut is Finn Azaz. Will Smallbone is in decent form, with the likes of Jason Knight, Mikey Johnston, Josh Cullen, Callum O'Dowda and Mark Sykes in contention.
Up top Evan Ferguson hasn't really kicked on as hoped. Our great hope has not scored since November and his 3 Irish goals have come against Latvia and Gibraltar (x2). Adam Idah has moved to Celtic and got a couple of goals but is largely a bench player. Chidozie Ogbene has been pretty decent in his debut PL season, with Troy Parrott and Michael Obafemi getting minutes out on loan.

With England coming up in the Nations League in September, John O'Shea has these two games and hopefully a permanent manager will be in in time for Portugal and Hungary in June. An increased European allocation to 16 teams for the next World Cup probably isn't enough for Ireland in the current state, but we have to put ourselves in a good position for Euro28 and make sure we qualify for the partially home tournament (don't think they have finalised how they are going to deal with the 5 hosts in terms of qualification).