What time is the game due to start?
Kick off is 1pm, Thursday in the Aviva Stadium.
Will we be able to watch it?
No, the game will strictly be behind closed doors. No tickets have been sold to the public and there will be no media presence or TV coverage.
Is it a full international friendly?
No, it is a training match. This will give both managers the flexibility to make as many substitutions as they like, among other things.
What’s the point of the game?
Both teams face crunch Euro 2016 qualifiers next week — Ireland against Scotland, and Northern Ireland against Romania. The game will give players some much needed match time, particularly those Championship players whose club season finished over a month ago.
It’s “very much about fitness,” Martin O’Neill said on Wednesday.
Will Ireland name a strong side?
Martin O’Neill said he intends to utilise all of the players available to him. Twenty-three of the 27-man squad trained in the Aviva Stadium on Wednesday — Robbie Keane, Wes Hoolahan, Jon Walters and Darren Randolph will link up later — and all of those players can reasonably expect to feature.
Which team will wear green?
Ireland.
Originally published on 3 June at 18.41
I’d imagine the cost of the security involved for the England game is pretty steep, albeit worth it financially. A similar operation would probably be required for this fixture with significantly less of a turnover. We play Scotland soon enough, the Nordies are Ideal opposition, the English game is a money maker for Delaney and the boys club.
The last time we played NI there was about 2000 people in the ground.
Of course they booed Ámhrann na Bhfiann and a few of their fans gave a fairly embarrasing interview about players declaring for us over them.
Thankfully we had the last laugh however, as we humped them 5-0
Should be the one squad and this should be about jointly planning for the England game with the scots a week later. O’Neill could be manager with O’Neill as assistant, confused about who is manager? Obvious the O’Neill from the North.
Great idea Gabbi. But the one from the north is from further south that the one from the south so which ones which?
Its clear Big Yellow crane: M O’Neill.
NI’s national anthem was booed that day too, it was also booed by the Scots during the same tournament. Yes ROI won 5-0 but they beat a team of NI kids, ROI were at home and clearly trying to win the tournament while NI used it to give younger players a game.
Maybe you ought to concentrate on getting something against Scotland rather than dwell on a nonsense tournament that took place years ago.
This is just an all-Ireland inter-squad training session….. Although I predict a 0-0 stalemate between the Free State and the Occupied Six, I will never recognise the result.
I love how you stick to your guns Gerry, you don’t recognise these illegal statelets, only the money and titles that you gained from each of them.
@Antrim -It’s ridiculous on an island of 5 million people that we have two international teams.. it was always ridiculous in the 70′s/80′s/90′s with a combined team at international tournaments imagine what we could have achieved. It’s time people grew up.
Northern Ireland has already had its achievements which I’m proud of, if they get to the Euros next year then it’s another great achievement. You aren’t seriously suggesting a single team would have won the world cup are you? Why can’t people just be content with the two teams?
I won’t support any international team unless it’s Northern Ireland.
What about country? You may as well support one of them seeing as there isn’t one where your from? #londonsbitch
@antrim why not? in the 80′s we had O leary, Lawrenson, Jennings, Armstrong, O Neill, McGrath, Brady, Houghton, Aldridge, Whiteside, Mcgrath, Stapleton and of course Mal Donaghy, Sheedy, Galvin – not a bad old selection to name a few.
Yes and in the 80′s Northern Ireland made it to 2 world cups, two of the achievements that I’m very proud of even though I was too young to remember it.
Who won then? Was 0-0 at HT I think.
Players from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have played as one team at Lansdowne Road since the foundation if the State.
…Rugby has never had that division and there’s never been a problem
That’s because traditionally Rugby was played by wanna be brits and west brits… so why wouldn’t they be the one team? – They used to play as the British Lions.
up until the 50′s players played for both teams. the reason for the split in soccer was the ifa were doing little to promote soccer in southern ireland and all but two league clubs were based in North.
Soccer was also originally a game for the ‘west brits’ as you put it. Used to be called the ‘garrison game’ so your argument doesnt stand.
The split between the IFA and FAI was politically motivated and politics should have no place in sport.
I consider myself a Republican and am not a fan of Rugby but the IRFU has to be commended for always representing the 32 counties.
Might also be something to with soccer being the first professional game. I can’t think of any other game that existed before 1921 that’s split across the border. Some post-1921 games, especially ones with a commonwealth team have an NI organisation but golf, cricket, sailing and rugby are still all island.
In Soccer, the Unionist run IFA in the 20′s had an active anti-Catholic or Irish bias.
Players from the 26 counties couldn’t really put up with it.
References John? The Leinster branch split because teams from the north were afraid to travel south during the civil war so shelbourne were going to lose a home fixture. They’d been happy with a Belfast based HQ up to then. If the development of soccer was slower in the south maybe that wasn’t Belfast’s fault. Why would a professional association not want to build it’s franchise? Douglas Hyde was expelled from the GAA for attending a soccer game and he was the Irish president.
Eburton – soccer is the working mans game… all you need is a ball to play so it can be played in the housing estates… there is no more garrison game than Rugby… look at the demographic (outside limerick) who played it in the 26 counties..now a days it’s different of course but still most of the nobs tend to play rugby.
It’s pretty obvious why this is behind closed doors.
For any Northener who reads this, how much do you hate us exactly? :-P
It’s just you they hate Conor.
As if I was the sole person capable of constituting the good Friday Agreement. Come on.
Sarcasm, Conor. Look it up.
What’s wrong with making light of that, Noel?
@conor Cahill.you obviously know very little. I’m from the north. I am Irish and like many people struggled to have my Irish identity recognised and validated. I’m not talking armed struggle here, but a cultural struggle. Many who identify as Irish in the North experienced state and societal discrimination because of their Irish names, for example, but were willing to do so such was their conviction in their Irish identity. People have even been murdered for playing gaa.
So the question I often ask myself, despite having been living in the south for 15 years, is why people like you deny us the Irish identity we’ve struggled to achieve? Why do you hate us?
Anne the only people murdered for playing GAA in the last twenty years are “GAA cops” murdered by dissidents.
I suppose the murder of Sean Brown, Bellaghy Wolfe Tones club chairman, doesn’t count then?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbFFyS7V4-Y
I don’t quite understand why you put this question to me, Anne. Did I give any indication that I hated the North? A resounding no. I don’t. At all. You may have jumped the gun a bit because you thought I wasn’t taking this seriously. Sure if I know very little, so what? I’m saying that certain ppeople from the North seem to get wrapped up in what happened before, and the cultural struggle wouldn’t have happened if not for the conflict that happened before.
Example. James MClean. Received death threats from people in his own region when he declared for the South. Obviously it sounds like a lot of people in the North show some bitterness from before.when they shouldn’t. But what happened before is ancient history. Whatever happened back then, people should forget about it.
Jaysus it’s only a football match.
The problem that exists now is the fact ROI or at least a section of their supporters want to form one single team which will deprive me of an international team to support. I say hands off, NI is a team in its own right and it’s future shouldn’t be called into question everytime there’s a match. Sure why doesn’t England and Wales form one team or France and Germany?
My mistake TEG. I was using “twenty years” as short hand for pre-GFA.
Did someone say…. Collusion?
That Irish’s history has led us to the point where such a fixture can even exist is embarrassing. If on nothing else, I’d have agreed with George Best when he argued in favour of an All-Ireland team. Until that happens, I couldn’t give a toss about either team.
Who cares what you think.
It is pointless having one average at best team and another team that is at the very bottom.
Make one decent team, like Rugby, Cricket etc etc.
Which one is down near the bottom?
It’s a bit strange, I wonder if it’s some sort of experiment to amalgamate the FAI with the IFA?
The FAIFA
Sounds like an inside job
If that happens the farmers will be at the gates of the Dail
North men South men Comrades all Dublin Belfast Cork and Donegal We’re on the one road Singing along Singing A Soldier’s Song…
Bit odd the way this piece keeps referring to “Ireland and Northern Ireland”, why not use ROI and NI?