Town boss Roy Keane is hoping his international players come back from their fortnight away unscathed. Keane lost Irish pair Darren O’Dea and Shane O’Connor to problems picked up with their national squads during the last break in domestic fixtures.

Keane said: “Hopefully the boys will come back without injuries. After the last international break we lost Shane and Darren’s not been 100% fit.”

O’Dea has already been ruled out of Ireland’s games with Russia and Slovakia due to the knee injury which has continued to hamper him, while O’Connor, who received his first U21 call last month, is still on the way back from his hamstring problem and will be in a reserves squad playing Millwall in a behind-closed-doors friendly on Tuesday.

In addition to O'Dea, Keane has also withdrawn Tommy Smith from the New Zealand squad due to his back injury: “We’ve had good conversations with New Zealand in the last few days and they’ve been very professional about it.

"They’ve had emails of Tommy’s scans. It was a no-brainer and that’s why I didn’t really want Tommy playing on Saturday.”

Defender Gareth McAuley is in the Northern Ireland squad playing Euro 2012 qualifiers against Italy at Windsor Park, Belfast on Friday and the Faroe Islands in Toftir next Tuesday.

Hungarian pair Tamás Priskin and Márton Fülöp are in their national squad for Euro 2012 qualifiers against San Marino in Budapest on Friday and in Helsinki next Tuesday.

After Saturday’s 2-1 victory against Leeds, Connor Wickham joined up with the England U19 squad playing European Championships qualifying group games in Belgium.

The England youngsters play Albania on Friday, Cyprus two days later and finally hosts Belgium next Wednesday. Wickham, who scored the winning goal in the final of the European U17 Championships last summer, is yet to win a cap at U19 level.

Town academy trio Caolan Lavery, Josh Carson and Rory McKeown will be with the Northern Ireland U19 squad for their European Championships qualifying round mini-tournament in Germany.

The Northern Irish youngsters take on Switzerland on Friday, then the hosts on Sunday and then finally Andorra on Wednesday.

Jaime Peters has been left out of a Canadian training camp and friendly in Ukraine, while Trinidad and Tobago considered calling up Carlos Edwards for a friendly against Jamaica until it was realised he wouldn’t be available for the Digicel Caribbean Cup later in the year. Coach Russell Latapy only plans to use players available for that tournament in the friendly.

Photo: Action Images

Marshalls_Mullet added 17:26 - Oct 4 Phil - Maybe review the title??
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PhilTWTD added 17:27 - Oct 4 Oops, amended. Was half-watching the closing ceremony at the golf.
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MaySixth added 17:32 - Oct 4 Worrying that Connor may well be playing 90 minutes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. Is he ready? Injury waiting to happen methinks
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Acen added 17:59 - Oct 4 I'm sure we will pick up injuries...
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Back_The_Boss added 06:44 - Oct 5 Can't help but pick up injuries. Players are playing a lot of matches at the moment and we are bound to get an injury.
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BlueJewells added 07:34 - Oct 5 We are finding good form, and need to have all the possible players available in order to beat Watford away etc
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suffolksam added 09:48 - Oct 5 just as long as they dont meet any lunatics on the field like keane was when he was playing
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SuperTommySmith added 16:56 - Oct 5 at least Smith is withdrawn ;)
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