Ben Symes

Who would have thought just a couple of weeks after the game in Prague that the boys in green will be back once again.

Yes, Eimear Halgrimson's Republic of Ireland men's national team are going to be facing Grenada in a friendly at the Nuevo Condomina Marcia.

in Spain muy bien gracias on Saturday evening 5 o'clock kick off time Irish time but 6 o'clock local time nice sunny Spain on Saturday evening I can think of worse places that you could be in the month of May so we're going to go over basically the outlook of the squad and that game over the next 45 minutes or so and how a couple of other players and managers are getting on around Europe I'm delighted to say that I'm joined as usual

by Matthew Brennan Matthew how are you doing I'll go Ben how are you getting on very well David Wilson how are you flying it flying it the green scene on off the ball is brought to you by Cadbury a proud sponsor of the Republic of Ireland football teams it is match week what's the kind of general feeling towards this is it apathy is it excitement is it nervous like what is the actual feeling towards this game going ahead Matthew I'll start with you maybe

this time around we're not going to get to see Boston Lawal so that is a little bit it's unfortunate it was bound to happen to some degree but I think to this degree is a little bit of a let down as far as the experimentation side of it goes It's a funny point to make about the Welsh team because obviously Wales were one of the teams that Ireland tried to play in this camp at the end of coming to fruition but when I associate Wales I always think of

Over the last 15 years, I always think it's the likes of Ethan Ampadu and Harry Wilson and Ben Woodburn, those players who were brought through at young ages of 16, 17, 18.

This is kind of our equivalent of that.

And maybe this is a chance for us now to bleed these young players into the camp.

And we can kind of have those glory couple of years that the Wales had when they got a team who were playing together for a long time and knew each other inside out, on and off the pitch.

of course Ethan Amputee could have played for Ireland his father Kwame born in North Dublin yeah born in Portland Row or something yeah yeah and he would play for the 21s I think he did and he did play he made a couple of caps for Ireland in the 21s before he went over to Arsenal actually played with my uncle before he went over there you go it's a fun fact he was an acquaintance of Wilfred Nancey

close acquaintance with him yeah follow him over to Celtic from America yeah so look as you touched on Rory Fitter in there there was initially nine uncapped players in the squad Joe Bagan who was one of them had to drop out Casey McAteer there was an early drop out and unfortunately I suppose the big one before we get into who's been called up Jade Numa is not going to appear for Ireland on Saturday he was kind of the one that maybe was the star attraction or star talent the name that your eye kind of got drawn to as soon as the squad was named

He's not going to be there.

Benfica have an important game to get into the UEFA Youth League at the weekend.

And Hamer said, look, we knew this was a possibility.

Didn't think it would be likely.

But now it's happened.

Like, how disappointed are we now that we're not going to see Jay Numa in this camp?

That is something that Hamer alluded to the other day, saying he's also excited to see how those players cope with being the leaders.

And of course, look, we could see Jay Newman at the camp at the end of the month against Qatar and Canada.

That is a FIFA window, so the clubs have to release the players if they're called up for that one.