Republic of Ireland manager Brian Kerr may reward the players who engineered last Saturday's impressive 4-0 defeat of Australia by naming an unchanged side for this afternoon's World Youth Championship second round clash against host nation Nigeria here in Kano.

Kerr has repeatedly stressed the need to make changes in order to keep the team fresh since this competition started last week, but after a performance which he believed was "probably the best by any Irish team away for a very long time", it is difficult to see what switches he could be tempted to make.

"I might and I might not (make changes), we'll see in the morning but it's not as necessary at this stage of things, not when everybody is so used to the conditions and coping so well," said the Ireland boss after last night's training session at the Sani Abacha stadium where today's game will take place in front of a sell-out 15,000 crowd.

There still are lingering doubts about whether Keith Doyle and Alex O'Reilly are up to starting a game at this point, with the goalkeeper, in particular, continuing to find it difficult to cope with the heat.

In their absence, Dean Delaney and Paul Donnolly have done well, as have other players who broke into the side on this trip, most notably Colin Healy and Richard Sadlier. Healy came in for his Celtic club-mate Ger Crossley on Saturday. In the end both men scored, with Belfast's Crossley rounding off the Irish scoring in the 88th minute after getting on late in the game.

Crossley has always been a solid performer for Kerr and the manager may wish to make room for him on the right side of midfield. If he does, it is likely to be the only tinkering he does. Certain to be included after his key contribution in last week's three games is 19-year-old Dubliner Stephen McPhail, who conceded yesterday that his outings here have probably been his best in an Ireland shirt.

"I think it's partly down to the fact that we're getting plenty of rest here between games compared, say, with Cyprus last summer where we were playing every other day," he says. "It's also the style of the games, though. They tend to be slower anyway because of the heat, but then we've been trying to slow it down more."

If the Irish can impose themselves in that way against the Nigerians today, and frustrate them as they attempt to play their fast, overwhelmingly attacking game, then the hope is that the home supporters will start to get on their players' backs.

"The hope is," beams Kerr, "that if 99 per cent of them are cheering for Nigeria at the start, then 99 per cent will be cheering for us at the end."

Like Ireland, Nigeria kept the crowds outside yesterday as they trained for the last time before this evening's game. The hosts have had a fairly torrid time over the past couple of weeks, with their fine defeat of Germany comfortably overshadowed in the eyes of their supporters by chaotic performances against Costa Rica and Paraguay.

In the circumstances, it was understandable that recently-installed manager Thijs Libregts was anxious to shelter his players as much as possible in the build-up to this match.

In the side's opening tie, against Costa Rica, the home side showed their abundance of individual talent, but their inability to put away poor opposition frustrated their fans. Their subsequent defeat by Paraguay, when they needed a point to be sure of progressing to the second phase, had more than a hint of farce about it.

"I hadn't seen anything like it since the 1970s, and even then it was only the Brazilians that would try to play that way," says Ireland goal-keeping coach Declan McIntyre, who watched the game for Brian Kerr on Saturday.

"It was 4-2-4, out and out, and Paraguay took them to the cleaners for it, they absolutely slaughtered them. I can't believe that the new manager would attempt to let them play that way again. They'll have to try to mark players like Damien Duff because he'll have seen the tapes of our games and he'll know how much damage a player like Damien can do."

Marking would certainly be an innovation for his players and it will be interesting to see whether Libregts can get his men to take to it. He appeared downbeat during his preparations for the game, regarding his chances of dramatically altering an approach that he described as chaotic in the wake of last weekend's game as slight. He will have to do something to tighten things up, however, for he will be without Julius Aghahowa, far and away the team's most creative attacking force. The Bendel Insurance winger is, along with defender Ikenna Eneh, suspended for this afternoon's match.

The winners of today's match will face either Cameroon or Mali in Sunday's quarter-final in Enugu.