Until Monday it was only in the evenings back at the hotel, when they sat around for a bit of a sing song, that the Irish team got a little reminder of life back home. A dull overcast day with a strong breeze and heavy showers changed all that yesterday, though. Team manager Brian Kerr admitted that he would have preferred the cooler conditions this evening when his side are due to take on Saudi Arabia in their second Group C match, but even if the change in the weather wasn't exactly helping his side's ongoing acclimatisation, it was clearly a welcome break for everyone from the generally oppressive heat.

"We're absolutely delighted with it," said Kerr. "I just wish that it was about 30 hours later and we had this during the actual game."

Kerr and his players know that anything less than a win against the Saudis would leave them with serious problems heading into the final round of group matches. The Ireland boss is confident, however, that his players can improve on Sunday's result. "We might have to change things a bit, get a little more urgency into our game and get the ball to the lads up front by maybe bypassing the midfield a little more, but I'd like to think that we'll be okay in this game.

"The sort of teams that should give us more problems at this level are the bigger, physically stronger sides whereas we should be stronger than the Saudis and I don't think that they'll push up on us nearly as much as the Mexicans did the other night. They have a couple of decent players, but overall we should be better able to play our own game against them."

There will, he admitted, be a number of changes to the starting line-up, with Damien Duff pretty much a certainty to come into the 11, whether out wide or in central midfield, while Keith Doyle and Richard Sadlier will be firmly in the reckoning again.

"The temptation is to make a lot of changes because bringing in that bit of freshness is good, but we'll resist doing anything too drastic, just a bit of adjustment here and there to reflect the fact that we know we need to win this game."

On the injury front, at least, there is nothing to worry about. Duff's hamstring is clearly no longer troubling him, as he bobbed and weaved through his team-mates during a knockabout game of rugby yesterday morning (his days as a full back while at school in De La Salle, Churchtown, enabled him to stand out amongst the squad).

Keith Doyle and Jason Gavin also looked fine during yesterday's morning session, while Alex O'Reilly took a full part in the practice match despite some precautionary strapping on his right hand.

"I don't really know what happened to it," said O'Reilly when the game was over. "The ball must have just caught it awkwardly in Sunday's game." The London-born goalkeeper, one of only a couple of players in this squad raised outside Ireland, qualifies to play for Ireland thanks to grandparents from Longford. He admits that given the number of problems he had during the Mexico game, he didn't notice that he had hurt his hand until the next day. However, neither the breathing difficulties nor the leg cramps he suffered have troubled him since and he is optimistic that he will start again this evening despite feeling that he bore some of the responsibility for the goal on Sunday.

"To be honest, all sorts of things happened during the game. My breathing was bad and because of that I felt a bit giddy at half-time and then I got the cramps which I think were down to the strapping on my ankles being a bit too tight. Then there were all sorts of things flying around and a few of them attacked me during the game.

"None of that really affected me, though. You just have to keep your concentration on the match and I thought I did that, but I was disappointed with the goal. Not because of the free, to be fair I thought that it was a good free-kick, but because it started with a poor kick out and I'd had the ball in my hands so I thought I could have at least got it out over the half-way line."

Tonight, O'Reilly hopes to make amends and he feels that the Saudi defence, which looked a little shaky against the Australians, might allow the likes of Duff and Robbie Keane to give the Irish the edge. On Sunday, Mohamad Dabo, a big centre forward whom Kerr likened yesterday to Stan Collymore, looked to be the opposition's threatening player up front. He has scored two of his team's five goals on the way to these championships and got a late consolation effort against the Australians.

Central defender Bandr Al Mutairi also looked extremely useful at set pieces with one early free-kick, in particular, hurtling off the crossbar from some 30 yards out.

Elsewhere, though, the Saudis looked ordinary enough and failure to make the most of their limitations could well mean an early trip home for the Irish.

Republic Of Ireland (possible): O'Reilly (West Ham); Heary (Huddersfield), Gavin (West Ham), Doherty (Luton), Doyle (St Patrick's Athletic); Crossley (Celtic), Quinn (Coventry City), McPhail (Leeds Utd); Keane (Wolves), Sadlier (Millwall), Duff (Blackburn).

Five people were detained yesterday on suspicion of interfering with the stadium generator in Ibadan, where the Irish team are based, causing a blackout in the second half of the Mexico v Republic of Ireland World Youth championship game on Sunday.

The suspects were seen near the generator which caused the floodlight failure on the same day of the match. Early in the second half, play was stopped for more than 10 minutes at the Liberty Stadium, an hour's drive north of Lagos, after a power failure cut the lights.

Some blame the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA) for the incident, but a NEPA employee in Ibadan, Patrick Fadai Adepo, said the company was not at fault. However, a NEPA employee is fighting for his life in hospital after being attacked because of the incident.