Rep. of Ireland U21 -v- Turkey U21

The Irish under-21’s take on Turkey at Turner's Cross tomorrow night (kick-off 7.45pm) as Group Two of the 2011 Under-21 European Championship gets underway. After draws with Germany and Portugal, as well as an impressive victory over Spain last week, the side are not short of confidence going into the tie against the number one seed in the group.

Don Givens, though, will have to plan without the services of Everton full-back Seamus Coleman. “Seamus is gone home and Michael Liddle is going too unfortunately. We always knew Seamus was a doubt but we were hoping Michael would make it.

“Seamus has an ankle injury; he has had it for about the last three weeks at Everton. He played an hour in the reserves last week to get ready to come to us and he got through it. When he was ok, he was ok but broke down,” he said.

“At the moment we’ve just called in Ian Bermingham from Shamrock Rovers and we’re probably going to leave it at that for the moment. Brendan Moloney will move into right back and we’ll decide on the left back once we get to training tonight. Other than that, there won’t be many changes from Friday.”

With a settled midfield that includes Dave Meyler – a player Givens described as “pivotal”- most of the team picks itself. However, the hardest decision for the management team is who to name as number one. Both Stephen Henderson and Shane Redmond have been playing 45 minutes each in recent games, with both impressing Givens and goalkeeping coach Alan O’Neill. “They are two very good goalkeepers and, to be honest, it is going to be difficult to choose one above the other. But that is what a manager has got to do and I think it’s a good problem to have,” said Givens.

The squad will train at Turner's Cross tonight, while they will also have a light session tomorrow morning, “focusing on dead ball situations, to break up the day.”

The Turkish team will represent a tough challenge and are favourites to qualify from the group. Despite this, Givens remains positive that the young boys in green can get a result. “I think Turkey are going to be fairly similar opposition to Spain. They’re not the biggest physically but they’re very quick technical players. We showed that we coped quite well with Spain down in Waterford on Friday night and I hope we can get a similar performance and a positive result tomorrow night.”

The Irish will need Alan Judge, who scored the winner on Friday, to be on top of his game if the Turkish side – who he admittedly doesn’t know too much about - are to be defeated and the Blackburn Rovers star believes that they can qualify for the finals, proclaiming: “I’d expect us to get through to be honest. The group may be a bit easier than last year to be honest because we had England and Portugal then. With this group of players I think we can do much better.

“I’ve played Turkey once or twice I think at under 16’s, so I don’t really know too much about them. Our discipline is much better in this squad of players and I think we can do very well against them,” added the attacker.

Ireland (confirmed): Shane Redmond, Brendan Moloney, Eddie Nolan , Darren Dennehy , Ian Bermingham , Stephen Gleeson , Owen Garvan , David Meyler , Jay O’Shea ,Cillian Sheridan, Alan Judge

Turkish squad: Volkan Babacan, Cenk Gönen, Fehmi Mert Günok, Tunay Acar , Vigit Ismail Gökoglan, Muhammet Aykut Demir, Semih Kaya, Serdar Kesimal, Emre Özkan, Ferhat Bikmaz, Ismail Köybasi, Aydin Yilmaz, Deniz Yilmaz, Soner Aydogdu, Murat Ceylan, Jem Paul Karacan, Serkan Sahin, Tunay Torun, Aydin Karabulut, Ferhat Kiraz, Güray Vural, Mustafa Pektemek, Ömer Sismanoglu, Sercan Yildirim.

Extratime.ie prediction: The Turkish side will certainly come to Cork looking for a result and we will therefore be treated to an entertaining and attacking game as both teams go for the win. A score draw looks likely; 2-2.