Troy Parrott a doubt for Senegal; Heimir Hallgrimsson happy with positive camp

RTÉ News​

a day ago

Troy Parrott has emerged as a doubt for the Republic of Ireland ahead of tomorrow's friendly international against Senegal at Aviva Stadium.
The AZ Alkmaar striker was sick on Wednesday, and missed out on training, and while he reported back for duty on the eve of the game, the manager said he will wait and see as to whether he is in contention to play a part in the final home game of the season.
Parrott started both games in March, when Ireland beat Bulgaria in back-to-back fixtures to secure their status in the Nations League, and appears to be a key attacking component of the manager's plans heading into September's World Cup qualifying campaign.
Heimir Hallgrimsson has several attacking options to choose from should Parrott be ruled out of the first of two upcoming fixtures, with an away trip to come on Tuesday against Luxembourg, and the manager reported a clean bill of health with the remainder of the squad who are "ready and looking forward to it".
The manager is also using this international window to offer opportunity for fringe players, or new recruits, to come in and "rock the boat" and push for World Cup consideration.
"Troy has been sick, he was sick yesterday and stayed in his room," said Hallgrimsson, speaking at the pre-match press conference. "But he was feeling much better this morning, so he was the only concern we have.
"He is going to train today, so let's see how he reacts to the session. And after the session we'll look at it again before we finally select the team.
"Everyone else is fit, everybody is ready and looking forward to it. It has been a positive environment this camp, sharp players, and we're really happy with the sessions up to now."
Part of the preparation for September involves introducing some new faces into the squad to add competition for places and to create a contingency for the start of the new season should players pick up injuries ahead of the two games against Hungary and Armenia.
Hallgrimsson said that he has been happy with how the new recruits, Josh Honohan, John Joe Patrick Finn, Killian Phillips, and Josh Keeley have integrated into the squad, once overcoming that initial and expected nervousness.
And while he has a fairly established starting selection at this stage, the manager is still hoping someone from the fringe can come in and stake their claim for a place.
"The purpose of bringing in the new players was just to see them and evaluate them, and they have been good both fitting in the group and pleasant to have them, in training and growing into what we are doing.
"Obviously, in the beginning for some it is a big step, and we could sense they were nervous in the first training but after that, it's been really positive.
"We wanted to have a camp in May to add knowledge to more players, see new faces and rock the boat. We've been more or less picking a similar squad so when we lost out on the May camp we still opened spots for new players to come in."
Four days into the June international window, and while the manager said that camp has been very positive, he reemphasised that the focus would be on the upcoming qualifying campaign, while also attempting to conduct a camp that is in keeping with the fact that the players have had a long season.
"It is a limited time I've had and we have had together doing what we are trying to achieve, and with the World Cup coming up, September is going to be huge for us and that is our main objective to prepare for September.
"Obviously, you always want to win all your games, but it is good that it is not maybe as important.
"We didn't overload the players, it's always tough, end of season trainings, it seems to take more from the players than it does earlier in the season.
"We try to limit time on the pitch, we try to give them a little more break during this camp, but still we got our message through.
"We will see tomorrow if it totally got to them. Compared to the past camps, it has been a pretty good one."
There is, however, still a focus on the Senegal game tomorrow night as Hallgrimsson would certainly like to maintain the momentum and take an unbeaten run into the autumn, however, he did concede that he would be happy to lose the two friendly fixtures if it meant getting the World Cup campaign off to a winning start.
"Most games, national teams games are official competitive games, so we are lucky that we have two friendlies now, like we said before this camp to give some players a needed rest after a really long season and hopefully that will give us fresh players in September.
"The preparation is mixed with what is going to happen in September. We started the camp by talking about what is coming up, and why it is important to play games like Senegal.
"And what can we take from these games to transfer to the games in September. It is important that we have more than 11 players ready to play and knowing everything about how we want to play."
"That's important as well," he added, when asked about momentum.
"I wouldn't mind losing both these games if we won both games in September, if you are thinking about it that way.
"Obviously, we want to win all of our matches and we go to every match to win it. We have a good squad now and we are going to go for it, for sure."