Relieved McCarthy fully aware of task facing Irish

As Mick McCarthy travelled back to Ireland's training camp by helicopter yesterday after watching their first Group E opponents Cameroon perform impressively against England, he had a different sort of chopper on his mind. The previous day, the Sanfrecce Hiroshima defender Michel Pensée Billong – ironically, a Cameroonian – had given the Irish manager fresh cause for anger at the end of a trying week with the unnecessarily wild challenge that threatened to put Jason McAteer out of the World Cup.

By the time McCarthy touched down, the news of the Sunderland midfielder was better. He has only a bruised bone on his knee, rather than any ligament damage and is hopeful of being fit for either the opening game in Niigata, or the second match four days later, against Germany. "It's to early to say about Saturday, but he's a lot more comfortable today," said Ireland's physiotherapist Mick Byrne. If a replacement is necessary, the candidates are Steven Reid of Millwall, who came on during Saturday's 2-1 victory, and Gary Kelly of Leeds.

The ability demonstrated by Cameroon's Pierre Womé on the left of midfield against England suggested that the more experienced and defensive Kelly might be the better bet. "They're a big, powerful side with good pace and a lot of threat in the front line," McCarthy reported. "They're very good technically and in one-on-ones. They might even be better than the Germans, though on second thoughts the Germans might be more functional, organised and disciplined." Very similar, in other words, to Nigeria, who won 2-1 in Dublin 10 days ago, which made that game a useful one to have arranged despite the anti-climatic result.

Individuals picked out by McCarthy included the former West Ham men Rigobert Song and Marc-Vivien Foé and the two strikers, Patrick Mboma and Samuel Eto'o. The latter pair would have enjoyed the sight of Hiroshima's attack giving the Irish back four a torrid 20 minutes during Saturday's friendly inaugurating the new Hamayama Stadium in Izumo. In the period before half-time, a team 12th out of 16 in the J-League emphasised that Ireland need Steve Finnan and Gary Breen back to improve their prospects of stifling any forward line possessing pace.

Finnan and Kenny Cunningham were both missing with minor ailments, and Breen sat out the first half before replacing the floundering Richard Dunne for a second period in which Hiroshima's threat was snuffed out. Having equalised with Robbie Keane's opportunistic tap-in at the far post, the Republic won the game 13 minutes from the end as Niall Quinn, on as a substitute, headed down Mark Kinsella's precise chip for Keane to emphasise that now there really is only one Keano in the Irish set-up.

Kinsella and Holland both worked particularly hard to paper over the gap left by Roy Keane, though papering may be as strong as the repair work gets.

The players felt they had benefited from a week in the much more draining conditions of Saipan, though it was surprising, on a breezy day, that some of them should lose up to 8lb. "We've got to get used to having a drink during the game to replace lost fluids," McCarthy said. "When you lose fluids, you get fatigued and your concentration goes." The other thing for all players at the World Cup to accustom themselves to is the new, lighter adidas football, coloured a disconcerting shade of grey, bouncing higher and swinging all over the place. Perhaps it was fear that caused goalkeeper Shay Given to sweat off 6lb in his 45 minutes on the pitch – or just the effect of playing behind Dunne.

It may have been fear, too, that caused Pensée Billong to ask his coach to substitute him at half-time, when he realised how angry the Irish players were about his challenge on McAteer. In the event he stayed on; Ireland declined to seek retribution, but the atmosphere when he later went to their dressing-room to apologise was considerably cooler than the weather.

Sanfrecce Hiroshima (4-3-1-2): Ozaki (Hayashi, 62); Kawashima, Pensée Billong, Morisaki, Tulio; Komano, Sawada, Nakamura (Kono, 81); Fujimoto (Matsushita, 70); Kubo (Mogi, h-t), Oki.

Republic of Ireland (4-4-2): Given (Kiely, h-t); Kelly, Dunne (Breen, h-t), Staunton, Harte (O'Brien, h-t); McAteer (Reid, 37), Holland, Kinsella, Kilbane (Quinn, 62); Duff (Connolly, 70), Keane (Morrison, 70).