Ready To Dunne Over Italy

Richard Dunne has described Eire's clash with Italy this weekend as an 'occasion to savour.'

The World Cup Qualifying Group Eight (mouthful alert) clash takes place at Croke Park on Saturday and Dunney believes the 'whole of Dublin will be rocking' as Trapattoni comes up against his home nation.

'It's going to be amazing - I think everyone has been looking forward to it since the draw was made,' said Dunne on the official site.

'The Italians are very experienced and nothing really affects them but I think when they come to Dublin it will be an atmosphere that will intimidate them and give us a boost.'

Three points would do Dunney's World Cup dream the world of good, but Italy certainly won't roll over.

However it's not all good news. Dunne picked up an ankle knock in our recent clash against Manchester City and has been sitting training out this week in the hope a bit of rest will do the trick.

It's highly unlikely he miss the Italy clash, but Monny is biting his nails, commenting to the E&S:

'He hasn't trained the last couple of days. I'm hoping that is precautionary and that he is available to play for Ireland.'

There's no way he's going to miss the Italy match, so we just have to hope he doesn't aggravate his ankle during the match as the last thing we need is Dunney to miss a few of our matches at this stage.

So break out the Tricolor folks, if nothing else it's a good excuse to imbibe some of the black stuff!

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