The rise and rise of Charlton Athletic midfielder Mark Kinsella continued unabated yesterday when it was announced that the 28-year-old is to captain the Republic of Ireland for the first time in tomorrow evening's friendly game against Finland at Lansdowne Road.

In the absence of Kenny Cunningham, Roy Keane and Niall Quinn, the skipper's armband was up for grabs and the decision to hand it to Kinsella, only named as the Republic's senior player of the year on Sunday evening, underlines his growing reputation within the Ireland set-up.

"The decision reflects his performances, his stature amongst his peers and his influence on the other players," said Mick McCarthy yesterday before adding that "captaining his country will be a wonderful experience for Mark, I know I've done it."

For Kinsella, the honour is yet more evidence that his belated journey to the highest level of the game has finally been completed, although upon hearing the news yesterday he admitted that there were plenty of times during his career when the suggestion that he might enjoy a spell as good as he has during these past couple of months would have seemed more than a little fanciful.

"There were six years there, from the time I was in the under-21s, when really I was doing nothing and I thought my chance had gone," said the Dubliner who spent that early part of his career at Colchester United hoping that a bigger club would come in and pick him up.

"During that time a few clubs came and looked, but then went away again. Now it seems that I've come a long way, even since making my debut in the Czech Republic a couple of years ago."

Kinsella won't be the only one to benefit from the injuries to a couple of the squad's most senior players for McCarthy said yesterday that he will probably use the vacancy left by Quinn to have a look at Dominic Foley, while Matt Holland will come into central midfield in place of Roy Keane.

"I would have been tempted to have a look at Dominic in any case, even if the whole squad had been here," said McCarthy "the only question would have been whether it would have been from the start. As for Mattie, there's no doubt that he'll play".

The only casualty for McCarthy yesterday was Kinsella's Charlton team-mate Dean Kiely, who was forced to pull out of the squad after a minor injury picked up in Saturday's game against Ipswich failed to clear up over the weekend. "He landed on his shoulder early on," said the Ireland coach, "and even though he managed to play the rest of the game with it he says he stiffened up over the weekend."

Steve Carr, currently embroiled in some rather bitter contract negotiations at Tottenham, missed training yesterday due to what McCarthy described as "a minor knock". However, there doesn't seem to be any serious doubt regarding his availability for tomorrow night and the manager maintains that he still has plenty of bodies at his disposal.

"We'll have John O'Shea and Michael Reddy with us over the next couple of days, so if I want to I could bring them in for the game itself and that would give me 20 players, so there really isn't a problem."

The Ireland boss did express some concern, however, that a number of his firstteam regulars, including the likes of Blackburn's Alan Kelly and Jason McAteer, as well as Robbie Keane at Inter Milan, have been slipping out of their clubs' first teams.

"I've said before about Alan that if he can't get a game at Blackburn then the other goalkeepers there must be really something special because he has been outstanding for me.

"In general, it is a source of some concern for me and it must be very disappointing for the lads. I've spoken to Robbie because I know how tough it can be when you are in a position like that, but at the end of the day the best form of encouragement I can offer him is to make it clear that he's in my team. After that, a million words wouldn't make a great deal of difference.

"The important thing to remember in the case of somebody like Robbie, though, is that he's not going to lose his ability. He's very young and very mature, so I have no doubt that he'll be able to cope with the fight for a place and that he'll come through it okay in the end."

The Finns, meanwhile, arrived in Dublin yesterday and are expected to train this morning at Belfield Park. Two players, Sami Hypia of Liverpool and Stockport County's Jarko Wiss, were withdrawn from their squad yesterday because of injury, but Antti Muurinen has drafted in Toni Kuivasto of HJK Helsinki and Tommi Gronlund of Trelleborgs as replacements for the pair.

Muurinen has brought a relatively strong squad although Barcelona's midfielder Jari Litmanen - who has had some difficulty nailing down a first team place and who yesterday was linked with a move to Turkey - is probably the biggest name by some distance.