Metz set for Ireland under-18 debut

Last updated : 15 December 2014 By Tony Scholes

Metz, who qualifies for Ireland through his grandparents, has been named in a squad of 21 for the two games, both against Portugal under-18s to be played this week. The first of the games is tomorrow in and the two sides meet again two days later.

Coach Paul Doolin said: "This is a similar opportunity to what we had with the current u19 squad when we started with them in a couple of under-18 games in the Czech Republic earlier this year.

"That was a great exercise and this is also important for us to see the players first hand and to work with them."

He added: "The clubs have stopped some players from coming with us but that's not surprising as it's not a FIFA week and you'll always lose some in that situation.

"But I think it's a decent squad, we'll have with us some good home based players too. Portugal will be tough so we should learn a lot about the squad.

"As far as we're concerned it's about next year's under-19s primarily but if players can do the things that we want from them, both attacking wide and defensively, I think it'll be a useful exercise.

Khius is one of four players in the squad who are with Premier League clubs' the others being Eva Moran (West Brom), Colm Deasy (Southampton) and Nathan Corkery (QPR). The rest of the squad is made up of six players from Championship clubs, one from League One and ten Irish based players.

The games are:

Tue 16 Dec - Estádio Municipal, Abrantes
Thu 18 Dec - Complexo Desportivo, Bonitos

Both games kick off at 3 p.m.