Republic of Ireland Premier League Starting XI

While researching yesterday's article on Irish starting XI's of players with Premier League experience, we wondered how many times the Republic of Ireland started a game with eleven players who were under contract at a club in the PL at that time.

As we said in the article, the Boys in Green have played 269 games since the breakaway league was formed in 1992. According to our research, of these, only eight (3% of the total amount) of these were started by eleven players who were all playing Premier League football at the time. As always, we are open to correction on this.

When we investigated this, we realised that, in the early years of the league, squad mainstays like Packie Bonner and John Aldridge never played in England's top division, and in more recent years Robbie Keane's time in MLS as well as Sean St Ledger's time in the Irish starting XI meant that there was a narrow window where regular starters for Ireland were all playing in the PL.

Even though the first game of the league was played in 1992, it took nine years before an Irish manager named a starting XI of players from the league. Mick McCarthy had the honour of being the first Irish manager to name 11 Premier League players to face Portugal in 2001 for a qualifier for the World Cup in Japan and South Korea. A year later, in August, he would repeat the feat in a 3-0 friendly win against Finland following the tournament.

Brian Kerr has named a team of players in the Premier League in five games, more than any of the other managers since the league was formed, four of which were in 2005. The last time an Irish manager named a starting XI of Premier League players was Steve Staunton's first competitive game against Germany in 2006 - 130 games have been played since that 1-0 loss in Stuttgart.

No player started all eight games, but Shay Given, Kevin Kilbane, Damien Duff, and Robbie Keane started seven of the eight, while John O'Shea, Steve Finnan, and Kenny Cunningham started six.

Of the eight games, three finished all square, there are three wins (although only one of these was in a competitive game) and two were losses.

Date	Home	Score	Away	Starting XI
2-June-2001	Republic of Ireland	1-1	Portugal	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Ian Harte(Leeds United) Steve Staunton(Aston Villa) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Stephen Carr(Tottenham) Kevin Kilbane(Sunderland) Roy Keane(Manchester United) Mark Kinsella(Charlton) Gary Kelly(Leeds United) Niall Quinn(Sunderland) Robbie Keane(Leeds United)
21-August-2002	Finland	0-3	Republic of Ireland	Dean Kiely(Charlton) Ian Harte(Leeds United) Gary Breen(West Ham United) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Gary Kelly(Leeds United) Thomas Butler(Sunderland) Mark Kinsella(Charlton) Lee Carsley(Everton) Jason McAteer(Sunderland) Damien Duff(Blackburn) Robbie Keane(Leeds United)
9-October-2004	France	0-0	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Andy O'Brien(Newcastle Utd) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Damien Duff(Chelsea) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Roy Keane(Manchester United) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
9-February-2005	Republic of Ireland	1-0	Portugal	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Andy O'Brien(Newcastle Utd) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Andy Reid(Tottenham) Matt Holland(Charlton) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
26-March-2005	Israel	1-1	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Andy O'Brien(Newcastle Utd) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Roy Keane(Manchester United) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
17-August-2005	Republic of Ireland	1-2	Italy	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Matt Holland(Charlton) Steven Reid(Blackburn) Andy Reid(Tottenham) Clinton Morrison(Birmingham City)
8-October-2005	Cyprus	0-1	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Kenny Cunningham(Birmingham City) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Damien Duff(Chelsea) Kevin Kilbane(Everton) Graham Kavanagh(Wigan) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Stephen Elliott(Sunderland) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)
2-September-2006	Germany	1-0	Republic of Ireland	Shay Given(Newcastle Utd) John O'Shea(Manchester United) Andy O'Brien(Portsmouth) Richard Dunne(Manchester City) Stephen Carr(Newcastle Utd) Damien Duff(Newcastle Utd) Steven Reid(Blackburn) Kevin Kilbane(Wigan) Steve Finnan(Liverpool) Kevin Doyle(Reading) Robbie Keane(Tottenham)