O’Brien has bats stolen at Cricket World Cup

Shay Given is willing to be patched up and sent into battle for Ireland against Slovakia on Friday night.

The Aston Villa stopper is struggling with a back problem but it’s not going to put him out of the crucial Euro 2012 qualifier at the Aviva on Friday night.

We’re just hoping he gets through the game without doing any further damage to the injury - and a clean sheet wouldn’t do us any harm either Shay, cheers!

He missed the first two days of training with the international squad to stay behind at Villa for treatment and team-mate Richard Dunne reckons nothing will prevent Given from taking up his post on Friday night.

“He’s been like that for about 10 days now, he’s had injections and things,” Dunne said.

“He did his back at the weekend too but picked up another knock on top of the other ones he’d already got.

“He’s 35 now so he’s had quite a lot of bangs. Regardless of how he feels on a Saturday he’s still great for us.”

Meanwhile, Robbie Keane jetted in from LA last night to join the squad late and won’t train this morning so he can recover from jetlag.