Republic of Ireland coach Giovanni Trapattoni will plan for the World Cup qualifying campaign confident his message is getting across.A little more than a week after starting work with his players, the 69-year-old Italian saw them battle their way to a hard-fought 1-1 draw with Serbia at Croke Park on Saturday night.

But more importantly, he saw the first signs that the work he has done with them on the training pitch is starting to pay dividends.

Trapattoni will look for more of the same from Thursday's friendly against Colombia at Craven Cottage as he attempts to establish a momentum ahead of tough qualifiers in Georgia and Montenegro in September.

However, the evidence of his first get-together with the bulk of the players he hopes will take him to South Africa in 2010 has given him cause for optimism.

He said: "I am always optimistic because good team organisation always eliminates any error or small details which may have caused the team to lose in the past.

"Last night, we demonstrated that we are a compact team, a tight team, and the younger players will only grow by playing and building trust in themselves."

Trapattoni intends to make only a handful of changes for the Colombia game - central defenders Paul McShane and Richard Dunne, as well as striker Daryl Murphy, suffered knocks against Serbia but are expected to be fit, while John O'Shea and Aiden McGeady will be assessed after their late arrivals in Dublin.

But the manager wants to build a continuity and will not reshuffle his side for the sake of it.

He said: "If you make too many changes, you lose focus, you lose concentration and you don't have the foundation to build on.

"Then if you get a bad result, you will come back to me and say, 'you made changes'.

"There has to be a foundation to build on."

One of those hoping to force his way into Trapattoni's plans for Craven Cottage is striker Andy Keogh, whose first senior goal for his country secured the draw with Serbia after he came off the bench with just nine minutes to go.

The 22-year-old Wolves frontman has been one of the more impressive of the manager's younger generation, but he has caught the eye for more than just his finishing.

Trapattoni said: "He has excellent qualities. In the games, you probably don't see all the qualities because you are focusing on his goals.

"He has great qualities. He foresees the game. He is only 22 and he certainly needs to put some weight on, but he is a very creative player.

"He takes the initiative, he has qualities that go beyond scoring goals.

"It would be good if he was continually playing for his club. These players, if they get a chance to play for their club, their performances for the national team would be even better."

Skipper Robbie Keane, who started the Serbia game alongside Kevin Doyle in attack, has also been impressed by what he has seen of Keogh.

He said: "Since I have seen him, he has been a handful. He has got great energy and he showed that again when he came on.

"The way he took his goal was superb. It's great to have these young lads come along and score goals rather than depending on the same people all the time."

Keane and his team-mates were happy to have launched a new era with a spirited display to ensure a positive start for the manager.

He said: "Listen, every player I know, you want to win - you certainly don't want to lose whether you are a manager or a coach or a player.

"It was important that we got off to the right start and overall, I think we have to be happy, even thought it wasn't the best of games.

"It wasn't flowing by any means, but it was important

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