McIlroy fails with cheeky bid for Rooney

Sammy McIlroy yesterday revealed that he made an audacious bid to entice Wayne Rooney into playing for Northern Ireland. He went through a third-party close to the 17-year-old Everton striker to see what his thoughts were.

However, the Northern Ireland manager was rebuffed and Rooney is now set to win his first England cap against Australia tonight.

"I checked that one out, actually," McIlroy said. "I won't tell you what I got down the phone. It was spoken in strong Scouse."

The Irish face Finland at Windsor Park tonight without a goal in their last five games. Despite Rooney's refusal, McIlroy pledged he will continue in his attempt to strengthen the squad.

McIlroy said: "I am looking and travelling all the time as we do need goals. No disrespect to the other strikers, we are on the look-out for another proven scorer. That would be a great bonus for us. It is well documented we haven't scored a goal in five games and we would take one from anywhere at the moment.

"If you look at Wales and their squad, the difference is the cutting edge. They can call on [Ryan] Giggs, [John] Hartson, [Craig] Bellamy, [Simon] Davies and [Iwan] Roberts. If we had two of them I think we would see a right difference in our results."

McIlroy will be without four regulars for the friendly against the Finns with Colin Murdock, Gerry Taggart, Phil Mulryne and Keith Horlock all injured.

Michael Hughes is also unavailable as the midfielder has not played a club game this season after being involved in a bitter contractual dispute involving Wimbledon and Birmingham City.

An independent tribunal has yet to adjudicate on the matter and McIlroy is bitter at the way one of his most gifted and experienced players has been treated.

"The boy is in turmoil," McIlroy said. "I can't understand why the FA are letting this drag on. If it had been [David] Beckham or [Patrick] Vieira it would have been up in a week and sorted out."