IN THE QUIET moments he can take a scan through his CV and see a lot to be proud of.

International debut at the age of 18. Scoring on your league debut just weeks after you turned 18. Nine major trophies won. Almost 30 appearances in the Champions League. Not a bad haul for Aiden McGeady, still only 23, lest we forget.

But there is one glaring omission on his record, as he admits himself -- and McGeady is determined to put that right over the next two games against France.

Since he made his Ireland debut as a skinny 18-year-old against Jamaica back in 2004, as a sub for the now-forgotten Alan Lee, McGeady has played 29 times for his country -- and has yet to score.

Even John Aldridge, who endured the worst Ireland goal drought in modern times, managed a goal or two before his 29th cap.

With a real sense of the occasion ahead, a reminder of his decent scoring record for his club (McGeady averages a goal every five league games for Celtic) and the words of encouragement from Giovanni Trapattoni in his ears, McGeady came to Dublin this week with France on his mind and goals on the agenda.

"I need to score more goals, I need to get off the mark with Ireland now," McGeady said at the team's Dublin training camp this week as he prepared to win cap No. 30.

missed

"I have set myself a target of 10 to 12 goals with Celtic this season, I have four so far -- it should have been five last weekend against Falkirk but I missed the penalty -- but I would like more. A midfielder playing in the top leagues should be setting himself a target of 10 or so goals a season.

"Internationally, I need to improve on that front," he added.

The number of Ireland goals from sources outside of Robbie Keane is always a worry, and the Ireland coaching staff have had regular chats with the goal-shy players like McGeady and Damien Duff about upping their strike rate.

"As an attacking player the onus is to go and create and that's what I enjoy doing. I wouldn't say that Trapattoni has given me a belief to the ball and take players on, I have always had that in my game," added McGeady.

"He tells me I have the ability to score and take a shot, because if I take a shot and even if I don't score, it might take a deflection and it might drop into someone else's path.

"The manager is very good that way, he always gives you advice and the way he gets his point across, he makes sure you listen."

McGeady is one of the players who will listen to every syllable from the Ireland boss this week in the build up to the French game.

Most of the team picks itself, apart from the two wide positions, with Damien Duff almost certain to start on Saturday and the other wing position up for grabs between McGeady, Stephen Hunt and newcomer Liam Lawrence, who is now a live contender thanks to his expertise from set pieces.

"I played in the last game against Italy. Thankfully the manager was good enough to put me in for that game. He rested a few players who were on bookings for the Montenegro game so Hunty came back in with Duffer, but I have said before that we have four players competing for the two positions and two lads will be disappointed.

"I really enjoyed the Italy game, I would have enjoyed it more if we had won the match and that wasn't to be, but we did well in the game, we have played the world champions twice now and we could have won both games.

"We're very excited and the whole squad is buzzing, we have two massive games coming up now. They are big games for the country as well as the players. We are two games away from the World Cup, that's the competition everyone wants to play in.

"If we can get off to a good start and get a couple of goals it would give us a great platform to take to France. We have to go for it," added McGeady.

The French squad are still settling in to World Cup mode so there has so far been no real war of words between the two camps, apart from a few verbal volleys, started by a misinterpretation of comments from France coach Raymond Domenech (he didn't really call us the England B team) and answered by a volley from Richard Dunne.

But McGeady feels that Ireland will be fired up by what the French are saying.

"Maybe we can use some of the comments from the French camp as a motivation because there have been some derogatory remarks. And you would never hear any of the boys in our camp having a go at the French team -- even though if France were still the team that they were a few years ago they would have qualified already and not been in the play-offs," said McGeady with a smile.

"They are a team filled with top, top players and they can destroy any team on their day, but hopefully not us next Saturday and Wednesday.

"You can't compare France to us, they are a completely different outfit, they are filled with world class players and household names from one to 11, we have a different team," he added.

Scotland is already guaranteed to be World Cup-free zone next summer, so McGeady says that this Ireland squad are desperate to bridge that eight-year gap and get back on the big stage.

"Getting to the World Cup would be up there with everything I have done in the game. It would be number one on the list," he said.

"As you're growing up you dream of playing in a World Cup finals. Some of the boys have been lucky enough to play in one already, and I want to be part of that.

"I want to do it on the world stage and the rest of the squad feel the same way, the ones who were there in 2002 want to get back to that level and the newer players want to get there for the first time.

"We have been there before but not for a long time and this is a great chance for us to get Ireland to the World Cup finals.

"For me this is a nice change from the situation back home. We have been taking a bit of stick at Celtic, so we are coming from a poor performance on Sunday against Falkirk into an atmosphere where everybody is buzzing. We're looking forward to the game and it's good to be away from Glasgow.

"The criticism doesn't get to me but I do get down when I know I haven't played well. I don't take too much notice of the stick or the flak that we have been getting, the stuff in the papers doesn't affect me.

"It's only since the last international break that we have started to play poorly at Celtic. We had games against Motherwell and Hearts and struggled, it was a poor month for us so this is a good distraction for me.

"But it's all about Saturday now. We don't need any extra motivation for Saturday, with the size of the occasion that will already be there.

"Everyone knows how big a game this is, so we don't need any advice on getting a big-game mentality."

- Aidan Fitzmaurice