Kaspars Gorkss and Damien Delaney have been called up for the full Latvian and irish squads respectively ahead of the forthcoming round of international friendlies.

The first week in September is designated as an international week and Rangers have no game - but all the home nations will play midweek friendlies a fortnight before that to warm up for the competitive action.

Delaney will team up with the Republic of Ireland for their friendly against Norway in Oslo on Wednesday August 20. He made his international debut at the end of last season after an impressive start to life at QPR and looked right at home against Slovakia and Columbia in Giovanni Trapattoni’s first matches in charge. There’s no call up for Martin Rowlands though who was included in the squad for those matches and impressed in warm up games but subsequently pulled out with an ankle injury that also restricted his involvement over the summer.

Gorkss is somewhat more experienced at international level with 17 Latvia caps and two goals to his name - he’ll look to build on both when the Latvians travel to Romania also on August 20.

The Republic’s World Cup qualifying campaign is actually meant to start in, of all places, Georgia in three weeks time although that now looks unlikely to take place due to the political situation and conflict in that country. Latvia start away to Moldova that same day. Four days later the Irish are in Montenegro while Latvia host Greece. Obviously both players will hope to be part of the squads for those matches.

In the meantime the friendly games fall in between this weekend’s trip to Sheffield United and a home game with Doncaster Rovers and with only Matt Connolly for cover at the back at the moment Rangers can ill-afford either player coming back with a knock.

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