And then there is the team's crop of blue-blooded Evertonians - midfielder Steven Beck, who was in the same Everton youth team as Rooney, and Tommy Rooney, Wayne's cousin, who has signed from Macclesfield Town.Though McKenna's entire weekly wage bill is £7,000, Liverpool can expect more than a bunch of stargazers. He says he has not given up hope of a Football League club.Lawless is not the only TNS player with something to prove at Anfield. Striker John Toner was also on Liverpool's books as a youngster. "I'm having lessons because there's a lot of driving in this Welsh League," he said. While Rooney drives a £50,000 BMW X5, Lawless hasn't even passed his driving test. The game will be dictated by how Liverpool approach it, he said. "They will do something and we will have to react."But he can at least take comfort from the fact that his players share his forensic understanding of the task in hand.
McKenna has far more Scousers than Welshmen in his team - a fact borne out by their training ground, which is in the shadow of a chemical works on the banks of the Mersey. His spies at the Champions' League final in Istanbul included John Lawless, the TNS left winger whose right arm bears a Liverpool tattoo and who raced back from the Milan game in time to take up a place near Anfield's Kop for the parade of the trophy.Lawless, 24, knocked a football around the De La Salle high school playground in Croxteth with Wayne Rooney and Francis Jeffers in the late 1980s, but his head was full of dreams about emulating John Barnes, his boyhood hero For a time, it seemed that they might be fulfilled. Preparing a side to play the European champions is quite a task when you're managing a village team that attracts an average gate of 258. But it is a sign of Ken McKenna's determination to avoid any embarrassment in his side's Champions' League tie at Anfield tomorrow night that he has been using his laptop at every available opportunity to work out how his Total Network Solutions team play. Half-centuries from Robert Key (74), Darren Stevens (50) and Andrew Hall (68) helped them close in on Sussex, while Matthew Walker was unbeaten on 55 at stumps, with Kent on 323 for 6..
McKenna has been feeding DVDs of Liverpool matches into his machine for days now, even finding time on the short coach trip from Belfast airport to Glentoran, where his side lost 1-0 in a friendly a week ago. Finding any competition in early July is one of the biggest challenges to preparing for Europe's preliminary rounds so Total Network Solutions Llansantffraid - to give his Welsh Premier League team their full title - have been limited to Ireland and a guest appearance at the recent Anglesey Games. The manager, once a record signing for Tranmere Rovers, is brutally realistic about his team's chances in a game he describes as "the biggest mismatch in football history". "I spoke to Graham [yesterday] morning and he was feeling fine," Graveney said. "I shall talk to him again [today] to see if there is any reaction [to his long-standing back injury]."Kent, who are set to go top if they can beat Sussex, are making good progress towards matching the visitors' first-innings 378 at Canterbury. A handshake between the players followed but Harbhajan's conduct may feature in the umpire's report and during the tea interval there was another confrontation, this time between Scott Newman and Hardinges inside the pavilion.David Graveney, the chairman of the England selectors, will speak to Surrey's captain Graham Thorpe this morning about his prospects of being fit for the Ashes series against Australia. They called off the run chase at 84 for 3 after 11 overs, with all three wickets falling to Steve Kirby.The game threatened to boil over when Surrey appealed unsuccessfully for a catch at silly point as Mark Hardinges tried to sweep Harbhajan Singh. Words were exchanged and, when Harbhajan continued to voice his displeasure, the umpire Allan Jones issued a clear rebuke.
