Weird feeling around the Irish camp this week. Hard to put your finger on. Is it optimism? Sure, up to a point. Expectation? Maybe, but it’s not exactly that either. A sense that now is the time to show what they’re made of? Well yes, but that’s always part of the deal.
No, it’s more a vibe of determined serenity about the place. It has been noticeable that at no stage has anyone talked down the importance of the game against Hungary on Saturday night, nor given themselves an out by presenting a draw as a decent result. There’s a contentment among the squad and the management about their ability to measure up to the task this time.
Whether this good feeling survives long into the evening on Saturday is a matter for the weekend. For now, the better question is what’s feeding it. Some combination of the manager’s innate calm, a not-terrible run of results and decent start to the club season for a lot of the players – all of it helps.
Hiding in plain sight, though, is something else. This is an Ireland squad backboned by international players of real experience now, who have weathered some of the worst years any Irish players have had to go through. And who have come out the other end as leaders, recognised as such by their clubs.
RM Block
It feels significant that so many of the squad are either their club’s official captain or have filled in at the role. Six of the 23-man squad have done so already this season – Nathan Collins (Brentford), Josh Cullen (Burnley), Dara O’Shea (Ipswich), Jason Knight (Bristol City), Jimmy Dunne (QPR) and Liam Scales (Celtic). Add in Matt Doherty who is part of the four-man leadership group at Wolves and you have more or less a third of the squad in positions of responsibility at their clubs.
“We’ve had a tough few years with qualification campaigns,” said Ryan Manning on Tuesday. “But I feel like the squad now, you’ve got four or five club captains within the squad, you’ve got a lot of people who have a lot of caps, good experienced Premier League players and Championship players.”
Does it make any difference? John O’Shea thinks so. The Ireland assistant manager has seen every kind of dressing room there is. Ones with the strongest leaders imaginable, ones where nobody was able to stop the whole thing circling the plughole. In his view, an Ireland dressing room with half a dozen club captains in it automatically sets a tone for everything management want to get done.
“In a sense, it should make training sessions and planning and prepping [easier], taking care of the dressing room, messages that coaches want to get across,” he said yesterday.
“If you have that in your leadership group, the players that are captains at their clubs – they’re setting standards, how they train, how they behave, their application in training, their application in games, their rest, their recovery, all of that together. And if you have some of the newer lads, the younger kids in the squad seeing that belief, that they can reach those levels – that’s a huge thing.
“And obviously that’s what we’re talking about in terms of some of the players being battle-hardened now in important qualifying games. It’s crucial. They know what it will take, the bravery it will take, to take the ball in certain areas, to risk it in certain areas where we’re looking for the ball to be risked and also how we can punish teams.”
Having been such an integral piece of the last two Ireland teams that qualified for major tournaments, nobody knows better than O’Shea about the rhythms of these campaigns. If Ireland are going to see their way to the World Cup, there’s a specific type of leadership that they will need. The likes of Collins, Dara O’Shea, Knight and Cullen, in particular, will be crucial to giving Ireland the security they need as a first principle.
“The big thing will be, ideally, the most clean sheets we’ll be looking for,” said John O’Shea. “That’s what will get you that qualification – that toughness, that steeliness to see games through, tight home games, tight away games.
“Listen, all the teams that qualified for World Cups or Euros had these games. They had the tight 1-0 away or they needed a draw away from home, whatever it was. That steeliness – I can’t remember any Irish team qualifying at ease, whether it be for a World Cup or a European Championship. You have to have that steeliness and determination.”
Any downside? Any danger of there being too many chiefs? O’Shea smiled at the very idea.
“I know what you’re saying, but no. I think the group, the way it is, the personalities, the people in particular, are key to that. You can see the personalities, those leaders that you mentioned. I think you want as many of them as possible.”
