As Richard Dunne heads for a month of sunny R&R and contemplates an almost fairytale return to the Premier League, Richard Keogh will have to pick himself up this week from the crushing disappointment of Saturday's play-off defeat with Derby and get on with the business of establishing himself as a regular in the Republic of Ireland set-up.
The man he needs to impress, Martin O’Neill, accepts it won’t be easy for the 27-year-old. Keogh was Derby’s player of the season in his first campaign at the club and a key figure again this year as County forced their way into third place and, ultimately, the play-off final against QPR over the weekend.
While Dunne stood out in a team that was clearly second best, however, his opposite number had relatively little to do until late on when a poor clearance presented Bobby Zamora with the chance to score a goal worth an estimated €100 million to the Londoners. His emotional exit from the pitch minutes later left no doubt about how responsible he felt.
"Richard will be devastated, really devastated," acknowledged O'Neill. "To lose in the manner they did when QPR were not offering a great deal going forward at that stage would be trebly devastating. The feeling that your next match will be in the Premier League and then having to go right back and start again with everybody else, teams that you've finished 30 or 40 points in front of . . . Honestly, it's devastating. 'Take it badly' "He particularly will feel badly. I can't say I know him fantastically well but he's a really sound fellow and he will take it badly."
O'Neill was due to talk to the Essex-born defender yesterday about when he might join up with the squad but the manager is happy to give all of the players involved (Kevin Doyle and Jeff Hendrick also played while Conor Sammon was an unused substitute) whatever time they need to get over the game.
Dunne, of course, will have the whole summer and the Ireland manager says he is delighted to have seen the resurgence of a player whose career many thought might be over. The northerner insists that the defender can play a part in Ireland’s qualification process but he is not, he insists, banking on anything at this stage, with Dunne still needing, perhaps, to show he can make the step back up to the Premier League a couple of years after he last played at that level with Aston Villa. “I’ve spoken to him some months ago,” said O’Neill, “but before I got back to speaking to him again, he’d said he’d ruled himself out of these games but not ruled himself out of playing for Ireland again so I’ll assess it closer to the time.
'Fitness element' "Richard will be the first one to say that in the Championship you can maybe get done once or twice and there might not be a goal at the end of it and you might be able to get away with it but it's not so much that, it's probably the fitness element of it that has surprised me and delighted me that he's played so many games because he really thought he'd never see a football game again."
Maintain that, he suggests, and there is no reason why he cannot add to his 80 international caps. “We’re miles ahead of ourselves here at this minute,” he said.
Asked whether the Irish team's failure to score on Sunday tended to underline the continuing importance of Robbie Keane to the team, O'Neill replied: "I would have to agree with that, absolutely. I suppose there's a feeling that Robbie might have put one of those chances away."
Long admitted afterwards that he really should have converted one or two against Turkey and O'Neill doesn't disagree. "He might have done," he said.
Jon Walters, at least, did well late on he noted and the Stoke City striker's success may leave Long with ground to make up over the course of the games against Italy, Costa Rica and Portugal. "I thought he reignited our enthusiasm when we'd lost our way and were getting a bit frustrated."
