St Ledger relishing the step up in class

LAST Saturday, Sean St Ledger was part of a Middlesbrough team whose poor recent run of form in England’s second tier continued with a 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

It was a humdrum sort of occasion. A crowd of just over 15,000 turned up to see the two mid-table sides go about their business.

About a tenth of them had made their way down from the north-east for the occasion.

This Saturday, St Ledger will make a dizzying leap in standards when he is expected to line up alongside Richard Dunne at the centre of the Irish defence for the first leg of the World Cup play-off in front of over 75,000 souls.

He is likely to be the only player on either side making such a step up in class. Of the Irish 11 that started against Italy recently, he was the only one whose passport was stamped ‘Championship footballer’.

“I have coped,’’ he says of that gap. “I probably prefer (the international game). Strange as it seems, the Championship is a physical league and everything is 100 miles an hour. With international games it is not so quick.

“The attacks are quick but they tend to pick their moments and keep the ball at the back and pass it around so you have to be mindful of strikers making their runs. Concentration is the main thing which the gaffer has drummed into me.

“I enjoy it on the international stage. In international games you don’t know what is going to happen next. It is a different world really. The players are more experienced and have undoubted talents, and when you are playing against the world’s best footballers, it is always going to be difficult.’’

This is, he adds, the biggest game of his career.

He said more or less the same thing prior to the Italian fixture at Croke Park last month which just goes to show how his international career has begun to motor since his dramatic elevation into the side for the trip to Sofia at the start of the summer.

He didn’t let himself down that night, or against the world champions. His late goal was the obvious highlight last month and, if he was at fault for the second equaliser, then so were a number of other, more experienced, colleagues.

It’s a lesson he will surely have filed away by now and every morsel of information, nous and awareness that he can muster will be needed this weekend because, if anything, he rates France even higher than Italy.

“Only because a lot of them play in the Premier League and so you see them every week on Match of the Day,’’ he says. “A lot of the Italy players play in Italy and so you don’t see them so much but I am sure they are quality players as well.

“It could be good they are so familiar to us. It can only benefit you if you know your opponent. Richard (Dunne) knows (Nicolas) Anelka and everyone has played against Thierry Henry. It will be hard but I am looking forward to it.

“It is a daunting prospect. They are some of the best players in the world but I want to get better and test myself against the best and this is the way. Whether I can (cope) only time will tell but I need the confidence to believe I can do that.’’

With a name like St Ledger, it was no surprise when the small knot of French journalists took an interest in his family tree but the only real French connection in his life is clubmate Jeremie Aliadiere.

The former Arsenal striker has been winding St Ledger up about the games to come in Dublin and Paris but the only Frenchman getting under his skin this week appears to Raymond Domenech.

The French manager’s talk of Ireland being an England ‘B’ team has been contested on the grounds that it was lost in translation but his utterances have nevertheless been a handy motivational tool for the home side.

“That was harsh, to be honest,’’ says St Ledger. “He probably needs to concentrate on his own team. From what we have read they have their own problems that have nothing to do with us.

“We have to prepare for a massive game and what the French do doesn’t bother us or what they say as players. We have to make sure we concentrate and are fully prepared for what is ahead.’’

IF Domenech makes the French vulnerable then so too does their continued inability to defend set-pieces and Ireland have excelled in that department, offensively, so far under Giovanni Trapattoni.

St Ledger’s header against the Italians was a case in point but the defender baulks slightly when the point is made and is eager to point out that the side has one or two other quivers in its bow.

“We’re not working especially on them. We’re not Wimbledon or anything. It is something we have worked on over the whole campaign and it is invaluable if you just look at the number of goals scored from set pieces nowadays.

“From what I have heard, France have been weak at set pieces so I am sure we will look at it but we are not just a set-piece team. We have more to the side. With the likes of Robbie (Keane) and Damien (Duff) we can cause problems.’’