Northern Hoops feel like international exiles

SHAMROCK ROVERS might be on the brink of a double but being part of an already momentous season for the club doesn’t seem to have done its Northern Ireland players any favours at international level.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow night’s title decider in Bray, goalkeeper Alan Mannus and striker Thomas Stewart have both expressed disappointment at what they believe to be Northern Ireland manager Nigel Worthington’s less than enthusiastic attitude towards the Airtricity League.

Asked if he felt signing for Rovers had jeopardised his international career – the former Linfield man has earned four caps for his country since 2004 - 28-year-old Mannus said: “At the time I wasn’t sure but, yeah, definitely. I don’t agree with what the manager (Worthington) says but then my opinion doesn’t seem to matter to him.

“Whenever I signed for Rovers and he spoke to me after that, he was sort of a bit disappointed with it and he was saying, ‘well, it’s done now, we’ll deal with it.’ Those were his exact words to me and I was wondering, ‘Well, what does that mean?’ So that sort of said to me that he wasn’t too keen on it.

“He wants players to be playing in England and Scotland. And then I’d played a few games here, say five or so, and I was back in the squad again and he said to me, ‘Have you been playing?” and I said ‘Yeah’ and I thought: ‘Should you not be aware if I’ve been playing or not if you have me in your squad?’

“So I could tell just from the way he was going on that he wasn’t too keen on players playing here.”

Admittedly complicating matters for Mannus is the fact that, because of club commitments, he asked to be excluded from Northern Ireland’s visit to America for friendly games against Turkey and Chile back in May.

“Yeah, I would have missed the game against Bohs for that and I didn’t want to do that. He didn’t sound the happiest when I told him that I was pulling out and I know he’s done it before with other players who had pulled out — he’s been funny with them — but I knew the risks anyway and I don’t regret doing it.”

For former Derry and Linfield man Thomas Stewart, quality and form should be the only considerations for an international call-up.

“When you see boys doing well, no matter what league you’re in, if you’re doing the business, you deserve to be called up.

“We put everything into our football at Shamrock Rovers. My first priority is to do well for the club here. Yes, I’m disappointed but I can only do my best and that’s what I’m doing here. But there has to be a sense of disappointment because international honours are probably the highest thing you can achieve.”

Of course, Giovanni Trapattoni has also been criticised for ignoring the Airtricity League but, while Worthington did call-up Derry’s Niall McGinn shortly before he moved to Celtic, the Northern Ireland manager certainly had no qualms at all about turning to players from the Irish League for the summer friendlies in the States.

“They obviously deserved it because they played well in their league, there’s no debating that,” said Stewart. “But I don’t get why people from the League Of Ireland don’t get called up. I played for Northern Ireland right through from youths to U23 level. I got a lot of caps for the U21s and captained them. And then to be totally be banished from it is a little bit disappointing. But hopefully international honours will come at some point if I keep doing well for my club.”