St Ledger: Fans can be 12th man

LAST month, Sean St Ledger experienced the colour and excitement of an All-Ireland football final at Croke Park and the Leicester City defender is banking on a similarly passionate atmosphere at the Aviva Stadium tonight.

The Birmingham-born international got his hands on a ticket for the Dublin-Kerry showdown courtesy of Martin Sludden, the referee who allowed Joe Sheridan’s controversial goal stand in the Leinster final between Meath and Louth last summer. Sludden is related to St Ledger’s mother and the professional footballer was suitably impressed by the noise, passion and commitment in a tie decided at the death by Stephen Cluxton’s sensational free-kick.

Such drama and, indeed, such crowds have been in short supply during the latest European Championship campaign but the Aviva will be close to full occupancy this evening for a game which Ireland will be hoping to negotiate with less recourse to late heroics.

“It’s great to play in front of a full house anywhere,” said St Ledger. “We’ve sold quite a few tickets already and they can play a major, major part. If you are drawing and feel the crowd behind you it does give you a lift. I know it’s very cliched to say they can act like a 12th man but it does feel like that.”

It may make for an uncomfortable evening. Russia and Slovakia both dominated the home team when they featured at Lansdowne Road earlier in this campaign and Armenia arrived in Dublin on the back of three wins and 11 goals scored.

St Ledger didn’t expect the eastern Europeans to get this far with their qualification ambitions still intact and isn’t entirely sure when they became such a major player in Group B.

“I’d say Armenia are a lot more direct (than Russia), very direct, sharp and quick and good technically but it will be different playing them here compared to playing them in Armenia with the heat and all that sort of thing. They were used to it and we weren’t so I think it will be a different sort of encounter and we’re pretty confident.”

Ireland’s form in recent months has been less than spectacular and they approach this decisive encounter on the back of a far-from-ideal trek up and down the Pyrenees which was compounded by a delayed flight back to Dublin.

Not exactly the ideal preparation but St Ledger had less reason than most of his colleagues to grumble about the trip given that it offered him a rare chance to stretch his legs in something approaching a competitive fixture.

Friday’s 2-0 win was just his sixth start of the campaign and as many of them have come in the green of Ireland as the blue of Sven Goran Eriksson’s Leicester City where he is being kept out of the side by Matt Mills and Sol Bamba.

It’s an uncomfortable state of affairs for a player who has averaged 45 appearances between club and country per season since he first broke through the ranks at Peterborough United seven years ago as a teenager.

He admits as much, too and is honest enough to add that he is concerned at the consequences for his place at the heart of the Irish defence, especially with Darren O’Dea making the most of the increasing number of chances.

Eriksson has his complete respect as a man and as a manager but, if Ireland do the necessary against Armenia tonight and come through a play-off to qualify, St Ledger would almost feel compelled to seek a loan move.

“Doing all the hard work in the groups, playing in most of the matches … if we got to the Euros and I wasn’t playing it would be soul destroying. From a personal point of view, I want to play and not just because of the Euros. I just want to play football.”

He gets that chance tonight.