Duff throws one last dummy

So now plenty of us in the media, this reporter included, know what it must be like to be a full-back up against Damien Duff: left stumped, flat on our backsides and with copious quantities of egg on our chin.

The general air of certainty that the 33-year-old would commit to one final campaign for his country was unceremoniously blown apart shortly after midday yesterday when rumours of his retirement from international football began to leak. At around 3.30pm, just before Giovanni Trapattoni began his press conference in Dublin, came the official confirmation that next month’s World Cup qualifier in Kazakhstan will be the first of the post-Duff era for Ireland. And that’s a new world which is going to take some getting used to.

From his precocious emergence, alongside Robbie Keane, as one of Brian Kerr’s colts, there was always something a little bit different and a little bit special about Damien Duff. Irish football has always prided itself on its group ethos, the notion that no one player transcends the collective. But, like Liam Brady down here and Georgie Best up there, Duff was one of those who gave most to the team by standing out from the rest.

To the traditional Irish football virtues of heart, soul and a capacity for sheer hard work, Duff added a sprinkling of magic dust, his close dribbling style, with his body bent over the ball, an irresistible invitation to old-timers to recall the storied wingers of yesteryear. And when a shot of invention or imagination was need to lift the team and delight the terraces, it would invariably come from Duff as he gave opposition defenders — who soon learned to fear and double-mark him — twisted blood with one of his trademark sinuous runs.

His international highlights reel is full of such moments but pride of place will, in all probability, go to his performance on the biggest stage of all, when he crowned his outstanding appearance at the 2002 World Cup in Japan with a goal celebration against Saudi Arabia which won the hearts of the host nation and epitomised his capacity to transmit sheer joy through the medium of playing football.

But, less obvious on the television screens, was the amount of hard yards Duff put in off the ball. His skill might have made him the darling of the crowds but, allied to that, his selfless determination to put in a shift over the whole 90 minutes made him a dream pro for successive Irish managers to work with.

That willingness to match perspiration with inspiration was even more pronounced in the latter stages of his international career when age and injury had began to cramp the signature swashbuckling style of his pomp. His all-out performances throughout Ireland’s otherwise forgettable European Championships this summer served only to reinforce the still vital nature of his contribution to his country’s cause. When the team was under the cosh and having to soak up waves of pressure — as it was forced to do throughout much of those three games against Croatia, Spain and Italy – Duff continued to be a reliable outlet, the canny ability with which he would invariably win a free-kick offering essential relief.

Seeing how much the veteran contributed in the summer — and noting also how he has since hit the ground running for Fulham at the start of the new Premier League season — it’s little wonder that Trapattoni so badly wanted him to stay on board for another campaign.

Duff’s indifference to football’s celebrity culture, his allergic reaction to media duties and his reputation as a man who was never troubled by insomnia all added up to an image of mild eccentricity which only endeared him all the more to the Irish public. But on those rare enough occasions when he did present himself in front of the mic, he emerged as very much his own man. I once interviewed him at Chelsea’s training ground, in the course of which conversation he described Ireland as having played “like a pub team” in that infamous 5-2 loss to Cyprus and worried that the home side might lose some rugged advantage in playing at a new Lansdowne Road, where the likes of Zinedine Zidane, he suggested, would be only too happy not to have to contend with sitting on a loo which rattled every time a train went by.

And always, underpinning everything he did and said, on and off the pitch, was Damien Duff’s huge pride in pulling on the green shirt.

Even as Irish football unites in wishing him well in the remaining years of his club career, the mood of genuine sadness at this end of era moment will take some considerable time to lift.