Chance to put Germany rout right excites O’Shea

John O’Shea reckons his Sunderland team gave it “a good shot” in the Capital One Cup final but, after finishing up with a loser’s medal on the back of that 3-1 defeat by Manchester City, he can’t disguise his relief at being able to switch focus, not just to tonight’s game against Serbia, but to the European Championship 2016 qualifying campaign.

“Very excited,” is how he feels about Ireland’s draw. “It brings everything into focus when you see the teams we’ll face. It will come around very quick.”

O’Shea insists that, after that 6-1 World Cup hammering in Dublin under Giovanni Trapattoni, he is relishing the chance to try to set the record straight against Germany.

“At home, that will definitely be the case,” he says, “but there are a lot of other teams in the group that will be confident of taking their chance because of the extra team that goes through. You want to test yourself against the best players. You can’t be greedy all the time by saying you want the easiest group. You get who you get and you have to get on with it. Germany will be a massive test for us but I know the manager (Martin O’Neill) and we’re not going to be having a team talk thinking we’re not going to win this game.

“You could tell it was really flat (at the end of Trap’s reign). When the new manager was announced, his decision to bring in Roy, it got everyone’s enthusiasm back up. We had a good start with Latvia and a tough game against Poland where we performed well on a difficult pitch. It was a very pleasing start but that’s all it was.”

Having narrowly missed out on qualifying for the World Cup finals in 2010 and then experiencing a Euro finals to forget in Poland two years later, the veteran Waterford defender is keen to make amends by not only helping Ireland to the finals in France in 2016 but doing the country proud if and when they get there.

Confirming he plans to play on well into his 30s, O’Shea says: “Yeah, hopefully that is the plan. The big thing is staying injury free and as healthy as possible and performing to a high level and keeping your place in the club team.”

However, the news that the man they call Josh turns 33 in April comes as an apparent shock to O’Neill who is sitting beside him in the Grand Hotel in Malahide.

“You, 33?” deadpans the manager to O’Shea, before turning to the media present and rolling his eyes.

“That’s him finished. Somebody check what age Richard Keogh is.”