David Meyler banking on performance against Belarus
Meyler was only 18 when Roy Keane took his newly-promoted Sunderland side to their home city and the youngster was handed a Cork City senior debut that lasted seven minutes at the back end of a pre-season 1-1 draw.
Another year passed before Keane would bring the player to the English north-east, but Meyler needs things to happen a mite faster this time, given O’Neill has only got until 11pm tonight to submit his Euro 2016 squad to the Uefa admin department in Switzerland.
Midfield is the most competitive compartment in the Irish squad, even when accepting the theory that O’Neill’s use of the diamond formation will require him to bring more of that type of player to France, so there will be little time between audition and decision.
“You say an audition, but a lot of the lads have been around the squad for a long time,” said Meyler, who has 14 caps to his name since 2012. “It’s only Callum [O’Dowda] who is the new face, the majority have been in here, have played in Europe.
“The likes of Robbie [Keane], Shay [Given], John [O’Shea] have played in major tournaments. The majority of lads have been around the squad the last two years, so the manager knows what they’re capable of.”
Meyler, too, belongs to that bracket, having featured off and on throughout Ireland’s successful qualifying campaign, and particularly in Gelsenkirchen in October of 2014, when he filled in successfully as an emergency full-back in the 1-1 draw against Germany.
O’Neill has referenced that shift more than once, most recently last week while the player was away with Hull City and preparing for the club’s Championship play-off final defeat of Sheffield Wednesday at Wembley.
It’s a performance Meyler all but dismissed as irrelevant yesterday, given it came 19 months ago, but there is no doubt such versatility is a precious resource for any manager when cutting the last corners from a squad before a major tournament.
It is difficult to see how, injuries aside, O’Neill’s mind will be altered at such a late hour by anything a player does or does not do this evening, but Meyler is squared to the task, having featured for only the last five minutes with Hull at the weekend.
It must have made for a frustrating afternoon on a personal level, regardless of the club’s success, though Meyler wasn’t interested in fastening on to the theory that playing five minutes rather than the 90 may actually aid his chances of impressing on joining the national squad this week.
“You have to be professional. In the Championship, you have to play Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday, so it’s nothing new to me. If I played 90 minutes last Saturday I would put my hand up to play 90 minutes again now. Everybody in the changing room would be the same.
“So, whatever he decides to do, everybody will go out and give it their best.”
He could hardly hope to do it in more comforting surrounds.
Meyler hasn’t been a stranger to Turner’s Cross since he left for England in 2008. It will make a comforting venue in which to play for his country again, something which he insists remains the ultimate honour for any professional footballer.
Whatever happens next, it’s good to be back now. “Of course. I’m walking in and I see all the same groundsmen and all the same security guys that were here when I was here. I’m in England now eight years in July and it’s nice to see friendly faces. It’s nice to see nice people. There will be a huge amount of local fans watching and it’s great to see so many kids here now, because with the generations of technology you don’t see as many kids playing on the streets as I did when I grew up.
“It’s nice when the national side comes to Cork and it will be nice to see the place sold out.”
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