Martin O’Neill patience finally rewarded by Scott Hogan stand on declaring for Ireland
The Salford-born 24-year-old qualifies through three of his grandparents, and the FAI and the player are now going through the necessary paperwork to acquire his Irish passport. The resolution of that process may well come too late for the next two games but, following his provisional squad announcement in Dublin yesterday, O’Neill said that such a call-up was “not impossible”, adding, “from his conversation with me, he was certainly keen to get up and running”.
Springing to prominence as a prolific striker for Brentford, Hogan had previously resisted overtures from O’Neill on the grounds that, having recovered from two serious knee injuries, he wanted to concentrate on his club career.
However, the player’s stance at the time also raised inevitable speculation that he might be holding out for an England call-up.
And although back in May the Ireland manager seemed to be of the view that the trail was going cold, his decision to play the waiting game has now paid off, with Hogan, at his own request, recently meeting with O’Neill to say he wanted to make himself available for Ireland.
O’Neill said it was important to him that the player initiated the contact and showed “genuine interest” in declaring for the Republic.
“I’m all on for chasing people but I need to see someone really wanting to be keen for us,” he said, “that there’s a genuine feeling that ‘I want to come, I want to play, I want to try and make the grade at international level and play for Ireland’.
“That’s all the encouragement I want to hear.
“He wanted to do it, the enthusiasm was pretty strong. He wanted to do it and (after) his reasons which I accepted last year, there seemed to be an impasse.”
Appearing to hint Hogan might have received advice against answering Ireland’s call at that point, O’Neill added: “There’s no point in me going into that detail but it (the impasse) certainly wasn’t from the player. And he’s keen, he’s really keen.
“I think he probably felt that he might not have been up to it at that stage because he might not have been fit enough. He thought that if he went in and got a try but wasn’t properly fit that maybe that would have been his international career gone in a couple of light seconds. Now, he’s had a pre-season and I think that he feels as if he is physically up to it.
“I’ve spoken to Scott and I don’t think he’d mind me saying that he can improve definitely in terms of hold-up play but inside the box I think he knows where the goal is. Some players do come alive in the box and I think he has that. That’s encouraging again. Like everything else you need a bit of service but he can improve his overall game and I think he feels that himself.”
On the controversy which often attends the intentions and ambitions of players with dual eligibility, the manager observed: “I understand that if you were born somewhere, this is where you might want to play first. He would not have been the first player who would have thought about England first of all and actually ended up doing well for Ireland.
“But funnily enough, that did not come into the conversation, believe it or not, between myself and him. What I am trying to say is that I would not have been surprised if that was the case. But, honestly, that did not enter the conversation.
“And I thought that there was little point in bringing it up because he was the one who wanted to come to us.
“I don’t mean to pre-empt, but my immediate thought is that you (the media) are thinking ‘are we picking up boys who are not good enough for England?’ Well, it has happened before but I want the players to have a genuine enthusiasm for playing for the Republic of Ireland because I don’t want to lose that.
“There’s a group of lads here who love playing for us, whose careers have been enhanced in the last couple of years by playing for us and who enjoy feeling that sense of camaraderie.
“I don’t want players just stepping in and feeling ‘well, I can get a couple of international caps and boost my club form’. That’s not what we have at this minute, I don’t think. I cannot read everybody and don’t know exactly what they are thinking but if there is a genuine willingness about wanting to come in here and try to do something for us and he meets the criteria, then I will go for it.”
Darren Randolph (Middlesbrough), Keiren Westwood (Sheffield Wednesday), Rob Elliot (Newcastle United), Colin Doyle (Bradford City).
Cyrus Christie (Middlesbrough), Richard Keogh, Alex Pearce (Derby County), Paul McShane (Reading), Shane Duffy (Brighton), Ciaran Clark (Newcastle United), John O’Shea (Sunderland), John Egan (Brentford), Greg Cunningham (Preston), Kevin Long, Stephen Ward (both Burnley), Matt Doherty (Wolves).
Aiden McGeady (Sunderland), James McClean (West Brom), Glenn Whelan, Conor Hourihane (both Aston Villa), Jeff Hendrick, Robbie Brady (Burnley), James McCarthy (Everton), Stephen Quinn, Liam Kelly (Reading), David Meyler (Hull City), Harry Arter (Bournemouth), Eunan O’Kane (Leeds United), Wes Hoolahan (Norwich City), Jonathan Hayes (Celtic), Callum O’Dowda (Bristol City), Alan Browne, Daryl Horgan (Preston).
Jonathan Walters (Burnley), Shane Long (Southampton), Daryl Murphy (Nottingham Forest), David McGoldrick (Ipswich Town), Kevin Doyle (Colorado Rapids), Sean Maguire (Preston).
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