Clark at a loss to explain why Rice is holding back

By John Fallon

Ciarán Clark admits the decision by his Ireland teammate Declan Rice to stall his international career came as a major shock.

The Newcastle United defender played alongside the 19-year-old on his debut against Turkey in March and didn’t foresee the latest development arising whereby he’s pondering a switch to England.

Clark underwent an international dilemma of his own in 2010, eventually leaving his homeland of England behind to join the Irish ranks.

The Londoner had represented England through the ranks to U20 level before defecting to Ireland through his Donegal-born father.

“This came out of the blue,” he said of Rice’s dithering. “I didn’t even see it coming in May when Declan was last in the squad.

He’s still a young lad and has got some things that need to be sorted. My case was pretty straight-forward; there wasn’t anything else to it.

“Richard Dunne, my teammate at Aston Villa back then, had a big part to play and we managed to get it done really quickly.

“I’ve not spoken to him but Declan knows what the set-up is like here, he’s played brilliantly in the few games over the past six months, and it’s up to him now.

“That’s off-field stuff which the players here can’t afford to think about.”

Ireland begin a new era on Thursday when Wales provide the opposition in the Nations League opener and the team will be much changed from the last campaign.

Central-defence, however, is a department which survived much of the overhaul during the 10 months since Denmark ended Ireland’s World Cup ambitions at the play-off stage.

Shane Duffy and Clark had been one of the combinations but Kevin Long slotted in for his competitive debut against Austria 15 months ago while Richard Keogh and John Egan have their own ambitions of splitting Martin O’Neill’s favoured pairing.

Clark is well known to the Derryman, having been handed his Premier League debut by him at Aston Villa and knows what the manager wants from his charges.

“The defence played a good few games together so there should be plenty of experience between everyone,” Clark said of the defensive unit that usually features Seamus Coleman and Stephen Ward as the full-backs.

It’s not easy for lads coming over here thinking that they are going to get a spot in the team.

“With our manager, you won’t get in the team if you don’t train hard and prepare right.”

Wales are familiar opposition to Ireland, this game being the third between them in the past 18 months, and Clark feels the familiarity should help, even if Harry Arter has made himself available for the rematch.

“We beat Wales 1-0 in October and this will be another tough game. We would love for Harry to be here but he’s not, maybe it’s for personal reasons. I wasn’t in the camp when the row happened as I was injured.”