Richard Keogh gets back to basics for Ireland’s cause

By Liam Mackey

Prior to donning the captain’s armband for Saturday’s game against Denmark, Richard Keogh’s last competitive appearance for Ireland had been in the 0-0 World Cup qualifying draw with Wales in Dublin in March, 2017.

But the Derby County centre-half insists he never gave up hope of a recall for the games that really matter.

“No, not at all,” he said. “The reality is we have got some good players in my position who are playing in the Premier League. Not that I’m not playing at a high level myself, but the manager has been fantastic for me ever since he has been in charge. He has given me some of the best memories of my career, so I have to thank him a lot for that.

“But there are times when you have to be patient. That’s just the nature of football. It doesn’t mean that you don’t train well and put yourself in a position for the manager to put you forward. I’ve never felt that way, it’s always been a fantastic honour to play for my country.

Every time I’ve been called up to the squad, it’s about the country doing well and supporting your teammate. But I’m always confident in my ability. I know if I’m playing well, the manager’s got the trust in me to play me.

The 32-year-old said that he relishes playing in a back three.

“I really enjoy the system. I spoke to the manager about it before and I’m quite comfortable going out to the right-back area and defending one v one. I’ve done that throughout my career. Our strength as a back three is defending the box but I’d like to think that on the ball we can offer something as well and give it to the more creative players. We are still possibly learning the system, to get it to exactly how we want, but with the last two performances we have shown that we are moving in the right direction.

When we go out there, it’s up to us to put in a performance and try to play to the best of our ability.

"A big strength of ours is that togetherness as a group. It comes to the fore when we need it. And I think we need to make sure that we have that again against Wales and play attacking football and hopefully get a positive result. We are at home, we want to get the crowd going, get the atmosphere going. To do that you run hard, you tackle, you do the basics well. And if you do the basics well, a lot of the time the other things come with it.”