Delaney: ‘I’d just run. Leave it all out there. Have a fight and need to be dragged off. They respected that’

Damien Delaney's football journey has taken him from Cork to the Premier League and back to Cork again. And along the way, he's encountered remarkable characters and learned valuable lessons that shaped his professional career.

Back when Damien Delaney would be away with the Irish squad – although maybe not as often as you or he would have liked – on the kind of road trip Mick McCarthy’s men are right in the thick of now, it would test his resolve and staying power, he’ll admit.