Eiran Cashin praises 'nice guy' Wayne Rooney for his advice during 'surreal' time

Derby County has proven to be a testing but productive training ground for Cashin. The club’s financial issues and resultant 12-point deduction made for interesting times

Tue, 20 Sep, 2022 - 23:00

Brendan O'Brien

Derby County has proven to be a testing but productive training ground for Eiran Cashin.

The club’s financial issues and resultant administration period and 12-point deduction made for interesting times, not least for a player whose debut was delayed by restrictions on the use of players that arose off the back of those off-the-field problems.

The flip side was the grounding he got in training and on the field of play under the care of former manager Wayne Rooney who played him almost 20 times in the Championship last term and helped establish him in the men’s game.

“It’s still surreal when I look back at it but, to be honest, he was a nice guy, a good coach. Obviously he is now on a different challenge and we’ve got our own challenge that we are looking at, but he is a great guy and the stuff he has done in football speaks for itself.”

Rooney has since moved on to the MLS for his latest coaching posting but the memories of the Manchester United legend’s ability on the ball in training remain. So do bits and pieces of advice he imparted to the younger lads during his time in the East Midlands.

Cashin has moved on too. Figuratively, not literally.

A new two-year contract was signed during the summer, his importance to the club embellished by the fact that he was handed the No.6 jersey, and he has so far played every one of the 900 minutes for Derby across their ten games to date this season.

If it is all too obvious to suggest that club football serves as a platform for international honours then Cashin’s education at a side coming to grips with League One football has been helped again by his part in the club’s Uefa Youth League campaign three seasons ago.

Derby qualified as English U18 kingpins and came through the domestic champions’ pathway by beating Minsk 9-2, IA of Iceland 6-2 and Borussia Dortmund 3-1, with all of those scores recorded after 180 minutes.

It’s the one time so far in his career that Cashin has experienced football over two legs but another opportunity arises in the coming days when the Republic of Ireland U21s face Israel in Tallaght and Tel Aviv with the winner qualifying for the 2023 European finals.

“I scored against Dortmund. Well, I say I scored. It was a bit of a goalline scramble and I put my hand up first, so I took that one. Yeah, we did alright. It was a good squad back then and we did well to win 9-2. Hopefully, we can do the same again, that'd be nice, to repeat that.”

Chances are he will have a major role to play.

Paperwork issues delayed his debut with the Ireland U21s but the Mansfield-born centre-back lined out alongside Mark McGuinness at the centre of Jim Crawford’s defence in the last two group games once he was available.

McGuinness is now out because of injury and that only heightens the responsibility on Cashin’s shoulders against a physical Israeli side and one that put it up to Germany in their group and made these playoffs ahead of Poland and Hungary.

“Yeah, of course he is a big loss. He’s a great player, a good lad as well and you know he has got a lot of quality that he brings to the team but we have got a good squad, good depth, so I am sure the lads that are coming in will be able to do a job.”