WEST BROM’S TRAINING session is winding down but there is still time for mischief.
BBC’s Football Focus has come to visit, and winger Jed Wallace is summoned in front of the cameras for an interview near the corner flag.
Jayson Molumby’s eyes light up. He senses his moment.
He makes a dash towards some balls near the halfway line, gets one under control and swivels back in the direction of his target.
Molumby drills a 60-yard effort at the back of his teammate’s head.
He misses.
The ball flashes over the pitch side barrier and into bushes filled with thorns.
“That’s why I have these f***ing scratches on the back of my legs, getting all the balls out of there,” the club’s long-serving kitman, Dubliner Jacko Smyth, jokes.
It’s probably one of the only things Molumby has got wrong in the last three months.
Not ideal for a centre midfielder to miss a target from 20 yards, The42 teases.
“What!? Twenty yards! Twenty yards?! More like 80,” Molumby insists.
All of a sudden, the Premier League dream is very much alive again for West Brom.
Steve Bruce’s departure and Carlos Corberan’s arrival as head coach at the end of October has been the catalyst for a dramatic upturn in fortunes.
After the Spaniard’s first game in charge, a 2-0 home defeat to Sheffield United, the Baggies were bottom of the Championship.
A mutinous air in the stands was matched only by deflation around the training ground.
Then came the surge.
Three wins from three in November was followed by a chance to regroup further during the World Cup break.
Four wins out of five in December then illustrated that this new-manager bounce would not be burst by a 93rd-minute defeat to near neighbours Coventry City.
Another win at the start of this month means West Brom could end the weekend in fourth position should they win away to Luton Town this afternoon and other results go their way.
“If football was like this all the time we would be fucking laughing. But it’s not,” Dara O’Shea laughs.
Regardless, they have momentum and at the heart of the revival are these two Ireland internationals. Molumby made a loan move from Brighton permanent when he signed for £900,000 in May, and has become part of the beating heart in midfield.
O’Shea, who has been at the club seven years since joining from St Kevin’s Boys, is now captain and a figure of security and consistency in defence.
You only have to look at the replies to the tweet below from the club to get a sense of the affection.
They are two 23-year-olds who are at very different stages of their life, are contrasting characters off the pitch, but share a bond that has only grown stronger as they navigate the pitfalls of professional football together.
But right now, with training finished and O’Shea already having carried out some media duties in his role as skipper, Molumby is nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Molumby?” O’Shea asks, like a man who wonders it at least once a day, before almost instantly answering his own question.
“Playing pool.”
He leads The42 back through reception and down a corridor leading to the first-team dressing room. He knocks a couple of times on the door opposite before entering. First-team coach James Morrison and some other members of staff are in there instead.
“Have any of you seen Molumby?” O’Shea asks.
Nobody knows.
“Molumby!” O’Shea shouts down the corridor in mock exasperation.
Turns out he’s back where he was supposed to be in the first place, in a small interview room across from the canteen.
“He thinks he’s a shark at pool,” O’Shea says. “He’s always in there.”
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“Just a natural talent,” Molumby replies. “Nobody beats me around here.”
This is a challenge The42 willingly accepts but before we return to the game’s room to settle that, it’s time to talk.
…
Molumby lived with O’Shea and his partner Louise for six weeks during his initial loan period last season.
The arrival of the couple’s first child six months ago was just one of the reasons he had to find new digs.
Jayson Molumby: I have offered to babysit but I don’t think he’d trust me.
Dara O’Shea: Ah, I would in fairness but my missus doesn’t! Living with us was enough.
Jayson: They took me in. I didn’t want to move out. I was treated like royalty in there and had the best of everything. I was replaced. It was like living with my Mam. Meals cooked for me and everything.
Dara: He’s the puppy. He’s just lost. He doesn’t know what to be doing, but if he sees something that excites him he’s like ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go do that’.
Jayson: It’s the same with a ball. If I see a ball I just have to go after it. Dos (Dara) is the wise man. He’s the mature head in all this.
O'Shea suffers the fractured ankle which ruled him out for six months in September 2021. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
David Sneyd: So he’s the sensible one and you’re the spacer in the relationship?
Dara: Yes, yes! You have got that spot on.
Jayson: I’m not even going to argue with that. I can’t. I’m sound off the pitch, though. I think.
Dara: Ah, you’re lovely off it.
Jayson: I’m just a prick on the pitch, I don’t know what it is. I’d go to war with myself on the pitch. I’d be fighting myself.
Dara: He’s a winner, he wants to win. He leads by actions on the pitch and gets everyone around him going.
This prompts a flashback to Molumby’s childhood in Waterford, when his mother Claire would bring him to training and matches, and ensure the middle of her four children – he has two brothers and a sister – was on his best behaviour.
Jayson: I have to admit, I was a little shite when I was younger. I still am like. Getting in fights on the pitch. Being a bit mad. My Mam would literally stand on the sideline and tell me should would drag me off if I was cursing or getting into fights. She was tough on me but I needed that, I needed that discipline. But I need something to get me going.
Dara: It’s funny, the gaffer here now has picked up on it and points it out but after every goal we score just watch how he celebrates. You’d swear he scored it himself.
Jayson: It’s like we’ve scored in the World Cup final.
Dara: But that’s you, I love that. He’s a fucking mad man but all he wants is to do it for the team. It’s not about him.
O'Shea (right) and Molumby (left) celebrate a goal for Ireland against Scotland. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
The two 23-year-olds have experienced enough in the game already to feel like veterans, yet there is enough still ahead of them not to feel worn down and beleaguered.
Molumby could have joined West Brom alongside O’Shea as a teenager when he was offered a contract along with the Dubliner after a trial.
Instead, he moved to Brighton where a strong cohort of young Irish talent was emerging – Aaron Connolly, Danny Mandroiu and current Waterford hurler Dessie Hutchinson just a few of the bunch.
First team appearances in the League Cup came under Chris Hughton in 2017, before he missed the entire 2018/19 campaign with knee injuries.
O’Shea, too, has had to overcome a devastating fractured ankle. He suffered it while on senior duty with Ireland away to Portugal in a World Cup qualifier in September 2021. He may have been a more established first-team player, having made 28 Premier League appearances during the 2020/21 campaign when they suffered relegation, but the time out still brought doubts and insecurities to the fore.
Dara: Players of all ages are coming in or coming through. You can’t ignore that. These are the variables in football. When you are out there will be others coming through, younger ones who get the opportunity ahead of you. That is how you think.
When you move over initially and you get that first contract, signing for a West Brom or a Brighton, you think ‘I’ve made it here.’ But you quickly realise that no, it means fuck all. You see lads going home all the time.
There were Irish lads ahead of me here and I would see them go home, none of them got offered a second deal. I’m looking at them, saying goodbye, thinking ‘fuck, I don’t want to go home, I’m not going home’. I didn’t want the questions being asked: ah, why are you back? Why are you home? Why did you do this that and the other?
O'Shea has developed into a captain since Slaven Bilic handed him a first-team debut in 2019. PA
PA
Jayson: That’s it. It’s like the fear of people, I don’t know about you Dos but I had the fear of people looking me back home going ‘ah, he was never good enough, he was never good enough player to make it’. When I was injured I was like ‘I’m not going to let any of them sour heads say anything bad about me’. There are people that want you to fail. I wanted to work as hard as I could to eliminate that fear. I used to get caught up with criticism. If John from down the local boozer was telling me I was shit at football, or on Twitter, I don’t give a fuck what any of these fellas think now. I’ll take it from my manager and my teammates, but not from anyone else.
Dara: The players who do well are the players who realise sooner rather than later when they move over what it takes to stay. Some move and they’re excellent players and I feel like they think ‘well, I’m playing for a big club, I’ve got a three or four-year deal, that’s fine, I can chill, I can have a good time, do a bit of training and then go off and do whatever’. But the sooner you realise you might only be guaranteed those few years, after that you could be back home doing whatever. It’s down to our mentality too, we were definitely not the best players with Ireland when we were younger, were we?
Jayson: Absolutely no chance.
…
Getting to this stage in their careers means they have already beaten the odds, and there are still plenty more rolls of the dice to come.
Molumby slightly edges O’Shea in the senior Ireland caps stake – 17 to 16 – but the latter has had a taste of Premier League football (albeit played behind closed doors due to Covid) and is keen to return.
He remembers the impression former captain Chris Brunt made on him as a teenager, while Molumby highlights the mentality of former West Brom midfielder Robert Snodgrass and current teammate Erik Pieters.
Dara: I would walk past their training pitch every day when I was younger and just watch certain players. You wouldn’t have to speak to them all the time to understand, it’s about actions, how you behave, how you carry yourself and treat people. There is a sense of pride to be where we are because it’s not easy to get here in your career, but it’s one thing being here, the hardest bit is to stay here. My aim is to get back to the Premier League, and there is no let off period to do what you can to make it. You are constantly checking your shoulder. If you’re not, you’re comfortable and that’s dangerous. You always have to be pushing on. We are both ambitious players.
Jayson: You don’t get any time to pat yourself on the back for doing well. There is no point. It’s a constant battle to keep going.
Dara: It’s just about trying to stay on the horse. You’ve got to stay on it and find that way to keep going forward.
Jayson: I’m sure Dos will agree but since the new manager has come in, you have to be at it. There is no hiding. In training, matches, you have to be performing. The work he does, it’s to make you better. If you can’t take criticism and won’t respond well you won’t play. If you take it the wrong way you will fall behind and could fall away.
Dara: Football waits for nobody. It’s a short career. Everyone says it but it’s so true. I’m already at the club seven years. It’s mad. So if we have to work our balls off for a few years, so be it. You do what you have to do to play, there is no point crying about it. If the manager wants you to do something, you do it. Otherwise you won’t play. It’s simple.
…
Even with their Championship season resuscitated and the Premier League a possibility, Ireland duty is never far from their minds.
There will be 12 league games between now and the 27 March clash with France in Dublin to begin the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.
O’Shea has already helped out one member of the club’s media team with tickets as a birthday treat for his father.
Molumby jumps on Michael Obafemi after the striker's goal against Scotland last year. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
Like Molumby, he progressed to the senior ranks from U-21s under the guidance of Stephen Kenny. There is, naturally, a sense of loyalty borne from that bond but it is not one which remains blind to the realities of external pressure.
Dara: Getting results are what we are working towards. France is a tough game but why can’t we get something? We have that belief. It’s results-based. We know that. When the results are not going our way we can only keep saying we have young players for so long. But the transtition and dynamic of the group from three years ago to now is crazy. It’s something to be positive for.
We have embedded young players into the set up who maybe wouldn’t have got a chance under a different manager and we can all see the work and progress that is being made.
Jayson: Stephen is the man who has given us the opportunity to play for our country and we respect him for what he has done for us but we also respect him for what he is trying to do for Irish football. We can see the hard work, we are part of it. Once us as players can see a manager genuinely working that hard to benefit us, and that group of staff too, every single player in the dressing room would respect him.
Criticism goes hand in hand with the expectation to succeed, an element both understand. For their club it has been mostly condensed to the bubble they inhabit around West Brom. For their international teammate Gavin Bazunu it has been far more intense as he navigates his first Premier League campaign with Southampton.
Dara: That’s the aim [to get there] and pressure that comes with it. For Gavin, he has only been going one way all the time, and that’s up. At the end of the day there will be people who are not happy but once you understand that, and you know where you want to be and what you have to do to stay there, that’s most important. Gavin will know that.
Jayson: Southampton are going through a tough time. Gavin is 20 and playing in the Premier League. He will go through these things to make him stronger and I have no doubt he will… Every goalkeeper for Ireland now is compared to either Shay Given or Packie Bonner. If you’re a centre back it’s Richard Dunne or Paul McGrath. Midfielders will get Roy Keane. It’s Robbie Keane for strikers. These have been unbelievable players for Ireland. They’re the top of the top who played, that’s just how it is and what people go to for comparisons. That’s the standard and level that you’re up against.”
Stephen Kenny (left) with Molumby. Tommy Dickson / INPHO
Tommy Dickson / INPHO / INPHO
Speaking of which, the pool table is now calling.
Molumby, the lost puppy, leads the way excitedly.
The table – which the entire first-team squad chipped in to buy, and Molumby jokes was really a present for him – is occupied by two of the kit men, so he waits his turn on the weathered, two-seater couch beneath a canvas picture of Muhammad Ali. There is one of Mike Tyson on the wall opposite, with discarded Connect Four sets covered by an unnamed player’s freshly-washed and folded clothes.
Molumby breaks and pots a yellow, followed by two more.
The42 responds with a couple of reds before some sloppy play on both sides eventually leaves three colours each.
An impressive pot from Molumby with the cue ball nipped to the cushion is bettered only by his tracking to leave the game at his mercy.
Attempts to get in his head are in vain. “Easy finish from here, that’s it now.”
He may have missed the target aiming for Jed Wallace earlier in the day but here he makes no mistake, clearing up and leaving The42 with three reds on the table.
It’s a comprehensive victory.
Molumby briefly raises the cue above his head in celebration, but he is magnanimous.
“We won’t hear the end of this now,” O’Shea sighs.
They could both be in the Premier League by the time of the re-match.
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Ireland’s Odd Couple: An afternoon with Dara O’Shea and Jayson Molumby
WEST BROM’S TRAINING session is winding down but there is still time for mischief.
BBC’s Football Focus has come to visit, and winger Jed Wallace is summoned in front of the cameras for an interview near the corner flag.
Jayson Molumby’s eyes light up. He senses his moment.
He makes a dash towards some balls near the halfway line, gets one under control and swivels back in the direction of his target.
Molumby drills a 60-yard effort at the back of his teammate’s head.
He misses.
The ball flashes over the pitch side barrier and into bushes filled with thorns.
“That’s why I have these f***ing scratches on the back of my legs, getting all the balls out of there,” the club’s long-serving kitman, Dubliner Jacko Smyth, jokes.
It’s probably one of the only things Molumby has got wrong in the last three months.
Not ideal for a centre midfielder to miss a target from 20 yards, The42 teases.
“What!? Twenty yards! Twenty yards?! More like 80,” Molumby insists.
All of a sudden, the Premier League dream is very much alive again for West Brom.
Steve Bruce’s departure and Carlos Corberan’s arrival as head coach at the end of October has been the catalyst for a dramatic upturn in fortunes.
After the Spaniard’s first game in charge, a 2-0 home defeat to Sheffield United, the Baggies were bottom of the Championship.
A mutinous air in the stands was matched only by deflation around the training ground.
Then came the surge.
Three wins from three in November was followed by a chance to regroup further during the World Cup break.
Four wins out of five in December then illustrated that this new-manager bounce would not be burst by a 93rd-minute defeat to near neighbours Coventry City.
Another win at the start of this month means West Brom could end the weekend in fourth position should they win away to Luton Town this afternoon and other results go their way.
“If football was like this all the time we would be fucking laughing. But it’s not,” Dara O’Shea laughs.
Regardless, they have momentum and at the heart of the revival are these two Ireland internationals. Molumby made a loan move from Brighton permanent when he signed for £900,000 in May, and has become part of the beating heart in midfield.
O’Shea, who has been at the club seven years since joining from St Kevin’s Boys, is now captain and a figure of security and consistency in defence.
You only have to look at the replies to the tweet below from the club to get a sense of the affection.
They are two 23-year-olds who are at very different stages of their life, are contrasting characters off the pitch, but share a bond that has only grown stronger as they navigate the pitfalls of professional football together.
But right now, with training finished and O’Shea already having carried out some media duties in his role as skipper, Molumby is nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Molumby?” O’Shea asks, like a man who wonders it at least once a day, before almost instantly answering his own question.
“Playing pool.”
He leads The42 back through reception and down a corridor leading to the first-team dressing room. He knocks a couple of times on the door opposite before entering. First-team coach James Morrison and some other members of staff are in there instead.
“Have any of you seen Molumby?” O’Shea asks.
Nobody knows.
“Molumby!” O’Shea shouts down the corridor in mock exasperation.
Turns out he’s back where he was supposed to be in the first place, in a small interview room across from the canteen.
“He thinks he’s a shark at pool,” O’Shea says. “He’s always in there.”
“Just a natural talent,” Molumby replies. “Nobody beats me around here.”
This is a challenge The42 willingly accepts but before we return to the game’s room to settle that, it’s time to talk.
…
Molumby lived with O’Shea and his partner Louise for six weeks during his initial loan period last season.
The arrival of the couple’s first child six months ago was just one of the reasons he had to find new digs.
Jayson Molumby: I have offered to babysit but I don’t think he’d trust me.
Dara O’Shea: Ah, I would in fairness but my missus doesn’t! Living with us was enough.
Jayson: They took me in. I didn’t want to move out. I was treated like royalty in there and had the best of everything. I was replaced. It was like living with my Mam. Meals cooked for me and everything.
Dara: He’s the puppy. He’s just lost. He doesn’t know what to be doing, but if he sees something that excites him he’s like ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s go do that’.
Jayson: It’s the same with a ball. If I see a ball I just have to go after it. Dos (Dara) is the wise man. He’s the mature head in all this.
David Sneyd: So he’s the sensible one and you’re the spacer in the relationship?
Dara: Yes, yes! You have got that spot on.
Jayson: I’m not even going to argue with that. I can’t. I’m sound off the pitch, though. I think.
Dara: Ah, you’re lovely off it.
Jayson: I’m just a prick on the pitch, I don’t know what it is. I’d go to war with myself on the pitch. I’d be fighting myself.
Dara: He’s a winner, he wants to win. He leads by actions on the pitch and gets everyone around him going.
This prompts a flashback to Molumby’s childhood in Waterford, when his mother Claire would bring him to training and matches, and ensure the middle of her four children – he has two brothers and a sister – was on his best behaviour.
Jayson: I have to admit, I was a little shite when I was younger. I still am like. Getting in fights on the pitch. Being a bit mad. My Mam would literally stand on the sideline and tell me should would drag me off if I was cursing or getting into fights. She was tough on me but I needed that, I needed that discipline. But I need something to get me going.
Dara: It’s funny, the gaffer here now has picked up on it and points it out but after every goal we score just watch how he celebrates. You’d swear he scored it himself.
Jayson: It’s like we’ve scored in the World Cup final.
Dara: But that’s you, I love that. He’s a fucking mad man but all he wants is to do it for the team. It’s not about him.
The two 23-year-olds have experienced enough in the game already to feel like veterans, yet there is enough still ahead of them not to feel worn down and beleaguered.
Molumby could have joined West Brom alongside O’Shea as a teenager when he was offered a contract along with the Dubliner after a trial.
Instead, he moved to Brighton where a strong cohort of young Irish talent was emerging – Aaron Connolly, Danny Mandroiu and current Waterford hurler Dessie Hutchinson just a few of the bunch.
First team appearances in the League Cup came under Chris Hughton in 2017, before he missed the entire 2018/19 campaign with knee injuries.
The former Ireland U-19 and U-21 captain was out for just shy of 18 months in total and has expressed his sense of hopelessness at that period previously.
O’Shea, too, has had to overcome a devastating fractured ankle. He suffered it while on senior duty with Ireland away to Portugal in a World Cup qualifier in September 2021. He may have been a more established first-team player, having made 28 Premier League appearances during the 2020/21 campaign when they suffered relegation, but the time out still brought doubts and insecurities to the fore.
Dara: Players of all ages are coming in or coming through. You can’t ignore that. These are the variables in football. When you are out there will be others coming through, younger ones who get the opportunity ahead of you. That is how you think.
When you move over initially and you get that first contract, signing for a West Brom or a Brighton, you think ‘I’ve made it here.’ But you quickly realise that no, it means fuck all. You see lads going home all the time.
There were Irish lads ahead of me here and I would see them go home, none of them got offered a second deal. I’m looking at them, saying goodbye, thinking ‘fuck, I don’t want to go home, I’m not going home’. I didn’t want the questions being asked: ah, why are you back? Why are you home? Why did you do this that and the other?
Jayson: That’s it. It’s like the fear of people, I don’t know about you Dos but I had the fear of people looking me back home going ‘ah, he was never good enough, he was never good enough player to make it’. When I was injured I was like ‘I’m not going to let any of them sour heads say anything bad about me’. There are people that want you to fail. I wanted to work as hard as I could to eliminate that fear. I used to get caught up with criticism. If John from down the local boozer was telling me I was shit at football, or on Twitter, I don’t give a fuck what any of these fellas think now. I’ll take it from my manager and my teammates, but not from anyone else.
Dara: The players who do well are the players who realise sooner rather than later when they move over what it takes to stay. Some move and they’re excellent players and I feel like they think ‘well, I’m playing for a big club, I’ve got a three or four-year deal, that’s fine, I can chill, I can have a good time, do a bit of training and then go off and do whatever’. But the sooner you realise you might only be guaranteed those few years, after that you could be back home doing whatever. It’s down to our mentality too, we were definitely not the best players with Ireland when we were younger, were we?
Jayson: Absolutely no chance.
…
Getting to this stage in their careers means they have already beaten the odds, and there are still plenty more rolls of the dice to come.
Molumby slightly edges O’Shea in the senior Ireland caps stake – 17 to 16 – but the latter has had a taste of Premier League football (albeit played behind closed doors due to Covid) and is keen to return.
He remembers the impression former captain Chris Brunt made on him as a teenager, while Molumby highlights the mentality of former West Brom midfielder Robert Snodgrass and current teammate Erik Pieters.
Dara: I would walk past their training pitch every day when I was younger and just watch certain players. You wouldn’t have to speak to them all the time to understand, it’s about actions, how you behave, how you carry yourself and treat people. There is a sense of pride to be where we are because it’s not easy to get here in your career, but it’s one thing being here, the hardest bit is to stay here. My aim is to get back to the Premier League, and there is no let off period to do what you can to make it. You are constantly checking your shoulder. If you’re not, you’re comfortable and that’s dangerous. You always have to be pushing on. We are both ambitious players.
Jayson: You don’t get any time to pat yourself on the back for doing well. There is no point. It’s a constant battle to keep going.
Dara: It’s just about trying to stay on the horse. You’ve got to stay on it and find that way to keep going forward.
Jayson: I’m sure Dos will agree but since the new manager has come in, you have to be at it. There is no hiding. In training, matches, you have to be performing. The work he does, it’s to make you better. If you can’t take criticism and won’t respond well you won’t play. If you take it the wrong way you will fall behind and could fall away.
Dara: Football waits for nobody. It’s a short career. Everyone says it but it’s so true. I’m already at the club seven years. It’s mad. So if we have to work our balls off for a few years, so be it. You do what you have to do to play, there is no point crying about it. If the manager wants you to do something, you do it. Otherwise you won’t play. It’s simple.
…
Even with their Championship season resuscitated and the Premier League a possibility, Ireland duty is never far from their minds.
There will be 12 league games between now and the 27 March clash with France in Dublin to begin the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.
O’Shea has already helped out one member of the club’s media team with tickets as a birthday treat for his father.
Like Molumby, he progressed to the senior ranks from U-21s under the guidance of Stephen Kenny. There is, naturally, a sense of loyalty borne from that bond but it is not one which remains blind to the realities of external pressure.
Dara: Getting results are what we are working towards. France is a tough game but why can’t we get something? We have that belief. It’s results-based. We know that. When the results are not going our way we can only keep saying we have young players for so long. But the transtition and dynamic of the group from three years ago to now is crazy. It’s something to be positive for.
We have embedded young players into the set up who maybe wouldn’t have got a chance under a different manager and we can all see the work and progress that is being made.
Jayson: Stephen is the man who has given us the opportunity to play for our country and we respect him for what he has done for us but we also respect him for what he is trying to do for Irish football. We can see the hard work, we are part of it. Once us as players can see a manager genuinely working that hard to benefit us, and that group of staff too, every single player in the dressing room would respect him.
Criticism goes hand in hand with the expectation to succeed, an element both understand. For their club it has been mostly condensed to the bubble they inhabit around West Brom. For their international teammate Gavin Bazunu it has been far more intense as he navigates his first Premier League campaign with Southampton.
Dara: That’s the aim [to get there] and pressure that comes with it. For Gavin, he has only been going one way all the time, and that’s up. At the end of the day there will be people who are not happy but once you understand that, and you know where you want to be and what you have to do to stay there, that’s most important. Gavin will know that.
Jayson: Southampton are going through a tough time. Gavin is 20 and playing in the Premier League. He will go through these things to make him stronger and I have no doubt he will… Every goalkeeper for Ireland now is compared to either Shay Given or Packie Bonner. If you’re a centre back it’s Richard Dunne or Paul McGrath. Midfielders will get Roy Keane. It’s Robbie Keane for strikers. These have been unbelievable players for Ireland. They’re the top of the top who played, that’s just how it is and what people go to for comparisons. That’s the standard and level that you’re up against.”
Speaking of which, the pool table is now calling.
Molumby, the lost puppy, leads the way excitedly.
The table – which the entire first-team squad chipped in to buy, and Molumby jokes was really a present for him – is occupied by two of the kit men, so he waits his turn on the weathered, two-seater couch beneath a canvas picture of Muhammad Ali. There is one of Mike Tyson on the wall opposite, with discarded Connect Four sets covered by an unnamed player’s freshly-washed and folded clothes.
Molumby breaks and pots a yellow, followed by two more.
The42 responds with a couple of reds before some sloppy play on both sides eventually leaves three colours each.
An impressive pot from Molumby with the cue ball nipped to the cushion is bettered only by his tracking to leave the game at his mercy.
Attempts to get in his head are in vain. “Easy finish from here, that’s it now.”
He may have missed the target aiming for Jed Wallace earlier in the day but here he makes no mistake, clearing up and leaving The42 with three reds on the table.
It’s a comprehensive victory.
Molumby briefly raises the cue above his head in celebration, but he is magnanimous.
“We won’t hear the end of this now,” O’Shea sighs.
They could both be in the Premier League by the time of the re-match.
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Bond dara o'shea EFL Championship Jayson Molumby Republic of Ireland West Bromwich Albion