SATURDAY WAS ANOTHER big day for Anne and Alan Kilkenny.

It was one filled with mixed emotions.

The weather was decent on Dublin’s north side to begin with, so they sat out their back garden and watched on a big screen as eldest son Gavin made his second successive Championship start for Bournemouth under Scott Parker.

Alongside the family was the player’s long-time agent and advisor Dave Berber, who has helped guide Kilkenny’s career from his days at St Kevin’s Boys.

Starring in a new deep-lying role in front of the back four, the 21-year-old built on his impressive opening night display at home to West Brom with another accomplished performance.

As well as his technical capabilities, he showed grit to match as the Cherries hung on for three points away to Nottingham Forest after playing the last 30 minutes with 10 men.

From there, it was the short jaunt to Croke Park for the Dublin-mad family. While Gavin was unable to travel home for the All-Ireland SFC semi-final defeat to Mayo, Anne, Alan and youngest son Ronan – Dundalk’s Under-19 captain – took their usual seats at GAA headquarters.

Kilkenny in action for Ireland's Under-21s against Wales earlier this year. PA PA

While the rain poured over Croker and the Dubs’ domination was brought to an end, there is a hope now that a new force is beginning to emerge with Kilkenny catching the eye with his mixture of tenacity and technical class.

Early days, of course, but having signed a long-term contract under former manager Eddie Howe in December 2019 and getting drafted into the Republic of Ireland Under-21 set up by current senior boss Stephen Kenny that same year, his ascension to first-team regular under Parker offers an opportunity to take the next step.

“We need players like Gavin,” Berber enthuses. “Sometimes young kids want too much too quickly and don’t believe in the process or the people around them. He’s not 6ft 2in or built like a battering ram, he’s a technical player and one of the most exciting I’ve seen for Ireland since Wes Hoolahan.

“Gavin can control the tempo of a game, he knows how to speed it up and get the team playing but can slow it down and settle people around him down too.

He is in a really, really good place right now and loves working with Scott Parker. He really believes and trusts in Gavin and he has a great opportunity now to show what he is really capable of.”

As a youngster with St Kevin’s Boys in the Dublin District Schoolboys’ League (DDSL) the diminutive playmaker – he started as a winger and No.10 before dropping deeper into midfield – was overlooked for underage international squads.

An injury around the Kennedy Cup for Under-14s also led to him missing a year of football at a time when Sunderland (then in the Premier League) and Everton were showing serious interest.

That cooled, other rising stars of his age group in the country like Glen McAuley signed for Liverpool, and Kilkenny eventually joined Bournemouth.

“Managers will always be attracted to a player like Gavin because he has a work ethic, doesn’t moan and gets on with his football, he’s been the same since he was a kid, and he’s become a man now,” former St Kevin’s academy director Alan Caffrey recalls.

“He comes from a great family, sensible and helpful. And I always had conversations with him when other lads were going away on trials or getting picked for squads that all he had to do was back his own talent and take the opportunity when it comes.

Bourn PA PA

“He’s like Dara O’Shea (another Kevin’s graduate and now a senior Ireland international at West Brom) in that his focus and attitude are perfect. Now he’s got the foot in the door it’s about letting his talent and attitude shine through.

“He comes alive on the pitch,” Caffrey continues. “Off it he is a sensible and quiet but on it he becomes a player with a fire inside him. He has that determination in him all the time.”

Kenny handed Kilkenny is Ireland Under-21 debut in late 2019 before his ascension to the senior job and he names his squad for next month’s World Cup qualifiers – a quick-fire triple header against Portugal, Azerbaijan and Serbia – next week.

Kilkenny will have another chance to impress away to Birmingham City this evening as well as on Saturday when they host Blackpool.

Whether he does enough to press his case remains to be seen but, for Berber, how Kilkenny has dealt with obstacles to get to this stage of his career leaves him in no doubt about what the future holds.

Gavin has never moaned once about what is happening or looked at how someone else is doing and wondered what’s happening to him. What happens with a lot of players, especially Irish youngsters, is that they come to England and have never experienced a setback. Everything has been rosy for them to get there and then it’s hard to deal with.

“Gavin has had his setbacks, people in life, until that setback comes you never know how they will handle it and it’s how you come out of it that is important. I’ve looked after so many [players] and it’s that side, being able to sustain a disciplined routine and dealing with full-time football, day in day out, that they can’t handle.

“There is no messing with Gavin. Everyone thinks of someone quiet as this timid kid, but that’s not him at all,” Berber continues.

“There have been so many lads that would have thrown toys out of pram, asking why they’re not playing, why their not starting. They’d start sulking, then the manager sees that and they’re fully out of a manager’s mind because of their attitude. But Gavin has never once done that. He is a dream to work with.”

Now we wait for what the reality will be for a career still very much in its infancy, and with even greater challenges to come.

- Originally published at 06.00