JOHN O’SHEA PRAISED the impact of debutant Paddy Madden after the Yeovil Town striker made his international bow against Wales last night, but admitted that Ireland missed the influence of record goalscorer Robbie Keane.
The Sunderland defender has been impressed with former Bohemian’s striker Madden and revealed that his eagerness in training since joining up with the squad for the first time had made everyone sit up and take notice.
“He’s been very good in training. He’s one of those players, everyone thinks it will be nice and easy-osey in training and next thing you have Paddy Madden in snapping at your heels. It’s great to see because that enthusiasm is always needed in a squad, because players will think ‘Ok, this fella is coming in to make an impact’.
“He was fantastic the first couple of days in training, everyone noticed it, you know I mean, he’s here to make an impact. He’s unfortunate tonight he could have came away the match winner on another night, so lots to look forward to. If he can start scoring goals for Yeovil, he’ll take the attention and keep a lot of strikers on their toes.”
The fact that Ireland missed a hat-ful of chances against the Welsh without Keane however wasn’t missed by captain for the night O’Shea.
“His record speaks for itself. You saw the few friendlies LA Galaxy were playing there (in pre-season) and his poaching skills, picking up some great goals….as long as Robbie is fully fit for us in a few of weeks that’s the important thing. The manager knows he’s got fantastic options as well and that will be the big thing for us; to keep everyone fully fit for the next few weeks is key because Sweden and Austria, while we are more than capable of winning those games, we’re under no illusions they are going to be very tough games as well.”
The Waterford native was disappointed that Ireland did not take victory in the low-key Cardiff friendly despite a continuation of their good recent run of results.
“We are a little bit disappointed. You come away to an international ground and you create so many chances as we did and you’re a little disappointed not to get the win. That’s a sign of where we’ve moved on. I think we’ve pushed on a bit, we’ve come away from home created so many chances…. obviously there was plenty of changes towards the latter stages of the game but we were able to keep the tempo up and create good chances. Another night we could have a 2-0, 3-0 win.”
With crunch qualifiers against Sweden and Austria on the horizon Ireland were given another reminder of the danger of Sweden’s talisman Zlatan Ibrahimovic as word filtered through of his three-goal haul during his country’s friendly with Norway. O’Shea joked that maybe that might be all the PSG star’s goals out of the way before he faces Ireland in September.
“Tony O’Donoghue (RTÉ correspondent) told me there. I said to him fingers crossed that’s his hat-trick out of the way now! Look we’re fully aware, I think it’s a timely reminder for everyone how talented a player he is and what we’ll have to do to keep an eye on him as well for the game coming up. Not also just him though, they’ve got some good attacking players, good threat, defensively.. we’re fully aware of it. We had a tough game over there and we drew 0-0 and people were buzzing about it but look we know we have a tough game coming.
“It’s one of those things, people say if we take four points it’d be great, six points…. look we’ll wait and see. We’ll take the first game against Sweden and if we can get a positive result from that game we’ll know what we have to do against Austria as well. One game at a time, it’s a home game, no matter what team you’re playing against we have to be confident of winning it and move on from there,” he added.
Audio courtesy of 98fm
I was thinking the same yesterday. Can you imagine a player like Aidan O’Shea was left on the bench for a whole game. There would be a mutiny the day after their championship campaign ended.
@Ned Flanders: cheap shot. O’Shea showed he is the ultimate team player by switching to a totally new position over the last 2 games to help the team get over the line. I guess haters are always gonna hate though
@Pepper Brooks: ultimate team player? That particular tactic nearly blew up in mayos face. In the replay he was soloing around his 21 half way through second half and trying 40 yard outside of boot passes that ran out over the line. If kerry hadnt panicked and had taken points earlier rather than going for goals when 7 down it could have been a very different
@Pepper Brooks: O’Shea wouldn’t make the Dublin bench.
Juniors maybe
@johnnyA the game is also about opinions,for you it’s bitter and twisted against Dublin,while us Dublin fan’s are enjoying every minute of this great Team,so happy days for us Ha Ha ha
@alan dodrill: *fans
It’s a great achievement to show humility when you’re strolling through the championship. Fair play to the Dublin/AIG players for being such good winners. If Gavin exerts such control he must endorse or at least turn a blind eye to the playacting. Cooper at it again yesterday. McCarthy and McCaffrey at it the last day – good footballers but while their fans have brought the worst aspects of UK terrace culture to Gaelic Games the players have brought Neymar type playacting into our national sport. Great lads all the same.
@Johnny A: Why not just enjoy the football instead of always having a bitch , life is too short
@Tony Talbot: the football championship used to mean something. Now it’s completely hollow. Very few meaningful contests – certainly none when Dublin/AIG are involved. Instead of mitigating their natural advantages – population, money, home advantage – the GAA have bolstered these and set them in stone. Teams like Tyrone and Monaghan now come up to Croker with ridiculous defensive systems just to keep the score down. The GAA have to look at the population and reconsider a split – for example Dublin North/AIG & Dublin South/HSBC. There should be an equalisation process with the corporate loot – they should be allowed keep 20-30% with the rest being redistributed. And they should be kept out of Croker a lot more – why not make them play an away semi final for example. I’ll enjoy it then.
@Johnny A: have to hand it to you mate you have bitterness to a new level. Short memories like most non dubs. This golden era has more to do wirh jim gavin than anything else.Maybe he should only be allowed manage smaller counties?
@Johnny A: explain 1995 – 2011??
If you split Dublin now you’d risk an all Dublin All Ireland final and that would be worse! Did you see the bench. Dublin A Vs Dublin B would be some game!
Other counties need to stop making excuses… Kerry has the same population as Wicklow as is the most successful football county by far
Also, let’s split Kilkenny into North & South and actually while we’re at what about the most successful football county, Kerry…well over due a split!!
@Brendan Farrell: if you think a 2 way split isn’t enough and they’d still be too strong then a 4 way split would be ideal. Could be 4 Dublin zones – AIG1, AIG2, AIG3, AIG4. Have their own provincial championship. The metropolitan cup or something like that.
@paddy: I wouldn’t call it bitterness – more like constructive hate.