IRELAND MANAGER HAS opened the door to a return to the international set-up for Shay Given.
Former number one Given earned 125 senior caps before retiring after Euro 2012. Now 37, the Donegal stopper recently joined Championship outfit Middlesbrough on loan from Aston Villa and went straight into the team — starting all of Boro’s last four games.
Last month, Given revealed that he would be open to sitting down with Ireland’s new management team and, speaking at his end-of-year press conference today, O’Neill says it is a possibility.
“I would not discount that,” O’Neill said. “I haven’t spoken to Shay but I will do at some stage. I’m having a conversation here with you about someone I haven’t talked about.
I know Shay and I’ve met him a few times but that is before I took the job on. That is something I certainly wouldn’t discount if I had a conversation and he was thinking about coming back.”
Keiren Westwood and David Forde have both featured during O’Neill’s first two games in charge with the Sunderland keeper since losing his place to Vito Mannone at Sunderland while Forde has conceded ten goals in the five games which followed for Millwall.
Goalkeeping coach Seamus McDonagh has also been to see Birmingham’s in-form Darren Randolph, who was left out of the last Ireland squad with Newcastle’s back-up Rob Elliot getting his first call-up.
“Seamus has been at Birmingham to watch him and was very impressed,” added O’Neill. “He thought he did very well.
“I went to Millwall and Wigan a fortnight ago and David didn’t do too badly in the match. Millwall actually beat Wigan in the game, James (McClean) was playing for Wigan, and he (Forde) didn’t do too badly.
“Sometimes goalkeepers can concede goals when it’s not really their fault. David made two or three blindingly-good saves during the course of that match. We’re monitoring that as much as possible.”
These two games against top English sides are great opportunities for Tom Ahern to propel himself into the Irish squad
@Kevin Ryan: izzy, baird, conan, pendergast and timoney all ahead at this stage.
@chris mcdonnell: stopped reading at conan….
@chris mcdonnell: I don’t want to knock anyone. They’re all good players of course; but I think we know by now that Prendergast and Timoney are pretty unlikely to ever establish themselves in the Ireland side. Ahern has the potential to do so.
@Niall English: The 42 is an interesting selection to have your mid life crises on
@Niall English: conan ahead of the lot of them. Not sure about the rest though.
@chris mcdonnell: I think Baird has moved down the Irish pecking order. Not sure the reason why but it seems he has. I think Ahern will be more used in 2nd row by IRL going forward but also cover 6 ahead of Baird. I think Izzy will eventually take a starting hold on that 6 jersey. Conan is an 8 who can do a job at 6. lineout skilks wouldn’t be his strength though and that works against starting him. My feeling is POM will start v England at 6 or at least be on the bench. No doubt he’s behind many others in general play but our LO is critical to starting the 6n’s well and he’s still our best LO jumper.
@Michael Corkery: He’s only started 9 times at 6. Munster have won a grand total of 1 of those games. Putting that to one side, it’s still manifestly obvious that he should be concentrating on second row, given both his height and the number of options at blindside.
If Munster were talking about the good things they did against Leinster, it was a short talk. We need the injury list to clear up, it would be great to pick a 23 match day squad that isn’t influenced by injured players.
Don’t know why Munster are always going on about O’Mahony these days. The guy is busted flush, worn out and too old. Not his fault now. Munster have to pick Ahern ahead of him and bench him. We lost to England last year because he wasn’t at the races with the young English back row so we lost another grand slam because he wasn’t up to it.
@Jimmy Bean: i do recall doris getting grossly outplayed by ben earl in that game also, not the first time hes gone AWOL when the chips are down.
@Niall English: Mr Bean only sees what he wants to see.
@Niall English: He left VanDFl and Doris on their own to play by themselves against the English. He was benched for the South Africa tour so it’s just not me who thinks he’s past it.
@Leonard Barry: Lotta beans on here
@Jimmy Bean: you know the French saying « No scrum, no win ». I got a similar one for the upcoming England game, « No lineout, no win ». Certainly PO’M is not as good as others around the field, but if our lineout calling and throwing is going to continue to be as bad as it has recently, the 2nd best defensive LO in the world is going to have an absolute field day. We’ll need PO’M on the bench at the very least. He can win it at the front if all else fails.