Ireland have to be patient with Rice but must learn lessons from challenge of second season

IN football, there is always a next big thing. And, in a strange way, it’s probably just as well that Declan Rice will not share an Irish dressing-room with Aiden McGeady and Darron Gibson when he reports for Irish duty next month.

Maybe they have a tale or two to tell but, listening to Martin O’Neill speak yesterday, it was clear that he takes a dim view of how the exiled duo have ultimately failed to deliver on their teenage talent.

It would be a stretch to describe them as role models for consistency and longevity.

Ireland need Rice (right) to avoid the pitfalls as he embarks on a second season in the spotlight.

It didn’t start well on Sunday, with the holding midfielder withdrawn at half-time in Liverpool’s thrashing of West Ham.

O’Neill was not surprised that the youngster made way. The Ireland manager spoke to journalists in Cork yesterday in a series of media interviews arranged around the FAI AGM.

His response was measured. The main thrust of his point was that Manuel Pellegrini could have made any number of changes and the rookie tends to lose out in those reshuffles.

It would be daft to make bold claims about Rice’s ability to play in that position in the Premier League on the basis of one game. Or to predict that he is definitely going to be afflicted by the curse of second-season syndrome.

From O’Neill’s perspective, it provided a timely reminder that Ireland’s desperation for a star should not set an unfair bar for the London-born player who will be wearing green for the long haul.

“I’m sure he would be disappointed but he’s a young kid, he’s learning the game and sometimes taking a mauling by a very good side who’ve just contested the Champions League final puts everything into perspective,” said O’Neill.

“I think he’d be the first to say himself that he’s a million miles off being the finished article but because he’s come in and done well for us... I hope that he’s not at this stage being considered as the next

Roy Keane and Paul McGrath.

“But because our choices are somewhat limited at this minute, there’s a much higher expectation from us as a nation than there would be around his club.

“They would consider him as a player very much for the future, whereas we might be looking for something that bit more instant.”

O’Neill does want Rice in Cardiff for the opening of the UEFA Nations League on September 6 but he indicated yesterday that he would be willing to let the player drop back to U-21 level for their big qualifier with Germany which clashes with Ireland’s friendly in Poland five days later. If Noel King’s side succeed in winning away in Kosovo while the seniors are in Wales, their hopes of qualification remain alive. A key aspect of their success has been Rice’s steadying inf luence in the centre of the park and he is popular with the rest of the group.

The encouraging sign last season was that he wasn’t getting ideas above his station when senior recognition came his way. Some players go up the age group and never come back whereas Rice is prepared to do

that and is willing to admit that he doesn’t have the game figured out.

More pertinently, his main exposure to playing in midfield has come with Ireland and that’s why it would be unfair to hone in too much on his Anfield struggles.

Keith Andrews has made the point that his task was not helped by the experienced Mark Noble and Jack Wilshere.

Rice did make errors, yet he is still learning the position that O’Neill wants to play him in for the foreseeable future.

“I think he has the attributes,” said O’Neill. “He’ll probably find out more at club level but that doesn’t mean he can’t play different positions at international level.

“We have a number of centrehalves to play and with Robbie Brady and James McCarthy still recovering from injury, you’d have thought this is where we see him in the short term. And it looks as if he can cope with it.”

In that respect, O’Neill was speaking about technical attributes rather than the mental capacity but that is an area where he will be tested too.

He has come through a headspinning 12 months where he shot to prominence and there was speculation about his West Ham future in the summer after reports of a breakdown in contract talks.

Furthermore, there were David Gold’s unwelcome comments about how Pellegrini could turn Rice into an English international – a gaffe that said far more about Gold than it did about Rice as the player is fully on board with Ireland – but it did highlight how the hierarchy pay no attention to his international position.

The more established he becomes, the less understanding his employers might be about the commitments brought about by international breaks in what promises to be a demanding year with six Irish games this autumn and the entire Euro 2020 regular qualifying campaign crammed into 2019.

That’s why it is understandable that Rice is trying to dampen expectation, much as he could be fighting a losing battle in that regard due to the shortage of Irish top-flight alternatives in his age bracket.

By breaking through as a teen, especially in the modern game, he’s marked himself out as a topclass prospect but the same was said of McGeady and Gibson.

The hard work starts now.