We need to talk about Kevin’s lads
Dublin boys Robbie Brady and Jeff Hendrick became men in the Ireland shirt at Euro 2016, but have struggled since – can new manager Stephen Kenny coax more out of them?
THE FINALS of major tournaments have not always been a friend to the great Irish midfielders. Two of the best ever, John Giles and Liam Brady, never played in a major finals. Roy Keane was around for eight campaigns but only made it to one finals, in 1994. Wes Hoolahan was 34 by the time he finally graced that stage, so many wasted moments for him.
And although Ronnie Whelan starred at Euro ’88, his total output on the field in the World Cup final was less than 30 minutes.
All of those players reached their peak with their clubs but were largely frustrated in the green shirt on the major stage.
Two members of the current Ireland squad have also suffered frustration, denied by Covid-19 (for now) the chance to qualify for, or play in, Euro 2020. But for Jeff Hendrick and Robbie Brady, the summer of 2016 remains the zenith of their careers.
The two graduates of famed Dublin nursery St Kevin’s Boys both earned big-money moves soon after the 2016 finals though not to Manchester United (an Irish newspapers linked Hendrick with a move to Old Trafford) but to Burnley.
Four years on and Hendrick is a free agent, this time linked with a move to AC Milan while Burnley hold out hopes of retaining him, with a new deal on the table while his advisers assess options.
Option
Brady is signed up for another year, as Burnley took up the option of a 12-month contract extension last month, very much a case of unfinished business for Brady at Burnley. Mainly because of injury, Brady has started just 11 of the club’s last 67 league games.
But the question sticks out: did we only see the best of Brady and Hendrick on the green fields of France in 2016 and why have they been unable to reach those heights since?
In this country we stand accused of looking at events through greentinted lenses, only seeing what we want to see, focusing on the things that everyone else ignores.
While we bathe in the glow of nostalgia for Italia ‘90, does anyone outside of Ireland look back on our football then with fondness?
Why honour a team like Ireland who scored two goals in five games and didn’t actually win a match, instead of paying tribute to Yugoslavia (knocked out Spain and only lost to Argentina on penalties) or Czechoslovakia (scored 10 goals in the first four games and were robbed by a refereeing decision in the quarter-final loss to West Germany).
Maybe the Brady/Hendrick alliance was a repeat of that, impressive to Irish eyes but ignored by outsiders. But that’s not the case and not fair to the pair, who did play well, really well, under Martin O’Neill.
The stats make them stand out, as they were two of only three outfield players to play in every minute of every game. Irish fans loved them, Brady for his goal against Italy in Lille, the Italians’ first competitive defeat in two years, Hendrick for his energy and efficiency in midfield.
Neutrals spotted something too. “Hoolahan and Hendrick [were] the main creators of chances with solo abilities,” was the take by UEFA’s analysts in the tournaments’ official Technical Report. That document also had Hendrick and Brady at the top of the class for passing, 114 completed passes for Hendrick in the four games, 83 for Brady.
The transfer market reacted: within weeks Hendrick had left Derby County for Burnley, costing them £10.5m, then a club record. Brady began the 2016/’17 season with Norwich but moved the following January, for £7m (though Brady’s first full season as a Claret was ended early by injury, a broken leg away to Leicester in December 2017).
The side had a warm glow in the second half of 2016 on the back of the Euros but for Brady and Hendrick, it was stressed that more was needed. “The team showed a lot of ability in France but that competition is over and it’s a matter of starting again,” O’Neill said ahead of the World Cup campaign.
Hendrick agreed: “I can take confidence from the summer but it’s wiped clean a little bit because it’s a new group, a new challenge. I will take the confidence in and try and perform to do better.”
Hendrick started well, scoring his first international goal in the first qualifier after the Euros, a 2-2 draw in Serbia. But the qualifiers for World Cup 2018 saw an Irish side still struggling to match the heights of France.
Hendrick’s fitness levels have never dipped, the Coolock man averaging 46 games a season for club and country before Covid-19 halted his gallop. But there was a question mark over his delivery. Even O’Neill, who picked Hendrick to play any time he was fit, spotted an issue.
“It’s been gruelling, really tough,” O’Neill said before the ill-fated World Cup play-off against Denmark in 2017.
“Some players, maybe in certain games, haven’t played as strongly as they have before but that’s part of the whole game. This is where we’ve arrived, this is where we’re at now, and it will need big performances tonight in the Aviva and Robbie, Jeff, I think all those boys who forged great reputations in the Euros know that. While every minute has not been glorious for them, they are still capable of doing it.”
Brady’s gallop was halted by positional changes (he played much of his international football at left-back), injury and then a struggle to get back into the club side, while Hendrick had fewer hurdles in his way and was usually fit and in the Burnley and Ireland teams, but goals remained absent: his strike in the first game of the Mick McCarthy era, 15 months ago, was too rare.
“The management and staff have been on to me saying one goal in 45 isn’t enough and I knew that myself,” he said after scoring in Gibraltar.
McCarthy relied on Hendrick as O’Neill did: the ex-Derby man played in every minute of the Euro 2020 qualifiers. But Brady was less involved, just two starts in the campaign and he was an unused sub for the last group game at home to Denmark.
New manager Stephen Kenny has had a frustrating start to life as McCarthy’s successor, unable to play games, hold training camps or even meet his players due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But he had spotted in Brady an issue he wanted to rectify. “We have a lot of talented players,” Kenny said recently.
Difficult
“It’s difficult to know why, for example, someone like Robbie Brady was three years ago our most creative player and now at times hasn’t got into the 22, how has that happened? My job is to try and unlock the potential of the whole team and find the best way of doing that, that’s how I see my job.”
Kenny’s gift as Dundalk manager was to find depths in players which had been until then hidden, transforming ordinary League of Ireland foot soldiers like Brian Gartland and Dane Massey into multiple league winners, helping Andy Boyle and Daryl Horgan become international players.
Brady and Hendrick have not been in hiding since 2016, Hendrick’s appearance record for Ireland and Burnley shows he can deliver. But neither player has really built on the success of 2016 and moved their international careers up a level.
Life under Kenny is a chance to do that and it would be a shame if Euro 2016 was to be their international peaks, a swansong sung at the start of their careers with the best days left unfulfilled.