How cryotherapy and chess helped mould Jeff into a £10m star man
Euro 2016 was the making of Hendrick but his journey could have been over before it began...
ROY KEANE wanted to wring his neck. Martin O’Neill felt it was only a slight overreaction. It’s easy to forget now, but Jeff Hendrick’s Euro 2016 campaign began with the Ireland assistant manager aiming a verbal rocket in the direction of the Dubliner and some his underperforming teammates.
Following a lacklustre and disjointed display during a 2-1 defeat to Belarus at Turner’s Cross during a week-long training camp at Fota Island in May, the part-time ITV pundit wasn’t about to hold back with his acerbic analayis.
‘I wanted to kill some of them. They should be [relieved] after one or two of their performances last night,’ Keane said after the final warm-up match before heading to France. ‘They should be counting their blessings that they managed to get on the flight...
‘Whatever about getting in the final 23, players had an opportunity to force themselves into a starting XI for the Sweden game. Some did okay, and some were very, very poor for international football. It’s really important you control the ball, pass it and move. It’s a pretty simple game really, and if you can’t do that you’re up against it.’
When it was mentioned in Hendrick’s defence that he was short of match fitness, Keane was nonplussed. ‘You could tell. [He’s] got to up the ante.’
Hendrick played the full 90 minutes in Cork and it was badly needed, regardless of whether his performance was up to scratch. He took the criticism on the chin, James McClean insisted it was warranted, but the truth is his place in the final 23 was never in doubt once he managed to come through 20 minutes of a friendly with the Netherlands four days previously as well as 90 against Belarus unscathed.
He had become too important to O’Neill’s plans during qualifying to be at risk of being a high-profile casualty – lack of fitness and form, however, was a worry.
Hendrick managed to play in the majority of Derby County’s fixtures for the first three months of the year despite nursing a shoulder complaint. Once he damaged his thigh in the middle of March, though, he required surgery and was facing a race against time to prove his fitness to the Ireland manager.
To add to his frustrations, Derby had rediscovered their form after sacking Paul Clement and reached the Championship play-offs. Hendrick was unable to return for the first leg at home to Hull City – they lost the home tie 3-0 – but started the return clash a few days later on May 17.
Derby pulled the tie back to 3-2 but the damage had already been done, the Premier League dream was over for another year Hendrick headed to meet up with his international teammates on the back of yet more disappointment.
Unlikely most of them, though, he had Euro 2016 to look forward to and a stage to justify his expectations of playing in the English top flight. His lumbering, sloppy display against Belarus was just the catalyst required to whip him into shape, but he still went into the tournament with a major distraction. A week before Ireland’s opening group game against Sweden came around at the Stade de France on June 13, a Circuit Court trial date was set for July 5, 2017, in relation to an alleged incident of violent disorder in Dublin in 2013.
With that to the back of his mind and fitness improving, Hendrick was a player transformed. That much was evident by the fact he was just 50 metres short of covering 11 kilometres in the blistering mid-afternoon summer heat of Paris.
More than just a relentless work ethic, Hendrick was looking like a midfielder capable of posing a threat in the final third and becoming a match winner. He walloped a first-half strike off the Swedish cross bar from well outside the area and was composed in possession.
It wasn’t just effort that was paying off. At Ireland’s training base in Versailles, portable cryotherapy chambers, which reach temperatures below 110 degrees Celsius and aim to speed up the recovery process, were provided by the FAI.
And then there was the Chess Club. While DID Electrical, one of the extra sponsors the Association were able to get on board following qualification, supplied a treasure throve of gadgets, televisions, computers and other devices to keep Ireland players content during their down time, it was the board with 64 squares and 32 pieces which kept Hendrick’s brain ticking over in between video analysis and training sessions.
‘It’s an enjoyable game, it keeps you thinking,’ he said. ‘None of us like to lose as well so that’s why we are taking so long with our shots. They’re good tactical battles.’
Hendrick, along with Aiden McGeady,
Stephen Ward and former Derby teammate Richard Keogh were the ones embroiled in lengthy sessions. ‘It’s a thinking man’s game,’ the latter insisted.
And Hendrick was giving Premier League bosses plenty to mull over with his displays in Ireland’s midfield.
In the do or die final group game with Italy – a game Ireland had to win to reach the knockout stages – Hendrick rose to the occasion with a performance of maturity as well as the fearlessness of youth.
When his closest friend, Robbie Brady, struck the late winner and the final whistle eventually blew, the Dubliner sunk to the turf in Lille’s Pierre Mauroy Stadium and burst into tears.
‘The best moment of my career,’ he summed up. ‘Definitely. Unfortunately, I was crying on TV afterwards because it meant so much to me. It was an unbelievable feeling and something I will always remember.
‘I don’t see the point in fearing people. If we fear them we give them too much respect and stand off them. We’ve got to get stuck in.’
And that’s exactly what Hendrick, an ambassador for Deaf Village Ireland, did as he left the stadium tucking into two folded up slices of pizza and downing a bottle of Carlsberg.
And there’s no probably about it, what came next only rubber stamped 2016 as the finest year of his career – although he had to wait patiently for his move to the Premier League to be finalised.
Stoke City expressed their interest in Hendrick after Ireland exited the Euros to hosts France in the last 16. Mark Hughes was keen but the £10 million price tag proved too costly and when Joe Allen became available for £13m the Potters boss turned his attention to a proven top flight performer.
Hendrick had to bide his time and eventually the 24-year-old’s patience paid off.
In the background, Burnley chiefs, urged on by manager Sean Dyche, were working on a package with Derby counterparts which would make Hendrick the newly-promoted club’s most expensive player. On August 31, just before the summer transfer window shut and on the day Ireland beat Oman 4-0 in Robbie Keane’s farewell game in Dublin, the deal, worth a total of £10.5m, was announced. Hendrick celebrated the news by scoring his first Ireland goal in the opening World Cup qualifier away to Serbia and before the month was out he had also found the net in the Premier League during a 2-0 win over Watford.
He added to his tally with a stunner against Bournemouth last Saturday and it’s clear that Dyche trusts him to deliver. Against Tottenham Hotspur today Hendrick will start his 13th game in a row since making his debut as a substitute against Hull in September.
In all but one of those games he has completed 90 minutes and looks right at home in the Premier League. It’s a long way from Belarus.
I don’t see the point in fearing people, don’t stand off them... get stuck in