THE LIKELY LAD
Veteran defender Hughes insists the future is bright for Hearts and teenage sensation Cochrane is the one who leads the way in Gorgie
ON April 24, 2001, Hearts midfielder Harry Cochrane entered this world. By that time, Aaron Hughes was already an established Northern Irish internationalist with four seasons of Premier League football and Champions League experience with Newcastle United under his belt.
Little wonder Hearts boss Craig Levein is so keen to keep the defender around as a mentor to his young players next season.
At 38, Hughes admits he has not made up his mind on whether he feels ready to play on for another season. But watching Hearts’ victory over Hibs in midweek, the thought struck that the two best performers on the Tynecastle pitch were the derby’s youngest and oldest starters.
Hughes has been used sparingly this season but his nous and calmness in the heat of battle meant Hearts did not miss the injured John Souttar one bit.
In midfield, Cochrane produced his best performance yet in a maroon jersey and prompted his manager to confidently predict the 17-year-old will be a full Scotland internationalist in good time. Hughes would agree. ‘In another big-pressure game Harry showed great temperament,’ said Hughes ‘In these games, it’s very easy to get carried away in the
emotional side and your technical side suffers but he was looking for the ball.
‘It’s very easy not to show as much and get lost in the hype. But that’s the refreshing thing about Harry — nothing really fazes him. That’s how he is around the lads as well — he’s not overawed by anything but at the same time he’s someone who’s got his feet on the ground.
‘I’d be very shocked if he wasn’t a Scotland international in the future.’
Asked to recount who his own mentors were back around the turn of the century, Hughes rhymed off a litany of big names: ‘You’re talking Rob Lee, Alan Shearer, Gary Speed and Steve Howey. Some big characters.
‘When you joined in training there, they set standards that you had to meet. There was no arm round your shoulder; you just had to meet them.
‘They were open if you wanted to pick their brains about stuff but I learned the most just by trying to emulate the standards they set day in day out, not just in games.
‘All our young lads have been like that all season. There’s been no one who has needed an arm round them, they learn in training, they’ll ask questions and the same in the games: they step up and do what’s asked of them.’
Cochrane is the most advanced of a young crop that also includes Anthony McDonald, Euan Henderson and Lewis Moore.
Hearts have underachieved this season and are three places removed from the third-place finish club chair Ann Budge had hoped for.
Her decision to replace Ian Cathro with Levein as the club prepared for temporary residency at Murrayfield added to the transitional feel of the campaign but the emergence of the squad’s younger players has counterbalanced the general standard of football produced by the team.
‘They’ve exceeded all expectations,’ added Hughes. ‘They’ve been thrown in when we’ve maybe been short on numbers, hoping they’d do well. There’s no pressure on them in those situations but they’ve stepped up to the plate and done fantastically well.
‘Everyone sees how well they do out on the pitch but we’re lucky because we see them day in, day out.
‘They integrate very well, they’re really good around the place with the lads.
‘It’s a great thing for them to have a manager who’s willing to play them in the first place and stick with them but, equally, they’ve continually stepped up and done what’s been asked of them through the season.
‘That’s tough. You can have one or two good games but over the course of a 38-game season, it’s a tough ask for a 16, 17, 18-year-old, physically and mentally. They’ve done fantastically well.’
Hughes knows all about tough baptisms, having debuted for Newcastle in no lesser an environment than Barcelona’s Nou Camp on a Champions League night in November 1997.
He thrived in the Newcastle team and went on to enjoy further success with Fulham, appearing in the 2010 Europa League final as Roy Hodgson’s team lost in extra-time to Atletico Madrid. He fulfilled a career goal by reaching Euro 2016 and at that tournament became the first outfield Northern Irish player to accrue 100 caps. By that stage he was operating on the other side of the world with Melbourne City, later transferring to Indian side Kerala Blasters. If his career was in wind-down mode, he made a decision to step things up again as Michael O’Neill persuaded him to have a shot at taking his country to this summer’s World Cup finals in Russia. He joined Hearts in January 2017 when assistant manager Austin MacPhee — who doubles as a key member of O’Neill’s backroom staff — helped lure him to Edinburgh. Eighteen months on, he has enjoyed his spell in Edinburgh but is weighing up whether he has the capacity to push his body through another campaign. ‘Mentally, I need a bit of break to weigh things up, but no decision has been made,’ says Hughes (left). ‘The gaffer has been great with me and has said I don’t have to rush a decision. ‘There’s an offer there for me if I still want to play next year. I just need to take some to decide and make sure that if I come back, I’m fully committed.
‘It’s not a matter of looking elsewhere. Hearts are a great option for me, as they were when I came back to Britain. I was lucky to get the opportunity to play at this level because, when I came back from India, I didn’t know where I would end up and it was a bit of a risk.
‘It was all geared towards staying with the national team ahead of the World Cup and I was never looking past this season.’
Even if Hughes does decide to call it quits, today’s match against Kilmarnock will probably not be the final match of his career.
‘We have a couple of internationals out in Panama and Costa Rica, so I may as well experience that while it’s there,’ he explains. ‘I’ve only been to Costa Rica once, never been to Panama — it’ll be a good experience.
‘Then I come back, have my B coaching licence in Belfast for a few days. It’s not a case of seeing if the grass is greener, I’m just at an age where I need to be sure that — whatever decision I make — it’s the right call for me.
‘Obviously I don’t want to walk away from the game and think: “I should have gone another year”. Likewise, I don’t want to commit to something and realise I can’t maintain the standards that I expect of myself. That’s the tough side of it, the mental challenge to keep going day in, day out.
‘It’s not really a decision I’ll be making on the back of how my body feels, it’s more about where my head is. Ultimately, the head rules the body.’
I’d be very shocked if he is not a Scotland international in the future