Those shorn of hope need only remember McAteer’s inspiration
JASON McATEER was back in Dublin on Monday to promote a fundraiser for Sean Cox, a Liverpool fan on a slow road to recovery after being attacked outside Anfield prior to a Champions League game against Italian club AS Roma last April. At 47, ‘Trigger’ is in decent fettle and still cares deeply about playing for Ireland, as evidenced by his passionate reaction to a nasty challenge by Michael Owen in a tournament for veterans in Glasgow last month. A recruit under the ‘granny rule’, McAteer, of Belfast stock, won 52 caps, played in two World Cup finals and captained Ireland to a 3-0 win in Finland. By any standards, his international career was a success. Yet when it all began 25 years ago at the old Lansdowne Road, he had no idea what lay ahead. He half feared he’d be one of those whose first cap would also be his last. After all, he was an unknown Scouser from Bolton Wanderers, entering a dressing room full of Irish football icons – Bonner, McGrath, Staunton, Houghton and Keane among them. What chance had he of convincing Jack Charlton of his worth? Improbably, just three players from the team which started against Russia on March 23, 1994 were all selected for World Cup duty in the USA that summer. Even more unlikely was the fact that all three – McAteer, Phil Babb and Gary Kelly – played in those finals. ‘I had no real expectancy to get on the plane and go to America; I just wanted to do well and show Jack that I was capable of playing at that level,’ recalled McAteer, whose club career kicked on after his Ireland debut. Just as the ‘Three Amigos’ arrived to find Charlton fretting about the heat and humidity of Orlando, and open to introducing youth, so others will emerge from the shadows for the Euro 2020 qualifiers. The identity of these outliers will become clearer when Mick McCarthy names his squad early next month for the double-header against Gibraltar (March 22) and Georgia (March 25). Twelve weeks since Aarhus, how many players, on current form, can say they are nailed on to a shirt? Darren Randolph? Yes. Jeff Hendrick? Yes. Shane Duffy? Yes. After that, there are not too many automatic selections. Seamus Coleman, the Ireland captain, is no longer first choice in a struggling Everton team. James McClean, a talisman under Martin O’Neill, is pottering about in the Potteries in the lower half of the Championship. Robbie Brady has hardly completed a game since damaging a knee 14 months ago. As for James McCarthy, he has more ring-rust than a Meccano set left out in the rain. Those seven players buttressed the Ireland team which picked off Italy 1-0 in Lille at Euro 2016. All are still relatively young and should be at their international peak yet how many, hand on heart, believe they will start in Gibraltar? Just as there are winds of change in the senior management, so there will be fresh faces on McCarthy’s watch. Alan Browne, still only 23, has bagged 11 goals from midfield for Preston in the Championship and has a profile not too dissimilar to that of McAteer 25 years ago. Deepdale teammate Sean Maguire is fit again after recurring hamstring trouble and, like Browne, is knocking on the door for a first competitive start. So, too, is centre-back John Egan of Sheffield United. In League One, 19-goal James Collins at high-flying Luton can’t be ruled out. Opportunities will present themselves next month, just as they did for McAteer, Babb and Kelly a quarter of a century ago. Then, as now, it is about seizing the moment. *The game between a team of Ireland legends and Liverpool legends is scheduled for Aviva Stadium on April 12.