WE’LL DELIVER
Egans believes Ireland will step up to plate in Hampden
IT’S safe to say that Scotland didn’t take their Dublin defeat well during the summer — and John Egan knows it.
Their 3-0 drubbing in June was salt poured into a gaping wound, having just seen their World Cup qualification hopes dashed by Ukraine at the playoff stage.
Pitching up to face an Ireland team smarting from back-toback defeats to Armenia and Ukraine was the last thing that dejected players with the beach on their minds wanted.
And, sure enough, the Scottish performance was suitably awful on an afternoon when Troy Parrott and Michael Obafemi ran riot.
If Stephen Kenny was of a mind, he could ask his press officers to dig out the Scottish newspaper headlines after that game to pin on the dressing room wall tonight.
Disgrace
‘Ireland are spectacularly limited …. this was a disgrace’, screamed one of them.
And there were more …. “A disgrace, an absolute disgrace of a performance. The kind of cowardly, disjointed shambles that lands many managers the sack,” read one piece of analysis.
And it continued:
“What a disaster it was. Against an Ireland team best described as a ‘Who’s That?’ of international football.”
That Scottish sense of entitlement won’t be lost on an Ireland team eager to win both their remaining games and see where it takes them in this group.
Egan, the Sheffield United defender, is likely to captain Ireland tonight with Seamus Coleman struggling to retain his place in the team owing to a lack of club games.
But stepping up as top dog is familiar territory for Egan, even if Kenny doesn’t always tell him in advance that he will be leading the side.
For example, the first that
Egan knew of captaining the team against Azerbaijan was when he saw the armband hanging up beside his jersey.
But the Corkman knows that Scotland will be fired up on their revenge mission tonight, even if he played down those stinging media jibes as motivational tools.
At Hampden Park last night, Egan said:
“To be honest, that is the first I’ve heard of it, we just focus on trying to play our game.
“We don’t pay much attention to the media and stuff.
“We just want to meet up, prepare really well for the games and go out to try and win games of football.
“We’re just focused on ourselves.
“We go into every game looking to be on the front foot and trying to get the points.
“It was definitely a big performance from us against Scotland in June and a big result to go with it.
“But we’ve had some really good performances and just got edged out against the likes of Portugal away.
“To put in that performance against Scotland, on the back of two defeats, showed the character in the group.
“We went into that game under a lot of pressure and we delivered.
“We’re looking to improve every time we meet up, that’s got to be the aim for everyone.
“As a team, we want to keep moving forward, keep getting better, and we’re looking to take another step forward tonight.”
Egan added: “We all know Scotland had a good performance the other night against Ukraine.
“It was a good result (3-0) for them but we’re just focused on ourselves.
“We’re looking forward to the game and we’ve a lot of belief in the squad and we’re raring to go.”
And Egan insists that Coleman and Shane Duffy are continuing to lead by example despite their club struggles.
Joined
Coleman has played just one League Cup game for Everton this season and Duffy only has three appearances for Fulham, having joined from Brighton on loan.
The big centre-back looks more likely to start tonight than skipper Coleman, but Egan has hailed the attitude of both senior men.
“They are in a really good mood,” he continued.
“They are two huge players and two huge leaders for the group.
“When we all meet up, even though we are an international team it really feels like we’re a club team because we’re all really together.
“Everyone loves coming in and Seamus and Shane are two big characters in the group.”
With or without those two defensive stalwarts, Ireland will be going all out to make Scotland eat their words tonight.
And Egan will be at the heart of it all.