SINCE Johnny Giles stepped down as manager 45 years ago, Ireland have played 261 competitive games.
Only once has a successor of his opted to start a League of Ireland player in a fixture that mattered.
That was Eoin Hand in his first game in charge against Holland back in 1980 as Pierce O’Leary of Shamrock Rovers partnered his brother David in defence.
Only four others, Pat Byrne, Jacko McDonagh, Liam Buckley and Jack Byrne, all from the Hoops, have been used off the bench when points were at stake.
The younger Byrne is the only one to have featured since 1985.
A further nine players — drawn from Rovers, Dundalk, Limerick, Bohemians, Shelbourne and Cork City — have been used in friendlies.
It amounts to 14 home-based footballers collecting 31 caps between them in 432 games over almost a half-century.
And there were exceptional circumstances around several of those.
Three of the 14 caps awarded by Hand came during the 1982 tour of South and Central America when many English clubs refused to release their players because of the ongoing Falklands War.
The couple won by Joe Gamble in 2007 were in matches in which Ireland brought such a depleted squad to the US under Steve Staunton that even American college student Joe Lapira collected a cap.
Jack Byrne’s two appearances under Stephen Kenny came during an international window which saw 13 of his original squad of 26 ruled out through Covid-19, injury or suspension.
Byrne had previously played twice under Mick McCarthy, who then underlined his high opinion of the midfielder by signing him for APOEL Nicosia.
But that is the sort of absentee list which has people cracking jokes about how someone would only get picked if the team bus crashed.
By any measured analysis it is a fact that, irrespective of who is in charge, if you wish to play senior international football on a regular basis, you need to leave these shores.
But, although Heimir Hallgrimsson may not care what people say about him, he has learned the opposite is not true.
Shamrock Rovers’ supremo Stephen Bradley took the occasion of the first League of Ireland match taking place in the Aviva Stadium, the home of the international team, to take issue with some pre-Christmas comments by the Icelander.
Bradley’s criticism was initially due to appear in the match programme for their league opener against Bohemians.
But, after his notes were omitted in what was said to have been an inadvertent error, he revisited the theme in his post-match press conference.
Bradley said: “We have got an international manager telling my players to leave to have a chance to play for Ireland.
“That’s incredibly disrespectful to me, the league and everyone who works in this league.
“They will give you soundbites but I think that really shows what they feel about the league.
“We are trying to grow a league, entice players to stay here long, and improve in every aspect.
“And that comes out of the Ireland manager’s mouth. It is incredible. Put yourself in our position, you are trying to recruit players and sign players and that is the message coming from the head of Irish football.
“Imagine you are an agent sitting with your player — ‘You can stay here but if you go there you have a chance of getting into the international squad’. That’s not right.”
‘EASIER TO PICK THEM’
Bradley also chastised the media for not taking issue with Hallgrimsson’s comments.
But, while one aspect of that might have been a belief that the Boys in Green chief was simply reflecting reality, another was that his answer when asked about the Hoops the day after their 3-0 win over Bosnian champions Borac was not entirely clear.
At least Giovanni Trapattoni, with vastly inferior English, left nobody in any doubt about what he felt when he said, ‘There is no league in Ireland’.
Hallgrimsson said: “Good players, impressive performance, two or three really good performances. I’m not going to count the names. It would put pressure on the players or me.
“But it is obviously good if they are playing well all season.
“It would be easier to pick them if they are playing regularly before the national team comes together.
“I’m pretty sure a lot of teams in Europe are watching them and asking ‘Who are these guys, going this far, doing this good in the tournament?’
“So probably there is a lot of scouting on those players at the moment so hopefully they will get career change from this success.”
Clearly, they were playing regularly during their unprecedented European run which came to an end in agonising fashion last Thursday with a penalty shootout defeat to Molde.
So presumably he meant ‘at a higher level’ and the follow-up paragraph seems to back that up.
But, for the immediate future, the only dividend players are likely to receive from Rovers’ European exploits is to their finances rather than their international chances.
ON THE OUTSIDE
Johnny Kenny — back at Celtic after his loan move — will not enter the conversation until he features more regularly.
Neil Farrugia joined Barnsley on a 2½-year deal while Darragh Burns moved to Grimsby Town on a contract which runs to the summer of 2028 rather than make his loan move from MK Dons permanent.
With the greatest respect, neither is likely to feature in an Ireland squad unless they climb another rung or two on the football ladder, either with their new clubs or through a subsequent move. Burns is now plying his trade in League Two and Farrugia is now in League One.
Ireland rarely cap players from England’s third and fourth tiers.
The most recent examples, Jason Knight and James McClean, were already established internationals with considerable club experience at a higher level.
And, although Rovers’ run has helped lift the League of Ireland to 31st in the Uefa coefficient table, that is still below its highest ranking of 29, in 2010.
Cracking the top 30 again — and staying there this time — will be a tough ask and, despite being in the doldrums, our national team is still ranked higher, at 28th.
If we accept the Championship is a higher standard, then the Scottish Premiership — which lies 14th — was the lowest-ranked league to provide players in Liam Scales, Adam Idah and Jamie McGrath to Ireland last year.
Of course, the European runs enjoyed by both Celtic and Rovers expose both teams to higher-level opposition than they face in domestic competition.
That point was made by Stephen Kenny when asked about Bradley’s comments late last week.
He also reframed the philosophical debate into a more pragmatic one, as to whether the League of Ireland could provide the solution for a problematic position for Ireland.
Only twice — for a combined total of 20 minutes in a crisis — did he, as an international manager, conclude yes.
Neither his elevation, nor that of Brian Kerr — also deeply rooted within the League of Ireland — to the biggest job in Irish football resulted in any larger presence of home-based players in the international squad.
They probably did a better job, though, of managing the age-old disconnect between the two.
Hallgrimsson can probably be trained to avoid offending sensibilities again easily enough.
But bridging the gap to the international team will require a lot more effort.
