When Jack Byrne appeared at Ireland’s training session at Abbotstown on Wednesday morning, it looked as if the future had arrived a little earlier than anticipated.
Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane have been clear in the past few weeks that the European Championships would come too soon for Byrne. He would train with the senior squad but only to prepare him for a call-up in the autumn or some point that seems a long, long way away, especially when a European Championships will take place in the meantime.
On Wednesday morning, it briefly felt as if things had changed. Byrne was still with the senior party. Ireland had lost Harry Arter and Jeff Hendrick through injury so it made sense for him to stick around. Instead O’Neill confirmed later that Byrne would, as planned, line out for the U-21s in Waterford on Thursday. But there was a different course available.
O’Neill said there were points at stake for the U-21s in their European Championship which was true, but underage football is supposed to be about something other than victory. It’s supposed to be about preparing players for the senior squad and it was worth finding out if Byrne was ready for the senior squad another way: by keeping him in Dublin.
"He certainly doesn't lack confidence" – Martin O'Neill got a good look at Jack Byrne during Ireland training https://t.co/XfBqLa9W3B
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) March 21, 2016
Byrne’s media appearances on Monday may have created an impression of him which is not entirely accurate, and it’s certainly not the whole story.
Those who talked to him after he told the media he believed he was as good as anybody in the Ireland squad weren’t surprised to discover that Byrne hadn’t been fazed by attracting headlines.
He hadn’t said anything to journalists he wouldn’t be prepared to say to the manager, but if the player is happy to state his case, he is also prepared to do whatever it takes to back it up.
When the Irish squad was named ten days ago, O’Neill went out of his way to say how impressed he’d been with Byrne’s decision to go on loan to SC Cambuur when the alternative was a comfortable existence at Manchester City.
O’Neill doesn’t think much of the academy system so any player who decides to place himself outside it will earn his admiration.
Last year, Byrne took himself to Leeuwarden, a pretty town 140 km north of Amsterdam, but not a place a young professional footballer would find himself unless he was serious about breaking out from the pack.
Byrne wanted a challenge, not just a loan to Bolton Wanderers or somewhere he could be part of the Manchester scene. Leeuwarden doesn’t really have a scene.
Byrne will admit himself that he has always been mouthy, but he has inner strength too. His father died when he was 11 and, at 15, he left for Manchester to attempt to make it at the club which can buy anyone.
Last year he said that being a City player motivated him because he had to be as good as the £50 million player they could sign at any time. Or the two £50 million players they could sign at any time.
If O’Neill sees academy players as “mollycoddled”, the system is also ruthless, thinking nothing of spitting out players, especially those who think the good times have already arrived and sit back expecting those good times to last forever.
If a player like Jack Byrne develops a swagger in order to survive and matches it with a work-rate, then the swagger doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is survival.
Byrne’s future may not be with City, but he has already demonstrated he has the character for survival. There have been enough demonstrations of his ability for O’Neill to take a risk with him this week as well. Whenever he plays he always wants the ball, while his ability from set-pieces could unsettle any opposition.
“I don’t want to go there to make up the numbers and just be there for training,” Byrne said last year when he was asked about his ambitions with Ireland. “I want to go there because I think I’m good enough to be there and because I think I’m good enough to compete for a place.”
Byrne said the same things again this week. The management team have looked on wryly as Byrne made his case. As football men, O’Neill and Keane would expect a standard response from the senior players in the squad when a young footballer arrives and starts talking passionately about his own ability.
There is a certain etiquette to these things, an etiquette more closely observed by Alex Pearce at Wednesday’s press conference who answered every question – including one asked by a small boy who was part of the media pack – with the enthusiasm of a guard recounting details of a minor parking offence in front of a dozing judge in a district court.
That isn’t Byrne’s way. Nobody should get carried away with him right now and there is a long history in Ireland of hailing the next big thing only for the big thing not to be as big as the hailing had suggested. Equally, Ireland can’t point to a long line of technical midfielders who are keeping Byrne out of the squad.
Byrne is prepared to be different, he showed that last week. Perhaps O’Neill will bring him back into the squad when he is done with the U-21s. It makes sense. Ireland have nothing to lose by finding out if Jack Byrne could stand out at the Aviva as easily as he stood out a press conference this week.
