Around the 70th minute mark at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday evening, the big screen showed the Irish bench as James McClean stood up and made his way through the legs of his fellow substitutes and down to the touchline.
Every one of them, to a man, offered a hand or a fist for the Derry native to bump and he obliged with all of them but he kept his focus forward, intense, just looking to get out of the pit into where he belonged – almost like a gladiator being called upon to take to the arena, no more time or energy for anything else other than readying for the job he was going out to do.
You see, even though you’d imagine that McClean has done enough to secure his place in the team for the Austria game, he wasn’t happy to be kept in the shadows. And, just like that gladiator who might well be safer away from the action but he wants to go out and risk it all anyway – just to fight, just because that’s what he does – the West Brom winger was perfectly happy to step back across the white line and put it all on the line again.
The reasoning is simple: James McClean doesn’t see it as a risk anymore. He doesn’t feel like he has to hedge his bets or cash in his chips. He doesn’t worry about anything that can go wrong because he’s so obsessed with chasing the things that can go right and he’s so sure in his convictions that he can make those things happen anytime he gets a chance to do just that.
Even if it’s only 17 minutes in a friendly against Uruguay.
So excuse him for taking it personally, all those minutes he’s denied on the pitch because, at the age of 28, he’s not happy to be known solely as a passionate workhorse anymore and there’s just a feeling that the rest of the country are seeing what he can do through his eyes too. That’s why there were such restless murmurs of excitement bouncing around Lansdowne Road as the camera shot back and forward to McClean preparing to take the field.
At 2-1 up in a dominant display, it wasn’t the big-tackle McClean the Irish crowd were looking for. It was the attacking McClean, the direct McClean, the cut-throat McClean who can bring a rival to his knees, not with a hit, but whilst he’s still on the ball. It was modern-day McClean the fans were after and, yet again, that’s exactly what they got.
After his goal in the Vienna game back in November, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Irish international was a little bold when he stated that he didn’t want to just have a reputation for someone who works hard. He said plainly and clearly that he would like to be recognised for his football and, by Jesus, in the past year he’s gone about making sure everyone bloody well listens.
He came on in the 73rd minute against Uruguay and immediately lit up the left flank. He was demanding the ball, making frighteningly explosive runs and he was always headed straight for the jugular.
When Daryl Murphy slid him through – even though he was still a good 30 yards out – there was a sense of inevitably that the rest was history and, sure enough, he burst on and hammered another goal in for his country but didn’t even look that bothered about it this time as he strutted away, face unchanged, and produced some sort of selfie celebration. Cool as you like, this is what he does now.
He probably wasn’t happy that Martin O’Neill looked to pick what could well be a full-strength team – certainly that front six anyway – and McClean was on the sideline watching Jonny Hayes occupy his left wing. But when he came on, the difference in class and experience was staggering but, more importantly, the difference in confidence was there for all to see – even those who weren’t even looking.
“James was waiting patiently to get on,” O’Neill said after the game. “He was chomping at the bit.”
Is it any wonder? He was coming onto the pitch not hoping or believing, simply knowing that he was going to score. He was coming onto the pitch fully sure that this is where he should always be from the first minute ’til the last. He was coming on just to make sure nobody else had forgotten that in the meantime.
He’s added an arrogance to his game now, the sort that separates run of the mill footballers with the good ones and, Christ, he’s exactly the sort of player you want to be boasting just that.
A player with his sort of determination and his sort of physical make-up of pure pace and power needs to be lining up a right back making him fill his pants because he knows full well what’s coming and he knows even surer that he can do sweet damn all to stop it.
You get the feeling that plenty of international full backs are on their wit’s end now when McClean is being unleashed on them.
Scarier still, you get the feeling that McClean knows they should be terrified too. And, if they’re not, he’s going to give them one good reason to be.
76: GOAL!!@FAIreland 3-1 Uruguay.
James McClean with a brilliant effort minutes after coming on! #COYBIG pic.twitter.com/S6bzrgmpVN— eir Sport (@eirSport) June 4, 2017
