All that matters for Jeff Hendrick now is to get fit.
His family and friends have put in requests for tickets for the summer, qualification has been achieved and now he simply has to start playing again.
Hendrick missed the last Ireland games with a dislocated shoulder, but when he returned to training at Derby County, he damaged a quad muscle.
On Wednesday, Hendrick flew into Dublin from Barcelona, where Derby County had gone for a mid-season break. He was in town to act as an ambassador for Deafhear.
Initially his club told him to prepare to miss the rest of the season with his injury, and get ready for the play-offs if they made them, but he hopes to be back before that.
Hendrick has become an important player for Ireland in this campaign, but he knows that means nothing if he isn’t fit.
“I’ve got to stay fit, first of all. There are no real assurances. The main thing for me is that I have got to get fit and try to get a few games under my belt. Hopefully then the manager will have seen enough and that I will be okay. But I will have to wait and see closer to the time.”
If there are any worries about his fitness for the summer, Hendrick doesn’t share them at this stage.
“I’m convinced I’ll be back fit by then. It was five weeks initially they said, but I think I’ll be back in four. The main thing then is to get some good training under my belt and get a few games in.”
By the summer, he hopes that the contract issues around Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane will have been resolved.
“We’ve had a good bit of success working with them and we’ve enjoyed it definitely. But we don’t really think about them not signing contracts. Hopefully we have a good tournament and it all gets sorted with no fuss.”
Hendrick became an important part of the Ireland team during the campaign and he hopes to follow his close friend Robbie Brady to the Premier League.
“That’s where I want to go now, I would love to get there with Derby, obviously, this summer, it would be a great achievement. I have played a lot of games in the Championship and now I have played a good few games internationally, the next step is to try and see how I do in the Premier League, it’s somewhere I do really want to go.”
First, he will want to make the trip to France. His father has been a big influence throughout his life and that hasn’t changed.
“He still watches all the games back, he tells me when I’ve done some good things, and when I’ve done some bad things. I do like to hear that. He always tells me I’ll never have a perfect game. He picks out something that I’ve done wrong, but he’s good as well, he tells me when he thinks I’ve played bad or good. Hopefully I’ll get a few more positive comments from him in the next few months.”
All of Ireland will hope for that.
Republic of Ireland International Jeff Hendrick visited the Deaf Village Ireland, in Cabra on Wednesday to promote DeafHear new hearing aid service and also met with Deaf Sports Ireland to encourage young soccer players with hearing loss to play for the Irish Deaf Soccer team. Deaf Village Ireland, Cabra, Dublin.
