Let’s get real.
Anyone who has a problem with James McClean winning the RTÉ Sports Personality of the Year award, they’re either unreasonably disrespectful or completely ignorant of what it takes to get to where he has gotten to.
We’re talking about a man who has risen above all hopefuls. Everyone with an interest in sport either plays or watches football in some capacity and, to make it as a professional, you have to make yourself part of a tiny, tiny fraction of a percentage of special talents and some of the most dedicated athletes on this planet.
To do what James McClean did, you first have to do that. Then you have to deliver and you have to do it consistently. When you do that, you’re in a unique position not offered to many other sportspeople where you actually have the ability to unite the entire country because it’s simply on another scale.
Two men did that for Ireland in 2017. The bid to make it to a fourth ever World Cup ultimately fell short with just one result between the country and Russia but two players dragged them tantalisingly close with the sort of dependable high level of performance that probably hasn’t been delivered game after game for the Republic since Roy Keane was doing it.
One of them was James McClean. The other was Shane Duffy.
It’s amazing, the heights Duffy hit in such a short space of time. He was only brought into the Ireland team in the summer of 2016, mid-tournament and he never looked back.
In fact, in the space of a few games, the Derry native put himself into a position where he was the first name on the team sheet. By the end of the campaign, he was the nation’s best defender and the country’s most feared attacker.
Before the Denmark playoffs, members of the Danish media spoke on Second Captains and they were asked for an assessment of Ireland’s strengths – the Denmark view. They didn’t really have much to say outside of the usual ‘fight’ and ‘spirit’ and ‘solid’ backhanders but a theme emerged every time someone tried to analyse how the game would go.
“You guys… you have Shane Duffy…”
Most opponents don’t really fear anything Irish, aside from the heart. But they do fear Shane Duffy.
The fear every one of his 193 uncompromising centimetres and they fear his manic abandon for his own safety. They fear how every single ball in either box seems to land on his head and they fear his mincing tackles and relentless barks for order.
In 2017, Shane Duffy propelled himself to be one of the most important players for his country, one you couldn’t imagine going without now and, to add to that, he got Brighton promoted to the Premier League and topped the charts in the top flight of English football for some defensive statistics like clearances and headers.
At 25, Duffy is proving every inch the terrifying tower everyone knew he one day could be. He’s a natural born leader leading teams to triumph in battles they had no right to be winning.
Ruby Walsh might think it sounds like a tough soundbite that says a lot about his winning character to say the Ireland team underachieves and that we glorify mediocrity. How on earth do the Ireland team underachieve? Look what we’re working with and consider that we’re doing it in a genuinely global sport. It’s not as easy to win a f**king football World Cup as it is to do anything else.
It’s all relative in a sport of this side and, relatively, Shane Duffy is absolutely flying. Not only that but he’s forcing everyone else to punch above their weight. That’s what he does. And he does it in every single game.
