The Duffer

"I will play international football until I drop. I love it and I treasure every Irish cap I have. " Damien Duff, Feb 2004

What more can you say. What a star!!!!

Young fellas take note... :)

:D PP

It's great to see players who have as much heart in the team as the fans.:)
Legend

Are you listening Mr Keane?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Declan_Michael
Are you listening Mr Keane?

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:rolleyes:

and Mr.Kiely, Mr.Kelly, Mr.Irwin and Mr.Staunton.

There's more than one 'retired' ex-irish player still playing competitive football, or have you heard of the others?

can we have a single national team thread that doesn't turn into a Keane thread. it's been debated enough, just leave it now.

well said tiktok....

Its great to hear our one true world class player (he is levels above everyone else at the moment on the Irish Squad)tell us what it means to him to wear the green.


well done duffer

Great to hear.

In fairness to Irwin and Staunton they retired after long careers and great service. they got a couple of years extra in club football but may well have become a liability at Inyernational level. I'm old enough to remember Giles being booed at Lansdowne.

I also know the circumstances of Irwin's retirement and frankly he was 100% right. Sorry but I can't put it in writing.

Roy Keane has been discussed to death but Kelly and Kiely retiring in their prime is a great shame.

Quote:

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Originally posted by gspain
I also know the circumstances of Irwin's retirement and frankly he was 100% right. Sorry but I can't put it in writing.

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Aah, c'mon, you can't dangle a carrot like that and take it away again...

;) PP

Agreed. Great to hear our best player state so emphatically his committment to the Irish team.

The only thing I would be wary about is this, he has stated that his shoulder injury will more than likely require surgery but he wants to wait until after the US Cup to get this done. If he waits until after this tournament he will apparantly miss the first 2 weeks of next season. With Ireland playing two WC qualifiers in early September ideally we would want all of our players to have been playing from the start of the season in order to get back in to the swing of things. The last thing we need going in to the first 2 games, particularly Switzerland away, is Damien Duff to be unavailable because his recuperation took longer than expected or that he going into the games short of match fitness. It's great to hear that he wants to play in the US Cup and that he wants to get as many caps as he can but competitive games have to be the priority. Hopefully common sense will prevail and he will have the operation in June while the rest of the team are in the states winning us our first senior tournament since Iceland!

wasn't actually having a go at anyone, esp. irwin and staunton lads, just making a point.

Paulie, where did you get that news, i think it's worrying for Duff to put off an op (if he needs one) until after such a trifling competiton. definitely more important to have him fit and recevered for the Swiss and French than to have him risk the shoulder during a nothing tournament in the US....

I know he says every cap he wins is precious (and rightly so, it's great to hear) but occasionally it's ok to pick and choose;). You have bigger fish to fry come September Damien!

Tiktok, you will find it on the FAI website under the article "Duff prepared to put off operation".

Cheers Paulie

The one that got me the most to be honest was Kiely, quite annoyed about it, really disappointed with the bloke.

Kiely didn't want to play second fiddle for the whole of his international carrer.Given is no1 and he's not going to be dropped bar injury or dramatic loss of form.Kiely has proven what a great goalie he is in the prem,my choice for goalie of the year and one of the main reasons Charlton have been doing so well.He's on a par with Given in my eyes but he has never been given a good oppurtunity to show what he can do for Ireland.

We could def use him in our squad,a real pity.