When did he say that?
In an interview when he was in camp with England
https://extra.ie/2019/03/20/sport/so...rice-interview
He might be kept on
https://www.google.com/amp/s/pundita...a-connell/amp/
He's making all the right noises anyway to set us up for Connell getting a cap.
We'd be mad not to cap him against Gibraltar. All in the past now, but I argued at the time that we should have clearly called up Rice against Moldova and we should have called Grealish up when he was at Notts County. He's playing at the same level as Hourihane, Whelan, Browne, Judge and at a higher level than the likes of Cullen, Curtis and Byrne, so you can’t say it’s he’s not there in some part on merit.
We did the right thing with Obafemi and James McCarthy and long before that the likes of McGeady. Even from the players' perspective, the removal of doubt and speculation is a great thing. I guarantee if he was playing for Wales or N. Ireland, he would be capped against Gibraltar.
Examples from Wales: Rabbi Matondo (made debut at 18, born Liverpool), Terry Taylor (in current squad at 17, born in Aberdeen), Dylan Levitt (United u18, in current squad, 18, born in Wales but eligible for England), Matthew Smith (Man City youth, born in England, capped at 18), David Brooks (born in England, capped at 20), Harry Wilson (eligible for England, capped at 16), Ben Woodburn (born in England, capped at 17), Ethan Ampadu (capped at 17, born in England, eligible for Ireland and Ghana), Tyler Roberts (capped at 19, born in England). Bale and Ramsey were also eligible for England and were capped at 16 and 17.
In terms of players with similar elite potential, born outside of Ireland, who are yet to be capped, you have the likes of Conor Coventry and Joe Hodge and maybe Conor Ronan. Equally if Okoflex was up for it, I’d have him on a similar path as Connell. He was prepared to leave Arsenal to get game time for Celtic and he has spoken that emotionally he’s far more invested in Ireland. So I’m sure for a guy with his potential, we could make something work…
Squad are back so it looks like he's on his way out of Dublin...
Picked up a thigh injury apparently, will miss both games.
Whether it's real, or not, the end result is the same - he 's going to miss the two games, and we're facing at least four months of every little thing he does, or doesn't do, feeding articles and posts on whether or not he will declare for England
For me, I think the solution is to not bother speculating. I think that's a great post above listing players who became tied to Wales or whoever, but knowing what we now know about Rice, I am happy he's not involved with us, so I disagree that we should have played him just to tie him to us.
If Connell deserves a call up next time, I trust Mick to know his commitment level and play him if he is worth playing. Rice seems a bit dim and I can't see another player playing friendly senior internationals and then jumping ship. I'd like to think Robbie and Mick have a "gut test" of their own and will be able to get a handle on the situation.
With Grealish several of his underage team-mates have mentioned that he never seemed to be interested in playing senior for us. For me, the management of those underage teams should have picked up on that and had a chat with him or left him out of the squads.
I like the way Mick has handled Bamford so far. And as Leeds are staying in the second division for next year, Bamford might be feeling a tad silly now. But, really, who cares unless he really wants to represent us? Not me, anyhow.
Possibly time to call up Crowley as a replacement?
The squad needed to be trimmed anyway so can't see there being any call ups, barring further injuries?
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