IT’S TIME FOR ROBBIE BRADY TO DELIVER
IT’S March 2015 and the Republic of Ireland Under 21s are about to depart for Slovenia when manager Noel King beckons over Callum O’Dowda. ‘Cal, the gaffer wants to speak to you,’ says King, passing over his mobile. The ‘gaffer’ is Martin O’Neill, who broke away from preparing the senior team for their huge Euro 2016 qualifier against Poland, for a quick word with the rookie 19-year-old who’d made his U21 debut the night before. ‘He (O’Neill) talked me through my game, going through the finer details. He said how he’d look to bring me in again in the future,’ recalled O’Dowda. The Derry man clearly liked the cut of O’Dowda’s jib and the left-winger was the joker in the pack for the provisional squad for the Euro 2016 finals last summer. ‘I was a League Two player with Oxford then but it wasn’t something I was scared of,’ he recalled. He didn’t make the final selection of 23 but was capped against Belarus and became so absorbed by the senior set-up that he went to France for the finals, and stood unnoticed among Irish supporters in a Paris fanzone. ‘It was the day of the Belgium game. It rained and I’d my hoodie on,’ he said. Now with Bristol City, O’Dowda has since become further integrated into the squad under O’Neill. He made his competitive debut against Moldova last October and was picked as an auxiliary midfielder, against Mexico, last week. Along the way, he continued to listen to O’Neill, and to learn. ‘You don’t always see it in training but he is always giving me a boost, probably because I am one of the youngest ones. ‘I spoke to him the other day and he said when we are back from this trip, he is going to come down to Bristol for a cup of tea with me. Little things like that help.’ O’Dowda, 22, makes no secret of the Ireland player who inspires him most — James McClean. ‘He’s the player I want to be. He’s powerful and he pops up in the key moments of games. ‘When James gets on the ball, it gives everyone a lift. That’s what I want to happen. I want people to say “okay let’s see what Callum can do”. ‘If I can have a couple of more seasons in the Championship, and maybe push on, we’ll see what happens.’ With 28 players in the squad, 29 including Stephen Quinn, the challenge for O’Dowda is to make the match-day 23 on Sunday against Austria and go from there. Whatever he does, O’Neill will be watching him like a hawk.