Very few players simply quit international football after a small number of caps. The carrot of playing in a major finals tournament is a huge one and increases a player’s profile and earning potential.
Give me an example of where it’s happened elsewhere so? Must be loads of my take is so bizarre
No because countries don’t usually hold players ransom.
That’s the whole point.
Players tend to play for the counties they are from.
That’s exactly why they choose England.
All their families and advisors knew it was worth millions to them.
There is a massive tax on English players.
Who was held ransom?! What are you on about?!
You’re speaking mad if Rice was kidnapped. He was in the Ireland squad. MON should have picked him and it’s a failure that he didn’t
He rejected the call up multiple times!!!
But he was in the squad and available for selection enough times
Again I place no blame on Rice. He can play for Namibia as far as I’m concerned
Yet he did not play competitive games as they waited to see if he’d be good enough to play for England.
Moldova 2-0 (H) in autumn 2017 was the time to do it iirc. A relatively comfortable win where we could have given him a few minutes of competitive action like Trap did with James McCarthy against Macedonia in 2011. You could even argue the 5-1 defeat to Denmark too when our race was run.
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Yes. That’s the game I’d must blame MON for not capping him.
They chose England for the same reason men who suddenly become well known usually dump their average looking girlfriend for a much prettier and sexier one.
They would have chosen the prettier and sexier girlfriend first if they could have but the option of the prettier and sexier girlfriend was not available at that stage so they settled for plain Jane to start with.
Lawrenson was one of those who was tied down by his first girlfriend and didn’t have the option of a divorce.
He rejected the opportunity to be part of the Squad.
I’ve been persuaded to attend this game, which will be my first Ireland game to attend since 11/11/17.
The heavens have opened in Dublin in the last 20 minutes.
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They choose England because they are English.
Rice playing for us is no different that Ferguson switching to England.
It’s utterly bizarre.
Rice played the whole way up the development grades for Ireland. He played a senior international with Ireland. He switched thus meaning an Irish lad didn’t get developed. His situation changed and he defected. He shouldn’t have had that option, ONeill 100% should have capped him
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Giving out mad about mack Hansen and rob herring then
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As a MON fanbhoy, could somebody do the Rice timeline please? I’m pretty sure but not certain he got his first senior cap around March 2018 (maybe away friendly to Turkey?) & he definitely played that summer away to France (a pre WC send off friendly for them in Paris). So his 3 senior caps were probably in H1 2018. He didn’t want to accept a senior call up that autumn at the start of the new season when the next set of qualifiers were kicking off. So wind back then to the competitive games prior to that…are you talking about the WC play off double header against Denmark in November 2017 & the high stakes qualification games before we earned that spot. Was he in squads for any of those competitive games? I can’t recall. Remember that would have been back at the start of 2017-18 or even the backend of 2016-17. It seems obvious now to say why didn’t you cap him but he was early in his development & we were involved in very important games. It’s not like now where we’re out of contention to qualify after the first round of games in each qualification phase. In the current scenario you could cap any 13-15 year old from England with Irish heritage on the off chance he becomes a class player as it makes fuck all difference to our current prospects anyway.
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He didn’t want to be capped competitively because they new the ramifications.
The last time we beat the Dutch, competitively, I was a child and was stung by a wasp earlier in the day. Tempted to go find a nest
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