DAMIEN DUFF HAD a couple of matters to deal with after Shelbourne’s 1-1 draw with Shamrock Rovers on Friday night before he got to the Ian Harte-shaped elephant in the room.
His former Republic of Ireland teammate has experienced quite a backlash since his comments to a bookmaker’s blog about League of Ireland clubs “killing lads’ chances” of going to England by pricing them out of moves.
Before he addressed that – and the issue of agents in general – the Shels boss confirmed that new signing Ellis Chapman will start tomorrow’s trip to Galway United.
The winter arrival from Sligo Rovers had an injury during pre-season and has so far been restricted to appearances off the bench. He did well against Rovers on Friday and Duff explained how he had chatted with the player on Thursday to discuss the situation and lay out the plan of action.
Advertisement
Chapman’s physicality will be important away to Galway, a team who beat Shels 1-0 twice at Eammon Deacy Park last season. One of the last things he told his players before they left Tolka Park on Friday was to be ready to perform for 100 minutes tomorrow.
“You go away to a John Caulfield team, Ollie [Horgan] obviously there with him. When John was at Cork, or Galway, and you’ve any naivety or weakness or softness about you when you go away to his home patch, he’ll find it and he’ll punish you,” Duff said.
“Take your foot off the gas for five, 10 minutes and John will punish you.”
Rovers did just that when Conor Kearns collided with Paddy Barrett and spilled the ball in the direction of Aaron McEneff for their equaliser on Friday. “Conor [Kearns] is brilliant. It’s the reason why he got in team of the year last year,” Duff said.
“He’ll be disappointed, but as always whether it be an individual or a unit or a collective we always get a reaction because they’re good, brilliant, honest men. He’ll be fine. Disappointed, no problem, we move on.”
And then conversation turned to Harte. Duff insisted that he did not read the comments but was aware of the furore and response of Stephen Kenny. Minutes before he entered the press room at Tolka, Stephen Bradley also weighed in to dismiss the accuracy of the former Leeds United defender’s statements.
Duff acknowledged that the ambition of players in his own squad is to secure moves and while he admitted he has no issue with that he didn’t care for his old teammate’s dismissive
“Here, it’s just the view of the league. I don’t think people across the water look at it very fondly and I guess here it’s slightly disappointing if Ian has said that.
“Of course we should demand fees. First and foremost, players in the building here, young players, like it or lump it, their ambition is to go to England. So, I’m going to coach them, improve them, bring them along and I want them to really affect Shels.
“But I’ve openly always told our players ‘I want you to go England’. Evan Caffrey, cousin of Gavin Molloy, Gav went away [to Aberdeen], I wanted Gav to go away. Did we get done a bit on the fee? Yeah, possibly, but that was just the nature of how it all worked out.
“I want our players to go to England but myself, the staff, this club made Gavin Molloy the best defender in the league. Are we going to let him go for free off the back of it? Football is a business, an absolute business.”
Duff spoke to Off The Ball on the Tolka pitch about his disdain for agents before returning to the topic in a bit more detail inside.
Related Reads
Broken political promises, no funding and a lack of contact hours: Ireland's struggling academy system
The Irish football coach forging a path in Colorado... with a little help from boxing icon Billy Walsh
Shamrock Rovers hit back at ex-player for 'false and inaccurate' accusations
“It’s no dig against Ian Harte (but) agents…I wouldn’t listen to a word they say. Agents at the end of the day care about their players because they’re making money out of their players.
“If you want to talk about care for players or look at somebody who cares for players, come and look at me and my staff, we give our players everything, we treat them like our sons.
“I’m just going off on a rant about agents now. I’ve no time for them. There’s not many, probably on one hand, that you can trust, and as I openly said outside, it has probably cost me in our next transfer window because nobody will want to do any business with us.
“It’s something I’ve been passionate about since day dot. Agents, how much do you care? I’d die for my players. Ask an agent ‘would you die for yours?’ I don’t think so.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
'I don’t think people across the water look at it very fondly' - Duff on LOI's perception
DAMIEN DUFF HAD a couple of matters to deal with after Shelbourne’s 1-1 draw with Shamrock Rovers on Friday night before he got to the Ian Harte-shaped elephant in the room.
His former Republic of Ireland teammate has experienced quite a backlash since his comments to a bookmaker’s blog about League of Ireland clubs “killing lads’ chances” of going to England by pricing them out of moves.
Before he addressed that – and the issue of agents in general – the Shels boss confirmed that new signing Ellis Chapman will start tomorrow’s trip to Galway United.
The winter arrival from Sligo Rovers had an injury during pre-season and has so far been restricted to appearances off the bench. He did well against Rovers on Friday and Duff explained how he had chatted with the player on Thursday to discuss the situation and lay out the plan of action.
Chapman’s physicality will be important away to Galway, a team who beat Shels 1-0 twice at Eammon Deacy Park last season. One of the last things he told his players before they left Tolka Park on Friday was to be ready to perform for 100 minutes tomorrow.
“You go away to a John Caulfield team, Ollie [Horgan] obviously there with him. When John was at Cork, or Galway, and you’ve any naivety or weakness or softness about you when you go away to his home patch, he’ll find it and he’ll punish you,” Duff said.
“Take your foot off the gas for five, 10 minutes and John will punish you.”
Rovers did just that when Conor Kearns collided with Paddy Barrett and spilled the ball in the direction of Aaron McEneff for their equaliser on Friday. “Conor [Kearns] is brilliant. It’s the reason why he got in team of the year last year,” Duff said.
“He’ll be disappointed, but as always whether it be an individual or a unit or a collective we always get a reaction because they’re good, brilliant, honest men. He’ll be fine. Disappointed, no problem, we move on.”
And then conversation turned to Harte. Duff insisted that he did not read the comments but was aware of the furore and response of Stephen Kenny. Minutes before he entered the press room at Tolka, Stephen Bradley also weighed in to dismiss the accuracy of the former Leeds United defender’s statements.
Duff acknowledged that the ambition of players in his own squad is to secure moves and while he admitted he has no issue with that he didn’t care for his old teammate’s dismissive
“Here, it’s just the view of the league. I don’t think people across the water look at it very fondly and I guess here it’s slightly disappointing if Ian has said that.
“Of course we should demand fees. First and foremost, players in the building here, young players, like it or lump it, their ambition is to go to England. So, I’m going to coach them, improve them, bring them along and I want them to really affect Shels.
“But I’ve openly always told our players ‘I want you to go England’. Evan Caffrey, cousin of Gavin Molloy, Gav went away [to Aberdeen], I wanted Gav to go away. Did we get done a bit on the fee? Yeah, possibly, but that was just the nature of how it all worked out.
“I want our players to go to England but myself, the staff, this club made Gavin Molloy the best defender in the league. Are we going to let him go for free off the back of it? Football is a business, an absolute business.”
Duff spoke to Off The Ball on the Tolka pitch about his disdain for agents before returning to the topic in a bit more detail inside.
“It’s no dig against Ian Harte (but) agents…I wouldn’t listen to a word they say. Agents at the end of the day care about their players because they’re making money out of their players.
“If you want to talk about care for players or look at somebody who cares for players, come and look at me and my staff, we give our players everything, we treat them like our sons.
“I’m just going off on a rant about agents now. I’ve no time for them. There’s not many, probably on one hand, that you can trust, and as I openly said outside, it has probably cost me in our next transfer window because nobody will want to do any business with us.
“It’s something I’ve been passionate about since day dot. Agents, how much do you care? I’d die for my players. Ask an agent ‘would you die for yours?’ I don’t think so.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Damien Duff Ian Harte League of Ireland Reaction Soccer