EARLIER IN HIS career, Seani Maguire was driven by the desire to prove Stephen Kenny wrong.

The 2015 FAI Cup final provided the fuel. That morning, the then-Dundalk boss told his young striker that he was left out of the squad for the Aviva Stadium showpiece. Maguire informed him that he would regret making that decision.

Maguire achieved his goal within 12 months. His 121st-minute winner snatched the trophy away from Oriel Park to his new home in Cork City. He’s scored for Ireland, played big matches in England, but that moment remains comfortably up there among his top-five career highlights.

By the time Kenny took over as Ireland manager in 2020, Maguire had eight international caps to his name. He would earn three more during those early months of the new regime, although each call-up arrived as a replacement for Covid cases, close contacts, or injuries. Thereafter, the calls stopped coming.

“I probably spoke more to Stephen after the game we played against Pat’s, when we lost 3-2, than I did when he was Ireland manager,” Maguire reflects.

“It is what it is. I could probably talk to you for 5-10 minutes about the storyline of me and Stephen. Look, there’s no bad blood from my side, but would I have wanted things to be done better on his side? Yeah, 100%. But there’s no bad blood.”

Even when he did get those late call-ups for Kenny’s initial squads, Maguire was brought back to that day of frustration at the Aviva in 2015.

“I was in every squad with Martin (O’Neill), Mick (McCarthy), and then when Stephen came in, he shut me out. I thought this would be a time to rejuvenate the relationship. By the looks of things, it probably got worse.

“Maybe he wanted to bring up the younger players. They’re doing well now. Troy (Parrott) is a £20-30 million player. Adam (Idah) has done what he’s done at Celtic, played a lot of times for Ireland, scored a lot of important goals. So you can’t really go against him for that.

“But he’s brought me into squads at the time when I was doing well at Preston. Didn’t even put me on the bench. You know what I mean? Stuff like that.

“I’m never going to say no to getting called up by your country, but when you’re sat as the 24th man in the stands by yourself over in Bulgaria, it’s not nice.

“Especially when it was during Covid. I’d go back to Preston, it takes me a couple of weeks to get back up to speed. Things like that.

“I could go on all day about it, but you’ve probably got a little bit of a taste of it.”

In that electric 18-month spell on Leeside almost a decade ago, it was Cork against the world. Maguire feels that still. He thinks people would rather City step aside to accommodate an all-Dublin Cup final.

“Stephen will probably want to come down here against Cork City and really stuff it to us. Any manager of St Pat’s would.

“They’ve had a disappointing season so Pat’s will be coming down in their numbers. Hopefully we’ll get a good crowd and it’ll be a really tasty cup tie, one that I’m really looking forward to.

“At the end of the day, everyone in the country thinks it’s going to be a Dublin derby final. Kerry did the unthinkable by coming from down 3-0 against Sligo to win 4-3. Anything can happen in football. Who’s to say there won’t be a Cork and Kerry Cup final?

“The Dublin Cup final. That’s what everyone wants, that’s what the media wants, that’s what everyone looking from the outside wants, so hopefully that doesn’t happen.”

With relegation all but confirmed, Maguire has no qualms about the deep disappointment of City’s season. He insists there’s no clause taking him away from the Turner’s Cross rebuild.

“No, I still have a couple of years left in my contract. I came back to potentially retire here. Obviously, I didn’t think that 30 months into coming back that I’d be 10th in the league, 11 points off with 12 points to play for. I didn’t think in my wildest dreams that would happen.

“But I came back to win trophies and win medals, get the club back into Europe, and ultimately we’re 180 minutes from doing that. Take away the opposition, you’ve got two games, it’s still 11 v 11.”

Between Ruairí Keating’s injury and Djenairo Daniels’ exit, Maguire has had to reinvent himself as a lone striker under Ger Nash.

“I’ll probably go down as the smallest targetman in Europe,” quips the five-foot-nine frontman.

“I’ve found it more difficult because I’ve never really done it in my career before. More often than not, when I’m coming up against a centre-half, I’d win nine out of 10 headers.

But when you’re going up physically to then run onto your own flick-ons, it can be quite difficult.

If the manager wants me to do that, and he feels like that’s getting the best out of everyone else, I don’t care.

“It’s not something that I’m used to, but it’s something that I’m doing quite well. Maybe that’s why I’m not scoring as many goals as what I’m used to at Cork City. But if that gets us through to a Cup final on Friday night, playing that way, I don’t care.”