FORMER IRELAND MANAGER Mick McCarthy has lamented his predecessor Martin O’Neill’s failure to secure Declan Rice and Jack Grealish for Ireland.
Grealish was capped to U21 level for Ireland before declaring for England, while Rice was capped three times at senior level by O’Neill, but only in friendly games, allowing him to subsequently throw his lot in with England. Rice had not officially declared for England when McCarthy returned to the job in 2019, but he had made up his mind to switch.
“I just inherited that one at the very last knockings of Declan”, said McCarthy on the Quickly, Kevin podcast. “I went to meet him and he’s such a lovely guy. Really sad that… he’d obviously made that decision then, or was in the process of making that decision.
“Looking at him now, he’s made his decision, it’s the right decision for him. He’s thriving on it. The same with Jack Grealish. We should have played them before we did. You can play more games now. It used to be one game, if you played one competitive game, then you were deemed to be of that nationality.
“And of course we never picked Jack or Declan to play in one of them, which is sad. We’d be a much better team if those two were with us. You make decisions on the game you are playing. I’d have to say I have given people caps, yes I have.
“I’ve put them on to make sure they are going to play for us. I have done it. I’m not going to lie about that. Some of them will be delighted that I did because they’ve gone on to have good careers.”
O’Neill insists he did all he could to convince Rice and Grealish to play for Ireland, but said he did not want to “coerce” them into doing so.
“You cannot coerce people, you cannot just bring them into an international game”, said O’Neill ahead of England’s World Cup quarter-final last year, in which Rice started and Grealish was sprung from the bench. ”I’m talking about a competitive game where the minute that he plays in a competitive match for the country that’s them announcing that they’re going to play for them. That was never going to be the case. You can’t deceive people into playing in these games. You cannot force people into doing that.”
