JACK MOYLAN AND Evan Ferguson have had big years in very different realms of the football world.
The latter made his full senior debut for Ireland, emerged as a rising star on the Premier League stage and was nominated for the PFA Young Player of the Year award.
“You could see it with Ev when he was 14,” Moylan says, recalling their time together at Bohemians’ academy. “He was a man even then, pinning Rob Cornwall in training who was one of the strongest defenders in the league.
“Now look at him. He’s probably going to be a €150 million player. Ev is one in a billion, for everyone else it’s different, you have to find a different way in your career.”
Moylan has been doing just that after deciding not to play it safe.
At the start of December the 22-year-old forward was also recognised by his peers in PFA Ireland on the shortlist for their Young Player of the Year for 2023. He lost out to Sam Curtis of St Patrick’s Athletic.
Moylan’s performances for Shelbourne, including 15 goals to finish as joint top scorer, led to a move to Lincoln City in League One.
He has been in England since November, sharing a house with his childhood friend Dylan Duffy, who he went to Derby County with on trial in his teens. Conor Grant, now with MK Dons, and Ireland international Jason Knight also travelled. Nathan Collins was on his Kennedy Cup side and headed for Stoke City.
Sheffield United and Watford also had a look at Moylan. “But I wasn’t ready for this when I was 15 or 16. I was way too small. If I’d have gone over then I would have been home by 19 without any education or idea of what senior football is,” he explains.
“Playing in the League of Ireland has shown me what’s in front of me. I’ve seen lads come back from England who have no trust in themselves because of what they’ve already been through. They struggle and you can understand why. I’m not scared of going now. The physicality, the demands, the mentality you need, getting nailed. Yeah, I feel like I’m ready.”
Damien Duff is the reason for that, calling at exactly the right moment to stir something inside him.
Moylan was ready to sign for Colin Healy at Cork City and stay in the First Division prior to the 2022 season.
He spent the second half of the 2021 campaign impressing at that level on loan from Bohs at Wexford. Goalkeeper Jimmy Corcoran is a close friend and was heading to Turner’s Cross.
Moylan knew he was set to be released at Dalymount Park and his confidence had taken a knock. His Leaving Cert year had also been interrupted by Covid-19 in 2020 so he benefited from predicted grades. “I always got along with teachers, I wasn’t a bad kid causing trouble. I wasn’t a messer, I turned in every day so that stuff stands to you,” he reasons. “But I wasn’t like my two sisters. They were both 500, 600 points in the Leaving Cert.”
A month into college at TU Dublin – with classes held remotely because of the pandemic – Moylan decided to drop out.
“I was logging on at 8.59 in the morning then going back to sleep. I didn’t want to leave anything behind with football and feel like I had any regrets, or have people say there was wasted potential,” he says.
Still, Moylan thought the best thing for him at the end of 2021 was to stay in the second tier and, as he describes himself “play where I could be comfortable and stand out.”
Then Duff called.
He was drunk.
“I remember how I did find him. I went to New York for two days on the batter. Went to Boston to finish it off for another two days,” the Shels boss revealed earlier in the year.
“All my friends had gone off home on a flight and I was sitting in a bar half-drunk…pretty drunk while watching Jack Moylan’s clips. And I thought ‘wow this kid is good’. So I rang him drunk – he thought it was a prank call but maybe I was slurring my words – so I did ask him to meet me when I got back. Obviously it wasn’t the next day because I’m not good with hangovers.
“But I met him later that week and that’s how I spotted Jack Moylan. Sitting at a bar on my own getting drunk in Boston, looking at his magic.”
Moylan laughs.
“I just thought he had bad WiFi. I was in the car with my mates in Baldoyle making sure they were quiet.”
At first he told Duff he was going to Cork and didn’t feel ready for the Premier Division.
“He didn’t laugh at me but he told me to just cop on,” Moylan says.
It was the beginning of a working relationship that has helped transform the Dubliner’s fortunes, his breakout year delivering European football for Shels, the young player of the year accolade and a move that he hopes can be the next springboard in a career that has seen him involved just once at any level with Ireland – a camp with the U21s.
Duff’s influence was crucial.
“In 20 years’ time I will still call him gaffer,” Moylan explains. “You can feel yourself getting better and stronger because of the work he does. Mentally stronger too, you learn to deal with the demands he puts on you and you want more of that.
“You want the responsibility and feel good when he is on your case to give more because it makes you feel like you have more to give.
“You are the one who has to rise to that, you have to do the work but the manager is the one who guides you,” he continues. “There have been so many times when he will stay back with me after training for 20-30 minutes doing certain movements with the ball, timing runs and understanding when to move when certain players have the ball.
“He loves this certain dribbling technique where you bring the ball from behind you, you drag it with you. Eden Hazard used to do it. He showed me a clip when I did it terribly so the next Tuesday he had me and Jad Hakiki out punching balls into us, showing us how to do it.
“Then he’s getting right into us, pressing us, tackling us. No one sees that. He’s there struggling [with his hip]. He might be in a bad way but he is the type of manager who will happily be in pain to make you 1% better. You see him in pain but he wants to make you better. That is why players would do anything for him.”
Moylan is now ready to leave that behind and is excited at the prospect of his debut in English football.
“Improving and getting better is still everyone’s motivation in the league. Young players definitely view the League of Ireland differently now but the aim is always to kick on to the next level. My Dad (Brendan) was travelling home and away to all the Shels matches, giving lifts to my mates.
“He has a real connection to the League of Ireland now because of me. He loves it. He was a St Vincent’s GAA man before I was born. A lot of my family and friends are GAA heads but it was always football for me.”
