THE STOCK PHRASES can roll off the tongue.
Whether it’s a talented youngster farmed out on loan from a bigger club to gain experience, or a seasoned professional reflecting on their formative years at the end of a long and successful career, they will talk about the importance of early exposure to a first-team environment.
“Real football.”
“Proper football.”
“Teammates playing for their mortgages.”
“Needing to win to pay the bills.
“A fight to survive.”
It’s the football equivalent of Mike Tyson’s famous line about how “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
For all of the years of dedication, it’s only when you have to deal with the pressure and expectation that comes with being in a first-team dressing room that you realise what it is required to last the course.
Footballers will have to overcome a litany of blows to sustain a career, so how their resolve is shaped will go a long way to determining how far they are capable of going.
Jamie McGrath knows this.
On Wednesday, the Republic of Ireland international spoke to assembled media at FAI headquarters in west Dublin before the squad flew to Amsterdam for Saturday’s Euro 2024 qualifier with the Netherlands.
The midfielder is 27 and has been around the block over the last decade. He got his degree through Maynooth University while blossoming at St Patrick’s Athletic – a strategic partnership that paid dividends.
He was then signed by Stephen Kenny for Dundalk in 2017, the year after they had qualified for the group stages of the Europa League. McGrath no doubt learned the value of listening when former goalkeeper Gary Rogers – his fellow Meathman – would drive him to and from training each day.
McGrath moved to St Mirren in Scotland, and made his senior Ireland debut under Kenny in June 2021, before joining Wigan Athletic the following January when they were on the cusp of promotion to the Championship.
It was a disaster. McGrath was unable to break into the matchday squad most weekends and was left ostracised.
A return to Scotland followed, first on loan to Dundee United, followed by a permanent transfer to Aberdeen during the summer.
McGrath is thriving and likely to start once again on Saturday. He cites that early grounding in the League of Ireland as being imperative in dealing with everything that came afterwards.
“It’s good mental building, to have that mental strength. You might be up one week, scoring a few goals, and the next week you’re out of the squad, so it’s very very important from a young age to experience that and how you can adapt to it,” he explained.
“If you can’t adapt to it, you probably won’t reach the levels. Others adapt better than others. It’s pretty important for a footballer to be in that environment from a young age.
“The bottom line is to keep going, to keep believing how good you are. It only takes a good three or four months to change everybody’s opinion. Football is like that. If you score a good few goals in a short amount of time, it can bring you places,” McGrath continued.
“A few good performances week after week can totally change everybody’s outlook so I think the main thing is to be patient and keep that belief in yourself.”
Maintaining that confidence and level of self-assurance can be difficult in a profession of wild contrasts.
Last Sunday, four of the current crop at St Pat’s experienced the extreme high of lifting the FAI Cup.
𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗮 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿-𝟮𝟭𝘀 🏆🇮🇪
— Ireland Football ⚽️🇮🇪 (@IrelandFootball) November 14, 2023
Four Saints in camp ☘️#IRLU21 | #COYBIG https://t.co/wywALVxJdL pic.twitter.com/7LSS7m2OFu
Sam Curtis, Adam Murphy, Conor Carty and Kian Leavy have been to the fore for the Saints in 2023, the latter providing a real spark for the run-in.
The quartet linked up with the Ireland U21s ahead of their own Euro qualifier away to Norway tomorrow. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that they have played their last game together for St Pat’s.
After Sunday’s win, Gavin Cooney cited here how “Uefa’s most recent benchmarking report calculated the League of Ireland Premier Division as the second-youngest top-flight across Europe – 57% of league minutes in 2022 were played by guys under the age of 23 – only Latvia had a higher proportion.”
The updated stats for the 2023 campaign that has just concluded will shed further light on whether this trend is continuing.
The youth of those emerging also reflects the vibrancy in the stands, but what cannot be lost amid this exciting shift in momentum is the type of “mental building” which served McGrath, and others, so well – especially as the connection between the senior Ireland team and the League of Ireland is only going to get stronger.
