EVERYTHING IS GOING to plan for Sean McLoughlin.
Almost.
Six months in to a three-year contract with Hull City, the 23-year-old returned to the Championship club from a loan spell with St Mirren just before New Year’s Eve.
He has been around the first-team squad for the last few weeks, biding his time for another taste of competitive action. Today’s FA Cup tie with Chelsea could provide that opportunity, having impressed during the first half of the season in Scotland.
An ever-present in 21 games, McLoughlin established himself at the heart of Jim Goodwin’s defence, his form leading to a recall by manager Grant McCann to help provide depth as the club aim for a play-off push.
“It was a great move,” McLoughlin says of the loan. “I think it showed that I am capable of performing at that level in Scotland and raising my game. It really helped me develop.”
Not just on the pitch, either.
McLoughlin shared an apartment with the club’s new Turkish signing, İlkay Durmuş, and had no choice but to take the well-travelled, 25-year-old midfielder under his wing.
“Sure I was like a part-time babysitter, too,” he laughs. “Anytime the club needed something relayed to him [Durmus] it would come through me because we were together. He didn’t drive either so I helped him with that.
It was my first time living with someone that wasn’t my family. I was out doing the grocery shopping for the first time, so I was learning about that. The lads would slag me because nearly every night I would make a chicken curry, that’s my specialty.
“All this stuff, taking on responsibilities that you never had to before, it can only be good for you.”
McLoughlin made sure that his parents, Des and Mary, three older brothers and his girlfriend came to visit him just outside Glasgow, with only two trips home to Cobh during those six months.
“It’s much easier to have them rock up to your front door rather than getting on a plane after training or a match, that’s a trek,” he explains.
“I’ve not suffered from homesickness at all and I was determined not to let that into my head. I didn’t want that to be an issue, and I’m a little bit older now too so it’s not like I’m just a kid over here.”
That much has been clear since John Caulfield brought him back to Cork City’s first team in 2017, just a couple of years after he had been released at U19 level.
McLoughlin was half way through a degree in Business Information Systems in University College Cork (UCC) – completing it just before he moved to England – and his football career was going from strength to strength too, earning a cap for Ireland’s U21s.
“I remember being 13 and when the Kennedy Cup comes around. If you don’t get picked and don’t get a trial for a club in England at 13 it’s like your life is over. You think that’s the end of the world, or at least the end of you being a footballer.
That’s how I felt,” McLoughlin adds. “I thought I would just keep playing football for the love it, not as my job. My Dad kept telling me that he believed I could go to England and I remember looking at him as if he was mad, because I was playing for my local club as a kid and not going on trials.
“Even when I went back to Cork with John [Caulfield], I didn’t believe I could go to England. I just wanted to play football.”
That attitude towards the game didn’t change as soon as the opportunity to go on loan came up last summer.
The possibility had been on the table as part of the transfer discussions when McLoughlin joined Hull. Within a couple of days’ training, the defender was informed by McCann of St Mirren’s interest and the chance of regular game-time.
“I was straight up the road,” he recalls. “Realistically, the step from playing every week in the League of Ireland to the Championship is a massive one. I know some players have done it in the past but I didn’t want to stop playing.
“It would have been a real shame after making good progress with Cork and playing proper first-team football to stop making progress. I needed to keep playing every week.
“When you go on loan, maybe some players switch off a little bit and don’t worry if the club they are with is struggling. It’s like they know they can go back to their club so it doesn’t matter if there is a relegation fight because they will be fine.
“I wasn’t like that at all. I couldn’t think like that because I wanted to get the best out of myself in every game and I can only do that if I give it everything.
If you get a bad reputation in the game there will be managers who find out easily and think ‘why bother with him again?’ That can come back to bit you if you don’t care. You have to have a good work ethic and I set those standards for myself.”
The challenge of Scottish football was a step up, McLoughlin accepts, and he was keen to test himself against the best on offer. “You play in front of 60,000 at Celtic Park on a Wednesday night and it’s like nothing I ever experienced before.
“I signed on a Thursday and my first game was away to Hibernian with 25,000 there and it’s like getting thrown in at the deep end. But you learn on the pitch, you have to sink or swim.”
McLoughlin thrived and there was even a tinge of regret when Rangers left Alfredo Morelos out of the starting XI for their clash.
“I was actually disappointed that [Jermaine] Defoe played because I wanted to see what Morelos was all about. You hear so much about him, but he only came on for the last 10 minutes.
“Straight away I gave him an elbow into the back to see what he’d do. He turned round and kicked me in the shins. I loved that. Playing against these players, you have to get to that level.
You have to raise your game and it makes you bring your game to that level consistently. That’s what I want to keep doing. Like, Defoe has had a ridiculous career. If I had stayed sitting on the bench at Hull I never would have been exposed to that level of player, when you have to deal with his movement and keep your concentration up for the whole game.
“I’ll be honest, I was thinking before I played ‘what’s this going to be like? This could be a disaster’. But it wasn’t, and then you get confidence from that.”
With Hull just six points off sixth place in the Championship, offering hope of another shot at the Premier League’s golden goose, the FA Cup will not be a priority this season.
It means the visit of Frank Lampard’s side today gives players like McLoughlin a chance to be involved, something he is keen to grasp with both hands.
“The main thing for me right now is that I know I’m doing the best I can to perform. I’m doing what I can to make sure the manager knows he can trust me and won’t let him down. Football is strange so you never know what can happen.
“You won’t get too many chances but if I do I will be confident I can take it.”
