Ben Symes

going into a game against a side that are heading to the World Cup and we're in their homelands just waiting for it Ireland vs Canada Friday night 1-0 draw this was scheduled to be a half 12 kick off it ended up not kicking off till a quarter to 1 which there was like NBA rules the worst thing about that is I sat up and watched this that's the first time I realised that it started late

I was just sitting there like what's going on here I had got back to my hotel in Cork City and we texted a couple of journalists the weather was miserable and said you know what we're all just going to stay in our hotels and watch this we're not going out for this one and sitting around waiting for half 12 getting a bit sleepy and it was only it was about 20 past 12 so just very late cutting over here for any sort of coverage at all

on that game yeah obviously we saw a League of Ireland debut in the end from the off Dawson Devoy lasted 45 minutes we also saw Jadon Oumey get his first start for the Republic of Ireland I mean

Before we get into individual player forms, let's not beat around the bush.

That first half was a pretty torrid watch.

And it's very unlike them, scoring from set-pieces as well.

Which is, now I know they didn't score, it was a Jacob Ryan own goal, but I thought that was fine.

yeah producer brown is looking at you with great respect that you use the rugby term on a football podcast um i always thought keen levy it's one week suspension looks like yeah do they give them a rugby i always thought uh i always thought keen levy looked like a phil phone when i saw him play in the in the league world we used to we used to sometimes call him like he's phil phone without the end product but he's gained the end product yeah over the last kind of six months or so

he has found that end product and I think a lot of testament has to go to Stephen Kenny for the work that he does off the field with that just before we kind of finish up on this I want to say that a lot of credit I think has to go to the Republic of Ireland men's national team staff as a whole for these kind of camps because

the likes of Joe Hodge Amor told me he you know he hadn't seen him before this camp hadn't seen him at all and it had come out of recommendations of other people and staff and he watched a couple of clips of him the likes of Jay Newman would have worked with underage staff staff members and there's a couple more that would have worked with the likes of Jim Crawford who was called up for this camp players that I met Jim Crawford in the airport actually in Alicante coming back he was with Jason Malumby oh yeah a few of them were on the flight but Jim Crawford was notably there with him yeah

yeah so like this is a staff as a collective coming together and going look you don't have the time to watch these players we've watched them get them in for this camp and then you can watch them up close see what they can do and the likes of Jack Boylan who hasn't been involved in any camp before I know he got sent off fortunately against Qatar but he has firmly grabbed that chance and now he's in a real chance to be

Which I'd like to see Bemi Rubi play because he spoke just a couple of weeks before about playing in Sash football in Nigeria.

Obviously, Onaseni's gone to play for Nigeria today.

And he said, you know, if Nigeria called, Super Eagles called, he would have to seriously, seriously think about it about going up.

So it's a delight to see him get international recognition again for Ireland.

Just before, right before we wrap up, I know we're not going to Mexico.

There are a couple of people involved in Mexico and the United States and Canada.

If you want to hear about them, the avant-garde guide to the World Cup is on air tonight on Off the Ball from nine o'clock.

and you will hear all about the Irish players and many, many more.

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