And while Ross Tierney says he has not abandoned hope of adding senior caps to the ones he earned at underage level, the in-form Bohemians man admits it will be difficult for home-based players to force their way into Heimir Hallgrímsson’s squad in the short term.
Tierney (23) is now back in Ireland, and back at Bohemians, after a cross-channel spell with Motherwell and Walsall, and while some players take time to find their feet upon returning home, he has slotted right in at Bohs, netting two goals in Friday’s 4-0 FAI Cup win which earned the Gypsies a semi-final date with Derry City, taking his tally to five goals since his summer move to Dalymount Park.
The woes of the senior international side have led to a fresh focus on the source of players from that squad, with figures like Glenn Whelan calling for prospects from the current U-21 squad to be promoted at the expense of under-achieving senior players while it’s also been debated if there are any League of Ireland players who could step up, with Shamrock Rovers boss Stephen Bradley saying last week that “there are players in this league that are good enough to play”.
“That’s the bar we want to get to. It’s every boy’s dream growing up in Ireland to play for the Irish national team. That’s a little bit away for myself,” says Tierney.
“I’ve just got to look after playing club football and hopefully a little bit down the line that could happen. It’s a dream and if it comes true all well and good but I’ve got to look after myself in club football. The national team, people say they’re not doing well but, if you look at the players, there’s a lot of young players so it’s going to take time.
“You look at the Rovers team, a lot of the lads in that team are going to play in Europe and, you think of the national team, and how many players are going to play in Europe this year? You’ve got to see the standard they’re playing at, it’s not the be-all and end-all across the water. When I went away there wasn’t much difference in the standard in the League of Ireland compared to across the water.”
Tierney made an instant impact at U-21 level, scoring on his debut in a friendly win over Australia and he was a regular alongside Premier Leaguer players like Ferguson and Smallbone in a qualifying campaign that ended in a playoff loss to Israel.
“I played with a few lads in and around that and I know the quality they possess and, at the end of the day, the national team manager didn’t have much time to put his own stamp on it but I’m sure over the next couple of games we can see that happen,” he says.
“I’ve got to have confidence in myself. I see that I’ve been around with and been in teams with those players so I don’t put myself down, I know I can play at that level but it’s just about consistency and I maybe didn’t have that run of games when I went away. My consistency levels, the form I had when I left here, I probably didn’t get to that over there so I need to try to get back to the form here and hopefully I can get there towards the end of the season and stay injury-free.”
Reunited with another returned emigrant, Dawson Devoy, Tierney has thrived at Bohs in his second spell. “It probably helped that I knew a lot of people when I was coming back so I didn’t need a lot of time to try to bed in. I knew a lot of the players and in the first three games I thought I got up to speed quite quickly and then I think the minutes started catching up on me because I’d not played this many minutes in two-and-a-half years,” he added.
““Nobody wants to go away and come back as early as I did. There are a lot of things that didn’t go my way that I thought should have and could have, and done something different. But there’s no better place to kickstart my career again. I’m not too old, I’m still only 23, I’ve got my family around me and I’ve got a good group here. Everyone is trying to push each other on the pitch and off the pitch. We know our standards need to improve with results but we’ve got the tools and players to do that.”
