Better late than never – Sammie Szmodics is is not the first player to launch an Ireland career near end of his 20s

We will find out in time what his song of choice was but the latest man to come on the scene – one of three uncapped players in the current Ireland squad and by far the oldest – had an initiation rite of his own, for the cameras and for the public.

Getting his first taste of media duties attached to international football, Sammie Szmodics was asked yesterday how to pronounce his name (“the ‘z’ is basically silent, so it’s like Smodicks”, he said). One of the many things we now need to learn about Irish football’s latest recruit.

And his entrance on to the stage, at the age of 28 and while playing rather well for a club in the bottom half of England’s second tier, is possibly a vision of a brighter future for a goal-shy Ireland side but also a nod to the past.

Today's Sport News in 90 Seconds - 20th March

With so much science and data in the football industry, where talents are hot-housed at a very early age, and when there are 14-year-olds with agents, it’s strange that the bright young thing in the Ireland camp will be close to his 29th birthday by the time he can make his competitive international debut in the autumn.

But it’s also a tradition of the Irish game, to unearth gems who have miles on the clock but a lot to offer a desperate nation.

Yes, some Irish talents shrug off the challenge posed by their youth and warmly embrace international football in their teens, as did four of the all-time greats – John Giles, Liam Brady, Ronnie Whelan and Roy Keane – when they made their debuts before they’d hit 20.

Of Ireland’s 10 most-capped players, six made their senior debuts as teenagers (Robbie Keane, Shay Given, Steve Staunton, Damien Duff, Aiden McGeady and Niall Quinn) while two more (Kevin Kilbane and John O’Shea) were 20 years old on the occasion of their first senior caps.

They coped with early pressure and rigorous demands to build something lasting. The Who were right in the end: the kids are alright.

But ever since the day in 1965 when the first non-Irish native played for the Republic a day short of his 28th birthday (Shay Brennan), there’s a long line of late developers that Szmodics can trace and use as a reference and as inspiration more so than as a warning.

Keith Andrews was 28 when capped for the first time; Jon Walters, John Aldridge and David McGoldrick made their debuts at 27; Andy Townsend, Denis Irwin and Paul McGrath were 25. Wes Hoolahan was 30 by the time he played in a competitive international for the first time, Bernie Slaven was 30 when he made his debut and got to a World Cup finals in the same year, David Forde was a debutant at 31.

Take out Forde, Irwin and McGrath and there’s a trend as those late developers were midfielders or strikers, coming in late in their careers to fertilise a field that had gone barren.

Jack Charlton was the main beneficiary of a system and a bloodline where Ireland players came to him ready-made, taking in the likes of Townsend, Ray Houghton, Aldridge, Irwin and Chris Morris.

But when an eligible striker (like Aldridge and Walters) or a midfielder with nous, experience and the physique needed to play at the top level (Houghton, Townsend and Andrews) becomes available, there are only gains to be made.

The patient ones are also rewarded, like future European Cup winner Irwin (not selected for the 1990 World Cup finals) or the talisman that was Hoolahan who had an astonishing 11-year gap between his first time in an Ireland squad (an unused sub under Don Givens in 2002) and the first time he was trusted to start in a competitive game, by Giovanni Trapattoni, when he was 31.

So Szmodics is treading a path that’s well worn. While pleased to be here, there’s also a sense of regret from the Colchester-born Blackburn player with a mix of English, Irish and Hungarian blood in his veins that it has taken so long.

Asked yesterday if he was aware of the tradition of late breakers like Townsend and Aldridge, he suggested his debut should have come earlier.

“I was excited three or four years ago to make my debut at 24, I am 28 now but I still feel like I am quite young.

“Whatever age you make your debut it’s still a proud moment, if you make it at 17 or 35 you still have lads in the squad in their mid-30s still playing.

“It doesn’t matter what age you are at your debut, it’s a proud moment, hopefully I can sit here in years to come with many more caps for Ireland,” he said. “With the form and amount of games I’ve played and seeing others make their debut has made me hungry. I am excited to hopefully get it on the weekend.”

Pulling in a veteran for a gig like international football doesn’t always work out. Stephen Kenny plundered the youth ranks to give a chance to inexperienced players like Gavin Bazunu, Jason Knight, Adam Idah, Andrew Omobamidele and Dara O’Shea and deserves credit for that.

Kenny also looked down the Houghton/Aldridge road and opted to give 27-year-old CJ Hamilton a debut in 2022, one of the biggest mis-steps of the Kenny era as Hamilton’s career, before and after that debut, gave no proof that he really was at the level of a senior international.

Kenny did bequeath his successor one genuine talent in the form of Mikey Johnston, a player who can excite the crowd but also win points for the team.

With attackers likes of Troy Parrott, Michael Obafemi, Idah and Aaron Connolly all yet to truly deliver on their enormous potential, it’s no surprise that O’Shea has ignored the age – or the league table – and identified Szmodics as a player who can not only push on his own much-stalled international career but bring more out of the younger ones around him.

“There are a lot of good players in that changing room, and people who miss out on the squad, there are a lot of good, technical players. I think we just need more of an attacking threat,” he says.

A late arrival, the task now for Szmodics is to be more of a Houghton and less of a Hamilton.