Age no barrier for Kilbane

Despite being 33 years of age and the veteran of eight qualifying campaigns, Kevin Kilbane is hungry for more, writes Mary Hannigan

THERE’S A “Questions and Answers” section on the Football Association of Ireland’s website where members of the senior squad respond to queries about everything from their musical tastes to favourite players of all time. “Where were you for David O’Leary’s penalty against Romania,” they ask. “In bed sleeping – I was only three,” replies Darron Gibson.

Granted, Kevin Kilbane was just 13 at the time, it’s not as if he’s an Italia 90 veteran, but he’s conscious, as the seasons go by, of the ever-increasing age gap between him and the new faces arriving in the squad. Fellow left back Greg Cunningham, for example, was six when Kilbane made his Ireland debut.

As one of the elder statesmen of the group, then, he’s been asked by Giovanni Trapattoni to help the younger crew adapt to life in the senior squad, a role he enjoys playing. There are limits, though, to how accommodating he intends being. “The kids want to take the shirt off your back and will do if you’re not performing,” he says.

Much as he wants to see them develop and strengthen the manager’s options, he has no plans just yet to vacate his particular spot in the team. He’ll win his 105th cap against Armenia today and hopes to add a few more yet to his tally before he’s done.

He did, though, give some thought to retirement from international football after the disappointment of that night in Paris, wondered if it was time to conserve his energy in the hope of extending his club career, his latest posting at Hull City.

“I did think about it, yeah. I spoke to a few people and their advice was that if the manager doesn’t pick you, well, he’s going to retire you, so just stay around and see what happens – if he has confidence in you he will pick you. And that’s ultimately what’s happened again, I’m still in the squad and I’m proud of that.

“I spoke with the manager and Liam Brady too, and they helped me decide to make myself available again. If anyone thought it was time for me to go that wasn’t said and it was nice to hear that people wanted me to stay around.

“I just want to be in this squad, I love it, it’s the pinnacle for me. Hopefully we can have a bit of success in the next couple of years, qualify for a major tournament again – and hopefully I’ll be around for that.”

There was, he says, no pressure either from his family to end his Ireland career, even though international duty takes him away from home for lengthy enough spells.

“Of course the family issue is there and you want to do your best by them, but no one’s put me under any pressure, no one’s said you need to be finishing now because everyone knows how much it means to me to be coming over and playing. Anyway, my wife’s gone to Majorca this week, so that helps,” he laughed.

This, then, is the start of the 33-year-old’s eighth qualifying campaign, only one, for the 2002 World Cup finals, ending in success. “But you get hungrier with every passing campaign because you never know what’s around the corner. You could get injured tomorrow, anything could happen.

“We feel confident off the back of the last campaign, I do think we’re at a higher level now than when we started out last time. We grew as a team in that campaign and that has given us a real belief that we can go on and do it this time. Everyone’s looking fresh and sharp and really up for it.

“Armenia will be a difficult match for us, I think it’ll be a hostile environment to play in and we know that if we’re not quite at it we could get turned over. But if we play like we did in the last campaign I think we’ve got a real chance of going there and getting off to a good start. Six points is something we can achieve from the Armenia and Andorra games, definitely.”