Defender desperate to fill Dunne's shoes on his own merits

WORLD CUP 2014 QUALIFYING:Darren O'Dea tells EMMET MALONEwhy he has settled so quickly in Toronto and revelling in the anonymity of it all

FOR A while there it must have seemed as though he might be handed the role on a more permanent basis but Darren O’Dea insists he is quite content to simply deputise for Richard Dunne this week in Kazakhstan and much happier than that with the latest twists and turns in his ever-eventful club career.

“You want your best players and he’s one of them,” observes the 25-year-old who has edged ever closer to centre stage in the Republic of Ireland set up over the past couple of years but still has a generally immoveable object blocking the path to further progress.

“It’s strange; of course if he had retired you’d always sit up and think you have a chance. But truthfully, you should be getting in on your own merit and not because people retired and injured.”

O’Dea’s international advancement to date has been made against the background of almost endless uncertainty on the club front with an initially promising time at Celtic, where he had flourished after breaking into the team but then drifted to the margins and was repeatedly allowed to go out on loan, finally ending at the start of the summer.

As a free agent, he had no shortage of options to weigh up during the summer and after so many false starts in England, the Dubliner admits to having considered offers from the likes of Russia and Ukraine.

In the end, he settled on Toronto where he and his family have taken to so enthusiastically that he now sees the Canadian city and Major League Soccer as his preferred home for what should be the best years of his career.

“I had about 4,000 agents ringing me over the summer,” he says, “but when I went over to Toronto it made up my mind really. It’s just a completely different way of life. It’s fantastic.

“When you’ve got a young family, you couldn’t ask for a better place to bring them up. It’s a different world out there, people are more placid and it’s a lot calmer, it’s a lovely way to live and the football is good as well so it’s a good move all-around.”

The standard of play, he suggests, is similar to the English League Championship but improving all the time as ambitious owners look to improve the quality and, in turn, both crowds and revenues.

Attendances aren’t much of a problem in Toronto but results have been although O’Dea is confident that there will be extensive rebuilding down over the close season.

“I think it’s a question of cleaning up a bit of a mess at the minute,” he says. “The club didn’t start the season very well, there’s been a change of manager, and a change of staff too so I think it’s just consolidating as much as we can until the end of the season.

“But the league is so, so even you could see a team being bottom of the league this year and being right up there next year. What I’m led to believe is we’ll certainly be trying to do that.”

In the meantime, O’Dea is revelling in the anonymity of it all. After the intensity of life as an Old Form footballer in Glasgow he is free to venture out of his new home with his Scottish wife Melissa and their 20-month-old daughter Lucia.

“It’s great!” he says “You can walk around the streets, do what you want, relax. At the minute I am living in the city but I’m not the type for that so eventually I will move out.”

Is he ever recognised, someone asks: “No, it’s brilliant. And I don’t think I ever will be!”

Back in Ireland, meanwhile, his stature – and the facial recognition that goes with it – is likely to be greatly enhanced if he and Seán St Ledger successfully keep the Kazakhs at bay tomorrow and Ireland manage to take all three points into next month’s encounters with Germany and the Faroe Islands.

And in the end, he knows, he might eventually have a hand in persuading Dunne to hang up his international boots. That, though, won’t be his call: “I’ve played quite a bit but obviously I want to be the number one,” he says. “This is the start of new campaign and, if I go in, I’m certainly going in to stay. Only one man can decide on that afterwards. It’s up to me to do as well I can and let him decide.”