Kenny welcomes chance to perform at highest level

Euro 2008 qualifying: Mary Hannigan profiles the man who has been asked to fill Shay Given's boots.

It's a fair indication of how things have been going for the Ireland team that there really can't be a dispute that Shay Given has been their most valuable player for at least a couple of years. So, when he sustained that injury against West Ham a fortnight ago Ireland's European Championship qualifying hopes, hardly convincing before, appeared to take another mauling.

No pressure, then, Paddy Kenny, the 28-year-old Sheffield United goalkeeper who is expected to make his first competitive start for Ireland in Nicosia tomorrow.

If he's nervous about the prospect he's hiding it well, but he has the experience of Alan Kelly to call upon. Just as Kenny has had to be content to date with being Given's understudy, the Irish goalkeeping coach was number two to Packie Bonner for the bulk of his international career.

While Kenny, confident that he could overcome his own injury worries (he missed three Premiership games with a thigh strain), was all but certain a fortnight ago that he would be called upon in Given's absence, Kelly had considerably shorter notice before his competitive debut for Ireland.

"We had come off the back of the World Cup in the USA and we were playing Latvia away," he said. "The night before the game, after training, Jack just strolled over in the middle of the park and said, 'I'm going with the young 'un - much to my surprise. It was done as simple as that and I think that did me a favour."

"You want to do well in any game, you want to make a good impression, but it's like playing in the reserves versus playing in the first team, if it goes wrong in your first competitive game then it can cost you points and that is the big difference.

"You don't want to lose a friendly but if you do, it's no harm done. So yeah, there is a different type of pressure."

Kenny, though, insists he is enjoying the pressure that comes with being a Premiership and international goalkeeper, something he could hardly have imagined when he was still playing non-league football with Bradford Park Avenue eight years ago.

"Sometimes you've got to pinch yourself," he says. "It's only eight years ago that I was doing engineering work and working all week. Now to think I am playing in the best league. . . when we came out against Liverpool for our first Premiership game and the atmosphere was brilliant, we had a packed house, it hit me then. It was nice to be there."

It was Neil Warnock who gave Kenny his chance, first signing him for Bury and then for Sheffield United in 2002.

"I can honestly say that I would not swap him for any 'keeper in the Premiership, David James, Paul Robinson or Shay Given. . . except maybe Petr Cech - and I can't afford him," said the manager last November when Kenny signed a new contract that will keep him at the club until June 2009.

Kelly might be somewhat reluctant to echo Warnock's view of the Kenny v Given contest, but, he insists, he has every confidence in Kenny's ability to step in for the Donegal man.

"Paddy has done very well for Sheffield United, he has taken every step up in level throughout his career. I don't see why the step up to international football should be any harder, really.

"He has played well over 300 games now and a good bank of experience helps - playing in the Premiership as well will help his education. As a goalkeeper, I like Paddy - he's slightly unorthodox. He looks to get the game moving quickly, he looks to find an angle to get you on the attack and that's what we're looking for at the moment, that's what he can bring to the team.

"He seems to be unfazed by most things, so you can't have any question about his temperament. His fitness, too, has come on incredibly well in the last couple of years and his performances with that, it's gone hand in hand really."

Kenny, who made his Irish debut in March 2004 and has six caps to his name, can hardly have appreciated Warnock's quip that he "looked like the Michelin Man" when he signed him for Bury. But the goalkeeper spent much of the summer on a fitness drive to get himself in better shape for the Premiership, following Sheffield United's promotion. His reward was the loss of a stone.

He is, then, in the best shape of his career, and playing better than ever before, he says. Not even the nightmare of that 4-0 defeat to the Netherlands at Lansdowne Road, when his defence hardly came to his assistance, concerns him.

"It's gone now, it's in the past. I think it was just one of those days. I have played plenty of games since then so I'm just looking forward now. I've had some big games before, I've played in an FA Cup semi-final and a play-off final, but this is a massive game, isn't it? It's playing for your country in a competitive match, so it will be up there and probably beats everything else I've done.

"But if I'm selected to play I'll just take it as a normal game, prepare as I normally would, and take it from there."

He will trust that he won't have to produce a performance as memorable as Given's at the same ground a year ago, he'd settle for a quieter evening's work.