The village of Gortnahoe in Tipperary may be very much hurling country, but Republic of Ireland and Southampton forward Shane Long has revealed how he forged a successful club and international career far from soccer’s heartlands.
“Where I’m from you were kind of born with a hurley,” Long told RTÉ Sport.
“There wasn’t much soccer going on.”
“That’s all I wanted to be as a kid - to play hurling for the county, to play for Tipperary, and I managed to do that at underage level and minor.
“I took up soccer quite late. When the hurling wasn’t on I was playing soccer, and I got spotted by Cork City and all of a sudden I had this big decision to make.
“I didn’t want to have any regrets at the time. I wanted to give soccer a go and I took a year out, went down to Cork, and all of a sudden I was signing for Reading over in England. At that stage you know you can really make a life out of it if you put in the hard work.”
And the Tipp native was prepared to put in the hard work to make it in the Premier League.
“I was really behind the other players when I came over here first and desire and hard work got me the breaks, and then after that there is a bit of luck involved," he explained.
“It’s a bit of cliche but it is all about training hard and I don’t think I ever missed a training session. My mum had to drive me an hour to play for Tipp town and St Michael’s and I never missed one session a week.
“And I think it was the desire to play football and the enjoyment of it all, but i wanted to get better as well.
“Listen to your coaches, take what they have to say on board and keep working at your game. Even if it’s outside kicking a ball off a wall, it all helps, and down the line you will get your chance and you’ve just got to make sure you take it."
A showreel of the sporting year that was 2015 will undoubtedly feature Long's winning goal for Ireland against Germany in the Euro 2016 qualifier at the Aviva Stadium. It was a result that guaranteed Martin O'Neill side a play-off in their quest to reach France next summer and it was an opportunity taken following the two-legged victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Long, in reflecting on his international career to date, is hoping that the Irish will have more to celebrate next summer than was the case in Poland in 2012.
"There were a couple of years I spent on the fringes, maybe on the bench, maybe not and I really wanted to get involved, and that all comes from how you’re doing at club level. So I put all my focus into that.
“I remember the last one in Poland I think I only got 15 minutes on the pitch out of the three game and it's over before you know it.
“You have to wait two years for the World Cup and if that doesn’t happen it’s another four years to the Euros and you’re not even guaranteed a spot there either.
“I suppose I’m becoming one of the older lads in the team now, but you ask Robbie Keane who has been to a few of these and had a bit of disappointment apart from the ‘02 World Cup, where we had a good campaign, but the last campaign wasn’t very good.
“So we want to come away from these with good memories."
Long is confident that Martin O'Neill's side can make an impression amongst the elite of Europe.
"We’ve proved that we can put it up against the best teams in the world, never mind Europe, so we’ll go out there and try and cause problems. I think we play better as underdogs and I think we’re going to be an underdog in every game."
