No more excuses; that's the message from midfielder Jayson Molumby ahead of Ireland’s upcoming double-header at the Aviva Stadium.
England are first up on Saturday evening, followed by another home tie against Greece on Tuesday night as Ireland kick off their UEFA Nations League campaign under the guidance of new head coach Heimir Hallgrimsson.
It’s both a clean slate and a blank canvas for the national team following a string of underwhelming campaigns throughout the three-year Stephen Kenny era, but now it is time for the players to start delivering the results according to the West Brom midfielder.
"Competing isn't enough anymore"
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) September 5, 2024
Republic of Ireland’s Jayson Molumby is hoping that the Heimir Hallgrimsson era can get off to notable start when they host England and Greece at the Aviva Stadium in the coming days. pic.twitter.com/TXiRlFbsQk
Molumby was one of the main benefactors of the ill-fated Kenny era, which saw the Waterford native break into the squad and earn over 20 caps throughout the previous manager’s tenure.
Likewise, a host of other young emerging players have now accumulated a hefty helping of international experience, and Molumby believes that it is time that they all repaid the previous manager’s debt to the national team.
"Yeah, definitely, there’s no more excuses for us anymore," said Molumby, when asked whether it was time to create more positive memories of putting on a green jersey.
"We were young lads coming in, but now we’ve got the experience, it’s not good enough any more to say, 'Ah, you’re young or whatever, you know’.
"We’re experienced now at international level. It’s time to kick on for us."
Despite winning 24 caps since making his international debut back in September 2020, Molumby has not featured for his country throughout 2024, missing out on the four games in March and June as a result of a foot injury.
In fact, the Baggies midfielder missed the entire second half of the season since hobbling off on New Year’s Day at Swansea, and only returned to his club for pre-season.
Molumby admitted that the lay-off proved one of the most difficult times of his career, fearing for his future in the game following such a long time attempting to rehabilitate away from first team action.
"To be honest it was a nightmare, a killer," said Molumby, speaking at a press conference this week. "All I’ve done since I was a young lad is play football, so when you get a big injury, it hits you hard.
"It was a long journey. Probably eight months to my last competitive game before the start of the season, so probably a lot of anger and frustration at the time. I’m just happy to be back. Feeling good now.
"You learn a lot. It’s a bit of an emotional journey, do you know what I mean?
"There’s nothing you can do, I suppose, just waiting. You don’t really know if you’re going to be back to be honest, because the injury I had was quite a bad one, so you worry a lot.
"Thankfully I got the best surgeon and the club were fantastic with me, so a big thanks to West Brom and all the medical team there."
Molumby came back with a bang, as he made the headlines for the wrong reasons, after he appeared to punch Mallorca’s Samu Costa during a pre-season encounter in July.
But the Déise man has made a much more positive contribution to his side’s impressive unbeaten start to the campaign, scoring the winner in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Swansea.
"It’s been a long road for me, six or seven months so I’m just happy to be back playing.
"Any big injury I think you don’t know how it’s going to go, do you? You don’t know if you’re going to get back to the level. You don’t know if it’ll heal properly because that’s always a risk with surgery. It was a bit of a worry but all good now."
"Yeah, probably to be honest," he added, when asked was there an element of frustration from his long-term injury, which contributed to throwing a punch on the pitch.
"It was the build-up of six or seven months before that. A lot of frustration, a lot of anger.
"Obviously, I didn’t handle myself the best there and was probably going through a difficult time. It’s obviously something I’m not proud of but I’m only human as well. I have emotions as well and I can only hold my hands up when I’m wrong.
"Ask anyone. Off the pitch I’m not an aggressive person at all, I’m quite calm and relaxed but I think I just go into competitive mode when I cross the line. It’s a different ball game."
Heimir Hallgrimsson will no doubt be looking at Molumby as a serious contender to start in the middle of the park, and will be hoping to harness that aggression for the benefit of the team.
Molumby feels that he has evolved as a player and is happy to play in a number of positions, however, following the pre-season spat, it is no wonder that he was not too keen to be labelled Hallgrimsson’s midfield b*****d.
"Na, I don’t think so," said Molumby, when asked was he the b*****d that Hallgrimsson was seeking.
"I don’t know where that came from. Only he knows. I don’t even know how to answer that."
A quote the new coach says was taken out of context, but Molumby does believe that he has the right attributes to carry out his manager's philosophy of making life difficult for opponents.
"Everyone has a different opinion [on what type of midfielder I am]. I probably think I can play six or eight.
"Right now, at West Brom, I’m playing number eight. I’ve played number six for West Brom, six for Ireland. Growing up, I used to play number six a lot.
"It’s a matter of opinion, different style. It’s what the manager wants.
"Obviously playing at home you want to make it as uncomfortable as possible for everyone. The atmosphere itself will do that.
"As players, as well, that is probably a strength of mine where I try and make it uncomfortable for players. I like to get tight to people, leave a bit on people, let them know I‘m there, so yeah that’s probably a big part of my game, try and put energy into the game, give the team a lift.
"Maybe we need to play the game a bit better, we need to be a bit more nastier, you could say," added Molumby, when asked about the team’s "too nice" tag.
Looking ahead to the England game, Molumby is all too well aware of the quality of the opposition, however, he believes that Ireland will have a fighting chance by creating a hostile atmosphere in a packed Lansdowne Road.
And Molumby is hoping his controlled on-pitch aggression can help to propel the side to a string of results throughout the six-match Nations League shoot-out.
"There were no fans the last time against England so this will be a lot different," said Molumby.
"Playing at home at the Aviva will always be difficult for away teams to come. We saw that against the top teams like France and Holland.
"We competed well in those games and for us as a group we need to start taking the next step. Competing isn’t enough anymore, we want to actually start getting points, hopefully starting on Saturday.
"Managers throughout my career have tried to calm me down a little bit, but I think then I’m nowhere near the player [I can be]. It’s just about me channelling that [aggression] and putting it into the right things and I feel as if I’ve done that.
"Obviously, we know their players inside out, we see them every week, so we know what we’re up against and we’ll do our best to prepare for it.
"Getting thrown in at the deep end, probably a bit earlier than I expected, I feel in the long run it’s benefited me now.
"I feel comfortable playing for Ireland and it’s something I’m very proud of. I feel ready and I’m ready to come in now."
Watch Republic of Ireland v England in the UEFA Nations League on Saturday from 4pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
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