Last August, when Heimir Hallgrimsson named his squad for the Republic of Ireland's first two World Cup qualifiers, Séamus Coleman's name was notably absent.
At the time, the Everton captain had hardly played for his club in 2024-25 and had yet to feature in the early part of the current Premier League campaign.
Hallgrimsson was at pains to underline how highly he valued what the Donegal man brings to Ireland camps.
But the Boys in Green boss would tell RTÉ soccer correspondent Tony O'Donoghue that it might constitute "a wrong example picking a player that hasn't played for almost a year" for those September qualifiers against Hungary and Armenia.
Fast forward to this Thursday's squad announcement for next week's pivotal World Cup play-off semi-final against Czechia, and Coleman's name was among the 25 selected for Prague.
That's despite a lack of game-time for Everton off the back of his most recent injury. Indeed, he hasn't played a single minute of first-team football since limping off early against Manchester United on 24 November.
But the way the 37-year-old brought his considerable influence to bear on the final four group qualifiers that pulled Ireland's hopes out of the dustbin made a real mark on Hallgrimsson.
"Let's just make this easy - he proved me wrong," said the Ireland manager. Coming in, he just proved me wrong. He was ready when I was doubting him."
Coleman isn't the only player selected in the squad for Prague whose club level game-time has been severely curtailed due to recent injuries. Among the capped names in that category are Chiedozie Ogbene, Robbie Brady and Adam Idah.
Hallgrimsson indicated that the example Coleman set may well have influenced his own willingness to now trust other players to shed any ring rust in the white heat of battle.
"Always when you're wrong, you learn," he said.
"That’s life, you do mistakes and you take wrong decisions and to grow you need to learn from those things and definitely in Séamus' case that was - you never know - but probably a wrong decision at that time."
Along with Coleman, Brady is the only other squad member that was part of Ireland's last tournament experience at Euro 2016.
However, the Preston left back has been dogged by a calf injury, missing Ireland's entire group qualifying campaign. The 34-year-old is only making tentative steps back into club action in recent weeks.
"Hopefully he will be the same as Séamus," said Hallgrimsson.
"At least I know that because I’ve had him before and he was probably our best player in the last campaign - the Nations League tournament - he was consistently one of our best players.
"It’s been quite a long time since he played so it's always in the back of my mind. I’ve been proven wrong once so hopefully he can do that.
"We know that the mentality will overcome a lot of things, and not playing a long time, I know it’s still there up in his head. He was crying on losing out on the last matches but was as delighted as all the players that we won.
"So he's, like Séamus, just a genuine Irish person that lives and breathes for the national team."
Meanwhile, since being forced off with a hamstring injury in the famous 3-2 win over Hungary in Budapest in November, Ogbene has played just over 20 minutes of football for Sheffield United since.
"Chieo is different," Hallgrimsson said. "I know he is fit. He's not in the (Sheffield United) squad because he’s an on-loan player, they have too many on-loan players.
"But he’s playing Under-21 games and his numbers are really good. So we know that he’s fit and flying and he’s eager to come in.
"He's just an optimistic dude all of the time. He sees things clearly and knows what he has to do to be 100% with us. He’s done that."
They will certainly need to be ready for what's to come in Prague. In his press conference, Hallgrimsson made a point of underlining the Czechs' strong home record and the vast experience of their new head coach Miroslav Koubek. He also described an off-field scenario that could resemble football "war".
However, in the calmer expanses of the FAI board room, the Icelandic native also did highlight the importance of cooler heads coming to the fore.
"It's not a game that we are going to gung-ho. This could be 120 minutes and penalties so we need to be ready for all scenarios. And once we have spoken about it and visualised it then you will be more relaxed for what’s coming," he said.
"That’s one thing. Then, these guys have played before, the likes of Séamus and Robbie and all of those, they can share their experience, how actually you feel in these moments. But I think these players now have quite good experience, even though they haven’t played a game of this kind of magnitude, many of them.
"But they are ready for this, these young players, even though they only have 20 or 30 caps under their belts, thanks to for example Stephen Kenny who picked them really young and started playing them. Now they have this experience to be ready for a game like this."
If Ireland are to qualify, the Fortuna Arena would only be the first battleground to conquer. A final at Aviva Stadium against either Denmark or North Macedonia would await on 31 March.
Win that and a first major tournament in a decade and first World Cup since 2002 would be signed, sealed and delivered.
However, there would be a poignant aspect for some players. Along with Josh Cullen, whose ACL injury will keep him out for many more months, Hallgrimsson said Evan Ferguson would "most likely" miss out on any adventure to North America this summer after undergoing ankle surgery earlier this month.
"I think I heard four to six months out. The same for Mikey (Johnston). I think he had an ankle operation as well. Normally that would take a few months to heal," he said.
Watch Czech Republic v Republic of Ireland on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 7pm on Thursday, 26 March. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app or listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1.
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