FAI CUP QUARTER-FINALS:Graham Barrett has had his fair share of ups and downs. He hopes the tide will turn in Tallaght, writes EMMET MALONE

HE IS, he admits, unlikely to make the starting line-up for this evening’s game in Santry but after years of looking for fresh starts in some far flung places, Graham Barrett looks happy to be home again. The Dubliner turns 28 next month and there is a clear sense that serious injuries robbed him of what should have been some of the best years of his career.

Now, though, Barrett is close to competing for a place in the starting line-up of his hometown club and with Shamrock Rovers firmly in the hunt for a double that feels like a pretty good place to be.

Highly regarded since his teens for his technical ability, Barrett was one of the countless young stars who couldn’t quite negotiate the hazardous journey from Arsenal’s academy to the club’s first team. Having been part of the Irish under-17 side to win the European Championships in Scotland 11 years ago, though, there was still considerable faith at home that he would bounce back and make his name at the highest level.

Under Mick McCarthy and then Brian Kerr there were a total of six full international caps, with the striker scoring on his first appearance in Norway and his first start, against Jamaica in London, but at club level things didn’t quite click in the way they should have. Then ligament damage sustained in late 2005 effectively doomed his career at Coventry and further problems cast a shadow over his time at Falkirk, from which he never fully emerged.

A spell at St Johnstone and trials in England followed, but when the idea of joining Rovers came up, he didn’t have to give the idea too much thought.

“I had options to stay over there but they weren’t the right ones,” he says. “I could have gone on trial at a few places too but I’d seen the way things were coming along with Rovers in Tallaght from when I’d be home visiting me mam every summer (he grew up in and played for Kilnamanagh before heading to London), so the whole thing sort of interested me.

“Then, this summer, I went to see them a few times and there was a great buzz up there, it was massive, so that and the few chats I had with people persuaded me that it was the thing to do.”

To judge by his tone, Barrett, never exactly the brashest of players, comes across as having some lingering doubts about his ability to get fully fit and stay that way again but he insists that it’s not the case. Energised by the faith of Rovers boss Michael O’Neill and armed with a training regime specifically designed to get him firing on all cylinders again, the soft-spoken striker is adamant he can make an impact here.

“Look,” he says, “there are bound to be big question marks about my physical condition because of all the injuries and I’d be lying to say that they haven’t affected me, but the aim over the next few months is to prove my fitness, to show that I can still compete at this level and prove that I’m still a good player.”

A little weary, perhaps, of the emphasis that is placed on the setbacks that have befallen him during his career post-Highbury, Barrett pointedly shifts the conversation to the positives of what he has achieved down the years. “I’ve experienced some great things in my career, worked with some unbelievable managers (the full list is certainly long but also impressive, with the likes of Arsene Wenger, Liam Brady and Steve Coppell all featuring), I’ve played for my country at the highest level six times, so I’ve been very lucky, that’s the way I look at it.

“Now I’m playing under a manager who is a class act and who has been really supportive. He also sees me playing in the position I’ve always thought was my best – up front – when, for various reasons, I’ve spent most of my career playing out wide where I really don’t feel I have as much to my game.”

He’ll still have to get into the team first which, he admits, will not be easy. Given time, however, he’s hopeful of mounting a serious challenge to what he reckons has been the country’s best strike-force this year. “The lads (Gary Twigg and Dessie Baker) have been flying, he says.

“Gary’s the top scorer in the league but you could argue that Dessie’s probably its in-form player at the moment, he’s been playing really well lately. So I know I have to be patient, work on my fitness, have a good attitude and be ready to take my chance when it comes.

“But it’s only really my pre-season. I haven’t played since May and it will take a while. In a way,” he continues, “there’s no point in talking about it.

“There are talkers and doers,” he concludes, and having spent so much of the last few years on the sidelines, Barrett is determined that he’s about to show people that he’s still one of the latter.