MARY HANNIGANtalks to the Fulham defender who wants the country to get behind the football team like their rugby counterparts

OTHER THAN a “backs against the wall” draw away to Shaktar Donetsk in the Europa League last year, when Fulham spent the bulk of the tie being pummelled by the Ukrainian side, Stephen Kelly can’t quite recall an encounter like the one in Moscow last month, when he started just his second game of the European Championship qualifying campaign.

“I don’t think I’ve had many games like that in my whole career, to be honest,” he said, “but we knew our campaign was hinging on it, so that was one of the big performances for us. We showed the mental strength of this team and the desire not to be beaten, everybody was throwing themselves in front of the ball, standing up to people.

“It was old-school defending, Richie (Dunne) taking cuts to the face, he was like a magnet, everything was just hitting him. It was all the stuff you get taught when you’re a kid.”

The feeling at full-time was, he said, one of “ecstacy”, the happiness levels further heightened when the players were waiting in the airport for their flight home.

“We were all getting text messages about the Slovakia v Armenia game. One-nil Armenia. Two-nil. Three-nil. People would go to the bathroom and come out and there’d have been another goal. “It’s four-nil now!”. And they’d be like, “you’re havin’ a laugh?”.”

The key now, he said, is not to “squander” what was achieved in Moscow, nor, indeed, Armenia’s stunning result against Slovakia. “As much as it was a great result for us, it has also thrown Armenia right back into contention.

“That last game (next Tuesday in Dublin) will be a tough one now.

“But Moscow has left us in a fantastic position, possibly even to qualify automatically if things go our way. Let’s hope we don’t squander it. All the hard work will be for nothing if we don’t perform well in the next two games, starting with Andorra on Friday.”

Should qualification for Euro 2012 be achieved, Kelly is hopeful that the spirit of bygone days will be restored – and that some of the team’s harshest critics will be proved wrong.

“You try not to pay attention to these things,” he said of RTÉ’s football panel, “but sometimes it’s hard not to hear back some of the things that have been said. It’s annoying, but if anything that fuels the fire for us to go and do well the next time.

“Nobody is going to take what any of them say to heart, think ‘oh my God’, go into a shell and not be able to perform in the next game. All of us are much stronger characters than that. We are all adults and professional about what we do. What they say is their opinion and they are entitled to it, but it’s not going to affect me.

“But they can influence what the public are thinking, and if that is making people not come to games, that is what I would find frustrating. I want Irish people to be enjoying football again and getting behind us like they did in the ’90s. I did it as a kid, supported the team and went to games, got off school early to watch matches. I loved that.

“If we qualify for something it will change. Sport in Ireland is a very passionate thing and we’ve seen that in the last few weeks with the rugby lads and the Dubs. It’s given everyone a lift.”

Speaking of the rugby lads: Kelly recalls when, two years ago, Brian O’Driscoll presented the squad with their caps at the end of the 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign.

“It was a really nice thing, he was extremely humble and knew the importance of giving a cap and how hard you work to get it. He is one of the best rugby players to ever grace the field and we are all proud of him because he is an Irish man. You don’t begrudge, you get behind your team and people in Ireland have always done that.

“My wife was out watching the Ireland v Italy game at 9am with her friends in London, cheering them on because we’re Irish. When the country is doing well you get behind them, no matter what sport it is.

“That is the way Ireland is built. It’s not a competition between us and the rugby lads. We know the lift they’ve given the country, if we could add to that in the next week it would be amazing.”