Damien Delaney back smiling and in the big time with Crystal Palace

Damien Delaney arrives and, with a grin, says something like "Where do you want me?" Unlike some of his team-mates, he's more than happy to play ball, especially now that, in the grander scheme of things, he's right back where he wants to be.

The Corkman looks happy, like the events of Monday afternoon are still sinking in. A year or so after he considered retirement and three after injury almost ended his career, he was outstanding as Crystal Palace beat Watford to earn promotion back to the Premier League, a level he last played at more than a decade ago.

Back then with Leicester City he announced his arrival with a fearless challenge on Roy Keane, someone recalls. “Yeah, something like that,” he replies good-naturedly. “How long ago was that, man? And then,” he adds with a laugh, “you kinda missed me for 10 or 11 years in the lower leagues.”

Perhaps he would be very different now if his whole career had been spent in the top flight; all big money and fast cars, but frankly, it's hard to believe.

Keenly aware
Keenly aware that he had to join up with the Republic of Ireland squad on Tuesday, he got the Tube home from Palace's promotion party on Monday night celebration ("I was a right sight going through London with my suitcase and my bag of boots"), got up the next morning and had breakfast with his family.

He had promised his mum, Geraldine, a Championship promotion winner’s medal to go with those from League One and Two she has hanging on her wall at home in Ireland, so he fulfilled the promise and headed off.

All the while, he admits, he couldn’t help but think about how lucky he has been. “I think about it a lot to be honest with you,” he says.

Career-wise he has certainly been fortunate enough with almost 500 games played, half of them for Hull, in the various English divisions since he left Cork City in October 2000. He has been well regarded just about everywhere he went but made good calls, he reckons, each time he decided to move on.

He has never been more fortunate, though, than in August 2010 when a blood clot in a thigh muscle would almost certainly have ended his career and even, perhaps, cost him his leg had it not been quickly detected by the Ipswich club physios. “They were brilliant,” he says. “They called it within 20 minutes and had it operated on within the hour which was lucky because if they didn’t and they hesitated, or sent me home with an ice-pack the blood supply gets cut off to the muscle and then it dies basically.”

Naturally, he was too tired to play any part in Wednesday's game but he is hopeful of featuring tomorrow against Georgia and there will be more Ireland games to come if he is a regular for Palace in the Premier League next season. Few, it seems safe to say, would begrudge him any of it.