Like many Irish people, Stephen Ward spent the wee hours of Sunday morning glued to Shane Lowry's bid for a major golf title at Oakmont. Most of the Irish players stayed up to cheer him on.
The unfolding drama – the Offaly man’s disappointment and Dustin Johnson’s coolness in the face of bureaucratic stupidity – was a timely lesson that in sport, the sorting process between winners and losers is constant.
Saturday in Bordeaux had been a mixed bag for Ward: thrilled as he was to receive the call up to the starting XI after injury ruled out Jon Walters, he was deeply disappointed by the 3-0 result. And like most of the players, he is in the dark as to Martin O'Neill's thinking for tonight's royal-flush-or-bust against the Italians.
“I couldn’t tell you. I don’t have a clue,” Ward says candidly of his chances of featuring here in Lille.
Disappointed
“He could change as many as he wants really after the other day. We were all disappointed with the game. But whatever 11 goes out there, it’s a really good group of 23 players who are really behind each other. Whether he makes one or two changes, or changes the whole team, whoever goes out there will be ready to go and hopefully we can get a result.”
The Burnley defender admits that the mood on the short plane journey back from the Belgium game was "sombre". Within an hour of the defeat, O'Neill reminded the public that his team were accustomed to adverse situations and Ward is believes that an intense Monday morning training session helped to rid the squad of whatever residual blues remained.
Although O'Neill and Keane are ice and fire in terms of their public personas, Ward feels they are equal in their ability to re-energise the players in low moments. He is certain that whatever XI starts against Italy will take the field in the perfect mind set.
"Obviously it's difficult to remember word for word, but himself and Roy are so passionate about football, so passionate about Ireland and so passionate about us doing well and obviously themselves doing well. We just feed off that really.
“They show their passion before the game and it just rubs off on the players. When you go out there and you leave the dressing room, you are ready to go and everyone is ready to give it 100 percent. Their will to win just oozes off them.”
Ward is one of the most conspicuous successes of the League of Ireland system, staying in the domestic league until he was 21 so that when he went to England, he “went over as a man, not a teenager.”
He says that his time with Bohemians “grounded me for what lay ahead of me.
“I wouldn’t have had that if it wasn’t for playing in the league.”
His selection in the squad for France – his second major championship for Ireland – and winning his 34th cap on Saturday are high points for the 30-year-old from Portmarnock. Regardless of whether he is selected for this evening's match, he feels that beating Italy would eclipse anything he has experienced before in a green shirt.
“To do it in a major championships, to qualify, would top everything. Everyone knows there is carrot dangling there. There is real incentive for the lads to go out there and give it a real go. No one wants to go home early. I think we are in a stronger position than we were four years ago, squad wise, mentality wise. And hopefully on we can do something special.”
