Roy O'Donovan reckons Roy Keane was still the best player on the training field 18 months after he retired as a professional footballer. And this was a group of Sunderland players that included Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke. If he could be half the footballer "Keano" was, O'Donovan would be delighted. More importantly, he wants to be the same kind of man.
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O'Donovan's one-season sojourn in the English Premier League nine years ago was framed by Keane's early seasons in management. It's debatable whether Keane succeeded at the Stadium of Light, and the fire and brimstone which characterised his playing career seems to have stunted his coaching career. Certainly he hasn't scaled the same heights.
Yet if there's one lesson O'Donovan, 31, has taken on board from his time working underneath his fellow Irishman, it's a hatred of losing. Real, not feigned. That makes O'Donovan arguably the most influential figure in a Central Coast Mariners dressing room desperately seeking respect. After a mixed start to the new season, Saturday's first home game of the campaign against Brisbane Roar will tell us if the Mariners have rediscovered their competitive instinct. O'Donovan doesn't need reminding what's at stake.
"If you have any professional pride at all, last year has to hurt you," he says. "It was embarrassing, so to be part of it was difficult to take." The Mariners weren't just wooden-spooners last season, they were only saved by the unlamented New Zealand Knights as the worst team in A-League history. For O'Donovan, his first season in Gosford was the most frustrating of a career which has had its fair share of ups and downs. From the EPL, to lower league football in England, to a brief spell in the Singapore league, the common denominator has been a fierce will to win. But he didn't see enough of it in the Mariners dressing room last season, and his frustration got the better of him on New Year's Eve when his headbutt on Manny Muscat resulted in an eight-week suspension.
Despite the long spell on the sidelines, he still finished top scorer with eight goals, including the goal of the season against Adelaide United. After two rounds of the new season, he's already scored twice, and looks lively, energetic, and focused. The challenge for his team is to learn how to win again.
It was "Keano" who showed O'Donovan what a difference it makes. Growing up as an aspiring footballer in Cork, there was only one man to admire as a source of inspiration. Roy Keane, local man, captain of Ireland, captain of Manchester United, and universally regarded as one of the hardest players in the history of the game.
"They say you shouldn't meet your idols, but he was definitely one of the good ones, I must say that," says O'Donovan.
"Where I'm from, he was the idol. He was definitely mine. I loved his spirit. From the late 1990s to the mid 2000s, he carried us, the national team. As a player, he had an unbelievable influence on Irish history. So to get the chance to work with him, it was terrific.
"I didn't realise until I worked with him every day what a good person, what a good footballer he was. He would join us in the training sessions and he was still head and shoulders above the rest of us, and this was a couple of years after he retired. The qualities he had, the aura he had, was amazing." So what about those 50-50s? "Even I shied away from that." Importantly, O'Donovan learnt another key lesson from Keane aside from the need to compete. "He showed me there's always another level of professionalism." That's the message he's trying to spread.
As the Mariners attempt to climb off the canvas, O'Donovan will be the key. After years of being typecast as a winger, he's relishing the chance to prove he's a striker. His goal return since arriving in the A-League backs up his belief.
For a player as competitive as O'Donovan, it hasn't been easy dealing with the morale-sapping run of defeats. But there's never been a hint of surrender. Watch his movement off the ball, his closing down of defenders, his contesting, and you see a player who clearly believes hard work can turn things around. Besides, he loves what he describes as a "family club", and after last season's lengthy ban he reckons he has a "bit of making up to do" to the Mariners.
"We all need to prove ourselves," he says. "That's a good thing to have as a sportsman, the chance to prove a point." A win against the Roar, in the only home game of the opening seven rounds, would be a good time to start.
