Keogh - It's the proudest moment of my career

Richard Keogh has previously captained a side in a major footballing arena having led out his club Derby County for last season’s Sky Bet Championship play-off final at Wembley in their ultimately unsuccessful bid to leap into the top tier of the English game.

For some, that moment would live forever as their proudest career moment, but in this 28 year-old’s mind, skippering his national side in a game at the Aviva Stadium far surpasses the aforementioned moment.

“It’s the proudest moment of my career by a long way and when the gaffer said I was going to be captain I was lost for words really. Walking out onto that pitch is something that I will remember forever and I thank him for that.”

The game itself against the relatively unknown Oman side will not live long in the memory, but the two goals and more importantly for Keogh, the clean sheet, is not something to be sniffed at.

“Defensively as a team I thought we were very disciplined. In the second half we won a lot more tackles and our quality shone through in the end.”

Oman played with a flat back three, two defensive minded midfielders and a couple of wide men that look more suited to working as full backs, so for the Irish rearguard it was paramount that concentration levels remained at their highest point throughout proceedings.

“The most important thing for us was to stay concentrated as they had a couple of good players but overall it was a good night.”

When Martin O’Neill came in, the expectation was that set pieces would become a much bigger factor in the game plan for the Boys in Green. He had Gareth Barry and Stylian Petrov to deliver left footed layups for his sides to capitalise on at club level, and in Robbie Brady he may just have found one to compliment his side at international level.

In Richard Keogh’s opinion anyway, Brady and the set piece work in general, are in good flow heading to Tbilisi for this vital opener to the competitive O’Neill era curtain raiser.

“The gaffer said it before that he wants us to score a few more from set plays because they can define games. We are looking a threat from set plays and we’ve got great delivery in our squad. We’ve got to make sure that we defend them right and score a few.”

To sum up his first night as his national sides general, Keogh exclaimed: “I’m over the moon really, it couldn’t have gone any better.”