Jack Keaney: ‘I'm going to see what happens next year and try go into full-time football’

Andrew Dempsey reports from the Aviva Stadium

UCD captain Jack Keaney is ready for the next step after coming full circle in Belfield.

Joining the Students midway through the 2019 campaign, the Co Donegal man has completed his studies and is now a fully qualified Maths and Biology teacher.

But he wants to put that on the backburner to focus on becoming a full-time footballer – and he is likely to have a number of suitors looking for his signature.

The former Sligo Rovers man also graduated on the day of the Students most recent home game against Derry City. It has been a whirlwind few months to say the least.

“I got myself a degree and hopefully that will be on the back foot for a time yet,” Keaney told extratime.com at the EA SPORTS FC 24 SSE Airtricity League Cover Launch.

“I'm going to see what happens next year. I’ll try and go into full time football if I can.

“And then we can always fall back on the teaching.”

Set to leave Belfield in the coming weeks, Keaney will join a number of former Students who have made the move into full-time football after their time on campus.

Colm Whelan and Liam Kerrigan are two close companions of Keaney who have moved on to the professional ranks, while his former teammate Liam Scales is now starring for Celtic.

“What Liam has done is massive,” Keaney added. “Not just for people in UCD but for anyone in the league and I think the league is getting such a good rep over the last few years that anything like that is possible.

“So I think you need to be consistent in your performances and then once you get the chance, you take it. Liam has done brilliantly and hopefully he can keep it up.

“He’s a top quality player. You could see it in training. Once he went to Shamrock Rovers, he rose through the levels. It's great to see and it gives a lot of people confidence.

“If you keep your head down, anything is around the corner. Football is a funny game and so you just need to keep performing every week and then hopefully stuff will happen.”

But regardless of Keaney’s own future, there will be change in Belfield over the coming weeks.

Just last week it was confirmed that Students boss Andy Myler will step down at the end of the season to be replaced by his current assistant Willie O’Connor.

“It goes in cycles at UCD and that goes with players and managers,” the current Students skipper added. “I've been captain for Andy over the last four years and I can't speak highly enough of him.

“He's put a lot of confidence in me and has probably changed me to centre-half. That has suited my game really well. He's been brilliant for me and he got us up – and kept us up.

“Willie has been in over the last year and a half to two years. He brings a lot of passion and he's probably more on the technical side too so it'll be interesting to see.

“There's a good lot of the base lads that are going to be there for next year. Obviously a few of us might be moving on. You might see UCD back in the Premier Division.

“If you look at the team, there's a lot of youth internationals in there. Daniel Babb, Luke O’Regan and Jesse Dempsey are current and there's a lot of other lads that could be in there. Then you have older lads like Harvey O’Brien, Adam Wells and Brendan Barr.

“They played a good lot of games in the league and know what it takes. I've no doubts and I'll probably be going to the matches next year and they'll be an exciting team to watch.”

 Join the Club as EA SPORTS FC welcomes the League of Ireland to FC 24! Featuring the individual club crest of all 10 SSE Airtricity Men's Premier Division teams, these exclusive sleeves will be available to download free from https://www.ea.com/FC24 when the game launches worldwide this Friday, September 29^th!

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