Republic of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni seldom looks for star names to be included in his squads, but one man who often shines in the Irish team is defensive maestro Richard Dunne.
The Aston Villa central defender has been a stalwart at the heart of the Irish backline during their qualifying campaign for the forthcoming European Championships in Poland and Ukraine, helping Ireland gather valuable points from unlikely circumstances.
Ever present in Trapattoni’s team, Villa’s number five missed just two qualifiers through suspension, after yellow cards in home games against Andorra and Macedonia caused him to miss the return game with the latter in Skopje. Another two cautions in the scoreless draws with Slovakia in Dublin and Russia in Moscow forced him out of the trip to Andorra.
The game in Moscow was probably Dunne’s best performance to date in a green jersey. Time after time he thwarted the Russian attack, thus helping his country to grind out a crucial point from a nil-all draw.
The Tallaght native has made 71 appearances for his country, scoring eight goals since earning his first cap against Greece in April 2000. Dunne has a habit of scoring at crucial times for the Boys in Green, most recently Ireland’s second in the 2-1 win over Armenia last October in their final qualifying group game.
In the previous World Cup qualifying campaign, Dunne advanced up the field to put Ireland ahead in both their 1-1 draws with Bulgaria in Croke Park and Sofia. These proved to be massive results that attributed enormously to Ireland making the play-offs.
Dunne has enjoyed a steady and often underrated career in the English Premier League. The talismanic centre-half moved to Everton, where he would stay for four years, when he was just 15. Joe Royale gave Dunne the first of his 60 appearances at the Goodison Park club at the age of 17.
When Royale moved to Manchester City, the Eastlands club paid Everton in the region of €3m to reunite Dunne with his former manager. While at City, he captained the team for the 2005-06 season and set a club record when he was voted player of the year for a fourth consecutive season in 2008. A year later, after 296 league appearances under five different managers for the Blues, he moved to Aston Villa for €5m.
Dunne enjoyed a marvellous first season with the claret and blue, enjoying a career-best sixth-place finish in the league, and was subsequently named in the PFA Team of the Year. Although Villa have struggled since the surprise departure of Martin O’Neill after a dispute with the board, Dunne has continued to be an important leader in the team as they now fight to retain their Premier League status.
Dunne is currently sidelined with a shoulder injury caused by a fracture to his right clavicle sustained against his old club Manchester City in mid February. After an operation, it was anticipated that the defender would be sidelined for up to eight weeks. Near the end of February just after the injury occurred, Dunne was named FAI International Player of the Year, receiving the honour ahead of strong competition from Robbie Keane and Keith Andrews.
At the time of the award, Dunne was hopeful he would be back in the Villa team before the end of the season in a quest to be fit for the finals in Poland and Ukraine.
“I want to play for Villa before the season ends,” said Dunne. “Hopefully the finals are something we can all look forward to in the summer. It won’t be easy but we are a tough game for anybody and they won’t fancy playing us.”
Dunne has just recently returned from a week of specialist treatment with the Cleveland Browns, the American football team owned by Aston Villa chief Randy Lerner. Villa manager Alex McLeish is confident the Irish star will be fit in time for the European Championships
“Richard is training really well and is looking good. He is in the capable hands of the physios, and fitness coach Adrian Lamb,” McLeish told the Aston Villa website. “He is running freely and with no pain in the shoulder, so that indicates the healing process is pretty much complete.
“It might be a case of us holding him back and not rushing, but that is a happy problem to have. I don’t think he’s too far away from joining the group. We expect him to get some games in before the end of the season.”
