Scott Hogan has ended the ‘will he won’t, won’t he’ international allegiance saga after finally declaring for Ireland after meeting with manager Martin O'Neill.
The English Aston Villa striker is eligible courtesy of his grandparents and he has officially applied for an Irish passport.
If the paperwork clears in time he could be in the squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers with Georgia and Serbia.
Hogan looked unlikely to play for the Boys in Green having expressed a desire to focus on his club commitments after returning from a long term injury.
O’Neill though says Hogan himself has put the wheels in motion to qualify for the green jersey:
“He has to go through his paperwork now to acquire his Irish passport. He hasn't got that yet.
“We've established the links that the Irish patronage is there but he has to go through the process now.”
“He's keen, he's very keen,” O'Neill told the Irish Independent
“I want the players to have a genuine enthusiasm for playing for the Republic of Ireland because I don't want to lose that.
“I think you'd want to see that there's a genuine feeling that 'I want to come, I want to play, I want to try and make the grade at international level and play for us'. That's all the encouragement I want.
“Scott is very enthusiastic about doing it. He's mentioned his reasons before and I think he felt he probably felt that he might not have been up to it at that stage because he might not have been fit enough.
“There seemed to be an impasse. There's no point in me going into that detail but it certainly wasn't from the player.”
