With the complete Irish squad having trained on Wednesday, Daryl Horgan knows that his lack of recent first-team action at Preston means he may have to wait a little longer for his first taste of competitive action with Ireland although he hasn't give up on featuring in the games against Moldova and Wales.
“Obviously there are lads who are playing more for their clubs at the moment but you are hopeful and there are a couple of lads out. It’s still a very, very strong squad, there’s what, 27 or 28 players so it’ll very, very difficult to get a run. I’ll prepare as if I’m going to get a chance but there are probably a lot of lads ahead of me at the minute.”
Horgan made an immediate impact at Deepdale after leaving Dundalk at the start of the year but a change of manager over the summer has dealt him a bit a of setback with the 25-year-old having started just one game in the League Cup and come on in four Championship matches.
“It’s very frustrating really in the sense that everyone wants to play – every minute of every game if you can – but the new manager has come in and he has different ideas, different ways of doing things.
“Obviously I’d like to make more of an impact but I can’t really have much of a complaint given the way things are going at the minute. We’ve started really, really well [Preston are unbeaten in eight league games since the middle of August], we’ve shot up the table and we look like we can stay in the mix so the team has done brilliantly. I just have to keep my head down, keep working away and hopefully the opportunity will come.”
Andy Boyle, he suggests, is in much the same position with Preston having conceded the fewest goals in the league so far but Seán Maguire has fared better, albeit playing on the right of the three behind the main striker.
“Yeah, he has hit the ground running,” says Horgan. “He has played in most games, bar one maybe and he has scored a couple of goals. He’s playing out of position which probably makes it all that bit harder for him but he’s been excellent.”
Horgan, meanwhile, has been trying to catch his manager’s eye in the brief opportunities he has been getting towards the end of games but he has not done too badly and the recent assist for Callum Robinson’s winner away to Hull will not have harmed his longer term prospects.
“It’s difficult sometimes to come off the bench but if you can make some sort of impact, score a goal, set up a goal, something like that’s all the better because that’s what the manager is looking for you to do and thankfully it paid off that day.
“Look, it’s been a crazy year really, a bit mad but while you are still in it you just keep on wanting more and more and more. Maybe I’ll end up looking back and thinking ‘that was brilliant’, but at the time you just want to get your head down and keep working, just try to play football as much as I possibly can. There may be an opportunity for me this but, as I said earlier, it’s a good squad.”
