{"id":475402,"date":"2026-05-31T00:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475402\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T00:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T00:05:09","slug":"owen-elding-opens-up-on-ireland-call-up-england-interest-and-mason-melia-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475402\/","title":{"rendered":"Owen Elding opens up on Ireland call-up, England interest, and Mason Melia rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Owen Elding\u2019s Ireland career was awoken straight after a night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

Tuesday, May 5 started as a normal day for the 20-year-old striker in Edinburgh, the alarm waking him for a day\u2019s training ahead at Hibernian.<\/p>\n

Except he was tipped off about an important imminent phone call from the Ireland manager.<\/p>\n

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson was about to announce his squad for the May friendly against Grenada but aware questions would arise about Elding\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

Specifically, amid media reports of England\u2019s interest, whether he was fully on board.<\/p>\n

Born in Boston, England, the forward has spent the vast majority of his life living in Ireland.<\/p>\n

Residency bestowed Irish citizenship eligibility but fuel protests in April led to the cancellation of his confirmation ceremony.<\/p>\n

Within that vacuum, allied to his stunning start to life as a Hibs player, news of England\u2019s query about his allegiance surfaced.<\/p>\n

\u201cI literally just got out of bed and he (Hallgr\u00edmsson) said \u2018are you free for a chat?,\u2019\u201d explained Elding. \u201cSo I jumped in the shower quickly and gave him a call.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said there was a press conference coming up shortly and could he say I was committed or not?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a bit of interest (from England) but my full focus was on club football at that moment, performing well at Hibs and whatever came, came.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be fair, my full focus was always getting into the Ireland team.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up in Sligo most of my life, it\u2019s all I know so it’d be a dream to put on a green shirt.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"JamieJamie McGrath is lifted by Owen Elding during an Ireland training session at the FAI National Training Centre. Pic: Stephen McCarthy\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

Elding has only been able to don the Ireland training shirt in this camp.<\/p>\n

The Ireland manager wasn\u2019t letting a paperwork hiccup delaying the inclusion of a player who\u2019d never been able to represent Ireland at any level.<\/p>\n

He was on the bench for Thursday\u2019s 1-0 win over Qatar<\/a> and continued with the party to Montreal on Saturday afternoon. He\u2019s adamant Friday\u2019s game in Canada is the last he\u2019ll be an inactive observer.<\/p>\n

A four-game Uefa Nations League window is scheduled from September 14 to October 4.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was itching to get on the pitch on Thursday but I don’t have the passport yet, which is unfortunate,\u201d noted the son of former Sligo Rovers and Cork City attacker Anthony Elding.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat should be resolved quite soon. I’ve got the ceremony for the naturalisation at the end of June, so possibly middle or end of July, it should be all sorted.<\/p>\n

\u201cBringing me into the squad shows the manager has big ambitions for me. Getting this taste of international football will only help me in my club as well, giving me that confidence to go on and kick on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elding and Mason Melia have shared the League of Ireland young player of the year awards in the past two seasons. There\u2019s a good chance they could be paired for Ireland, after Melia made his debut last week as a late substitute.<\/p>\n

\u201cMason pushed me every week when I was at Sligo because we were battling for the young player of the year and top goalscorer in the league,\u201d he said of the former St Patrick\u2019s Athletic tyro.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever I’d scored, I’d go on and check if Mason had scored. Then I’d find out he’d scored two.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s always good competition between us two so coming in here and working alongside him here has been great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Owen Elding\u2019s Ireland career was awoken straight after a night\u2019s sleep. Tuesday, May 5 started as a normal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,1842],"class_list":["post-475402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}