{"id":481621,"date":"2026-06-03T22:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T22:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/481621\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T22:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T22:15:08","slug":"mason-melia-eager-for-first-team-football-at-tottenham-after-ireland-debut-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/481621\/","title":{"rendered":"Mason Melia eager for first-team football at Tottenham after Ireland debut \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

John O\u2019Shea<\/a> is, helpfully, on hand to announce the arrival of Mason Melia<\/a> into the Sheraton Club Lounge, 37 floors up above downtown Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe striker\u2019s here now,\u201d says Ireland\u2019s assistant manager. \u201cHot stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melia smiled, a little sheepishly. As of last Thursday he\u2019s an Ireland senior international but he\u2019s also still a teenager and, even in 2026, teenagers can embarrass easily.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good start,\u201d Melia said as he sat down. It was, but not because he needed the ice broken for him. Even as the city below him edged into its season of sizzle with a blissful 28 degrees afternoon, Melia was a chilled, confident presence.<\/p>\n

Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson<\/a> has brought an Ireland squad significantly short on age and international experience across the Atlantic to help co-hosts Canada warm up for their World Cup<\/a> here on Friday night. Melia can be counted as both of the above but he\u2019s also a veteran of nearly 100 League of Ireland<\/a> games and those that came on his blazing way up. He has almost always been the one who had eyes on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s good to have that, for me, it\u2019s good for people to be saying [to watch me], than being saying the opposite,\u201d Melia said on Wednesday morning at the team base. \u201cI\u2019ve always thrived off that, people are going to be wanting to watch me run and see what I\u2019m going to be able to do, and I\u2019ve always loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Shea, Hallgr\u00edmsson and the rest of the coaching squad have clearly loved what they\u2019ve seen from Melia during what is now an unusually extended camp for a transatlantic double-header of friendlies. Since arriving last weekend, Ireland have been training at Centre Nutrilait, the home base of MLS side CF Montreal. Wednesday was a rest day and while some squad members made for the golf course, Melia was booked for media duties.<\/p>\n

To his credit he was happy to talk. The call-up, the debut, what it means that he\u2019s here with the senior team and not with Jim Crawford\u2019s Under-21s in Croatia. All of these have made for a hugely positive end to a 2025\/26 season. A year of growth \u2013 in more ways than one. Then there was Tottenham Hotspur\u2019s final-day survival. Having swapped Inchicore for north London on January 1st of this year, he didn\u2019t want to be staring into a summer of relegation rearrangements.<\/p>\n

\"Ireland'sIreland’s Mason Melia replaces Troy Parrott to make his international debut. Photograph: Ryan Byrne\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m delighted they stayed up. I think clubs never [want to] be in that position, but everyone the last few months could feel the pressure. Everyone\u2019s delighted that they stayed up,\u201d said Melia who played, and inevitably scored, in his debut for Spurs\u2019 Under-21s in April. He has had more than a taste of first-team training lately too. He hopes his Ireland call-up can help him springboard into a more regular place in Roberto De Zerbi\u2019s senior set-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpurs have been very intense over the last few months, obviously. De Zerbi came in and he\u2019s been very good for the lads, but very intense training. I want to be playing first-team football again, I\u2019ve said it to the club as well, they know that as well. So it\u2019s just seeing what\u2019s right, what the manager and what everyone at the club wants. At the moment I\u2019m not quite sure, they want me to come in preseason. So I want to do as well and just show the manager what I can do, and do my best and see what goes from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he hasn\u2019t chatted club fortunes with former Spurs striker Troy Parrott<\/a> this week, he has soaked up all he can, training alongside Ireland\u2019s leading man. \u201cDeadly\u201d was the verdict on that experience. His international debut came as a replacement for Parrott last Thursday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was only short but very special to have my family and everyone there supporting me as well, so it was nice. It kind of happened real fast, it was just get [stripped] and get ready, that was it,\u201d added Melia.<\/p>\n

This dream end to the campaign on both fronts comes after a rough start to his time across the channel. Having finally arrived nearly a full year after the record \u20ac1.9 million switch had been agreed, there was an immediate road bump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went over in January and [the club] found two stress fractures in my back, so it was quite tough coming in,\u201d said Melia, who wasn\u2019t a stranger to growing pains in that part of his body in his time with St Patrick\u2019s Athletic. \u201cYeah, it was a prior problem to be honest. Everyone\u2019s been very good to me to be fair, they looked after me, got me right, made sure of that. I\u2019m happy now the position I\u2019m in, I\u2019m back fully fit.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than that. Melia isn\u2019t just better \u2013 but bigger. With a host of League of Ireland talents in this squad there are more than a few who know him to see. Many were surprised with the vision that greeted them this time around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ve grown a good bit since I went to Spurs. Seeing the people that I played a little bit with, they were like \u2018Jesus, you\u2019re looking so different\u2019,\u201d added Melia, pestered for a copy of his gym programme by some of the home-based players. \u201cI\u2019ve grown a little bit [taller], just a little bit. I\u2019ve put on more muscle, I\u2019m a bit bigger, wider as well, I\u2019m in a good place at the moment, I\u2019m happy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John O\u2019Shea is, helpfully, on hand to announce the arrival of Mason Melia into the Sheraton Club Lounge,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4700,61,60,46617,170421,1842,112,44452],"class_list":["post-481621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-heimir-hallgrimsson","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-o-shea","tag-mason-melia","tag-republic-of-ireland-mnt","tag-sports","tag-troy-parrott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481621","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=481621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}