Troy Parrott<\/a> benched for the entirety of Real Betis\u2019 1-1 draw at Deportivo on Sunday night. But Ireland\u2019s star turn has made such an electric start to life in Spain that the sharing of roles with Cucho Hern\u00e1ndez \u2013 who scored \u2013 shouldn\u2019t be sniffed at this week, if it keeps the striker fresh for his country.<\/p>\nJack Moylan was the big eye-catcher over the weekend after maintaining his fine form to hand Cardiff City a much needed win over Charlton, with uncapped call-up Joel Bagan also featuring for the Bluebirds throughout. Former Shelbourne man Moylan is taking his step up to the Championship in his stride and scored twice and assisted the third in a 3-1 win.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe felt as if we were bringing a player who would improve the squad when we bought Jack Moylan. He has qualities we probably didn\u2019t have before,\u201d said Cardiff\u2019s Irish manager Brian Barry-Murphy of the attacking midfielder, who scored a hat-trick on his Ireland debut against Grenada in May.<\/p>\n
Barry-Murphy added: \u201cHe\u2019s a very dangerous player in the situations you saw him in. The big appeal for us was because of where he\u2019s come from, he has a lot of improvement in him. The way he\u2019s working means he will improve a lot and become a great player for the club.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Johnny](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPBVC2FFIVBVXDGW6HBYUZ3XQM.jpg\")
Johnny Kenny scores for Preston against QPR on Saturday. Photograph: Andrew Kearns\/CameraSport via Getty Images <\/p>\n
Johnny Kenny was not included in this Ireland squad but he still sent Hallgr\u00edmsson a timely reminder of his worth with both of Preston North End\u2019s goals in their draw at QPR, opening his account for the club following his deadline-day move from Celtic.<\/p>\n
But in a worrying development for the Ireland manager, Vale was injured in the warm-up for that game \u2013 in which Jimmy Dunne also played \u2013 and was forced to miss out.<\/p>\n
Bizarrely, the same fate befell McGrath just before Hibernian\u2019s clash with Aberdeen and the FAI has yet to determine whether the pair can stay involved for this international camp, with the squad gathering on Sunday night and Monday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had an issue with his calf before the game, 10 or 15 minutes into the warm-up. I couldn\u2019t tell you what it is or how bad it is,\u201d said Hibs\u2019 interim manager John Potter of McGrath. New Ireland recruit Owen Elding played 77 minutes of that game.<\/p>\n
Liam Scales played for 89 minutes of Celtic\u2019s 1-0 home defeat to arch rivals Rangers but fellow Ireland defender Jake O\u2019Brien had to wait until the same minute before appearing in Everton\u2019s 1-0 win over Ipswich Town, where Dara O\u2019Shea captained the Tractor Boys. John Egan got 78 minutes in Hull\u2019s defeat to Newcastle.<\/p>\n
Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher showed the way for Ireland\u2019s trio of goalkeepers with a clean sheet in Brentford\u2019s 3-0 win over Chelsea on Friday. Although neither Gavin Bazunu nor Max O\u2019Leary could replicate that on Sunday, both got 90 minutes in the tank.<\/p>\n
Bazunu made his third successive start for Bolton \u2013 following his move from Southampton \u2013 in a lively 4-3 win at Norwich while O\u2019Leary made a fantastic save for West Brom in their 1-0 defeat at Wolves, with Jayson Molumby also starting in the Baggies\u2019 midfield.<\/p>\n
And although Bosun Lawal was selected in Hallgr\u00edmsson\u2019s squad, he didn\u2019t feature for Stoke City in their 2-1 win over Sheffield United on Saturday, having picked up an injury in the win over Charlton 2\u00bd weeks ago. First-time Ireland call-up Liam Kitching got 90 minutes for the Blades in that clash with Stoke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A four-game international window like no other is upon us and, for the most part, the football will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,27598,112],"class_list":["post-631097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-players-premier-league","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631097","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=631097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}