Euro dream ends in tears for Elliot
Republic of Ireland and Newcastle Utd goalkeeper Rob Elliot now finds himself in familiar territory, back where he was last August with nowhere to go.
Asked before the two friendly’s whether he would get game time Elliot explained: “Well, obviously we don’t know because we’re just training but it would be great to get a cap and try and show what I can do heading up to the tournament.” Manager Martin O’Neill gave the inform Newcastle keeper a chance to impress, and Elliot started only his second game for his country against Slovakia in the 2–2 draw last Monday evening at the Aviva stadium.
Yet after just 14 minutes he had his hopes of booking his seat on the plane to the European Championships in France this summer dashed. A routine manoeuvre diving to attempt to keep out Miroslav’s Stoch’s 14th minute opener for Slovakia, ended with the 29 year old being stretchered off.
Results of scans days later highlighted that Elliot sustained an anterior cruciate ligament injury and would be out for up to six months. “When I found out it was my cruciate ligament that’s when the tears came” speaking about his misfortune later that week.
The English born keeper who is eligible to play for Ireland through his father’s family from Cork is no stranger to injury: “I tore my thigh against Chelsea in December 2014. And then I didn’t play a game until we played Norwich in October 2015. So I had about three or four set-backs and I even had another one whilst I was playing. I was able to get away with it”, admitted Elliot.
After overcoming these injury problems the Magpies net-minder received career damaging news from Newcastle, he was facing into another bout of adversity again it seemed: “In Newcastle I was told I was surplus to requirements so I think the biggest thing was trying to find somewhere I could play every week and make an impression” he procrastinates, yet sport is unpredictable and his situation took a u-turn, “obviously that didn’t quite materialise at the time and that’s how football goes, I’m suddenly playing every week and hopefully I’m part of the manager’s thought process for the finals”, Elliot excitingly explains because, “at the time Newcastle didn’t want me so the only thing I was clinging on to was that I had an outside chance with the Ireland squad.”
That he did and when the chance came Elliot was given a stark reminder of how cruel sport can be and ended up on O’Neill’s injury list along with Kevin Doyle who picked up a nasty deep cut on his shin from a tackle by Timme Klose in the friendly against Switzerland. Also fellow striker Jonathon Walters is recovering from surgery he had to amend a cartilage problem and is out for eight weeks. Another untimely injury of interest is Northern Irelands Chris Brunt who suffered a cruciate injury playing for West Brom against Crystal palace and he is certain to miss the Euro’s this summer.
Elliot won’t take any consolation from this though, he wanted to be on the list containing the 23 man Irish squad heading to France this summer. As he said himself prior to his unfortunate cameo appearance: “You don’t want to have any regrets, you don’t want to walk off the pitch thinking, why didn’t I do this or that? You want to walk off going, I did everything I could and it either went for me or it didn’t.” Little did he know what lay ahead that evening. Elliot has been down this road before.