Seamus Coleman a product of his landscape - uncompromising Donegal - Eamon Dunphy

Eamon Dunphy says it’s imperative that Seamus Coleman is fit come March and the Republic of Ireland’s crucial World Cup play-off encounter with Czechia in Prague. 

Speaking in his Irish Mirror column, the veteran football journalist insists Coleman - who hobbled out of Everton’s 1-0 win over Manchester United just minutes in on Monday night - is a product of his environment. 

And after being recalled to the Irish set-up after missing the opening two games of the campaign, Dunphy says the Killybegs’ man’s uncompromising approach has rubbed off on those around him. 

“We talk a lot in Irish football about identity - about what it means, where it has gone, how we get it back,” says Dunphy. 

“But if you want to understand Irish identity in its purest form, you don’t need a coaching manual or a PowerPoint presentation.

“You just need to look at Séamus Coleman. Because Coleman isn’t just a footballer.

“He is a product of his landscape,  rugged, wind-beaten, uncompromising Donegal. A county where nothing is handed to you, where every inch must be earned, where character is carved out of hardship.

“Coleman plays the game the way Donegal people live life: with resilience, humility, and an unwillingness to be bowed by circumstance.

“And it’s no coincidence that this resilience was forged not in Premier League academies but in the League of Ireland - a league that toughens you”.

He added: “People keep asking whether Ireland should fear the 2026 World Cup play-off against the Czechs - whether we have enough leadership to win it.

“And the truth is: we don’t know. What we do know is this: Ireland are a weaker, less certain, less mature team without Coleman. We saw that in Armenia.

“The Dentist - in his wisdom - left Coleman out of his squad for the trip to Yerevan, which ended in a humiliating 2-1 defeat.

“If Coleman is unavailable in Prague, if that hamstring injury he picked up at Old Trafford starts to haunt him then Ireland lose more than a right-back.

“They lose their conscience. Leaders who set standards even when they weren’t on the pitch. 

“You don’t notice what they do until it’s gone. And then the collapse is sudden. Ireland, when they lost to Armenia, lived that collapse in slow motion.

Without Coleman, the group became a chorus without a conductor. A dressing room full of promise but short of authority”.