Irish camp feels like home for Wolves midfielder Joe Hodge
Joe Hodge admits you can sense the Black Country’s connection to Ireland as he represents Wolves for the country’s under-21 side.
The midfielder captains his nation and is the latest in a number of Wolves players to represent them.
Coaches Paul McShane and Rene Gilmartin, who played for Albion and Walsall, also show Ireland’s long-standing link to the Black Country – which Hodge admits he felt when Wolves played in Dublin during pre-season.
“You can (feel it), especially with Doc as well (Matt Doherty), who is a mate of mine at Wolves.
“Back in the day when he was at Wolves the first time there were seven or eight Irish players in the first team and since I’ve been at Wolves I’ve always been around the Irish boys.
“There’s definitely something there. We saw that in the summer in pre-season, the atmosphere and the support for us was pretty incredible. It was an unbelievable day to be honest.
“The sooner I can get back there and play in a green jersey (for the senior Ireland side) the better.”
Hodge missed the last international break with a hamstring injury, as Ireland under-21s beat Turkey and San Marino in their Euro qualifiers, but he is now back and raring to go.
“I’m feeling really good,” he added.
“As far as the injury is concerned, I got back pretty quick, after three or four weeks which is not bad going for the injury.
“Obviously I want to be playing as many first team minutes as I can, but any minutes for the under-21s helps to get me sharp. I’m feeling good.”
Today, Ireland face Latvia and skipper Hodge is not taking the opponents for granted.
He said: “All our focus has been on Latvia from the start of this week. We only have one game to think about.
“The lads were fantastic in the last window, I loved watching them.
“We’ll deal with the next two games when we get to them in November, but for now we’re just focused on getting a win this week.
“We have to keep the intensity through the game, make sure we’re on it. We can’t afford any sloppiness. We know it won’t be an easy fixture. The last thing we want to do is to underestimate Latvia. Something Jim (Crawford) spoke to us about was the last campaign and how we dropped points against Luxembourg and Montenegro.
“We don’t want to be giving up three points here. I love coming here, it’s my favourite time of the season, the international break. There’s a lot of talent here. Everyone is confident, but we know there’s no need to be over confident either. We will be very disappointed if we don’t qualify.”
