I'm not missing the point. Why can't he accept the call up, see how things are in the Ireland panel, and then make his decision? Should he just blindly commit to a country that's he's never lived in for the rest of his professional career because his dad is Irish? International friendlies do not tie a player to a country.

Now, should we drop any player in our squad who's ever represented another country? We've benefited from it plenty of times in the past. Is it okay as long as we're the ones benefiting from it?

As to depriving other players of opportunities, I really don't buy the argument. The games he played in were essentially meaningless. A friendly against a weakened US team that less than 10,000 must have shown up to. End of season friendly that no one, the general public included, are too bothered about. He's hardly stealing valuable minutes when the opposition is poorer than what any potential Irish player would be going up against in the championship. And the lads were in camp anyway, so O'Neill has seen them.

Is he being opportunistic? Yeah, a bit. But we wouldn't blame someone in another profession for it. He's got a chance to greatly increase his life earnings by playing for his country of birth instead of the country of his dad. It happens.