A couple of years ago it seemed that Gary Breen had everybody convinced but, as he sits in the Irish team hotel, he admits now that he has to do it all over again. Then, after climbing the club ladder at Maidstone, Gillingham and Peterborough, things were flying for the London-born centre-half at Birmingham City.

His performances at St Andrew's attracted the interest of Mick McCarthy and his Ireland debut, in the friendly defeat by Portugal in May of last year, seemed promising enough given that his adopted country seemed able to boast about as many prospective centre halves as snakes.

Things started to go wrong shortly afterwards, however, with Coventry coming in at the start of this year with a £2.5 million offer and the attraction of playing in the Premiership outweighing the reservations which Breen harboured about the switch. Initially all went well, but now, in his second season at Highfield Road, his place in the future plans of Gordon Strachan looks doubtful.

Their relationship has not been helped by either the manager's decision to play him out of position or, subsequently, by his public criticism of the 23-year-old's "laid back manner" and "lack of hunger" in the media.

"I couldn't understand it," he sighs as he reflects on what has been a decidedly mixed start to the new campaign. "There was me thinking that I'd done him (Strachan) a favour and he turns around and kicks me in the nuts, as it were. The only thing good to come of it, I suppose, is that since I have got back in I've been playing with a "I'll show you" sort of attitude.

The additional motivation appears to paying off for, having started four matches at full-back, been dropped and only earned a recall due to the suspension of Paul Williams, Breen has been Man of the Match in four of the club's last five outings.

He has earned high praise for commanding performances back at the heart of the City defence and it would be somewhat ironic if his pursuit of a place in the Irish set up was, for the second time, to cost him dearly at club level.

"It's funny, I only moved in the first place to cement my place in the Ireland team. I was competing with a couple of other lads but I reckoned if all of us were playing well then the Premiership boys were always going to get selected ahead of me. After the move, though, I didn't get to play again until last time and the lads that have come in have done well so it's difficult to win the place back."

Coventry's troubles towards the end of last season hardly helped matters but, after the club survived "by the skin of our teeth" Breen went away determined to build for the future, working hard over the summer to prepare for his "second crack" at Premiership football.

"At the time I signed for them people asked me was it wise, whether it was good for me to go straight into a struggling team when other players would get to bed themselves in and get used to the higher standard.

"But when we stayed up I was really determined to make the most of it. I spent the summer in the gym. Put on a stone which you can't really notice but I came back feeling a lot stronger and really looking forward to playing again, then all this stuff with being played at full-back started up."

It ended with Breen telling Strachan that he would no longer play there. "He said `you can't say that' and I said `well I am'." Breen was then left, it seemed, to languish in the reserves until another club showed an interest.

Now, after City kept a clean sheet in his absence against Everton on Saturday, Breen doesn't know what awaits him back in England on Thursday, while he realises that he has probably travelled to Dublin for nothing more than an evening on the bench.

McCarthy, he says, is constantly telling his players that the team is picked at the squad sessions before games "he's always saying that he's watching and `make my mind up for me'," and that, says Breen, is precisely what he has been attempting to do.

For the moment, however, it seems that he may simply have to be patient and wait for his chance to win favour again. That, however, is something that Gary Breen is quickly getting used to these days.