The tight hair, upright stance and inclination, it seems, to make as little eye contact as possible means a group Marc Wilson interview can feel a little like one of those movie scenes where a captured soldier stands to attention as questions are fired at him.
The tone here is, well, a little more laid-back but, like any good POW, Wilson seems anxious to give as little away as possible, and when he repeatedly falls back upon some slight variation on “just wanting to help Ireland get the three points required against Scotland”, there a hint of name, rank and serial number about it all.
There’s the odd stolen sideways glance and the very occasional hint of a smile, but for the most part this is clearly business for the 27-year-old from Aghagallon, Co Armagh, who looks ever so faintly amused when it is put to him that the visitors might make him a target today given that he has chosen to play the team from the other side of the border.
"They could do," he says, the sternness already returning, "but at the end of the day, although we want to get a result, the most important thing for us is to get the three points against Scotland. " Yes, yes, you're getting the idea.
Wilson missed the game in Glasgow due to injury but watched it from the stands where, he says, he enjoyed the atmosphere a good deal more than the action.
“I was raging I wasn’t playing but I’d torn my hamstring so I sat up in the top corner watching it, mixed in with the Scottish and the Irish fans.”
Wasn’t happening
“It wasn’t a great game. It wasn’t happening, to be honest. I was thinking it’s going to be a nil-niller. Obviously they’ve nicked a goal. But I think if we can get them here and we can play the way that we can I think we can get a positive result.”
A poorly defended set piece cost Ireland that night last November and Wilson insists that Martin O’Neill and his players have worked hard to ensure they don’t let things slip so easily again. Ultimately, he admits, however, there is always potential for things to go wrong on any given night. The aim on Sunday week is simply to minimise the risks of it being another bad one.
“You can never say never,” he says. “Obviously we know we’ve got to cut sloppy goals out. That’s part of the training, what we’re trying to do, what we’re working on on the training ground. We’ll be doing a bit of video analysis, watching Scotland a lot because we know that their wide men deliver a lot of crosses into the box and so that’s something that we have to think about.”
Against Poland Wilson himself was a party to the collective error that led to their goal, a guilt he acknowledges before consigning it to history.
“It’s easy to look back on a game,” he says, “and think such and such should have done that or such and such should have done that but it’s over and done with and we’ve spoken about it so we’ll know next time really, won’t we?”
Next time is almost upon us so we’ll know soon enough whether the lessons have been learned. Here’s hoping.
