Shane Duffy launched himself into the Republic of Ireland’s summer schedule by telling Stephen Kenny to work him to the bone.
The big defender has endured a tough second-half to the season as he found himself out of the Brighton team.
Duffy hasn’t played a competitive game since Ireland’s 2-2 friendly draw with Belgium at Aviva Stadium in March.
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And those lack of minutes have been a major source of frustration to the Derry man and his international boss.
The 30-year-old could be forced to consider his club options ahead of next season if he is going to struggle for starts.
It is not quite as stark a position as the centre-back found himself while on loan at Celtic after falling out of that team.
But it is alarming all the same, although Duffy has been pulling out the stops since coming into this camp early ahead of the other players.
Kenny arranged a 60-minute training game against the Ireland Under-21s on Sunday in order to get players up to speed since the end of the English club season.
Shane Duffy trains with his Ireland team-mates (Image: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne)
Most players played for 30 minutes, and only two got the full 60 - one of whom was Duffy, reports the Irish Mirror.
Kenny said: “(Today) we're ratcheting it up again to be a really high intensity day with 11 v 11..
"I gave him the option of having a really light day himself, but he was not having it. He would not hear tell of it. He doesn’t want to be looked after.
“He wants to train and to get himself right. I thought about tapering his training two days in so as to have a very light day yesterday and up it today.
"But he didn't want to. It wasn't a really high intensity day yesterday. We played eight a side today with our shape - the three-two-threes against teams of eight.
"And he was firing himself up, getting blocks in and was all over the place. So much for a down day for him. He doesn't want it. He’s determined to earn his place."
In that game, Duffy was tasked with marking livewire West Ham attacker Mipo Odubeko and his Brighton team-mate Evan Ferguson and Kenny added: “It was a good workout.”
Quizzed on Duffy’s lack of club action, Kenny said: “It's not an ideal situation. But one of the good things is that he's been training every day at Brighton up until last week.
”Some of the players finished four weeks ago which will be nearly six weeks by the time we play Armenia for the players in League One.
“That's not ideal. It has been a challenge for players to keep themselves absolutely right but Shane played really well on Sunday.”
The Ireland squad train at FAI HQ again today before their departure to Yerevan tomorrow and Kenny has no injury concerns with all 27 players taking part yesterday.
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