Richard Dunne and Damien Delaney take issue with Stephen Kenny’s programme notes

Richard Dunne reckons Stephen Kenny retired 'six or seven' Irish players too early.

In his programme notes for what was potentially his last match as Republic of Ireland manager, Kenny said his legacy will be the pathway that Irish players now have from the underage ranks right up to the senior side. The most recent exponent of this is under-21 star Andrew Moran, who was called up to the senior squad for the Euro qualifier against Netherlands, before making his debut vs New Zealand. Others such as Evan Ferguson, Jason Knight, Jason Molumby and Adam Idah have all followed the same path. But speaking on Virgin Media, neither Richard Dunne nor Damien Delaney believe this was Kenny's remit, as such, as Republic of Ireland senior team manager. Indeed, the two former Republic of Ireland internationals believe Kenny was too hasty in retiring some long-serving Ireland players, with Shane Long, Jeff Hendrick and Darren Randolph all name-checked. "If he was employed as the director of football, then that would have been his job and that's what we would have been expecting him to do," said former Man City defender Dunne. "As the senior manager, what he has to do is look after the first team and the first team's results. https://twitter.com/VMSportIE/status/1727049523342569774?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1727049523342569774%7Ctwgr%5E356601d4c26ad6bc6b23e95a83dd5529233f0dea%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.balls.ie%2Ffootball%2Frichard-dunne-stephen-kenny-retired-players-579495 "There's people in place to develop young Irish players. He's given a lot of players their debuts, 26, 27 players, and he's also retired maybe six or seven players a bit too soon that could have been around the group to help develop the younger players.