Hale was called into O\u2019Neill\u2019s squad for two friendlies in March but, in a surprise to some, didn\u2019t figure in either of the games against Switzerland and Sweden.<\/p>\n
After a protracted process involving Fifa to conclude an international transfer from the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland fans felt the Ross County striker would play at some point in March but wasn\u2019t given any game-time.<\/p>\n
He has been named in the panel for the June fixtures away to Denmark and at home to Iceland and O\u2019Neill suggested there are plans in place for the 26-year-old, who is the Staggies\u2019 top goalscorer in the 2024\/25 season.<\/p>\n
Speaking before the first leg of County\u2019s Scottish Premiership Relegation Play-Off at Livingston on Thursday night in which Hale scored a late equalising penalty, O\u2019Neill said: \u201cRonan wasn\u2019t the only player that didn\u2019t play in the last squad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to judge Ronan on how Ronan\u2019s playing. I don\u2019t judge him on his transfer. That was outside of my control. That was a decision the boy made, so I will judge him on how he is playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at Ronan, he had a really good start to the season. He had a difficult period around Christmas and went out of Ross County\u2019s team, so he didn\u2019t play a lot of football between maybe January and March, and then he came back into their team and has done well. Maybe he needed that little bit of recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably when he came into us in March, he wasn\u2019t really in his best form at that point in time.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has addressed that and has been a big player for Ross County \u2013 16 goals in all competitions in his first season is a good return.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have purposely picked fewer forwards to give us the opportunity to give them minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI decided we didn\u2019t need to see Jamie Reid in this situation, Josh (Magennis) is injured so, hopefully, we can get Ronan on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March, Northern Ireland\u2019s young guns drew 1-1 at home to the Swiss to continue an encouraging run of form before being hammered 5-1 in Sweden when O\u2019Neill was missing several starters.<\/p>\n
The international chief said the players took that defeat hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dressing room after the Sweden game was very quiet, and you look around and see how young the squad is, but I think it\u2019s important they go through that,\u201d said O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a club situation, you\u2019re able to address it two or three days later or at the very most the following Saturday. In international football, you carry the result a wee bit more.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of them are playing their club football at a slightly lower level but they got a taste of what it\u2019s like, having to deal with (Sweden\u2019s) Alexander Isak for example.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing into the Denmark game, they\u2019ll get a feel for it as well because Denmark\u2019s players play across the top Leagues in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see in this camp how they react to it, I suppose, but in terms of their attitude to it, their availability and their desire to come away and be part of it, it is very, very strong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past, June could be a difficult month, particularly for friendlies. It\u2019s not difficult for me at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not dealing with players who want to withdraw. Unfortunately, I have players who are injured and the best decision is for them not to be involved because they need to be ready for pre-season with their clubs, and a good pre-season will help them for September (for the World Cup qualifiers).\u201d<\/p>\n
In his second spell in charge, O\u2019Neill feels his new-era side is on the right track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re probably ahead of schedule, if I\u2019m being honest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hale was called into O\u2019Neill\u2019s squad for two friendlies in March but, in a surprise to some, didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[31133,1144,8538,30649,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-123707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-michael-oneill","9":"tag-northern-ireland","10":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","11":"tag-steven-beacom","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114553934513181325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}