It's been a long road back for Joey O'Brien but he never had any doubts, writes Mary Hannigan

'He has experienced the accolades, now he is experiencing the cruelty of the game," said former Bolton manager Sam Allardyce of Joey O'Brien when the young Dubliner, who broke in to the Premier League team in 2005, was struck down by a knee injury that kept him out of the game for close to a year and a half.

Until then O'Brien's progress had been dream-like, in the space of two years progressing from the Academy at Bolton to being a first-team regular and a senior international. But then came the injury, and so long was his rehabilitation taking, there were even those who wondered if the 21-year-old would make it back at all.

A visit to American surgeon Dr Richard Steadman, though, put him on the road to recovery.

Steadman's past client list includes Michael Owen, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Alan Shearer, Roy Keane, Ronaldo and Henrik Larsson, all players he helped recover from similarly serious injuries.

"It's been a long road back through rehab to build up my knee and it's been very tough, but it's reassuring to know that many of the players Dr Steadman has operated on have come back stronger," said O'Brien when he made his comeback for Bolton last month, coming on as a second-half substitute in the Uefa Cup tie away to Rabotnicki of Macedonia.

"I can't think about what happened two years ago. All those games I played have gone now and I can't keep going back to them and thinking how well I did."

He does, then, feel he's starting from scratch, and just wants, he insisted in Dublin this week, to look forward.

"It's all in the past, the knee's back fine, I'm back playing and that's the main thing," he said. "I suppose you appreciate things a little bit more because it was nearly taken away from me. I spent a lot of time looking out the window at the boys training, while I was inside on a bike. Fifteen months of that was a bit too much. But I got through it and I became a stronger person for it - and maybe a better player."

Did he ever worry, as others did, that he would have to retire?

"No, I didn't actually think 'it's going to be over', but I was thinking 'when it's going to be, when it's going to be?," he said of the interminable wait for his comeback.

"It was always 'when am I going to get back?'," he said, dismissing the notion that he ever feared he might not return.

He's been praised by Allardyce's successor at Bolton, Sammy Lee, for the determination and discipline he showed in his battle back from the injury, a quality Allardyce himself once alluded to when O'Brien, who joined the club when he was 15, was in danger of being let go in his second year after returning from the summer break out of shape.

"To be brutally honest, if we had to make a decision after two years on the lad," said Allardyce, "we would have shown him the door, but I suppose he's a good example of the Fighting Irish. They never give in."

And now, much to his own amazement, he's back in the international fold, almost 18 months since he made his senior debut against Sweden at Lansdowne Road. He got the news from his brother, who heard of his call-up on the radio back in Dublin.

"Yeah, I was a little surprised," he said. "I knew the games were coming up but I wasn't thinking who he (Steve Staunton) was going to name, or what have you. I was just concentrating on playing well for Bolton and getting back fit."

O'Brien started his footballing life as a midfielder, but Allardyce converted him to a right back when Bolton's Nicky Hunt broke his leg. When he was asked where he would like to play against the Swedes on his debut he said "I'd play in goal if it meant getting a cap," but Staunton is more confident of him providing cover for Richard Dunne and John O'Shea, rather than Shay Given, tomorrow.

Has he, as Staunton suggested, experience at playing in the centre of defence? "I've played there at underage level, probably the last time was a couple of years ago, for the Irish under-19s," he said. "But I'll be happy to do anything or play anywhere if it gets me a shirt in the team."

The Crumlin native, who played his youth football with Lourdes Celtic and then Stella Maris, where he was spotted by a Bolton scout, also played Gaelic football with Good Counsel of Drimnagh. As a Dubs fan he's a regular visitor, with his family, to Croke Park, but he never made it there as player.

Even if it's only as a late substitute, against Germany or Cyprus, stepping on to that turf would mean everything to him and would, he hopes, signal that the comeback is well and truly under way.