'TEE TIME, HEIMIR

Hungry table-topping Hearts ace Oisin is giving Ireland boss food for thought

- BY DEREK FOLEY

HEARTS centre-half Oisin McEntee has shattered any lingering illusion that Heimir Hallgrimsson has his finger on the pulse of what Irish players are doing and in what league.

McEntee is starring for the Jambos who beat Celtic 3-1 last Sunday and went eight points clear at the top of the table.

It was followed by a 2-2 draw at St Mirren on Wednesday night that cut their lead to six but they are at home to struggling Dundee this weekend.

Put it another way, the Edinburgh club are almost a third of the way towards Champions League football next season.

McEntee is 6ft 3ins and can play anywhere on the right of defence or midfield.

His father Mickey was a Cavan footballer in the mid-1980s before moving to New York where he starred for Cavan Exiles and where Oisin was born in 2001.

The family returned home two years later to Cavan where the now 24-year-old's first soccer steps were with Cootehill and Carrick Rovers before spells in Dublin's DDSL with Belvedere and Malahide United.

Snapped up by Newcastle United at 16, such was McEntee's leadership quality that he was their youth team captain albeit there were no first team appearances and his time was marked by a 28-game season long spell at Greenock Morton in 2021/22.

McEntee transferred to League Two Walsall (right) in May 2022 where he was sent for a shoulder operation that June, a procedure pronounced a resounding success and which resulted in his landing a two-year extension.

Of that run in the Scottish basement McEntree recalled: "I loved getting up to play men's football and I embraced it quite well, I played most of the games until I broke my hand at Christmas.