Ollie O'Neill believes he can take his game to another level after swapping Fulham for Derry City.
The Ireland Under-21 star completed his loan switch from the Premier League club on Thursday - and was in the Candystripes team 24-hours later.
That was more accident than design as he replaced Michael Duffy in the side for Friday’s 1–1 draw at St Pat’s after the flying winger suffered a calf injury in the warm-up.
But O’Neill - who hadn’t played in six weeks because of an ankle injury - made a good impact and had one effort cleared off the line.
Derry know they are onto a good thing having snapped up a player that was on Tottenham’s radar last summer.
This season, O’Neill has scored an impressive seven goals in 12 appearances for Fulham’s Premier League 2 side, and also chipped in with six assists.
But the versatile attacker, 20, believes first-team football with Derry will improve him further - once he gets into stride.
A marquee signing, O’Neill said: “The PL2 games are technically good and there are some really good players in there.
“But then you add in 5,000 or 6,000 fans at Friday’s game, flares, noise, first game of the season, speed of the game - all of that stuff puts it on a different level.
“That’s the first football I’ve played in about six weeks and I've only trained two or three times.
“I did my ankle at Fulham a few weeks ago and since then I haven't played much football.
“For the first 10 minutes on Friday I thought, ok, but then after that I felt physically fine and had my legs under me.
“It was intense and the first 15 minutes were 100 miles per hour. There is more physicality, but none of those things will bother me long term.
“The fast adjustment curve will be good for me. I'm looking forward to taking it on as I'm sure I'll feel better next week and so on and so forth.”
O’Neill knew Derry City assistant manager Alan Reynolds from Ireland’s U21 coaching staff, and also goalkeeper Brian Maher and striker Colm Whelan.
And that helped in his decision making as O’Neill was not short of loan options in his hunt for first-team football.
“There were a few but I had a slight ankle injury which probably put a few things on hold but then Derry, it was a very attractive project.
“It’s an attractive manager to play for, the coaching staff, the style of play and some very good players in the squad.
“I looked at it and said ‘yeah, I can see myself playing there’ which wouldn't necessarily be true of everywhere.”
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