IT was the first weekend of January, the third round of the Scottish Cup, and a hefty chunk of Ireland's football press corps had decamped to Glasgow to chronicle a very special debut.

It was 2006, and Roy Keane was the only show in town, even if nobody had expected Clyde to gatecrash the party. Another Irish midfielder had made a debut of his own 24 hours earlier, but Wes Hoolahan's first appearance on British soil had not generated too many headlines.

Understandably so. Hoolahan had signed for Livingston, who scraped a draw away to Alloa that weekend. Paul Lambert brought the Dubliner off the bench having paid a club record six-figure fee to Shelbourne for his services. By the time Alloa won the replay, Lambert's disastrous Almondvale tenure was at its end. John Robertson came in to try to rescue a stranded club. One of his most pressing issues was to get the best out of Hoolahan - and another pair of precocious attacking midfielders.

"It was so difficult. We tried to find his best position," says Robertson. "We played Wes wide left, wide right, we tried him off the front. But at the same time we were trying Robert Snodgrass in the same positions too. Then you throw Graham Dorrans into the mix and it almost added to the problem even though you were looking for solutions. We were trying to ease them in but that's not easy when we were in that situation. It was almost too much talent to fit into a team that's bottom of the table."

Bottom of the Premier League Livingston stayed. Hoolahan tasted defeat in 16 of his 19 appearances in Livi yellow. In the off-season, purse strings tightened and he moved to Blackpool on loan, making it permanent the following year, after a bitter dispute between the clubs. All up, Livingston didn't get much bang for their buck.

"Paul Lambert had left and we were miles behind with about ten games to go," says Robertson. "We had a wee rally late on but just could never quite get there in terms of safety. That summer the budget got cut in half. Savaged. Wes was a bigger earner and so he went south to ease things financially. It was a shame really [for Livingston] because it was clear the level of talent you were getting with Wes. He's just a fantastic footballer."

That talent has lit up many an English football weekend in the nine years since. After swapping Livi for Blackpool then Norwich, Hoolahan has perhaps tried to make up for his lack of impact Scottish football, playing kingmaker for two Scottish managers at Carrow Road. He carried Lambert's side to successive promotions and top-flight safety before the manager departed for Aston Villa. Indeed, as he seeks fresh employment, Lambert must look back and lament last summer's failed pursuit of Hoolahan before his demise at Villa Park.

Instead the pocket playmaker stayed put and began to find his groove again just when Alex Neil came south from Hamilton in January. He was about as central as anyone to the relentless run that followed, a run that returned the club to the top flight after a play-off triumph at Wembley where Hoolahan bewitched Middlesbrough.

Today, as Scotland roll up to Lansdowne Road, it is all a far cry from 2006 for many of the protagonists of that January weekend. Keane and Gordon Strachan now in opposing dugouts. Yet Hoolahan's international career feels like it is in its infancy. He is 33, just 11 months younger than his manager at Norwich. It might strike most that it is time to get a move on, but then Hoolahan has been ready to roll for the best part of a decade.

The Dubliner has the utter misfortune to be not merely a midfielder but a creative one. In the modern history of the Irish national team, they have been a shunned breed. Stephen Ireland killed off not one but two imaginary grandmothers to get out of national duty and never returned. Andy Reid's reputation soared with every game he didn't play for Ireland as he was continually ignored by Giovanni Trapattoni, who also had running spats with James McClean, James McCarthy and Darron Gibson. Aston Villa's precocious Jack Grealish has yet to play international football but is already well on his way to being Ireland's next creative cause celebre, as he takes time out to decide whether he is, in fact, English after all.

Hoolahan would consistently keep his counsel as squads came and went. He would rake in more admirers and Championship player of the month awards but the phone stayed silent and the years ticked on. He was an unused sub on his first Ireland call-up in 2002. His next taste of international football came in Airdrie's Excelsior Stadium in November 2007, a B international draw with Scotland when Steven Howard and Chris Iwelumo led the line for the hosts. Trapattoni finally relented and a first cap came his way the following summer in a friendly with Colombia. It would be four years before he would win a second.

Now the owner of 17 caps, Hoolahan is still dividing opinions. O'Neill, struggling to win over the majority of Irish observers, has frustrated many and enraged others including motor-mouth pundit Eamon Dunphy by marking Hoolahan out as a Dublin-only option, an apparently risky talent who can't be trusted in foreign fields. Yet, in a squad desperately lacking in creative talent, marooning his best playmaker on the bench is perhaps the greater risk.

"You can sometimes be left a little on the outside when you're as talented as a Wes," argues Robertson. "You look at Ireland and they've been built on a strong work ethic, a togetherness the past few years. But when you've someone like Wes who can find that piece of magic that no one else can, see a little pass, spark a move, get you a goal, you have to find some room for them."

With Strachan's Scotland threatening to extinguish Ireland's Euro 2016 hopes today, Robertson says that shackling Hoolahan - possibly in favour of a Shane Long-Jonathan Walters frontline - would be a mistake.

"I wouldn't see Wes as a luxury player at all," he insists. "But sometimes it can be perceived that when you're the creator rather than the worker, you're a bit of a risk. When you look at the results Martin has got away from home then his selections have been largely justified. But, if the first game was anything to go by, this weekend's match will be played at a serious pace, a cup tie almost, so that defensive system, that patience, is not going to be as effective."

Patience. From Livingston to Lansdowne Road, it's something Hoolahan knows better than most.