Players eligible for Ireland

Why?

Kelly could have been called up and capped a hell of lot earlier than March 2018 when he turned us down (he broke into Readings team in August 2016). If we'd called him up in say, early 2017 and thrown him in for 5 minutes, it's hard to have imagine he'd have rejected the chance. TBF to Kelly, he denies that he turned us down in favour of looking for an England cap, so it's not necessarily the same as Rice/Grealish. In any case though, the fact remains that we are comically slow in reacting to young talent breaking through. 

I don't think he made the final cut at that time, but for a fella who had maybe less than 30 first team appearances at that stage, I would have thought that a reasonable enough judgement on MON's part. Considering at that time, we were going well results wise & leading the qualifying group, it was hardly a massive call to leave him out of the final cut. As ya said, he hasn't definitively ruled us out yet, but somehow I don't think he would decline a call from Southgate either, not that it will happen any time soon. 

That kind of goes back to my previous post, personally I wouldn't have felt Kelly had done enough to earn a cap at that point (as opposed to a squad call up, which I don't think anyone would have an issue with, its something MON should be doing more often and should have done more often in the past), others will maintain he should have been capped around that time, but not necessarily exclusively for football reasons, which is the bit I have an issue with. 

I doubt Noel King is a great role model either 

I'm aware of that, but as you say he was cut when he easily could have been capped to put the whole thing to bed (if indeed there is anything to put to bed, it's not clear that Kelly is uncommitted to Ireland).