Being appointed a union rep is generally a recognition of respect from your peers.

A symbol that you are a person of some substance – after all, wasn’t Sir Alex Ferguson himself a shop steward back in his youth?

Being the PFA rep at Pittodrie might be a little different from Fergie’s days in the shipyards of Govan, but you still only get there if your colleagues think you have a bit about you, that you are someone they can turn to for advice, somebody willing to fight their corner. At present, that responsibility here falls upon the shoulders of Adam Rooney who, typically, is quick to try and downplay his role.

“I don’t have too much to do here. I’m more a point of contact at the club with the PFA Scotland so that they can arrange meetings. They come up from time to time and tell us all the latest things that are going on. As well as Fraser Wishart and Stuart Lovell, Michael Hart is also now working for them.

“Obviously if anything serious happens, they would go through me. We have seen in the past at clubs that the PFA will get involved when they have to. I will try and help them and also help the players, especially some of the young lads coming through. It’s important they are members.

“One of the things the PFA help us with is thinking about what happens when we stop playing. When you are a youngster it is not something you worry about but nowadays, I think it’s important to think about it as early as possible. You have so much spare time on your hands because there are only so many hours a day you can train.

“In a lot of ways, the best thing about playing football is the time you have to yourself but that can lead to problems especially now with the gambling culture. It’s easy for the young lads to get sucked into that. They are far better off spending a couple of hours a day studying and going on a course to get some qualifications.

“A lot of the first team lads are doing courses. Joe and myself are doing a business course, Dominic too I think. Reynolds claims to be an engineer! Shay is doing a new course as well. Shinnie is trying to be a barber whilst Scott Wright is actually a good hairdresser!

“All the boys realise that when they stop playing football they are not going to be able to retire. No one here is on the crazy money you hear about in the Premier League down south. Once they finish playing, they will have to get a job within a couple of months so the boys need to have an eye on their future and the PFA are very good at helping with that. They come in and do talks and try and make courses available for the lads. They will point you in the right direction”.

Moving on from his role as a union rep to the day job as a striker, like everyone, Adam is pleased the international breaks are behind us and we can put the stop / start opening to things behind us.

“It’s been strange because over the last few years we have had so many games with us coming back early. They have seemed very long seasons without much of a break in it, though last year we had the winter break which was a bit of a change.

“This year it feels different. We had a two-week break then we were back for three games in a month and then we had another two-week break. We were back and played one game and then had a ten day break because of the League Cup semi-finals, and then we only had one more game before another international break. So far it hasn’t allowed for any real flow to the season or to build any momentum. We now have seven games before the winter break and a good chance to hopefully pick up a good number of points.

“I do think they need to look at the football calendar. Everyone in Scotland is now in the same boat given that the League Cup starts back early as well whereas before it was only the teams playing in Europe who were back before everyone else.

“After the league splits, I think those games could be condensed to two or three weeks by playing Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday and then the season is over instead of drawing it out. All it really does is cut into the summer break where the lads are trying to get some rest and recovery. The last two or three seasons, the lads have finished the campaign, had a week of doing nothing to try and let their bodies recover and then you have to start doing a bit of training again because you are back the following week. Long-term you have to think it’s not going to help players prolong their careers.

“I have a few mates playing down in England and very often they are finished at the very beginning of May and not back till July. A two month break is a bit excessive, but compared with what we are doing, it’s very different. They have maybe got eight weeks where we might get three weeks maximum but within that, you are thinking about getting back training after only a week off.

“There are periods in the season where we have something like ten games in 40 days, whilst there are other times where there is three games in a month. I think there are better ways of spacing it out. I know they have to take into account the weather and leave some dates for possible postponements, but I think it’s something that could be looked at.

“We’ve been quite lucky so far this season that we haven’t had too many injuries and we have quite a big squad. We have a lot of players who could go straight into a starting eleven. For a lot of teams, if players pick up a few injuries in December, they could end up missing a quarter of the games in the season if they are out for four to six weeks. That’s not right.

“As players, we just have to get on with it. We quite enjoy having the run of games in a short period because if you are doing well, you get some momentum going and you don’t have to worry about training. For the fans though, it’s tough on them travelling to so many games in December. We need to listen to the views of the fans more on those kinds of things”.

The international breaks were there to allow for the final World Cup qualifiers to be completed and of course, in the play-offs, Adam’s Republic of Ireland missed out on a place in Russia next summer. What’s been the reaction to that back in Ireland?

“Obviously people are frustrated and disappointed because although we knew it was a tough draw against Denmark, after getting the draw away from home we thought we had a good chance. After we got the early goal in the second leg, probably people just expected us to go on and win the game, so it was more disappointing the way the game ended.

“A 5-1 defeat was hard to take but there are still a lot of fans who appreciate that Denmark were a good team and also appreciate that when we went 2-1 down, we had to go for it. We had to chase the game and we got picked off by good quality. If we had not had a go, then people would have moaned just as much about that. It was just unfortunate that we gave away two goals straight after we scored. That ultimately killed us.

“It is obviously disappointing from the players’ perspective because you want the team to get a World Cup. With the squad of players we have, we were capable of getting there but it was a very difficult group. Serbia, Austria and Wales are decent sides who are hard to beat. Even Georgia, who people thought would be the whipping boys, were actually strong as well, so it was a difficult group.

“Then in the play-offs, Denmark were a top side. I think they beat Poland a few months before 4-0 at home and Poland are a top side as well with a lot of good players. It was always going to be difficult to get past Denmark, but the score line made it a lot worse than it actually was.

“People are disappointed but most countries who didn’t make it to the World Cup will feel the same way. The Italians will certainly feel like that, as will the Dutch and obviously the people in Scotland. In these countries, a lot of supporters have been or will be calling for the manager’s head but it’s not just down to that. It is down to the groups of players as well.

“In Ireland, obviously the league infrastructure isn’t the way it is in England and Scotland. I think as a youngster growing up in Ireland you want to go to England, like I did to Stoke.

“They have tried recently to try and keep players in the Irish League to stop really young players being shipped over to England. They want to try and at least keep these players in the League for a few seasons before they then make the move.

“If I think back to when I was at school, there were a number of good clubs and about 20 lads went across to England from my age group alone. Of them, Anthony Stokes is still at Hibs, Stephen Gleeson is at Birmingham. There are a couple in League Two but there are not a whole lot around the place who have gone on and played at a high level. A lot of the boys ended up going back to Ireland and the majority of them were lost from the game.

“Also, guys go over at 16 or 17 with no education behind them. If they return to Ireland they have nothing and have to find a new career. I was fortunate because I had my education behind me. I finished all my higher levels in Ireland and then I moved away after that. If I didn’t make it, at least I would have something behind me when I came back.

“In Ireland, they have changed their system and have brought in a U15, U17 and a U19 league. They have also amalgamated a lot of the clubs with the top youth teams, so they have to be affiliated with one of the top clubs. For example, St Pats have associated themselves with three or four of the top schoolboy teams in Dublin like Belvidere, St Joseph’s and Cherry Orchard who have all produced good players in the past. It should make all the top teams have a better pool of players coming up through.

“It may improve the league but at the same time, I still think as a youngster in Ireland you are going to take your chance in England or Scotland if you get one. If anyone has any aspirations to be a footballer, if they have a chance to go across the water to one of the big teams in England they are still more than likely to go. I only think players will stay if they believe they are going to play first team football at a young age.

“One positive for the Irish league is that six or seven of the players who started an Ireland game recently have all featured in the Irish League at one stage, boys like Seamus Coleman, James McClean, Wes Hoolahan, Shane Long. So there are a lot of lads who have come across and done well in England who stared in the Irish League. I think Preston signed five or six guys from the league a year or two back and they are holding their own in the Championship, so their success might encourage some young boys to stay.

“The league also gives an opportunity for those who don’t quite make it in England a chance to still play at a decent level and more importantly, the opportunity to have a job.

“One of the problems that Ireland have is similar to Scotland – not so many players are at the very top teams now, the way they were in England in the ‘70s and ‘80s when the teams were full of Scottish and Irish boys. Now those teams are full of players from around the world and so those players are going down into the Championship or League One.

“When I was growing up you had Roy Keane at Manchester United with Denis Irwin, Damien Duff played for a number of the top clubs, as did Robbie Keane. They were all at the top teams, but unfortunately that is not the case anymore.

“I think that is because of the money down in England. The big teams can buy who they want and will go for a lot of the foreign players. Technically they are usually ahead of the domestic lads. That has a knock-on effect for the international team if players are not playing at the highest level, but it’s hard to see how you make drastic improvements to change the situation.

“It’s hard to say if it’s tougher to make the grade now. It’s harder in that there is a culture at a lot of clubs where there’s a feeling that if you are in the Academy or are coming through a youth team, you have made it as a player. A few people have made the point that the young lads want to have the expensive wash bags and watches and want to look good and have the lifestyle without actually putting the work in and doing the extra hours that are needed.

“Luckily Aberdeen have a lot of good youngsters who have a good attitude coming through, boys like Dean Campbell. He has been brilliant. He is one of the youngest players at the club, the youngest player to have played in the first team. But he knows he still has a long way to go before he becomes a first team regular. He is always doing his jobs around the place. He is always doing work in the gym. He is also one of the politest young lads that you will ever meet. He has a great attitude about him, which isn’t always the case with young players.

“It’s very hard to get there. The ones who do make it are quite often the ones from difficult backgrounds who have not had it too easy and have worked hard for everything they have in life. Nobody is going to give you anything for free in this game. You have to be hungry and go and earn it”.