Fulham midfielder Ollie O’Neill believes his League of Ireland loan spell with Derry City can help him grow as a footballer.

The Republic of Ireland under-21 international played almost an hour as the Candystripes drew 1-1 at St. Patrick’s Athletic in their league opener on Friday night and could have scored during an impressive debut. The Ealing-born midfielder, who has scored seven goals and six assists for Steve Wigley’s under 21s in the Premier League 2 this term, told the Irish Mirror that there’s a huge difference between that level and senior football.

“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 picked Derry as his loan destination over other options as he knows City’s assistant manager Alan Reynolds from his under-21 international duties and Brian Maher and Colm Whelan are international team-mates.

“There were a few [other options] 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.”