Seamus Coleman began his long journey back to recovery on Saturday as he contemplated at least six months out of football following the double leg break he suffered as a result of a challenge by Neil Taylor in the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifier against Wales.

Coleman underwent surgery in a Dublin hospital on Saturday and will have screws inserted in his right leg to aid the recovery process. The Ireland management team of Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane visited him in hospital on Friday night; beyond Dublin many expressed their support for a hugely popular character playing some of the best football of his career.

Coleman is a talented athlete, Ireland’s best player, a willing volunteer in Everton’s Community programme in Liverpool and someone who shuns the trappings of fame.

The Everton defender is respected as a player and liked as a man in equal measure. That is why there has been such an emotional reaction to the sight of him screaming in agony, as his leg, the bone clearly broken, hung loose in the air.

When O’Neill saw the extent of the damage (he was close enough to the tackle from Taylor to hear the crack in Coleman’s shin) he doubled over. When Coleman’s Ireland team-mate, the Southampton striker Shane Long, saw him suffering, he got down on his knees and cradled his friend’s head.