Interesting 'where are they now piece'

in todays Sunday Times about the Irish side that finished 3rd in the World youth championship in 1997. The French team, managed by Houllier, that got knocked out in the 1/4 finals had 8 players who went on to full international honours (Landreau, Sagnol, Silvestre, Gallas, Henry, Trezeguet, Christenval and Anelka).

In contrast the Irish side had 2, Duff and Crowe.

Very interesting to see that 12 of the 18 players ended up playing in the EL (Aidan Lynch, Derek O'Connor, Paul Whelan, Colin Hawkins, Glen Crowe, Stephen Murphy, David Whittle, Alan Kirby, Thomas Morgan, Trevor Molloy, Dessie Baker and Neil Fenn). Is this progress from our point of view that players struggling to impact in the lower divisions see coming 'home' as a viable option? Or is it a cop out?

PS: Trevor Molloy is 'part of the Roddy Collins revolution at Shamrock Rovers' and rather hilariously, Glen Crowe 'was the top marksman in the league with Bohemians before joining Shelbourne'. Unlucky Jabba, Dave Hannigan reckons your finished :D

Very interesting to see that 12 of the 18 players ended up playing in the EL (Aidan Lynch, Derek O'Connor, Paul Whelan, Colin Hawkins, Glen Crowe, Stephen Murphy, David Whittle, Alan Kirby, Thomas Morgan, Trevor Molloy, Dessie Baker and Neil Fenn). Is this progress from our point of view that players struggling to impact in the lower divisions see coming 'home' as a viable option? Or is it a cop out?




No, eL football has made steps in the right direction slowy but surely over the last 6 or 7 years whereas before that it was relatively static.
Maybe its not very noticable but improvements have been made

Another slant on it is that it shows Brian Kerr's ability as a coach, getting that far with a limited squad.

I'd say the answer is somewhere between the 2.

Where is Stephen Murphy playing now? Think he joined Kilkenny city after playing for us in 2001.

3 of the squad played in the league at the time (Molloy, Lynch and Baker) and another 3 (Morgan, Hawkins and Whelen) were in the league at the end of that tournament so its not like they spent 5/6 year in England and came nback as failures...