Potentially eligible players thread

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Originally Posted by Danny Invincible

O'Kane did assert that his decision to switch was purely for footballing reasons and rejected notions that it might have been for identity reasons. He was possibly trying to relieve the sort of heat and vitriol directed towards the others. If so, it's a sorry state of affairs that a young player might feel ashamed of admitting that he simply wanted to play for the team with whom he more identified culturally

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Maybe we don't know what Eunan Kane really thinks about this, but as he did gave a plausible explanation* shouldn't the default be to accept it as genuine? Rather than projecting our various biases on cultural identity onto players who may simply not be interested to the same extent.

* During our last particularly bad period (three wins from 42 games, 2009-14), previous manager Beige Nige's response to established players' apathy was to round up a C team of Irish League cloggers for many friendlies. EOK was reportedly ****ed off by this given that he was playing regularly in an English professional league at the time

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Originally Posted by IsMiseSean

This lad is on the bench for Shamrock Rovers tonight in a pre-season friendly against UCD.

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Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

Played the last few minutes and looked comfortable on the ball. Had a good chance to score but ballooned it.

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Di Niese is on trial with Limerick FC now, played against Longford last week - https://twitter.com/LimerickFCie/sta...58437806051329 - and was on the bench VS Bray at the weekend - https://twitter.com/LimerickFCie/sta...37276868128768

Sam Balls of the Brentwood Gazette has a story:
http://www.brentwoodgazette.co.uk/We...ail/story.html
And you won't believe what he said.....

(nothing to see here)

Lol - what a pathetic piece of journalism! Especially for an institution like the Brentwood Gazette! ;)

Oh and, of course, if there is any truth to it, and there isn't, Mr Noble can get f...ed.

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Originally Posted by SkStu

Lol - what a pathetic piece of journalism! Especially for an institution like the Brentwood Gazette! ;)

Oh and, of course, if there is any truth to it, and there isn't, Mr Noble can get f...ed.

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Is it ethical to be offering a footballer Sex in this sort of situation ? !

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Originally Posted by Gather round

Maybe we don't know what Eunan Kane really thinks about this, but as he did gave a plausible explanation* shouldn't the default be to accept it as genuine? Rather than projecting our various biases on cultural identity onto players who may simply not be interested to the same extent.

* During our last particularly bad period (three wins from 42 games, 2009-14), previous manager Beige Nige's response to established players' apathy was to round up a C team of Irish League cloggers for many friendlies. EOK was reportedly ****ed off by this given that he was playing regularly in an English professional league at the time

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Is he the first player to state that he thought he'd get a better opportunity with Ireland? I know Niall McGinn stated the opposite. Shane McEleney too. I wonder have there been more.

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

Is he the first player to state that he thought he'd get a better opportunity with Ireland? I know Niall McGinn stated the opposite. Shane McEleney too. I wonder have there been more.

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Alex Bruce did too.

It depends whether by "better opportunity" you mean 'greater likelihood of team qualifying' or 'more chance of getting in the team'. Almost from the start of this tournament both factors have favored us, but obviously they don't normally.

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Originally Posted by Gather round

It depends whether by "better opportunity" you mean 'greater likelihood of team qualifying' or 'more chance of getting in the team'. Almost from the start of this tournament both factors have favored us, but obviously they don't normally.

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Congratulations. You qualified. So did we.

You knew I was inferring 'more of a chance of getting in the team'.

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Originally Posted by Olé Olé

Congratulations. You qualified. So did we.

You knew I was inferring 'more of a chance of getting in the team'

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Thank you. Normally your point would be self-evident; my point was that since October 2014, it hasn't been.

Who cares though.

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Originally Posted by Gather round

It depends whether by "better opportunity" you mean 'greater likelihood of team qualifying' or 'more chance of getting in the team'. Almost from the start of this tournament both factors have favored us, but obviously they don't normally.

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I think 'better opportunity' when talking in terms of McGinn and Bruce is them getting in the team.
I think 'better opportunity' when talking about Wayne Rooney is playing for England instead of Ireland because they've a much better chance of qualifying regularly.

More GR 'doublespeak', Ignore.

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Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy

More GR 'doublespeak', Ignore.

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Hardly. Northies don't do that :)

Independent.ie - Mark Noble reveals how he has turned down advances from the FAI

I think he put that to bed fairly and honestly. kudos.

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Originally Posted by Lionel Ritchie

I think he put that to bed fairly and honestly. kudos.

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Agreed. It's always nice for a player to state whether they want to represent us or not on the basis of whether they identify with us. Kane and Noble have clearly highlighted that they identify as English and just wanted to play for them. Fair play. Someone like Steven Reid had a great article in recent months about how he identified as Irish and always sought to represent us.

You'd just wonder could Noble's mother and Kane's father have done something more to help their sons identify as Irish. The Keanes from Manchester have an old man with a lot to answer for there too!

The headline gives the impression that he's a bit snarky.

Nice to read a straightforward response to that question.

The situation with Noble has been clear for some time, a couple of Years ago his agent felt his Irish roots may have been helpful in forcing England to give Mr Noble the nod. The important point here is we have qualified for Euro 2016 and yet no potentially eligible player such as Bambford, Redmond or Keane have come our way. Previous Tournament Qualifications have always led to a player or 2 coming our way. The FAI have to review our recruitment policy and enlist ex Internationals such as Kevin Kilbane and Steven Reid to help improve a system that not only identifies players but actually succeeds in increasing the Quality and Quantity of player available at U 21 and Senior level.

They don't need to change the way they do anything.

Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney, Gary Cahill etc etc have swatted away enquiries from the FAI. Bamford, Grealish, M. Keane, W. Keane have promptly left underage set-ups to throw in with England once better opportunities were afforded to them.

There are more still declaring for Northern Ireland who fans are getting in a tizzy over - even though they might actually want to play for NI.

Yet more like Connor Wickham and Kyle Naughton who have shown zilch interest in declaring, yet fans still clamour for the FAI to invest more resources in trying to court them.

We will attract eligible players. We just have to be realistic about the ones we will be attracting. The Sean St Ledger's not the Gary Cahill's.

I personally think there are far more prudent things to divert attention towards - like *gasp* young players coming up in Ireland who can emulate lads like Coleman, Long, Meyler and Forrester.