2023 Season, Arrivals and Departures

I think all Shels fans remember Brian Gartland with alot fondness as an unknown ex-Bray U21 player with his equalising header after about 10 minutes in our opening night of the 2007 First division against Kildare County after being demoted, that goal at Tolka was like resuscitation after one of the worst off seasons for any club in LOI history

Dermot Keely had zero patience in giving players with potential like Gartland any chance at Shels after a poor start with a young inexperienced squad, Keely even dumped him in centre mid for a couple of games, one the transfer window opened in July he was canned mostly to the bench and let go at the end of the season. I could see Gartland's reading of the game looked very good but he needed more game time with higher quality experienced players around him and fitness/conditioning work.

He looked much better and developed at Monaghan which didn't shock me, why he lasted 3 seasons there and wasn't picked by a Premier Division team or Shels again was another mystery. He was on trial again at Shels in 2013 after Alan Mathews was sacked when we were struggling eventually got relegated but very luckily for Gartland Kenny swept in to sign him and the rest is history for him and Dundalk

bolger signs up for 2023 with cork city. excellent news for city. hopefully 2 more cms on the way to give him a hand in there next year

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Originally Posted by joey B

Brian Gartland retired,5 leagues,3 FAI cups and 3 League cups is some going.....

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Just saw some of his career stats on twitter. The one that jumped out a mile was 50 goals in his career. Incredible goal return from a centre half!

Former Shamrock Rovers, Cork City and Athlone Town player Joel Coustrain departs Treaty United for Junior soccer.

Unfortunately for all parties he was very poor during his time with the club and it is absolutely unbelievable to think that he played at for two of the biggest clubs in the country.

Him only scoring once in 45 games for Treaty, and then scoring twice on his first game back in junior soccer probably speaks of the decline of standard, with the greatest of respect.

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Dave Rogers confirmed as Harps manager on a 4 year full time deal. Really optimistic about this. Progressive coach and wants to play football the right way.

https://finnharps.ie/dave-rogers-appointed-manager/

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Interesting one by Harps and a bit of a sea change ... he might be too progressive for Harps!!! Ollie was a great character, football man, blah blah but looking from the outside he was holding Harps back.

I always felt Harps used to be a club with a bit of ambition. But under Horgan, especially the last half dozen years, there was nothing. The most the seemed to hope for was a play off match and avoiding relegation was seen as a big success. Horgan instilled that mindset and the club and fans bought into hook, line and sinker. Zero ambition in truth. Sooner or later it will catch up with ya and it did last season.

Im sure people will say that Horgan was just being realistic but you need to be optimistic too. Horgan almost had a cult mentality instilled into club that that scrapping by was fine. Can they move away from that with a manager who seems to want to look up rather down.

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Originally Posted by redobit

Interesting one by Harps and a bit of a sea change ... he might be too progressive for Harps!!! Ollie was a great character, football man, blah blah but looking from the outside he was holding Harps back.

I always felt Harps used to be a club with a bit of ambition. But under Horgan, especially the last half dozen years, there was nothing. The most the seemed to hope for was a play off match and avoiding relegation was seen as a big success. Horgan instilled that mindset and the club and fans bought into hook, line and sinker. Zero ambition in truth. Sooner or later it will catch up with ya and it did last season.

Im sure people will say that Horgan was just being realistic but you need to be optimistic too. Horgan almost had a cult mentality instilled into club that that scrapping by was fine. Can they move away from that with a manager who seems to want to look up rather down.

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The time was absolutley right for a parting of ways ,but theres plenty who would have kept him on,I think he did vey well for the majority of his time,but his last 2 years were not good,only staying up on the last day of the season 2 seasons ago was a failure with the squad of players we had and last season was obviously a disaster....

Time will tell on Rogers but he seems to have come from good standard of coaching,but management and recruitment is a diffrent ball game.....

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Originally Posted by Shearer

Former Shamrock Rovers, Cork City and Athlone Town player Joel Coustrain departs Treaty United for Junior soccer.

Unfortunately for all parties he was very poor during his time with the club and it is absolutely unbelievable to think that he played at for two of the biggest clubs in the country.

Him only scoring once in 45 games for Treaty, and then scoring twice on his first game back in junior soccer probably speaks of the decline of standard, with the greatest of respect.

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mental he was ever over in UK

Massey a brilliant signing for Bray. Struggled badly at end of last season at Drogs so always felt he'd drop down this season, was hoping maybe to Longford but obviously he has history at Bray. If they can keep him and Webster fit next season that's got the makings of a brilliant partnership at FD level

I'll have to revisit my opinions of Ian Ryan if he doesn't have bray challenging. They are shaping up to be better than Galway.

Sean brennan gone from UCD to Drogs. One of our better players. Best of luck to him.

Ouchie.

The hope was that next year would be Drogheda/UCD at the bottom in the same way that this year was Harps/UCD. So really can't afford players like Brennan going there of all clubs.

Looks like a long season ahead...

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Originally Posted by redobit

Interesting one by Harps and a bit of a sea change ... he might be too progressive for Harps!!! Ollie was a great character, football man, blah blah but looking from the outside he was holding Harps back.

I always felt Harps used to be a club with a bit of ambition. But under Horgan, especially the last half dozen years, there was nothing. The most the seemed to hope for was a play off match and avoiding relegation was seen as a big success. Horgan instilled that mindset and the club and fans bought into hook, line and sinker. Zero ambition in truth. Sooner or later it will catch up with ya and it did last season.

Im sure people will say that Horgan was just being realistic but you need to be optimistic too. Horgan almost had a cult mentality instilled into club that that scrapping by was fine. Can they move away from that with a manager who seems to want to look up rather down.

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Agree here, Ollie Horgan deserves much credit from transforming Harps from a team that languished round mid table first division for the 3 or 4 season he took over to promotion in two seasons and 6 of 9 years in the Premier Division. The work and time he but in during his 9 years spell can not be questioned

However he was very negative in his tactics which when facing the likes of Sham Rovers, Dundalk etc may of been required there seem little change on tact when we faced teams around us also battling for premier survival, he was very slow to make changes when players/tactics were not getting results. His overly aggressive motions/actions toward refs and officials was pointless and caused the club much in fines etc. In 2021 he got a budget and assembled the best squad Harps since the late 90's & in the early part of the season they were let play and we were getting results against the top teams, but then a few poor results and Horgan revert back to old, defensive tactics and playing often in-form players out of position or not at all, which IMO contributed to the mass exodus at the end of that season.

MARKEY linked to bohs? would be a good signing for them. any more on ben mccormack? hoping now we (cork city) have been taken over we've the budget to challenge to sign him

Would love Markey at Bohs. Was the best player on the pitch in most of the Bohs/Drogheda games last season. Heard he had a decent job so not sure if going full time with us is a goer unfortunately.

The last of my predictions sadly turns out to be correct. Sean Brennan from UCD to Drogs. UCD have really destroyed their own model, took in a load of non students in recent years, and they've all now left, leaving them high and dry. The normal player departure cycle of losing a few each year when they finish college has been blown apart. No clue what the starting 11 will look like on matchday 1 next season. But I don't fancy our chances of hitting 10 points for the season.

See that we have lost yet another of our players that came thro our underage Matthew Dunne to Wexford. How has this being allowed to happen so easily?

I assume Henderson has his own players lined up. That's life in the First Division, and they'll probably be back at some point in the future. I wish them well but I wouldn't say any of them are irreplaceable at the same time.

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Originally Posted by total hoofball

I think all Shels fans remember Brian Gartland with alot fondness as an unknown ex-Bray U21 player with his equalising header after about 10 minutes in our opening night of the 2007 First division against Kildare County after being demoted, that goal at Tolka was like resuscitation after one of the worst off seasons for any club in LOI history

Dermot Keely had zero patience in giving players with potential like Gartland any chance at Shels after a poor start with a young inexperienced squad, Keely even dumped him in centre mid for a couple of games, one the transfer window opened in July he was canned mostly to the bench and let go at the end of the season. I could see Gartland's reading of the game looked very good but he needed more game time with higher quality experienced players around him and fitness/conditioning work.

He looked much better and developed at Monaghan which didn't shock me, why he lasted 3 seasons there and wasn't picked by a Premier Division team or Shels again was another mystery. He was on trial again at Shels in 2013 after Alan Mathews was sacked when we were struggling eventually got relegated but very luckily for Gartland Kenny swept in to sign him and the rest is history for him and Dundalk

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Just to be clear, Dundalk signed Gartland from Portadown in mid 2013.

any idea what ryan cassidy is at now? doesnt seem to have ended up anywhere after bohs?

Kyle O’Connor signing for Longford from Shels….

Stephanie Roche to Rovers is a high profile signing.
Looks like Rovers are determined to go for it from the off next season.

Deegan resigned for Drogs and massive news with Markey resigning (I think we all expected him to leave given his immense talent) - delighted on both signings

Surprised at the Markey news especially after the usually reliable Neil O'Riordan saying it looked like he was on his way to Bohs only this morning

https://galwayunitedfc.ie/callum-mcn...igns-for-2023/

Markey's career outside of football has been mentioned a lot as a factor in him staying

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Originally Posted by outspoken

Markey's career outside of football has been mentioned a lot as a factor in him staying

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The 1 goal every 20 games he’s averaged over his career so far (that’s a genuine stat, 9 goals in 178 games) would also play a big factor in him being where he is. There’s no doubting his ability on the ball in terms of dribbling/close control but his final pass and end product in general is really poor for an attacking midfielder

Tunde Owolabi signs for Cork City……

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Originally Posted by sbgawa

Stephanie Roche to Rovers is a high profile signing.
Looks like Rovers are determined to go for it from the off next season.

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She’d be a good bit more effective than Greene anyways, he off to peamount?

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Originally Posted by Dermobohs

She’d be a good bit more effective than Greene anyways, he off to peamount?

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Gotta give you credit for that , made me laugh

Yeah found all of the clamour around Markey an interesting one. He's always been a fine player but ended up being let go by us because of having next to no end product for an attacking player, which he hasn't seemed to add to his game in the years since. Still a good player at this level but I was surprised by how gutted a lot of Bohs fans were by the news because I'm not sure he'd improve them much.

Tunde is a fun signing for Cork. I don't think he's good enough to start for any of the better sides in the league but he has pace and power I'm not sure any other striker does and is chaos personified. Could be a massive player for them.

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Originally Posted by Dermobohs

She’d be a good bit more effective than Greene anyways, he off to peamount?

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Hahahaha post of the month! She feckin would! A good swap deal if you ask me

happy with tunde signing. hes not a top 4 player but should do better in a poorer side who dont look to have the ball as much as pats.

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Originally Posted by Jack B

Yeah found all of the clamour around Markey an interesting one. He's always been a fine player but ended up being let go by us because of having next to no end product for an attacking player, which he hasn't seemed to add to his game in the years since. Still a good player at this level but I was surprised by how gutted a lot of Bohs fans were by the news because I'm not sure he'd improve them much.

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He was very good in all the games against Drogheda last season. Impressed a lot of fans.

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Originally Posted by Jd2793

happy with tunde signing. hes not a top 4 player but should do better in a poorer side who dont look to have the ball as much as pats.

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Pat's used him entirely incorrectly. Pace, power and finishing and needs to be played on the shoulder of the last man. He could score ten or fifteen goals if Cork use him right.

Jack Brady has resigned for us from Treaty and we have also signed Jamal Ibrahim from Shels.

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Originally Posted by Kiki Balboa

4 year deal seems pretty long. I could be wrong, but it will all end in tears- sure just look at his list of clubs to see he doesnt last too long anywhere.

Personally, Rogers is the most vapid/ bulls**t artist I ever heard. Plenty of rumours of his behaviour when he was involved in junior clubs in the North East too and I always find it funny that he is so heavily linked with Liverpools academy but was never based in England.

He is popular in Dundalk, some people wanted him as manager last year, and it seems he gets on with a certain kind of people. Others not so much. It will be intresting anyways at Harps for the next season...

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100%
Lot of fanboy and people who should know better admiration for him in Dundalk. BIG talk about him coming here last year when the consortium from Glentoran were supposedly taking over! We swiped left on him and them on that invite thank fk.

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Originally Posted by RealJohn91

He was very good in all the games against Drogheda last season. Impressed a lot of fans.

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That's fair, I've seen him be the best player on the park in Tallaght before so definitely has the ability there, but at the same time he just has too many drawbacks in terms of end product, lack of pace/size to properly push on and be a difference maker at a better side.

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Pat's used him entirely incorrectly. Pace, power and finishing and needs to be played on the shoulder of the last man. He could score ten or fifteen goals if Cork use him right.

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I would agree with this, was very surprised he wasn't used more in his spell at Pats, this is a very good move for him.

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Originally Posted by ToberonaTornado

100%
Lot of fanboy and people who should know better admiration for him in Dundalk. BIG talk about him coming here last year when the consortium from Glentoran were supposedly taking over! We swiped left on him and them on that invite thank fk.

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Meant to post on this, Rogers is a decent coach, but its a huge step up from u21 manager team to LOI full time, plus he would have had top class facilities as Forest are a PL club.

There were clamours from a good few in Dundalk (his family still there) to take over from Vinny Perth, he would not have been the right appointment, and although it might work out at FD level with FH, and to be fair I do wish him the best, he seems a decent bloke, I think 4 years is bordering on madness by FH.

To be fair there was an attempt to use Tunde in such a way whenever possible as it's a no-brainer but it's hard to play on the shoulder etc if you're one of the better sides in the league and occasionally playing against sides that sit in, and then on other occasions against the likes of Dundalk, Rovers and more he simply didn't take good opportunities that came his way. He's just too limited a player for a top-end side and in our case he was also playing second fiddle to simply a better player in Doyle.