National Underage Leagues and LOI underage
Interesting article by Dave Henderson (Boh's chief scout, and former Aston Villa scout) in the Irish Times last week.
He touches on many interesting points, and re-iterates how the national underage leagues have been a big success in transitioning power from the big DDSL clubs to the national underage teams. This is something I've heard a few times now but i'd like to know more on the specifics of that, like:
Did the best kids move en masse from Kevins/Joeys/stella maris/Home Farm/Belvedere/Cherry Orchard to the national leagues when they started?
Are the traditional big 6 struggling to recruit the best young players now, or are plenty of gifted kids still going there?
If so, are they starting to struggle financially because their revenue source of selling teenagers to England has started to decline?
Have the big 6 lost any of their staff (coaches/scouts/administrators etc) to the national league teams?
Would the likes of Rovers/Bohs/Pats/Cork u17 teams now be much better than Belvedere or Kevins?
I know Kevins have made a lot of noise in the last year with newspaper articles and the PrimeTime episode, but the other 5 don't sem to have made any noise at all.
I'm sure there are some ppl on here who are involved in underage football or have their ear to the ground about this stuff.