I'd be happy enough with Bhandaker at left-full, thought he came on in leaps and bounds last year and think a years football could do wonders for him tbh. Cover wouldn't be a bad thing obviously. Where's Cory Tracey?
The ball is round and has many surprises.
IS Jeff judge gone from Limerick completely I know he is with pike now. CLub needs a top quality winger and centre midfielder I think we are ok up front with behan, gaffney, sheehan, Hynes. IF we sign back our match day squad from last season I reckon we just need 2 or 3 top quality players.
Originally Posted by sadloserkid
Ya i wouldnt mind Andrew getting a year behind him and young Stephen O Donnell with the 19s is worth a few run outs too looks very good at that level.
Corie is signed.
Seamus Long, Shaun Kelly, Pat Purcell, Shane Guthrie, Corie Tracey and Andrew Bhandarkar, that looks like very decent opitons for us, especially if Long can cover all the back 4.
Looks like Judge is completely gone Thomas72, can't see him back for the pre-season in a few weeks which pretty much rules him out till at least July. I agree we need a winger and centre midfielder. If Gary Sheehan signs he can do a job on the wing but we need an out and out winger. Derek O Brien ripped us apart on a few occasions and might be an option although he was injured a lot.
Any one know if any of the 19s are being brought up?
A few of em will start training with teh senior team when the 19s season is over in April i was told.
Garbhan Coughlan,Steve McGann and Barry Sheedy were given recent 19s games off to rest up before pre season i heard at the 19s friendly today.
Would they still not be involved for their cup game? ...suppose it probably depends on who the club bring in though does it?
The lads that were rested will go back and play for the 19s i would say.
The 19s will be more involved when injuries and suspensions hit i would say...Some may get a few games in pre-season friendlies.
Glad Cory is still around, versatile player, good one to have around.
I think Steven McGann looks a terrific prospect too, far more impressed by him in his cameos last year than I was Coughlan tbh.
The ball is round and has many surprises.
McGann will get stuck in more I think and looks like he could be more solid. Coughlan is more like Quinn in that he has that little bit of flair which means he could pull a nice goal out of nowhere.
Heard yesterday that Gary Shannahan from Newcastlewest has signed fro Dundalk,McCaffery saw him during emerging talent programme,we shouldn't be leaving our own home bred players go to the other end of the country,surely someone is keeping an eye on Desmond lge players?????
Fail to prepare,prepare to fail--R.keane.
He saw him with the FAS team, probably was involved in some capacity.
I agree we shouldn't be letting emerging local lads slip by and there is a few it would have been great to have signed i.e Shane Duggan, Lee Lynch but on the other hand we seem to have a very strong under 19's team with plenty of local lads involved so they will probably get some more chances to play next season too. No point in having too many players or some may end up rotting on the bench. We have Garbhan Coughlan, Cian Collins, Sean Brosnan (Catleisland), Cian Daly, Oliver O Driscoll and Barry Sheedy all involved with the under 19's that are strikers and a few have played first team football already so we have plenty of young talent coming through already. The time I saw Reece Healy in the middle of the park with the under 19's he looked like a great little player too.
Last edited by Jofspring; 10/01/2012 at 5:31 PM.
while it is true to say that there is some fine home grown talent emerging from the 19,s they will get little or no game time under our present manager.the regular departures of local talent from the squad,players that are certainly good enough,has been the repetitive nature of the last 3 years of his tenure.this seasons expected starting 11 will be lucky to see 2 ....locals ...in it.
I agree it's disappointing when regularly local lads are leaving, no one wanted Lyons, Tierney, Judge, Colbert etc… to leave but for their own reasons they decided they wanted to. I don't think any of those players weren't offered contracts to re-sign with Limerick. As far as I know Pa Mullins and Conor Kavanagh where approached at some stage or another too. Possibly just Kavanagh last season. If the talent is there and the player wants to play LOI I'm sure the club would be delighted to have the players.
The thing about it though is Limerick are not really in a unique situation. The vast majority of LOI players come from Dublin and the surrounding area, Cork, Waterford, Derry, Donegal and a few more counties too. Most teams end up having to play majority squads of players that are from one of the top senior player based counties. Longford, Dundalk, Sligo, Drogheda and Monaghan for example have all been know to have been made up of majority Dublin players at times. This can actually go right down to junior in a sense, how many lads playing for Pike, Fairview, Ballynanty, Janesboro etc… come right through the clubs and or are from the area of that team and how many are brought in from other clubs around the city and county because they are better players? The LOI is basically the same but just on a bigger scale and then that can go up then again to the bigger scale of the English and European clubs packed with foreigners and so on.
At the end of the day Limerick have to work with who want to play as much as much as try and entice players to sign. Scullys first year there was a lot of local players playing and we struggled most the time. Most fans agreed new players of LOI experience needed to come in to push us for the promotion spots. Thats happening and welcomed by most. If there was no underage team with young local lads then I would be really worried but there is so I'm happy enough. No reason if the young players are good enough that they won't get a run under Scully - Stephen McGann, Sean Brosnan, Barry Sheedy, Andrew Bhandarkar, Sean O Callaghan (called up against Cork) Paudie Quinn (originally signed for A team) and Shane Cusack all from the under 19's or A team got to be either in a match day squad or featured in a few League and Cup games last season. Throw in the amount of injuries that we picked up last season and there is plenty of opportunity there.
A possible first team squad next season could be: Ryan (Ennis), Kelly (Donegal), Guthrie (Tralee), Purcell (Limerick), Bhandarkar (Cork?), Gaffney (Galway), Gamble (Cork), O'Leary (Cork), Tracey (Limerick), Behan (Limerick), Gary Sheehan (Limerick) subs: Cusack (Limerick*) McGann (Limerick), Sean O'Callaghan (Limerick*), Cian Collins (Limerick), Tracey (Dublin), Quinn (Tralee), Coughlan (Limerick).
Thats a possible 9 local lads in the match day squad which compared to a lot of LOI teams is not bad at all considering we have lost Yellow and Judge from last season.
*Can't be 100% sure these lads are from Limerick.
Last edited by Jofspring; 10/01/2012 at 10:58 PM.
Just for the record Jo, Cusack is from Newmarket in Clare, and O'Callaghan is from Ennis in Clare. Mcgann is also from Ennis.
There is like you said plenty of local talent in the first team squad and especially the under 19's is made up of players from the SW which Limerick represent really as it's the only League of Ireland club in the south West. Local lads will always be given a grun in the first team if they're good enough and they want to play League of Ireland. Unfourtntly it seems that a lot of the talent in Juniour football over the years in the city look down on the Eircom League for some reason and would rather stay playing Juniour football.
At the end of the day no team that plays at the highest level of league in any country will have a squad full of only players from the local area.
Dont think it matters in the slightest where the players are from as long as they get the job done. For years we had teams full of Limerick lads and got nowhere.
A lot of the Limerick lads that left did so because of their own attitudes they didnt seem to want to put in as much work as was needed obviously not the case with all of them and im not saying that all the lads from outside Limerick always give 100% but it did happen an awful lot with players from Limerick.
To say that the 19s will get little or no game time is ridiculous if they are good enough they will get game time....Jof has already listed people that have been brought up from there and the A team to be involved with the first team. They were already talking about 19s that would be going training with the seniors at a recent 19s game.
And that lad that went to Dundalk was approached to join our 19s but didnt want to according to a 19s player that is on the FAS course with him so we didnt leave home bred players go to the other end of the country he chose to.
Surely to say that a player from Clare isn't homebased is being fairly unrealistic. Clare would be within the Galway/Limerick catchment area.
I wasn't saying Clare wasn't home based or whatever, just saying that the three lads were from Clare. I'm from Clare myself and would consider Limerick my home club. Like you said it's a split between Galway and Limerick about which many people from Clare wiould see as there home town club. But from my part it's Limerick and I know a few players from the Limerick set up from Clare who would say that Limerick would be there home town club aswell as a lot of fans who would support Limerick.
The unique thing about the league of Ireland is that obviously a lot of counties don't have a team to support so while technically players for example from Clare playing for Limerick wouldn't be classed as homebased, thet should be because it is the closest league of ireland club(In most cases) to them.
At the end of the day it shouldn't matter where a player is from as long as he gives his best for the club on the pitch and has a good attitude off it. I'd rather have a player from the depths of Africa who has never stepped foot in Limerick in his life before signing but gave his all on the pitch and was talented and caused no trouble then a talented Limerick based player who couldn't care less about the club and acted the gowl off it.
In saying that I'd say most of the home based players in the squad at the moment do give their all to the club and do want to be there.
Some of Corbally is considered Clare but most living there would be Limerick people.
It's good to see players from Ennis coming in too. If the talent is there we should be looking into it also.
Any news on Gary Sheehan? would love to see him get his chance this season.
"We've had a lot of good times, but you don't know how good they are until you have the bad ones" Tony Adams
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