Stephane Jauny also played briefly for Limerick in the season (one of them) that we finished comfortably bottom of the First Division up in Pike. It was an atrocious squad, the worst by some distance that I've ever seen play for Limerick (and that's covering some depth of what I'll charitably call mediocrity over the last 20 odd years) and he still managed to stand out as being particularly unsuited.Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
He was French and had a shaved head which inevitably and unfairly drew comparisons with Zidane. "We signed him from Crusaders," the club informed us with us a smile. "He was on trial and we had no interest in signing him," Crusaders added when asked what they felt about him. As for Jauny himself... he possessed an absolute superpower for constantly, consistently arriving at the spot where the ball had been about 2 seconds earlier. He was always on the move and never quite arrived. He didn't stay long, he was not overly missed and I hadn't thought of him in years until today. I love football.
The ball is round and has many surprises.
It is also the most home based age group for a long time. If I remember correctly 14/20 of them were in Ireland playing U17s in the first qualifiers.
6 based abroad were Danny Rose (Everton, now Schalke), Lawal (Watford), Tayo (Palace), Callum Kavanagh (Boro), Ollie O’Neill (Fulham) and Garcia-McNulty (Betis, now Wolfsburg).
A few have since moved across to england, 3 to brighton (Ferguson, Moran and Leigh Kavanagh) and Sinclair Armstrong to QPR. The other 10 are still at home.
But you’ve also got a few players playing LOI this season who weren’t in the squad but have a good shout now: Johnny Kenny at Sligo, Cian Kavanagh at Waterford and Ryan O’Kane at Dundalk. Probably some others I haven’t seen.
Whereas if I think of the last U19s squad before lockdown with players from 2001, there weren’t many players home based players: the backup keeper Sean Bohan and Ross Tierney, both at Bohs. That was all. Generally I think it’d be around 1-4 home based players but you could easily see double that or more this time around.
Anyway, whether it’s the beginning of a trend due to Brexit or the first group of players who have been probably embedded into LOI sides due to the earlier integration and the LOI U17s, 15s 13s etc, the 2003 group are by far the most home based underage side since probably the days of Kerr.
Last edited by elatedscum; 20/05/2021 at 6:31 AM.
Being honest, is another reason so many are home based simply that they were passed over by overseas clubs based on ability and that, after a run of years with a lot of squad depth at underage, the same depth just isn't there with the 2003s and 2004s?
That theory would explain the need to hold a non-committal UK camp with every remotely qualified Irish player they can find to see if they can source a few decent ones to pad out the squad.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
That's speculative. The few years preceding have seen some very good young players become established at English clubs. There is no recent trend to support your point. And even if the numbers are lower that could be offset by younger players preferring to stay in Ireland or getting more opportunities in the LOI or English clubs taking less players from Ireland but the strike rate improving because the players are being brought over for a reason.
Surely the FAI wouldn't just seek to "pad out the squad" with thinly committed players when there would still be young players in Ireland? I don't think that would be aligned with Kenny's modus operandi and we know he is influential at underage level.
There are a lot of lads that aren't just "remotely qualified" in there too that are presently not committed but I think it's helpful to give them this opportunity. I'm thinking of the likes of Josh Ireland and Zak Gilsenan that have two Irish parents but have featured for other nations.
There are a lot of other lads that I don't think have been involved with us previously that have strong Irish links and might have liked to have been involved sooner. I'm thinking of Ciaran Gilligan and Jay McGrath.
I am not quite sure of the motivation overall here. It seems like they cast the net very wide and definitely did call in a lot of English-born lads from less celebrated academies that surely are not close to the England squad so are delighted to get such a call.
Possibly but I wouldn’t think so.
Wasn’t 2003 the year that Paul Osam said was the most talanted he had ever worked with? Could have been 2004 but was definitely one of those two. Generally U16 is when players are moving across or arranging moves, so if they were as talented as Osam thought, then it doesn’t hold up.
The results at 17s were also positive. Won every game (opposition weren’t great). Also Tayo gave an interview at Palace where he said he was shocked how good all of the homegrown players were, something to that effect.
Is that not a bit of a stretch? OK, there are some - Knight, Collins, O'Shea - have established themselves, but others like Connolly, Idah, Parrott, Molumby, Kelleher, Coventry, etc - haven't established themselves at all yet. And they're the ones featuring in the national team, so that shows how little depth there is at the moment.
There's fewer players than ever going over to England, which we can see in how weak our national team is lately. The LoI underage is an improvement at home, but while the LoI can't really offer a pro route to the game, it'll be of limited benefit unfortunately.
It does seem an unusual squad - even allowing for it being UK-based presumably because of covid - but I think there may be something in Eirambler's post.
Time will tell I guess.
Well I certainly don't mean it as a criticism, the FAI are right to cast the net as wide as they can to source players, especially considering we are a small country where there is heavy competition between four popular team sports which limits the amount of professional standard players we can produce to an extent.
It just seems to me that, for the groups born between 1999 and 2002, we produced an unusually high number of players who were deemed good enough to be picked up by overseas academies. The numbers produced are potentially not sustainable year on year, so we're maybe seeing a bit of regression to the mean with the 03s and 04s. It looks like there are still some very good players, but perhaps not the same level of depth. Then obviously from 05 onwards we have the Brexit issue which is going up change things again - and probably not for the better.
I think running the UK camp fits exactly with Kenny's modus operandi in terms of young players. Funnily enough, for a guy who is so principled on the field - to the point that it will cost him his job before too long I expect - he seems surprisingly pragmatic off the field, and is willing to consider any player who is willing to play for Ireland in the short term, even if they're non committal longer term. Again, this is not a criticism, we need all the players we can get our hands on. I just wish he showed some of the same pragmatism in the way he sets his teams up to play football.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Interesting to hear Johansson reference his time with Ireland at Under 19 level as one of his reasons for choosing to declare for us. It does show the benefit of the get togethers like the one this week in England. If dual eligible players remember being selected and made to feel involved from an early stage it can influence their decisions later on when they have to make a final call on who to play their international football with.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Unless it happens for a few years I can't see how it can be called a regression to the mean or anything else. It's just a number at a specific moment in time that is liable to change quite quickly, particularly given that new signings for next season are yet to be announced.
What is the theme here relative to the under 18 squad?
The guy Fionn Mooney is an interesting one. I think he's featured for England at 15, 16 and 17 level. With a name like Fionn you'd have to imagine the Irish times are very close. Closer than a Patrick or a Declan would be!
Mooney is a belter of an Irish name too!
Up there with Clarke
He's been pretty open about feeling more English than Irish. Yet here he is, well done recruitment wing ( I think )
There seems to have been a lot of 2002 born players called up - Furlong, McCann etc. Would these lads not be overage for the next set of Under 19 qualifiers, I thought it was for the 2022 competition which would mean players born 2003 and later?
Possibly just using it as an opportunity to keep some players who haven't made the Under 21 squad within the Ireland setup?
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
https://m.independent.ie/sport/socce...-40471229.html
Came across this with regards to Rio McEvoy. You'd think, given the details, he wouldn't be going anywhere on Ireland.
https://onefootball.com/en/news/crys...eland-31724489
Did a quick check. Interesting. Not sure if you could put it down the recruitment wing or a lack of opportunity with England?
I find it very interesting that he was named Fionn. Is that not a real challenge for English people? I would assume at least one of his parents was born in Ireland to name him that.
He'll have spent his life being called Fee-on. We steered clear of particularly Irish names for our kids for that reason, we didn't want then spending their lives correcting people's mispronunciations.
Good to see him involved anyway, I have noticed his name previously and figured he must surely qualify for us.
Keane O'Shea Given Best Smallbone
Couldn't blame you. I had a particularly awkward few meetings with a Scot recently in work who clearly had avoided using my name because he couldn't tackle it. The pair of us then had a meeting with an Indian man who informed the Scot (my fellow Celt) how to pronounce my name. His familiarity gleaned through his love of cricket and knowing the name of "Eoin Morgan."
Makes a lot of sense in that respect. The 2002 kids missed their U19 campaign and the last campaign they were involved in was May 2019 in the u17 euros. Given the 21s features players from 2000 onwards, they're at the bottom of the pile and might only get call-ups in 2023.
I've long argued for a u20s squad to play friendlies like most big European sides have. If you look at the kids from 2000 who are now members of the u21s, their last involvement for ireland was in summer 2019 in the Euros and the 2001 kids were last involved in November 2001 in the qualification for the u19s and it has nothing to do with Covid. The likes of Maher, Lyons, Brennan, Regba from 2000 haven't played at all and guys like Kayode and Ferry were just involved in the last squad, where we were already knocked out. Same with the 2001 kids: Smallbone and McGuinness were used in the final squad, Wright, Noss, Tierney, Cassidy, Watson, McEntee, Bowden, Coffey, Gilbert, Ogungbo, McEneff and Lewis - they all weren't involved.
In a normal year, all the kids from 2002 could have camps with say 2 friendlies per camp, which would would get you 10 games a year at u20. would really help with the following u21 campaign and would keep kids involved in a way, you can't when you've got 3-4 age groups competing for one squad.
Also unusual that there are 4 players involved in both training squads, not sure if that's because they stood out most (2 born in ireland and 2 born in england). I assume the reason that Ollie O'Neill and the likes were in squad 2 and Armstrong was in squad 1 was that clubs didn't allow them to attend outside an international window...
May 2012 - The U-19 squad.
IRELAND U-19 SQUAD
S McDermott (Arsenal)
N Burdon (Stade Rennais)
M Barker (Bohemians)
C Morrissey (Trieste, Italy)
N Byrne (Rochdale)
T Hoban (Watford)
S Kavanagh (Fulham)
B Garmston (West Brom)
S Carruthers (Aston Villa)
J O'Sullivan (Blackburn Rvs)
S Murray (Watford)
F Sutherland (QPR)
D Williams (Aston Villa)
M Drennan (Aston Villa)
A Forde (Wolves)
A O'Brien (Millwall)
G Smith (Southend)
A.N. Other
I would have expected at least a couple to be regulars in the senior squad now. I wonder how we compare to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Nordic countries in terms of bringing U-19s through? An important factor for talented youths of the 'diaspora', their families and agents.
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