QuoteScored a hatrick to prevent Sligo from nearly being relegated
Yeah,I believe soOriginally Posted by CollegeTillIDie
Scored a hatrick to prevent Sligo from nearly being relegated
While I think it's universally accepted that 95% of National League players are not up to International football, I believe the very best players (the obvious ones), are certainly good enough to make the squads, and even play more than 1 minute in friendlies, and if not, France and Switzerland, certainly against the likes of Cyprus, Andorra, and Faroe Islands.
Only about half of the current squad play regularly at club level in England. The rest play in lower leagues, often with little security at bankrupt clubs, don't have much experience, are injury prone or unfit, and/or don't get their game at club level. Yet Brian, like previous bosses before him, has a bias against the NL, and won't pick our leagues' players for love nor money. Then when the English lower league players screw things up in a game, he whinges that we don't have a big enough pool of players to choose from, which is laughable. He has the best of an entire league willing and able to play for him, but refuses to play them. The best NL players also have a limited amount of European experience, which is more than can be said for the likes of Alan Lee, Gary Breen, and Graham Barrett, who can never play in Europe for their clubs.
Who is the better striker? Jason Byrne, or consistent failure, David Connolly?
Who is the better defender? Colin Hawkins, or out-of form, unwanted at club, John O'Shea?
There's no harm in playing our league's best players in friendlies, and at least, giving them a go. In fairness, they're the only players who want to play in friendlies these days!! If they play badly, the result doesn't matter.
Just resorting to English-based players for all games, limits our options, when we have a whole league of players to choose from for friendlies, and competitive games against really poor teams. They're more motivated, would increase the NL profile, and they should be allowed a window of opportunity in those games to show what they can do.
NL 1st Division Champions 2006
NL Premier Division Champions 2010
NL Premier Division Champions 2011
Keep Tallaght Tidy, Throw your rubbish in the Jodi
Ten Years Not Out
Mypost
Spot on. The only question mark over some eL players might be the fitness of the better part-time professionals. There are a larger number of full-time professional players in the eL now than at any time in the history of domestic football in this state. This is reflected in the improved results recently in Europe over the 1990's for example.
[QUOTE=mypost]
Who is the better defender? Colin Hawkins, or out-of form, unwanted at club, John O'Shea?
QUOTE]
I couldn't compare Colin Hawkins to John O'Shea in fairness!!
Rocky
That'd be the only part of that post I'd disagree with, O'Shea is clearly on a different planet to Hawkins but otherwise I agree completley.
Perhaps not Colin Hawkins, but you get my point, which is that there are players playing in our league who are better than what we can find in England, and we can play them in games against very poor teams and friendlies, to give them a window of opportunity. The English-based players, and their clubs don't want them playing friendlies, so why not play the best that we have here? They are fit, full-time, willing, available, and against certain teams, good enough to play in competitive games.
Next June, we have 2 vital qualifiers against Israel, and the Faroes. They are banana skins, where the squad will be tired after a long English season, and who will find it difficult to stay fit, after a couple of weeks break from the game. Are you serious to say the NL's best players can't compete against the Faroes??? They would be fit, in-form, available, and ready to bring home the three points.
Brian whinging that we have a limited playing pool is ludicrous. We have an entire league of players to choose from, the best of which are available on tap to play for us. Give them a chance.
NL 1st Division Champions 2006
NL Premier Division Champions 2010
NL Premier Division Champions 2011
Keep Tallaght Tidy, Throw your rubbish in the Jodi
Ten Years Not Out
That is a superb point. When we play the Faroes the players will be at the end of a tireing season and most of them probably wont be fully fit and fully motivated. The EL players would be fully fit, would play out of their skins if given the chance as they'd see it as an amazing oppurtunity and are clearly easily good enough to handle the Faroes team.
mypost, well said. two excellent posts.
myposts claim regarding the squad deserves analysis - who is playing on a regular basis here is the last squad called up by kerr.
Republic of Ireland squad: Given (Newcastle), Colgan (Barnsley), Kenny (Sheffield United), Maybury (Hearts), Finnan (Liverpool), Cunningham (Birmingham), Carr (Newcastle), O’Brien (Newcastle), Doherty (Norwich), Dunne (Manchester City), Breen (Sunderland), Holland (Charlton), O’Shea (Manchester United), Miller (Manchester United), Kilbane (Everton), Reid (Nottingham Forest), Kavanagh (Cardiff), Quinn (Sheffield United), Barrett (Coventry), McGeady (Celtic), Duff (Chelsea), Lee (Cardiff), Macken (Manchester City), Elliott (Sunderland), Keane (Tottenham).
"
playing regulary at div 1 or prem level has to be acceptable surely.
goalies: given, (obvious) kenny - surely no complaints there. colgan (odd choice, surely stack would be better but he's in no danger of playing really)
2 of 3 ok choices so far
defenders:
Maybury (Hearts), ahem- playing regularly in sweatyland
Finnan (Liverpool), been a league regular for the last 10 games or so
Cunningham (Birmingham),
Carr (Newcastle), injured was regular
O’Brien (Newcastle), injured- straight back in to replace titus
Doherty (Norwich), injured for a while -played last 3 games(badly)
Dunne (Manchester City), regular- good season apart from today.
Breen (Sunderland), regular
O'shea - essentially dropped for most games.
with the exception of O'shea the rest are all regulars at prem or div 1 standard and except for maybury, no irish based player would really come close. hawkins? awful season. no div one player he.
7/9 for defenders maybury and o'shea (who is been kept out by heinz ffs)
Midfielders:
Holland (Charlton), regular
Miller (Manchester United), AWOL
Kilbane (Everton), reg
Reid (Nottingham Forest), reg
Kavanagh (Cardiff), reg
Quinn (Sheffield United), reg
Barrett (Coventry), sporadic at best
gotta give 5/7 on midfielders but miller looks good enough long term and would play at many other clubs. barret is another story.
strikers
McGeady (Celtic), was on bench for ages. now starts
Duff (Chelsea),
Lee (Cardiff), regular - crap season though
Macken (Manchester City), ahem
Elliott (Sunderland), squad rotation. club leading scorer I think
Keane (Tottenham). squad rotation
5/6 here -
so the only players not getting their game at all are macken, o'shea and miller.
barret has played in 70% of coventry's games. doherty was injured a fair bit but not always. he's still appeared in 11 prem games this season. (50%)
in actuality of the last squad 21 play all the time for their clubs. If you want to call div 1 a lower league which it is but still superior to EL btw then, yes it's exactly half with 12 players regualryl getting their game in the English prem (not counting RMK)Only about half of the current squad play regularly at club level in England. The rest play in lower leagues, often with little security at bankrupt clubs, don't have much experience, are injury prone or unfit, and/or don't get their game at club level
I don't know what bankrupt clubs has to do with anything. none are bankrupt AFAIK although many of them have the typical financial problems of many teams in england, almost all have debt of some kind. sunderland are doing quite well now mind you.
experience? by my count only mcgeady and elliot are novices at club level the rest are easily in the 100+ game club. As for international experience, well I don't see how that is a massive point against them as it's the same for domestic based players.
injury prone: who are you on about with this 'point'? any stats regarding people being more or less injury prone than others?
bottom line: the irish squad with the exception maybury, macken and colgan is fairly justified. o'shea and miller would be starters anywhere else except chelsea and arsenal.
even maybury could be replaced with harte, colgan with stack and macken with morrison and we'd still be no nearer an EL player. All of this without counting RMK.
I do agree however the odd 25 minutes for the likes of doyle would be fabulous. playing against the faores though is too much of a risk.
Last edited by dynamo kerry; 28/12/2004 at 11:56 PM.
No point in mentioning Stack till his fate before the English Court system is known. Not making any judgements whatever the verdict as this is the country which produced the injustices of the Birmingham Six , Guildford Four and Judith Ward. And that is just the three I can remember at the moment.
Have to agree 100% with dynamo kerry's post. Only post to really put head over heart and actually analyse things properly. Can possibly add in Stephen Reid (plays regularly for Blackburn when not injured), Colin Healy (ditto for Sunderland), Rory Delap (Southampton), Alan Quinn (Sheff United) and there's probably a couple of others.
Realistic, but true, in my opinion.
just to make another few points about the irish squad.
the team that starts usually would be(roughly)
given
carr
cunningham
o'brien
finnan/o'shea/maybury
Holland/kilbane
Keane
Duff
Reid
Keane
Morrison
Nearly All prem players. all getting their game except o'shea and he's not even really first choice at LB anymore. If Reid isn't a prem player by Jan 29th I'll eat my snowboard. We only get into the div one lads when you start looking at barrett for RW but stephen reids return to form nixes that and after that you're talking about stephen elliot in as striker - gotta be third choice now(deservedly so). The rest are not going to get a competitve game really but are stil better than all but maybe half a dozen players in the EL
speaking of which, the same few names keep popping up all the time. Heary, Doyle, Byrne, Crowe, thats pretty much it. If anyone mentions John O'Flynn after the season he's just had I'll be laughing all the way home. On these 4 or 5 names people say the league is worth seriously looking at? Maybe if there were 20 or even 10 names. There aren't you know.
ps and another thing for those of you who wish it was an 'irish' team. stick kilbane in for holland and all that leaves you to complain about is morrison. Not half bad. Also, the English FA didn't build all those teams in england into the powerhouses they are. the clubs themselves did due to the large support they have in large urban centres. the EL isn't small simply because the FAI are gob****es, history, economics and GAA are also massive factors. Keep crying the beal bocht though, it's massively entertaining.
The LOI's time will come but one has to wonder will it ever be at a point where clubs will have attendances in the 20K range which surely must be necessary in order to pay the wages to have top players. The TV money will never be there in the same way as in england or even scotland so attendances wil lhave to rise in order to move things on in a big way. There's no point being biter about it, only alienates people dunnit?
Last edited by dynamo kerry; 29/12/2004 at 12:10 AM.
At a PC somewhere in the Levante training ground Ian Harte has probably collapsed in a heep of cynical, jaded laughter...
The ball is round and has many surprises.
Maybe something to do with the gallons of drink I've had over the last few days but I haven't a clue what your point is there SLK.......
Well competing in what I think is officially Europe's top-rated league doesn't seem to have done Mr.Harte's career much good has it?
The ball is round and has many surprises.
Yeah but he was outta the picture in the Premiership too so it's hardly relevant.
My point was about EL players going to a higher league to see if they can cut it not players moving between them.
fair enough. but at least I clarified what I was judging all of that on. They are stats in essence as the original statement was that people weren't getting their game full stop or that clubs financial irregularities have a bearing.
I don't think you can ignore what a player has against him every week if you want to say how good he is. There are lads in div 2 who look fabulous and have great seasons and are technically great but who won't cut it at a higher level. It's the old argument that players need to be playing against a decent level week in week out. Fact is in the LOI, only a few times a season are the good players facing good players. It's a lot more common in the english first division.
by your logic, some lad playing in the kerry district league who scores 50 goals should get a call up. an extreme example but either you need to expand on your thinking or I'm picking you up wrong.
Last edited by dynamo kerry; 29/12/2004 at 3:23 PM.
Well said.
Yet Kerr has said he can pick Maybury based on Hearts European form, which is apparently far superior (read one round better) than anyones in the EL, if it was just about the players he faces week in week our Kerr wouldn't have made the distinction between the old firm, Hearts and the rest, they'd all be pretty much equal.
Kerr has also given more time to English second division players, or league one or whatever it is, than he has to domestic players. Not even someone who was standing out at that level either.
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