Interesting article. Depressing reading though. Can/should more be done to help develop these young lads? Or is it a case that this kind of poor return is par for the course??
Interesting article. Depressing reading though. Can/should more be done to help develop these young lads? Or is it a case that this kind of poor return is par for the course??
the majority should stay at home until older, learn their trade at irish clubs or LOI clubs, then move abroad. I think we would produce more successful players that way.
I think Doyle and Long would be better examples. Although I'd say the players who trained in England and returned, like Kearns and Fahey, are more technically skilled than those who stay at home but that could as easily be the reason they're chosen to go abroad in the first place.
Fahey was a strange case of a player who decided to come home because he wanted to come home for personal reasons (homesick) and then built the self belief to try it again.
To be clear, the very best of the best will and should always go over in their teens but the amount of GOOD, SOLID players that could develop in a domestic first team and actually learn the game, finish school and do it the smart way before moving to England as a proven player or at worst a good prospect. It just makes more sense to me and i think the junior and schoolboy clubs have destroyed a lot of young players careers through their policy of farming their players overseas at 14/15/16 with a lot of dreams and little else to suggest they would cut it at that level.
Thanks, updated. I wouldn't be a big GAA follower unfortunately.
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