Watching 17-year-old Cathal O'Sullivan terrific goal at TC against Finn Harps last Friday. What a special talent the club have. It seems only a matter of time that he will leave the club as he is attracting a lot of attention.
What young talent has caught your eye from your club or just watching games so far!
Gavin McAteer at Harps looks a talent, only 15. Tidy little number 10 type player.
Sean Keogh (18, LB) and Eoin Kenny (CF, 18) have been doing well in Dundalks first team after being promoted from the academy.
Luke Mulligan (16, CB) also made his debut last week at attacking midfield, and is highly thought of.
Dundalk had 5 ex academy players play last Friday (O'Kane, Animasahun, Keogh, Kenny, Mulligan).
Harps have a number of young players going under the radar doing good things.
As said above, Gavin McAteer is phenomenally talented. Signed a 3 year deal on his 16th birthday two weeks ago.
Aaron McLaughlin, winger just turned 18, has had a rotten time with injuries through his underage career so far, and would probably be in England already if it weren't for it. If he can get a clear injury free run, he'll be one to watch.
Sean Patton, 17 year old striker, came through Harps academy, signed for Derry last year, back on loan at Harps. On trial at Portsmouth this week, played for the first team on Tuesday night there. Cracking striker who could grab 7 or 8 goals in the tail end of the season if Pompey don't ruin it for us..
17 year old centre mid Darragh Coyle, younger brother of Mark, is a proper no nonsense midfielder like his brother. Decent number of appearances so far this season, took a knock on Tuesday night in a friendly against Ballinamallard, awaiting outcome of that injury prognosis.
18 year old striker/winger Max Johnston has 7 starts, 1 goal and 1 assist this season so far. Far from the finished product, but definitely another to watch.
19 year old left back Luke O'Brien, on loan from Pat's, seems to be deemed surplus to requirements in Inichicore, looks a really good prospect too. Strong in attack and defence and on the cusp of international 19s squad too.
Don't forget Success Edogun too, only turned 23 in April. 7 goals and 5 assists, lot of game time wide of a front 3 this year too.
Has Callum Bonner progressed at Logford? Thought it was odd to let u19 top scorer go. Is there a development fee for a kid only a year or 2 at a club at 17+ out of interest. Maybe there was or it was let slide to facilitate a move but just curiosity if there was a future move eg.Originally Posted by outspoken
Eoin Kenny has definitely improved with the game time he is getting and showing the sort of promise that O'Kane did now, probably more games than intended due to injuries to others but chances taken and backs up the argument to bridge u19s with exposure to senior football be it reserve or third tier B teams.
Thought Keogh was targeted by Drogheda last Friday, that he was really struggling, but he adapted to being the physically smaller player by stepping up to cut out a ball rather than dropping to cover. He did have to scramble a few times but he coped which was impressive enough for me for a lad thats still u19s. Doherty's postmatch comment on 'thought we'd win when we saw the team they were putting out' I think was in relation to the number of very young players starting. Brave of Daly to not try and patch things up with players out of position like Benson at full back as has been done. Not sure it'd be done against some other clubs.
Its an area that the club have been quite poor at previously, bring through and retaining academy players in favour of panic like external signings that werent up to scratch. Takes time for things to bear fruit obviously and great to see it happening - id like to think its totally by design rather than necessity!! 5 of 11 could indicate a plan and with the 2023 u19s just missing out on the league on GD.
The age profile of the squad now is very promising, a sense of building a good young side with a lot of the squad under 22, impressing in a difficult situation, backed up by experience, and many under contract beyond November. Dont know how things would pan out if relegated both financially and whether players want to go or have release clauses, even homegrown kids of quality may not want to step back to division 1.
Last edited by Nesta99; 18/07/2024 at 7:09 AM.
It depends on the club the player goes too. If an 18 year old on a professional contract goes to a premier team in UK you could be looking at a 200k amount, championship 100k (I'm ball parking here based on being at the previous club for a few years
Moving within ireland it's smaller. Max Murphy went to bohs and they had to pay maybe 15k or something like that. If he had gone to longford div 1 it would have been less again. In general in ireland the clubs don't push it unless they actually want ghe player to stay. Plus you dint get anything automatically because a player leaves you have to have offered them a new contract on at least what they were on previously.
Of course yes, u23s, offered a contract, and the 'buying' clubs are tiered, length of time at academy etc. My memory is odd these days, can recall a bit of trivia on Latvian clubs and not this without prompting. I was also thinking if Longford sold on a former Dundalk U19 do Dundalk get a cut or is that sorted with the initial training/solidarity payment possibly already made.
Bonner barely kicked a ball for us and has since left the club, he wasn't up to it physically.
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