True, but it wasn't such a problem, either, since the players involved were almost all U-21 and representing the ROI's under-age teams. Therefore, if they did look as though they might have been good enough* to represent us at senior level, we still had some hope of getting them back, as with Tony Kane and Martin O'Connor.
Gibson was different, because Staunton was looking to cap him for your seniour team, meaning he would be lost to us permanently.
Anyhow, what you must remember is that the IFA in the 80's and 90's was so incompetent and badly administered it made the FAI look like Microsoft! That is, there were so many other things going wrong that a few teenagers from Derry playing under-age tournaments in Cork or Cairo (or wherever) never even made their radar. Had the IFA had any radar. Or even electricity to power it.

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