If the Airtricity League gets any respect, it is often of the patronising variety which is a shame, considering the fact that eight of Giovanni Trapattoni provisional 29-man squad for the Sweden and Austria games started out in the League of Ireland.
Trap’s current No 1 David Forde spent time at Galway United, Seamas Coleman famously went straight from Sligo Rovers to the Everton first team, while Stephen Ward, James McClean, Wes Hoolahan, Kevin Doyle, Shane Long and Conor Sammon all tasted domestic football before making the transition to English and international football.
That’s not even mentioning some names that are not in the current squad like Keith Fahey who served his time at St Pat’s before moving to Birmingham City.
And that appears to be the best vision for the future.
Traditionally Boys in Green have either tended to be English-born or players who have left schoolboy football aged 15 or 16 for Premier League or lower division academies.
“Granny’s Boys” continue to provide a steady stream of players but the door is slowly shutting at English academies.
The media across the Irish sea have long complained about the dearth of young English talent coming through at elite level, which should be a major concern for Ireland.
Stay at home?
Where youth programmes used to draw on talent from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, they have acquired a taste for teenage youngsters from as far afield as continental Europe, South America and Africa. They require greater investment than locally produced talent because of the effort used to acquire them added to their technical superiority at that age.
The situation does not look like it will change much in the future which means young Irish players are best served by remaining at home at least until they reach their late teens and early 20s when they have matured technically and physically.
In any case most Premier League academies coaching methods were always inferior to the best available on the continent so young Irish players were never going to develop technically.
The advent of the U19 League of Ireland which was launched in 2011 should be an incentive for young players to remain at home for longer as it provides a good platform for development and a pathway to first team football rather than getting lost in the mire of English youth football.
It is unlikely that a League of Ireland player will take to the field for Ireland. It has not happened since Bray Wanderers’ veteran goal machine Jason Byrne played against Chile in 2006.
But it was no coincidence that the former Shelbourne and Bohemians man was initially called up by Brian Kerr who was the only Irish manager to have an intimate knowledge of domestic soccer since Eoin Hand in the 80s.
No one is expecting future Ireland managers to pick players directly from the League of Ireland but they would be encouraged to keep an eye on the game here as many players with a background in domestic Irish soccer will make the transition to the Premier League if current trends persist.
©INPHO/James Crombie
