Caps the true goal

The news that next weekend's meeting of St Patrick's Athletic and UCD has been put back to Monday evening because no fewer than five players will be on under-21 international duty this Friday is another sign of how much progress has been made in the relationship between clubs here and the national team managers.

Both Ian Evans and Brian Kerr were at Belfield on Sunday where several of the players involved had realistic hopes of impressing an Ireland manager. The thought of it would have been laughable a few short years ago.

In fact, just over half of the league's clubs have players who have been involved at some level of the international set-up over the past season, with St Patrick's and Cork City, as in the league, leading the way. It's not just clubs from the top flight either as first division outfits like Home Farm-Everton, Galway United and, most memorably, Kilkenny City sent players off to earn caps in recent months.

The prospect of a National League player appearing in a senior international may still be some way off, but at every level up the ladder the domestic game is gaining a growing level of recognition. With clubs all over the country involved in progressive youth development schemes, it's a trend that looks certain to continue.

The success, though, doesn't come without complications. Only recently the absence of under-18 star Michael Reddy added to Kilkenny City's FAI Cup problems, while Cork City will be without under-21 international Brian Barry-Murphy this weekend. Shelbourne and St Patrick's will have to cope with the loss of Richie Baker and Keith Doyle respectively for up to a month because of the forthcoming World Under-20 championships in Nigeria.

So far there have been few problems over availability. The rules, as a couple of big English clubs finally conceded last week, are clear and the simple fact is that clubs must hand over players when they are required by international teams. To date there have been a couple of disputes over the timing of a particular player joining up with an Ireland squad, but nothing too serious. Nevertheless if the current rate of progress is maintained, there's going to be trouble down the road unless this issue is considered now and some sort of policy for the future is agreed on.

One simple step that would help matters greatly would be for the National League to break ahead of recognised international dates in the same way as clubs in leagues all over Europe currently do. Given that there will be no league player on senior international duty the move might prompt a few guffaws. However, if a 17, 18 or 19 year-old gets underage international recognition and, in so doing, makes a greater impact here than he can at a club across the water then that it is to be encouraged.

Showing a serious commitment towards helping clubs who bring young players through the league can help to speed the process along. That, combined with the growing perception that players here can be treated fairly in terms of involvement at international level, could in turn make an impact on the number of teenagers that leave schoolboy clubs here for what is often still a Dickensian English youth system.

The changes, of course, would necessitate some other policy decisions to be taken. For one thing the mid-winter break - talked about every year when the pitches become so poor that they lead to late postponements or proceed on appalling surfaces - becomes considerably more difficult to introduce.

A relatively straightforward way out would be to do away with the League Cup, the group stages of which currently serve as little more than glorified pre-season friendlies. A less painful approach might be to restructure the group stages and bring them forward to the same time Irish clubs are involved in European competition.

Regardless of what is done with the structure of the season, it would be necessary for underage international games to be scheduled, where possible, for the same weeks as senior internationals. There is already some degree of overlap in dates. Making further progress on this front shouldn't cause too many difficulties, even if getting them to coincide completely proves impossible.

If this could be done by next season we could at least avoid a repeat of this year's minor scuffles between Kerr, Evans and the various managers at club levels. At any rate, if the problem could be addressed now it would be a welcome sign that the people who run the game here are no longer content to sit back and wait for trouble to seek them out.