Players were there all the time - and there's more

ALL has changed, changed utterly. Gone is the previous regime's much derided Find An Irishman (FAI) policy. Eureka, Irish players were there all the time and Mick McCarthy wasted no time in unveiling them.

Ten new caps in four games, six of them Dubliners, eight natives all told and two second generation youngsters of Irish stock whose bona fides cannot be questioned. Playing the beautiful game too.

As the Norwich striker Keith O'Neill put it: "This is how it should be, full of Dubs." When asked after the Portuguese game if it was he who said that Maurice Setters would never have picked him for Irish under age sides because he was actually Irish, he responded: "No, I never said that, but it was probably true."

And that was the perception. Many within the game felt increasingly alienated by the Charlton Setters regime. It's doubtful whether any of the 10 newcomers would have been blooded by Charlton had qualification for Euro 96 been achieved, leaving McCarthy with no time and no games to prepare for the World Cup qualifying opener on August 31st against Liechtenstein.

In some ways then, the play off defeat by Holland was a blessing in disguise, though McCarthy has still inherited a massive rebuilding job. Allowing for the pressure to obtain results, Frank Stapleton laid the blame squarely at Charlton's feet when speaking to a British tabloid last Sunday.

"What he (Charlton) failed to do was to take time off to look at the younger players coming through and prepare for the future. It was all fire brigade stuff. The next match, the need to get a result in the next match, was always the big thing with him. As long as he did well in the short term he was happy, and that meant going with his senior players every time."

"The result was that when the senior guys grew old together, there were no experienced players on the bench. And the effect has been to leave the team in a terrible mess which will not be easily cleared."

Charlton's final squad as manager, for the Anfield play off, had an average age of 29 1/2. The squad for the last three friendly matches and current trip to the US has an average age of 25 1/2.

Eight of the newcomers are 22 or under, and what's more they are clearly enjoying themselves in a manner that they would never have in previous youths and under 21 squads. This is because they are encouraged to play football, not hump it into the hole or up the channels.

Genuine Irish fans are in turn warming to them. The crowd for the Croatian game was 3,000 up on the Portuguese match. Towards the end they were cheering each pass along the ground. The feel good factor was infectious.

McCarthy has tapped into the well and, furthermore, there's plenty more where Keith O'Neill, Gareth Farrelly and others came from. As we pointed out in this paper last February ("Bright Young Things At End of Republic Tunnel") an estimated 200 young Irish players are contracted to English clubs.

More under 21 and B games will, it is hoped, facilitate the nurturing process being carried out by McCarthy and his assistant, Ian Evans.

Middlesbrough's Graham Kavanagh and Keith O'Halloran and Coventry's Willie Boland are others close to a breakthrough. Behind them come the crop of 17 and 18 year olds, many of whom are part of the Irish Youths team which has qualified for the European finals in France next month.

Aside from Ian Harte of Leeds, there is David Worrell (heading a posse of young hopefuls at Blackburn); Coventry's Chris Hawkins, a product of Salthill Devon; John Burns of Nottingham Forest; Alan Mayburn of Leeds; Tranmere's Alan Mahon; and Ross Darcy of Spurs. Next up come a wave of 16 and unders, headed by Stephen McPhail of Leeds and Everton's Richard Dunne.

At under 16 level the Republic of Ireland will be competing in their sixth finals over the last nine years in Austria this summer and last year's batch were unbeaten in 13 games. Though the Dutch in particular place greater store in the development of individuals than results at that level, this is nevertheless a barometer of our expanding pool of talent.

To what do we owe this promising state of affairs? The former Irish international team and youths manager Liam Tuohy attributes much of the improvement to the FAI's appointment of Noel King and then Joe McGrath as national coaches (currently it is vacant).

"Because of their work there was a heavier accent on coaching kids in the Dublin District Schoolboy League. They expanded the number of qualified coaches and this filtered down through the clubs. Nothing like this was happening 30 years ago.

Admittedly, the expertise has been concentrated on clubs such as Tuohy's own one Home Farm, Belvedere, Cherry Orchard, Stella Maris, Rivermount, St Kevin's Boys and St Joseph's Boys. Tuohy and others would now like to see the gospel spread further afield.

Tuohy would like to see a pyramid structure in place, as in the best of Europe, where a club could conceivably be formed tomorrow and progress all the way through the various leagues to the very cop if they so aspired. A similar, pyramid like coaching structure is required.

On the continent, it is de rigueur to have a computerised scouting system keeping tabs on kids from under 10 up. No such initiative exists here for a generally under funded game. Says Tuohy: "We perhaps cannot afford to emulate the continentals completely but you can always do more and if we even took on board some of what they do, and even emulated some of it, it could only develop the game further."