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Youngsters impress in first team win. Two U19 players make impressive full senior debuts.
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imerick Under-19 captain Tony Whitehead and fellow defender Colm Murphy made their full first-team debuts in Wednesday night’s 1-0 win over Shelbourne at Thomond Park, with both players impressing in keeping a clean-sheet. And afterwards, the 17-year-olds received plenty of praise from manager Stuart Taylor and the other duo in the back four, Brian O’Callaghan and
Shaun Kelly. “It’s what we’re looking for our club to be all about; progressing and promoting our young players and having a stage for them to go and play on,” Taylor said. “They can be over the moon with their performances against Shelbourne. They can be really, really proud of their performances – that’s for sure. I was over the moon with Tony Whitehead. I thought he actu-
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“ It’s what we’re looking for our club to be all about; progressing and promoting our young players
” ally looked a more experienced player than he is. He looked as if he’s had a good run of games in there. Defending is all about decision-making and I thought his decision-making was spot on. He dominated his position and he had the centre-forwards under control. He went through the game without any slip-ups and he looked very, very confident and very strong throughout the game. Without taking anything away from him, a big thanks goes to Brian O’Callaghan and Shaun Kelly playing either side of him. They’re two fantastic professionals and they’ve helped play a great part in his debut, so all credit to those two as well as Tony.
Colm Murphy did very well. I felt that it was a little bit of naivety from his part when he got booked and the tackle before that, but I would rather have that eagerness, trying to calm people down rather than having to put a little bit of fire in their belly. A young lad having that is great and it stands him in good stead for the future. Colm will have a huge part in the success of the football club – that’s without a shadow of a doubt. He’s got a lot of attributes that we’ll have a very, very good young player at Limerick Football Club. It’s just a case of making sure these players come through and keep expressing themselves in the manner that they did on Wednesday.” Meanwhile, Kelly added: “Tony and Colm, fair play to them, they had a great game and I’m sure the fans will be seeing a lot more of them in the years to come. Tony is a good lad. He’s professional in everything he does. He’s been in training with us and he has been getting better, training with experienced lads and listening to the experienced lads all the time. You could see a lot more of him next season, like Colm. Colm has been great from what I’ve seen in practice games. We’ve been seeing how good they are and it was good for the fans to see how good they are.” And O’Callaghan was also full of praise for the two youngsters. “It’s great to see young lads coming along and doing well,” he said. “I thought Colm Murphy started the match exceptionally well, bombing on down the left. He unfortunately picked up a knock and had to come off. Tony was great to play alongside. He’s a very young lad but he talks a bit and he’s just a good all-round defender. He’s calm on the ball and he’s got the lot, so hopefully he’ll kick on next year and get a few more appearances. He’s got all the attributes so I don’t see why he can’t. A few more games will build his confidence.”
KEITH WALLACE
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MANAGER dECLAn FArmEr
MANAGER JusTIn nEArY
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Nathan murrAY Gavin WHYTE Colm murpHY Tony WHITEHEAd Paudie O'COnnOr Mark HOBAn Nathan KELLY Shane WALsH Kieran HAnLOn Seรกn mCsWEEnEY Cian O'dOnOgHuE James mCgrATH Gavin dILLOn AJ O'COnnOr Matt KEAnE Evan sHInE Conor mCguIrE Ross FITzgErALd Mikey grEEd Evan CusACK Tadhg rYAn Val FEEnEY Shane COsTELLOE Ross mAnn Michael guErIn
James HEALY Eric nEArY Maccon BYrnE Paul HEALY Mattie FLYnn Dean TIErnEY Moise AssOgBA Richard FAHY Padraic CunnIngHAm Dillon murpHY Aaron mCdOnAgH Steven KILLEEn Michael JAmEs Cian mCdOnnELL Gary BAILEY Cian dE LAmpOrT Ryan mAnnIng Andrew COnnOLLY Peter HEALY Robert CArrOLL Aaron FrIEL Colin BrAdY
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managers notes. Matchday notes from Limerick FC U19’s manager, Declan Farmer.
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ood afternoon and welcome to LIT/St. Nessan’s for our Airtricity Under-19 Southern Division match against Mervue United. Firstly, I would like to extend a warm welcome to Justin Neary, who is a good friend of mine, along with his players and backroom team who have travelled from Galway for today’s game. After last week’s disappointing 1-0 defeat by Longford Town, we are looking forward to this game and getting back on the road again. Mervue are leading the division by four points so we have to go and try to catch them, and a victory today would certainly help us in achieving that. As well as closing the gap at the top, it would also keep us well clear of the other three teams. We are expecting a tough game. I’ve known Justin for many years and he will have Mervue well schooled and organised. Mervue’s first-team are in the promotion playoffs so maybe they will be missing some of their stronger players, as we were last week with a number of our guys travelling with the senior squad to Bray. In Longford, I felt we worked really hard and, in fairness to Longford, they got a great goal from about 30-yards. I feel we’re still strong defensively – that was only the second goal we conceded – and we’re confident going into this game. Every game is a must-win because we want to win the league. We trained in LIT on Wednesday night before the first-team game and all the lads were buzzing ahead of today’s match. We had a good chat about last week and we said to them you have to come through adversity and I have no doubt that we will come back stronger from it. We’re a lot more focussed now. Sometimes when you have a
number of players progressing up to the firstteam squad it can disrupt momentum. But at the same time, it’s a positive thing. Seeing Tony Whitehead, our captain, getting Man of the Match for the first team against Shelbourne, Kieran ‘Red’ Hanlon making his debut, Colm Murphy making his full debut, James McGrath coming on, and Nathan Kelly and Val Feeney on the bench gives me great satisfaction as a manager. Our aim is to get players to the first team and if we can do that then our other players will get more chances to come through at Under-19 level. But we keep saying it, our objective is to get to the Elite Division and every game is important; whether we’re playing the top or bottom team, we have to stick to our game plan. Hopefully, we can get the right result today which could go a long way to us reaching our goal. Enjoy the game,
dECLAn FArmEr
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"man of the match" on his debut, Tony Whitehead.
The starting line-up v shelbourne last Wednesday.
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