General
- Tuesday September 24th, 2024 @ 13:20
Seven Saints Star For Ireland U15s
St Patrick's Athletic Academy players Daniel O'Halloran, Ethan Kelly, Blake Lynch, Sebastian Clarke, Kim Kibaga, Luke Malone and Finn Reilly were all part of the Republic of Ireland U15 squad for a UEFA Development Tournament in Zagreb over the last week.
Jason Donohue's side began the tournament with a 5-2 win against Slovenia with Ethan Kelly among the scorers, before a 3-1 defeat against hosts Croatia.
The young boys in green finished their week in style with a a 4-1 victory against Lithuania yesterday, with all seven of our Saints featuring in the win with Blake Lynch as Captain.
St Patrick's Athletic U14 Head Coach Mark Connolly said:
"We're delighted for the boys. Playing for Ireland over the last week is the result of 15 months of hard work since they joined our Academy ahead of the LOI U14 season which began in March.
The achievements of the lads also showcases the great work their previous clubs have done to give them a base to work from to get to this stage of their young careers.
Our seven players with Ireland this week were with six different schoolboy clubs playing across the 3 tiers - DDSL Premier and Major and also Regional Leagues, before they joined us, they've all come together at St Pat's and have been performing really well along with the rest of our squad.
We do our best here at St Pat's to prepare the players and to help to be ready to make the next steps in their careers, both at club and international level, in terms of training, gym sessions, nutrition advice, video analysis, team meetings, individual learning plans and more.
They've done brilliantly to come into our Academy and progress to make their international debuts so quickly, it's a moment they'll remember for a long time.
Hopefully this is the start of many more international caps for this group and the boys who missed out on a call-up this time around, everyone needs to continue to work hard as individuals as part of a squad to achieve their goals.
The last week has been a really proud moment for the players, the family, their friends, their previous clubs and everyone here at St Patrick's Athletic."
These international call-ups at U15s come just a couple of weeks after nine current players and three former players represented three different countries across three age groups in the previous international window at U17, U19 and U21 level.
And the action doesn't stop there, with Ireland U16s set for action over the coming week too.
