Youths View: West Cork Schoolboys League
Credit: Extratime Team (ETPhotos)
West Cork had only the one game on the second day of the Macron Galway Cup and found themselves on the end of a narrow one-nil loss to Mervue United in the 2003 Elite category. However, their first two games had seen them on the winning side of tight games themselves as they overcame Cavan/Monaghan and the NDSL to put them in with a great chance of a high finish within the group.
After their final group game, Extratime.ie spoke to Cork West coaches Ian Pickering and Dan McSweeney, although Pickering did most of the speaking with McSweeney adding selected nods of agreement. Pickering felt the tournament had gone “better than we expected.”
“You hope to do well but beating North Dublin [NDSL], nobody expected that so that puts you on a high. We then ground out a win against a good Cavan/Monaghan side so yesterday we were on top of the world. They say you learn more out of a defeat, so we are kind of ecstatic really with the way the competition is going.”
A former West Cork Schoolboy League player has been in the news recently as Connor Ellis, who previously played for Bantry Bay Rovers, signed his first professional deal with Cork City before going out on loan to Cobh Ramblers and scoring on his debut against UCD in a 1-1 draw.
Pickering acknowledged this and was full of praise for the young striker as he said the West Cork players look up to him. Although you have to have talent, Pickering explained that “he can be their beacon of what you can achieve when you have the commitment and hardwork to put into it.”
Summer football is very much on the agenda of the schoolboys leagues as the SFAI voted for it recently to be brought in for the 2018 season. Pickering’s take on the decision was focused on the affect clashing with GAA would have on clubs in west Cork.
“I would say that the summer league that is coming in, in my personal opinion, is going to destroy the West Cork Schoolboys League for a while. It’ll take a while to come back up because there will be clubs that will go to the wall and there’ll be kids that don’t play as obviously they’ll have to choose between GAA and soccer.
“So I think that will be a big problem in west Cork. They’ll eventually get over it but how long that takes, that’s the biggest issue that will hinder the progress that we’ve made.”
However, there’s a possible bright thought for the future as Pickering discussed the idea of entering the U15 League of Ireland as he said, “I guess that part of it never gets much thought but, as me and Dan have kind of talked about, if we could enter this [current West Cork] team after the Kennedy Cup into the U15 League Of Ireland, we’d be incredibly happy with it, as it’s only going to make our players better and make us better as managers and coaches.”
Once more the feeling is one of trepidation with an underlying optimism towards the future of youth football in the Republic of Ireland, a similar feeling they and their squad will have as they head into the semi-finals tomorrow.
