UCD's Lorcan Healy: 'Maybe going down the academy route might not have been the best for me - You get great pointers and coaches there, but you also miss out on the experience of how to win games'

After a mass exodus during 2019 at UCD – the Belfield rebuild has been gathering at a pace of knots.

Departures are part and parcel of the UCD experience in the League of Ireland – and with the exit of Ireland under-21 keeper Conor Kearns to St Patrick’s Athletic, UCD have promoted shot-stopper Lorcan Healy to the first-team squad to fill the void left by their former keeper.

“I’ve got an English accent but I’m actually Irish. My mum grew up in Mayo and my dad’s grandparents are from Mayo as well,” Healy explained to extratime.ie.

While in England – the 19-year-old keeper made a name for himself in the non-leagues, where he also ended up on trial with Premier League clubs Crystal Palace and Brighton & Hove Albion.

“I had a few trials with Palace and Brighton when I was 16/17. They were great experiences before I then signed for Maidstone United.

“So that was a great experience, my first real one in the men’s game. It was a different atmosphere; people were on money and being a footballer was their job.

“I learned a lot being around that and being in the dressing room. I was then going out on loan to other non-league clubs as well, so I’ve been playing men’s football since I was 16.”

He added; “(The trial) at Palace it was a weird one because I wasn’t there for a set amount of time. I went in at 15 for one day literally and I did well.

“They asked if I could come back and I did. I was doing really well; I was with their 23’s and Alan Pardew was the manager at the time.

“And then I got another email asking if I’d go back for a third time but at that point, I think Pardew got sacked.

“(Sam) Allardyce then came in and the whole backroom staff changed so that sort of just fizzled out.

“Six months later Brighton came to watch me. I was playing an under-18s game, but they had just signed a goalkeeper the week previous from Poland.

“Maybe going down the academy route might not have been the best route for me. You get great pointers and coaches there, but you also miss out on the experience of how to win games.

“We went 17 games winless (with Maidstone) and to experience how to get out of that – I felt I learned as much from that as I could have from an academy.”

And after a few years in the non-leagues, Healy soon crossed paths with UCD, with their football and education programme proving of interesting.

“My brother is in Trinity College, so I knew about UCD. I knew there was a football set-up there and I thought I would’ve liked to have a look into it.

“There were two options; to stay in England and try fight my way up non-league – which is doable but probably more ruthless – or this.  

“I contacted the club (UCD) and I came over for a few training sessions. I got offered to then apply for the Ad Astra Elite Sports Scholarship which I got, and I thought it was a great opportunity.

“Everything I can have to reach my potential is here and that’s what really attracted me to the place.”

He added; “I followed it (the league) a little bit. It’s not as if Ireland isn’t a foreign country to me. I used to spend my summers here.

“I started picking up on a few players who played for Sligo and I would’ve started looking into it a little bit more.

“Cork City and Shamrock Rovers were two big clubs I knew of, but I did come into it slightly blind.

“I knew it was a great standard all the same with players going into League One – that tells you it’s a good league.”

On balancing football and studies on the Belfield campus he said; “It’s all about organisation. Luckily for us, everything is on campus.

“You have to balance things and I want to come out of this with a good result, and a degree behind me otherwise there’s no point in doing it.

“It’s definitely possible and it shows with the lads leaving here and having good careers in the game.”

And while he spent the 2018/19 campaign with the club’s Leinster Senior League side – it has been the club’s Colleges and Universities side that has best prepared the young keeper for the League of Ireland.

“(The CUFL) was really important for me coming from the Leinster Senior League team to the first-team in the last three or four months.

“I didn’t play much in the last Collingwood at UL – I travelled as the back-up and then that eases you into the first-team.

“I played in the Collingwood and the CUFL this year. That really helps you gel with the players. You can train as much as you want with them but there’s nothing like a game.

“I think that was really important for me easing me into the first-team. Effectively, the college season is our pre-season.”

He continued; “It’s a new squad we have. The quality is there but it’s still early in the season. We need to take it game by game.

“Once we put in consistent performances and work hard collectively that’s all we can do. When you have such a new squad it’s hard to say what the goal is but I’m sure we can push for a playoff.”