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imerick Under-19 captain Tony Whitehead andfellow defender Colm Murphy made their fullfirst-team debuts in Wednesday night’s 1-0 winover Shelbourne at Thomond Park, with bothplayers impressing in keeping a clean-sheet. Andafterwards, the 17-year-olds received plenty ofpraise from manager Stuart Taylor and the otherduo in the back four, Brian O’Callaghan and

Shaun Kelly. “It’s what we’re looking for our clubto be all about; progressing and promoting ouryoung players and having a stage for them to goand play on,” Taylor said. “They can be over themoon with their performances against Shel-bourne. They can be really, really proud of theirperformances – that’s for sure. I was over themoon with Tony Whitehead. I thought he actu-

Youngsters impressin first team win.Two U19 players make impressive full senior debuts.

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ally looked a more experienced player than he is.He looked as if he’s had a good run of games inthere. Defending is all about decision-makingand I thought his decision-making was spot on.He dominated his position and he had the cen-tre-forwards under control. He went throughthe game without any slip-ups and he lookedvery, very confident and very strong throughoutthe game. Without taking anything away fromhim, a big thanks goes to Brian O’Callaghan andShaun Kelly playing either side of him. They’retwo fantastic professionals and they’ve helpedplay a great part in his debut, so all credit tothose two as well as Tony.

Colm Murphy did very well. I felt that it was alittle bit of naivety from his part when he gotbooked and the tackle before that, but I wouldrather have that eagerness, trying to calm peopledown rather than having to put a little bit of firein their belly. A young lad having that is greatand it stands him in good stead for the future.Colm will have a huge part in the success of thefootball club – that’s without a shadow of adoubt. He’s got a lot of attributes that we’ll havea very, very good young player at Limerick Foot-ball Club. It’s just a case of making sure theseplayers come through and keep expressingthemselves in the manner that they did onWednesday.” Meanwhile, Kelly added: “Tony and Colm, fairplay to them, they had a great game and I’m surethe fans will be seeing a lot more of them in theyears to come. Tony is a good lad. He’s profes-sional in everything he does. He’s been in train-ing with us and he has been getting better,training with experienced lads and listening tothe experienced lads all the time. You could seea lot more of him next season, like Colm. Colmhas been great from what I’ve seen in practicegames. We’ve been seeing how good they areand it was good for the fans to see how goodthey are.” And O’Callaghan was also full of praise for thetwo youngsters. “It’s great to see young ladscoming along and doing well,” he said. “Ithought Colm Murphy started the match excep-tionally well, bombing on down the left. He un-fortunately picked up a knock and had to comeoff. Tony was great to play alongside. He’s a veryyoung lad but he talks a bit and he’s just a goodall-round defender. He’s calm on the ball andhe’s got the lot, so hopefully he’ll kick on nextyear and get a few more appearances. He’s gotall the attributes so I don’t see why he can’t. Afew more games will build his confidence.”

“It’s what we’relooking for ourclub to be allabout; progressing andpromoting ouryoung players

”

KEITH WALLACE

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ood afternoon and welcome to LIT/St. Nessan’sfor our Airtricity Under-19 Southern Divisionmatch against Mervue United. Firstly, I wouldlike to extend a warm welcome to Justin Neary,who is a good friend of mine, along with hisplayers and backroom team who have travelledfrom Galway for today’s game. After last week’sdisappointing 1-0 defeat by Longford Town, weare looking forward to this game and gettingback on the road again. Mervue are leading thedivision by four points so we have to go and tryto catch them, and a victory today would cer-tainly help us in achieving that. As well as clos-ing the gap at the top, it would also keep us wellclear of the other three teams. We are expectinga tough game. I’ve known Justin for many yearsand he will have Mervue well schooled and or-ganised. Mervue’s first-team are in the promo-tion playoffs so maybe they will be missing someof their stronger players, as we were last weekwith a number of our guys travelling with thesenior squad to Bray. In Longford, I felt weworked really hard and, in fairness to Longford,they got a great goal from about 30-yards. I feelwe’re still strong defensively – that was only thesecond goal we conceded – and we’re confidentgoing into this game. Every game is a must-winbecause we want to win the league. We trainedin LIT on Wednesday night before the first-teamgame and all the lads were buzzing ahead oftoday’s match. We had a good chat about lastweek and we said to them you have to comethrough adversity and I have no doubt that wewill come back stronger from it. We’re a lot morefocussed now. Sometimes when you have a

number of players progressing up to the first-team squad it can disrupt momentum. But atthe same time, it’s a positive thing. Seeing TonyWhitehead, our captain, getting Man of theMatch for the first team against Shelbourne,Kieran ‘Red’ Hanlon making his debut, ColmMurphy making his full debut, James McGrathcoming on, and Nathan Kelly and Val Feeney onthe bench gives me great satisfaction as a man-ager. Our aim is to get players to the first teamand if we can do that then our other players willget more chances to come through at Under-19level. But we keep saying it, our objective is toget to the Elite Division and every game is im-portant; whether we’re playing the top or bot-tom team, we have to stick to our game plan.Hopefully, we can get the right result todaywhich could go a long way to us reaching ourgoal.Enjoy the game,

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managersnotes.

Matchday notes from Limerick FC U19’s manager, 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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