STEPHEN KENNY hailed Mason Melia’s rapid progress – but insisted he is the freak happening that should not cover up for the Irish academy system’s failings.
Melia, 16, started in attack for St Patrick’s Athletic in Thursday night’s Conference League win over Vaduz as he continued his meteoric rise.
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He made his debut last season, scoring on his debut against Wexford in the Leinster Senior Cup, and has been a regular this season featuring in all but one league game, scoring twice.
Kenny admitted that he is astonished by him, but acknowledged he would probably be at an English club now were it not for Brexit barring players from moving until they are 18.
He warned that, while Brexit is an opportunity for Irish academies, there is a risk of losing the next generation of Irish stars if there are no funds to develop them properly.
And he said the lack of international camps for Ireland’s rising stars is also a problem, as they need to be playing more games against the best players to make up for shortfalls elsewhere.
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Kenny said: “In years gone by, they would be in England by now, would have been gone at 16 so you can’t compare it to other eras. This is a new era, the Brexit era.
“We don’t have full-time academies, we don’t have the infrastructure to develop players, it’s chronically under-funded, nowhere near the level of training hours.
“Why is that? I am in the FAI a lot, probably what’s happened in the opposite, we have cut back in the funding for the international underage teams, absolutely cut back massively.
“They have a bigger role to play than they ever had, the camps should be longer as the players are at home but we have cut back funding as the money isn’t there.
“All the international teams are really, really stretched, they don’t have the contact hours now that they had previously, in that period when we brought all those players through but they have been cut back, year on year, the financial constraints.
“Not having full-time academies, the only thing that can help it is if a player is training with a first team, playing at first team level.
“That’s the only thing that can subsidise in some way in a Premier League academy.”
Melia falls into that category as did Sam Curtis, who got two years of regular first team football at St Patrick’s Athletic before moving to Sheffield United.
But Kenny acknowledged that most talented 16-year-olds are not physically developed enough for first-team football, while also have schooling commitments that means they cannot train full-time.
He added: “It’s hard, you wonder with the great players…. will we ever recreate that?
“If they don’t get the opportunity to go to academies at 16, is that going to be a thing of the past, all those great Irish players who came through.
“There is good intentions to have full-time academies and Marc Canham’s development plan and so forth.”
