Dundalk confident ahead of U19 Cup clash with Bohs

In a season where they are second place in U19 Northern Division and a number of players are already making the step up to the senior side, Dundalk U19 manager Martin Connolly believes the success of the league, and his side in particular, will be shown by the amount of players breaking into the first team.

"We would gauge our success by the amount of players we have in the first team at the moment, and we have five or six of our U19 side involved with our first team. Ben McLoughlin, who is 16, has started the last two games and he's underage for our youth team never mind our U19's team so that's tremendous progress by Ben. We also have Chris Reilly, Bob McKenna, Peter Thomas, Cian Byrne, Gareth Brady all involved. 

Peter came on as a sub against Sligo Rovers on Saturday night, Chris Reilly has come on in three or four games so to gauge our success we would have to do it by the amount of players that have been involved in the first team."

Martin discussed the encouraging potential of Ben McLaughlin for a player of his age and believes he will be a great footballer.

"Ben comes from a great pedigree of football in Dundalk. His father Paul played League of Ireland football for 14 years and his grandfather was the legendary Jim so there's a pedigree there. Ben has been involved with me for the last four years in Milk Cup's and Kennedy Cup's and he has progressed up the ladder gradually and if he continues this progress he's going to be some footballer."

He started this year as the captain of our youth team which plays in the DDSL U18 Super League and now he's started the last two first team games which is tremendous."
 

Martin believes having a manager like Sean McCaffrey at the helm for the first team will lead to the younger players getting the chances they deserve.

"When you look at the U19 League, it has been great for Sean for that reason and when you look at the age profile of the first team in general even taking out the members of the team who plays with our U19 team the average age would be about 19 or 20. I think Sean's motto would be along the lines of 'if he's good enough, he's old enough'."
 

Following a victory over an impressive Shamrock Rovers side in the previous round, his side will understandably be very confident ahead of tomorrow's semi-final against Bohemians.

"I felt in the Rovers game that we deserved a win, we were somewhat fortunate that it was in the 120th minute, to everybody there it looked like it was heading to penalties and I even had my five penalty takers written out on a piece of paper but I think we just about deserved it and I don't think they would begrudge us.
 

We're looking forward to it, all the players are excited and looking forward to it as well because it's a major Cup semi-final on a great pitch. I know people have been criticising Dalymount over the last few weeks but it's still a great pitch for young players. It's a tough task, I don't think by any means we are the favourites but we'll go and give it a shot."
 

With some of their team mates already making the step up, Martin feels it gives other players in the U19 squad that extra incentive to go out and impress because they know they have a good chance at getting first team football.

"I think in general, our players have been delighted with the progress of their team mates from the U19 team, they can see that five or six of them are involved in the first team and it's a bit of an inspiration for them to keep going and to know that with Sean in charge that if they keep performance they'll get their chance."