Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Maguire to play with Leuven

Phelie Maguire will clock up a fifth club in four different countries next season as he agreed a two-year deal yesterday to play with Belgian runners-up and EHL semi-finalists KHC Leuven.


Maguire has previously had stints in Australia with Fremantle and in Holland with HGC as well as playing senior hockey for both Three Rock Rovers and Dublin University.

He impressed Leuven coach Norbert Nederlof during the first group stage of the 2008/09 EHL when the Dutchman - who has conducted numerous coaching seminars in Ireland - saw Maguire up close during Rovers' famous 1-1 draw with Leuven.

The Irish international midfielder has been living and working Belgium for the majority of this season in Brussels before taking part in a volunteer programme in Palestine.

He becomes the first Three Rock player to confirm a move to a European club though Mitch Darling is currently in talks with a couple of Dutch and Belgian clubs with a view to a move to the continent in the coming year.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

TRR possibly without Phelie & Mitch next season...few points dropped already methinks!!!

Queso said...

Looking on the bright-side, it's a great opportunity for any new adn upcoming players to stake a claim in the 1st Squad.

Anonymous said...

Best player in Ireland is leaving...
too bad.

Anonymous said...

neither had a huge impact on TRR's campaign in the season just passed,Phelie was away for most of the games and Mitch missed a few and had a poor season by his standards when he did play,be interesting to see if the new coach brings in anymore mew faces to replace them or as Queso says will any upcoming players stake a claim now?Best of luck to the two lads,Phelie in Belgium and Mitch erever he decides to go.

Queso said...

In fairness, I think they both definitely had some impact when available, hard for two internationals not to.
Afterall Mitch was still one of the top goalscorers on the team for the entire season!!

But, yeah, could have been greater if available for more matches... c'est la vie!!

Anonymous said...

think thats a bit unfair saying neither made a big impact. phelie was class at ehl round1, they missed him in round 2. mitch was good in the second half of the season. both will be missed in the squad but maybe with these slots available now, players from other clubs might be interested.

Anonymous said...

I said neither had a HUGE impact,they both made impacts and i was merely saying that young mitch has set himself a high standard and in my view he didn't quite live up to it this season

Anonymous said...

Its a shame for the leinster league in general as some of our top talents are moving out of the league. Think this may happen to a lot of clubs in the future.
On the flip side of players leaving, its great to see that Irish players are showing that they are good enough to play in the top leagues around the world. Which can only benefit our national team and in years to come these players will bring back the knowledge learned to teach the next generation of young talent.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Lets hope they get welcomed with open arms wherever they go by clubs and the leagues as they are bound to improve whichever club or league they join. Good luck to them.