After three months of scouring the country for talent, Paul Revington announced a number of changes to the current Irish men's senior squads.
Gareth Watkins and Peter Caruth have been added to the central panel on the basis of performances at interprovincial level and run outs against France in the recent international series.
He also added 11 names to the existing Ireland A squad which will battle for selection in a squad to play in the Celtic Cup as well as play France A in early July.
They include Leinster sextet Michael Maguire, Alan Giles, Neil Lyons, Fran Lee, Brian Doherty and Chris Pelow along with Cookstown duo Ewan Butler and Iain Hughes; Cork C of I's Andy Herbert, Reading's Chris Cargo and Loughborough's Paul Gleghorne.
The squad for the Celtic Cup may also include David Ames, Alan Sothern, Watkins and Caruth should they not be selected for the Champions Challenge II event.
The senior squad travels to Alicante, Spain, on April 12 for a seven day warm weather training camp without Timmy Cockram and Ames with Jonny Bruton and Michael Maguire stepping in.
41 comments:
Fran lee for Captain!!
whoop whoop go Cargo!!
I personaly feel that Ali Haughtons recent run of form merits a place in the Ireland A team ahead of Brian Docherty or Chris Pelow.
Or indeed Richard Shaw
i also feel ali deserves a shout, he has all the attributes needed, think hes in the top two, ok maybe three defenders in the league.
he doesn't even make the rovers team
I personally think he doesnt merit a call up.Although looking at some of the players mentioned perhaps he does?!?!?So it seems that it has been confirmed that you must be playing IHL/in the top half of the table to get a sniff?Some of the players drafted in would not have been given a second thought if they played for a Railway or a Kilkenny.Or even a Fingal or a YM for that matter.Seems unfair,but will spur teams on to finish in the top 4/5 which will only be better for hockey as a whole
he is no where near as good a defender as doherty, and doesnt dragflick, he has more to offer for the future.
interesting point about haughton not being in rovers team, was the star man in midfield on saturday when facing hobbs and jermyn - not a bad pair to outdo, young enough as well. plus most of rovers seem to be thrown in there anyway so why not!
Well done Ewan Butler and Ian hughes. Have been excellent all year for Cookstown and thoroughly deserve their call-up.
Dont think Haughton would be upto it at all. Don't think he has ever performed well at a high stage anytime I have watched him. Fair play to Lyons, Pelow, Giles and the rest for getting in. Well deserved and all have had quality seasons from what i've seen. Best of luck to them.
do u have the times and locations for the ireland A games?
tope three defenders in league?then surely he'd be in the irish senior squad let alone the A squad.Gormley,Brennan,Lewis,Harte all considerably better defenders
no Graham O'Neil??
richie shaw and peter blakeney are only two from leinster squad not in either irish panels now.
the top two or three defenders - sarcasim. lost on a blog.
The fact of the matter is that if your not playing IHL hockey there is little chance of you been called up to the international fold because in reality coaches will not have an opportunity to witness you performing at the nearest level to the international stage club hockey can offer. There is of course rare cases but these are generally guys with rare talents. A good example would be Ian Walker.
peter blakeney should be on the panel, after saturdays great preformance, deserves another chance.
haughton started both interpro games for the senior team a couple of seasons ago when neddy was coach. yet passmore never gave him any sort of chance in ireland A.
yes he did.germany last easter,haughton was there.fact.
ali played those ireland A games against germany u21 last season as well. nevermind thinking about whether he should be in there instead of other players, you also have to ask whether those players called up are actually good enough to be playing at that level.
Each of the stronger clubs in Leinster, Munster and Ulster have majorities when it comes to selection for regional squads. People may argue that selections may not be warranted but how can someone fairly judge this? The stronger teams play in the bigger matches, win the majority of their matches, win trophies and on an individual basis would regularly outperform the players they play against. A pretty good criteria for selection, no? But is definitely not a fool proof model any better suggestions?
if your trying to compare brian doherty and ali haughton, they are completely different players.doherty may well be a better defender,but he wouldnt have the ability to play in positions further up the field.doherty is very much a threat from corners, whereas haughton would be one the quickest in the league.
i wouldnt question dohertys selection, rather more cargo, gleghorne and herberts selections.
saw the match in grange road on saturday, the rovers midfield was far superior to cork ci,even with ci having jj and hobbsie.
whether revington wants to call haughton into ireland A again is his decision.he ruined his last chance by breaking his hand so im guessing if he got another shot,he wouldnt throw it away
It is actually true that players outside of AIL dont get a sniff anymore but at the end of the day, if they are not playing top matches day in day out, they are not going to be ready for the international scene. At the moment iain walker is the only player on the irish team that is not in the AIL and that is because he is a goalkeeper and gets lots of practice against the top 5. Players like fran lee and neil lyons should have been called up a long time ago and i think Revs is doing very well in the selections so far and i think he will be incuding many more over the next year! Congrats to everyone selected and good luck.
definitely agree. he has done brilliantly and is great to see him looking at a good few players who passmore overlooked.
Haughton will be involved sooner rather than later. A really excellent performance on Saturday against two of Ireland's best. I'm sure it has been duly noted. If he continues that way for the big matches left in the season he will no doubt force Revington's hand and be selected.
thats ridiculous to say that you dont stand a chance outside of the ail.... fingal have no one in any irish panel yet corinthians have pelow and doherty and YM have Walker and robinson?
Why is it that fingal consistently finish above YM but get almost nobody playing for leinster or ireland. The only ones i can think of are hughes for leinster under 21 then one ireland under 18 and one ireland under 16. Has the whole of leinster just forgotten about eamon bane?!
Graham o'neil has been staring for YM this year deserves a call up
Yes, who is he?
One of the best 16 players in the country! That's who he is!
Fingal have a very high goals against column. They have 10 more conceeded than Corinthians and 6more than YMCA although YM have another game to play. I think any decent Fingal player will be hamstrung by the perception that their pitch is not good for their hockey. Whether this is fair or not is another discussion but Eamon suffres for all these reasons.
Bottom line is, to break into the FULL irish squad you HAVE to be playing in the IHL and big Irish Senior cup matches. Players like Robinson, Pelow and Doherty won't unless they are playing at a high standard week in week out in front of the irish coaches eye! Take M. Maguire last year, he earned his irish cap on the basis of his performances in the AIL's. Fact.
Fingal have not had a good year, i'd say even they will admit that. therefore revington hasnt had a chance to see eamonn bane at this best. if they improve next year there is no reason he shudnt have a chance at getting back into leinster squad at least
Fingal may look to move to new pitch next season so could make interesting club for fringe players to move to.
its about time alan Giles got called up he has being playing class for ages now. in fact so gud he is the captain of pembroke.
Watkins is a class act just needs to get used to how ireland play
As for the Haughton/Docherty situation docherty has the upper hand in defending and set pieces!
Pelow is class at the moment the pembroke midfeild couldnt deal wit him in the mills cup final.
Alot of teams tactics against Corinthians is let pelow take the ball, get his head down and keep it down.
He has potential but needs to start moving with his eyes up.
Player who is not as as good as Pelow!!
docherty proved his worth in irish A this evening, disapointing he had no corner chances.
well done Gar and Alan....ex andrews lads!!
wen it comes to ali haughten im not so sure about his defending but recently has been playing further up the pitch in right half and has been outstanding.He is very quick and strong.Dohertys set pieces are amazing and improving all the time and is essentail to have good drag flicker.my opinion is they should both walk into the team.especially haughten
Since Turloch has positioned Ali in the mid field, he has been able to use his flair and speed. He has shown that he can compete against the quality of Hobbs, Jermyn, Magee, Butler etc. I would select him before players such as Jason Lynch...
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