Shamrock Rovers has announced a new club alliance with one of Dublin’s biggest schoolboy clubs, St. Joseph’s AFC, based in Sallynoggin.
Joey’s had previously partnered with Bray Wanderers to counter the move of fellow powerhouse local youth club Cabinteely, who created a League of Ireland Team to provide a full pathway.
When Bray and Cabinteely joined forces, though, Joey’s was left outside the LOI juvenile structures. This new alliance will go some way towards fixing that, though it will still mean providing players with the Rovers pathway to play at the highest level of underage football in Ireland.
“The aim of the alliance is to develop and enable a player pathway between both great clubs,” said Rovers Director of Academy Coaching, Aidan Price.
“We have players in our academy and men’s first team who have experienced playing for both clubs, such as Dylan Watts (1st team) and Kian Dignam (U20’s National League group), as well as Archie Quinn and Maxim Afonin, who are part of our U14 NL team.”
“We have also seen the benefit for players who have moved to St. Joseph’s after some time in our Academy, none more so than Warren Davis, who is now playing regularly in the National League.”
“We are looking forward to creating an environment for both clubs to gain experience and share ideas across many areas of the academy.”
“The arrangement will provide an opportunity for St. Joseph’s players to access League of Ireland football through the Shamrock Rovers’ player pathway,” added St Joseph’s Chair Ollie Crilly.
“While this agreement is non-exclusive it does facilitate early engagement, in a structured way, with emerging underage talent at our Club.”
“Players from St Joseph’s, Sallynoggin have made the move into the League of Ireland through Shamrock Rovers going right back to Alan Campbell in 1978 and many former schoolboy players wearing the famous green and white hoops in more recent times like Matt Britton, Aaron Bolger, Dylan Watts, Darragh Nugent and Neil Farrugia to name a few.”
“We look forward to making the alliance a success for both clubs.”
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