Colin Healy on why Cork's best young soccer players need to move to the League of Ireland

CORK Schoolboys League secretary Eddie Doyle recently criticised Cork City and Cobh Ramblers for their recruitment of U14 players from the league.

However, Cork City manager, and former head of the club academy, Colin Healy believes it is the natural order of football for players to move on in order to develop.

“If the players are too good for that level, they have to be tested. They have to be tested at the League of Ireland level," Healy said.

"If they are too good for us; they do what Cathal Heffernan has done and go onto a different level and that's just the way it is. 

"In other sports, if they are too good they go onto international level and represent their country. Why hold them back? 

For instance, if the younger kids are playing with Ballincollig or Fermoy, and they are too good for their team, are they going to improve if you put them in with better players? 

"Then if they are too good for us, they go onto a different level. I think that is what football is about isn’t it? We all like to see players go on and play for Ireland. They have to be tested. 

"I was criticised for bringing Cathal and others in for the U15s. 

"I took them out of the Kennedy Cup and I was criticised for that but it was my decision and I felt that they had to be playing with the best players. 

"And they have gone on, and Cathal has gone on to captain Ireland. If they are with their own teams they are probably training once a week. 

"Here, they are training four times a week, getting strength and conditioning programmes and they are playing against the best. 

"They are playing against Rovers, Pat's. If you have a kid and he is too good, what do you do? 

"Do you keep him training one night a week or does he go four nights a week and he progresses?"

Healy experienced himself as a teen.

“I was at Ballincollig at U17s and then I went to Wilton and we had the likes of Neil Horgan, Alan Carey, Stephen Daly. I went to a better team and then I got a move to Celtic from playing with them.

“That’s just the way it works. If the kids are too good at that level, put them into a higher standard and see what they are like. 

"If they are too good for that level, they will go again and who’s to say when they are 20,21 they won’t be putting on the green jersey and then everyone will be delighted. 

"Then we go back and everyone will say he played with Ballincollig or Fermoy.”