Farren Away: Under 17s Special

All images courtesy of Rav Kaptures: Sports & Creative Photography. Top image: Ben Fahey races through the Limerick defence.

 

It’s semi-final time for the Waterford FC Under 17s as they host UCD at SETU Arena on Sunday. They have a great chance to reach the final of the Mark Farren Cup which Waterford previously won in 2017. The players and coaches have put in tremendous effort to reach this stage and the level of commitment involved is staggering. I chatted with team manager Derek Hearne and captain Gavin Mitchell about the season so far and the importance of tomorrow’s game to them.

Derek, or ‘Scrubber’ as all of Waterford knows him, told me how they reached this stage, first of all. “We got a bye in the first round, but then got an away draw against Treaty United, who pipped us to the elite phase. We took an early lead (through Peter Byrne), but conceded a sloppy goal before making it 2-1 at half time (Conor Dempsey scoring). Second half, we pushed on and came out 4-1 winners (thanks to two goals from Orion Cala).” The quarter-final was away again in St Colman’s Park against Cobh Ramblers and another goal from Cala saw the Blues through an intense ninety minutes. “This was a proper cup-tie,” says Hearne, who won the FAI Junior Cup as a goalkeeper with Waterford Crystal in 2006. “There were yellows, reds, full-blooded tackles and, overall, we deserved to come away as 1-0 winners.”

Waterford were invited to take part in a new all-island tournament this year that began in the FAI’s Abbotstown headquarters last weekend. “We were all excited to be invited up to it,” Hearne admits. “It’s against teams we’d never play, so it was into the unknown. We played three forty-minute games and we were excellent throughout.” They started with a 0-0 draw against Larne where “a few missed chances should’ve had us coming out as easy winners, but not to be.” They won the second game 3-0 against Cliftonville and “the third game was probably our toughest - against Linfield - but a penalty from Gavin Mitchell had us 1-0 winners.” Speaking of the skipper, Mitchell tells me, “Abbotstown was great on Sunday and great to see our level compared to the northern lads. Getting the winning goal was good, especially coming into this week. It’ll give me more confidence personally.”

 

Coaches Rob Clifford, Seb Fialkewicz and Derek Hearne.

 

The commitment that goes into running an academy team is extraordinary and entry into the all-island tournament, which will continue at the end of this month, means the schedule is particularly hectic at the moment, as Derek explains. “We travelled to Dublin at 8am last Sunday and got home at around 8 that evening. We (Hearne and coaches Seb Fialkewicz and Rob Clifford) re-watched the tournament games on Monday and confirmed the session plan for Tuesday’s training. We watch and clip footage of Rovers to show players their strengths and weaknesses. Then we trained Tuesday on our Topic & Analysis of Rovers.”

Derek then uploaded that game to the Veo system and the coaches rewatched the game on Friday and extracted clips to show the players. They also watched videos of UCD in action and made clips to show the players and made the session plan for Saturday’s training. “Then on Saturday, players arrive at 10am for analysis and a light training session to work on things for the cup game. After the cup game, we’ll repeat and look ahead to CK United at home next Thursday. So, it’s hours of re-watching games, clipping it, doing up training blocks and applying the session then.” It’s very much a team effort between Derek, Seb and Rob, and Scrubber is keen to acknowledge the academy structure as a whole. “I’d like to thank Mike and Seán for trusting me with the manager’s position at the start of the season and I was really excited to get started when I was given the 17s.”

The Blues are in great form now with seven wins and two draws from their last nine games. “The team has developed hugely over the season. The players were gutted to just miss out on the elite phase, just drew too many games from winning positions, but as coaches, we knew we weren’t too far away - just small margins.” Hearne recognises that the players would love to win in front of a big crowd tomorrow and says “fans will see what’s coming through the academy and players that hopefully start breaking into 20s squads and first team squads, the likes of Bobby (Keohan) and Orion and more.”

 

Dan Ponce De Leon in command

 

His captain, who represented Ireland at Under 15s playing alongside Michael Noonan, Jaden Umeh and other hot prospects, backs up that assertion. “I hope there’s loads of fans there. I feel the lads deserve that and it would mean a lot to us knowing everyone is behind us,” the St Paul’s secondary school student says. “We’ll feel some nerves in the first few minutes, but once we get that ball moving, that first header is won, that first tackle is won, we’ll be grand and buzzing to show how good we are.”

Asked what makes him a good leader, Gavin says it’s because “I’ve always been a Waterford fan, even before playing for them, so when we lose, it hurts that little bit more and then I have that drive to help the team and put things right. I’ll always look out for the lads, especially when younger lads are coming to train and play with us. But in modern football, it’s eleven captains on the pitch and one is just lucky enough to wear an armband. I’ve been lucky to wear it for my county at schoolboy level and now, wearing it for Waterford FC, it’s a huge privilege knowing our coaches have that trust in me and also knowing that Mike, the head of academy, backs that decision as he was the one who made me captain in my first season with the Blues.”

 

Captain Gavin Mitchell is a deadball expert

 

The focus now is fully on UCD in the semi-final, which kicks off at 2pm in the Carriganore venue. Derek sees it as a benchmark given that, “we played UCD in preseason, which was my very first game as a League of Ireland academy manager. They beat us so I’m looking forward to seeing how far we’ve come since then.”

Gavin, currently in his fourth season with the Blues since joining from Waterford Crystal, has the hunger you’d want to see from any aspiring young player. “Winning on Sunday would genuinely mean so much,” he says. “I remember being part of the Under-17 team who got to the semi-final two years ago and we fell short at the very last hurdle, conceding in the last minute of extra-time and then losing out on penalties. The boys were broken and, even only being a small part of that game, I was hurt as well. Now, I’ve the chance to put it right with a great group of lads on Sunday.” 

The Under 17s squad is as follows, and will also include a number of Under 15s too: Igor Bacela, Jayden Maher, Conor Dempsey, Adam Dobbyn, Aston King Hennessy, Benny Martin, Gavin Mitchell, Kelan O’Sullivan, Dan Ponce De Leon, Ryan Butler, Peter Byrne, Mason Murphy, Julian Power, Jay Brophy, Orion Cala, Daire Cummins, Ben Fahey, Harry Farrell, Bobby Keohan, Callum Slattery.