O'Reilly sees more new additions to Mayo senior squad this year
By Stuart Tynan
MAYO GAA coaching officer Declan O'Reilly has earmarked the likes of Enda Hession, Eoin McHale and Jack Carney as the next players to make the step towards senior level.
Mayo's run to last year's Connaught title and All-Ireland final appearance was enhanced by the introduction of several new faces to the team, including Tommy Conroy, Eoghan McLaughlin, Ryan O'Donoghue, Rory Brickenden, Jordan Flynn and Young Footballer of the Year Oisin Mullin.
Many of those had played in the Under 20 squad earlier that year and O'Reilly has said it's a tribute to the work going on at Under 20 and Under 17 level with these players – and he expects a few more to progress to the senior panel this year.
"If you look at last year, six players from our Under 20 squad were making the match day panel last year with the senior squad. That’s huge," said O'Reilly. "That, for me, endorses the programmes of athletic development for Under 17 and the Under 20 squads.
"For players like Oisin Mullin, Mark Moran or Rory Brickenden, to come on and not feel out of place physically is hugely important and accelerated their development with the programmes they were on.
"If you look at last year against Galway (Under 20 Connaught semi-final), in the storm in February, that Galway team went on to win the All-Ireland. The weren’t far away at all from that Galway team. For me, those players that I mentioned and the likes of Enda Hession (Garrymore), Eoin McHale (Belmullet) and Jack Carney (Kilmeena), they all have been added on to the extended panel. Very, very good young footballers, and they will play a pivotal role in Maurice Sheridan’s Under 20 team and we’ll see where we go from there.
"But in Mayo, we have new players coming through all the time. You talk to whoever is here next year and you’ll get the same answer, just different names. We’ll always have people coming through.
"What we need to make sure and one of my big roles in that is the conveyor belt is working well all the time. There are a lot of moving parts in that: academies, clubs, schools, getting all the participation right, but more importantly coaching them properly, building the foundation of skills, then athletic development, nutrition, performance analysis and those things you need to develop a footballer," concluded O'Reilly.