St Patrick’s Athletic had four teenagers on the Lansdowne pitch at full-time. They won the FAI Cup with kids.
Remember the names that make up Jon Daly’s young team. Sam Curtis is not long for the domestic game. Turning 18 in December, the right back consistently displays all the characteristics of a future Irish international.
In the biggest game of his life, Curtis was unlucky not to be awarded man of the match. Jamie Lennon, all 25 years of him, took the honour back to Inchicore.
Conor Carty, Kian Levy and Curtis are due to play for Jim Crawford’s Republic of Ireland under-21s against Norway next Friday. Midfielder Adam Murphy and Mason Melia are part of Tom Mohan’s under-19s squad.
Tommy Lonergan (19) came off the bench, before a record crowd of 43,881, to hammer the last nail in Bohemians’ European aspirations with as neat a finish as any veteran could muster.
Curtis and Melia already look destined for senior caps with the others firmly in the conversation after this 3-1 victory.
“I hope so,” said Daly. “Sam is exceptional, Kian Leavy was outstanding. I don’t want to start naming every name. They’ve all added something. They’re all at different stages of their career. I like to think down the line one or two would get the opportunity to play for the national team.”
For now, they move into promising futures with a cup medal in the back pocket. Daly put victory down to set-piece proficiency after Jake Mulraney curved two free-kicks into areas where the Bohs defence was unable to cope. Mark Doyle headed the first opportunity past James Talbot before Krystian Nowak folded under pressure from St Pat’s colossal skipper Joe Redmond to nudge the second into his own goal.
“To say we’re hugely disappointed is an understatement,” said Bohs manager Declan Devine. “I thought we came in with a real opportunity but that opportunity goes. We didn’t work hard enough in the first half, especially when we took the lead [through Jonathan Afolabi].
“Joe Redmond and [David] Norman just dictated the game, they played it at their tempo after we scored.
“The set pieces, it’s just not acceptable, you can’t win anything if you don’t defend set pieces properly and, let’s be honest about it, that’s been our Achilles’ heel all season.
“It’s going to hit hard, it doesn’t go away, it will never go away” added Devine. “Bring Bohs to a cup final in my first year, my family and everybody here, it means so much to so many people, and the bottom line the buck sits with me, that’s the nature of the job. I’ll dust myself down over the coming days but the pain will probably never go away.”
This cup final was the season in microcosm for both these sides. Bohs started like a train before limping to the finish line, with a sixth-place finish in the league and runners-up medal to show for their honest endeavour.
St Pat’s stalled out of the blocks until Daly’s calm demeanour was reflected by his players. Year one as a manager, the 40-year-old cleverly outmanoeuvred his more experienced counterpart.
“We are the best in the league at them [set pieces], that’s a fact,” he said. “We do a lot of work on them. It’s credit to [assistant coach] Seán O’Connor as well. Seán had two set plays he wanted to try, one was from the Korean third division and one was from Bolivia, or somewhere like that. We don’t just look local for them, we look worldwide, to try and find things.”
Daly now has the silverware to preach these words as gospel. St Pat’s returned to Inchicore on Sunday night with their fifth FAI Cup since 1959, a second in three seasons, and a talented young gang that is the envy of every other club.
“We have gained the most points, we’ve scored the most and defensively we have been the best. I’ll give myself a pat on the back as I have done the defensive ones. It’s a massive part of the game, and we’ll continue to work on them. If you are good at set plays, you give yourself the best chance of winning games of football regardless of if you play well or not.”
Curtis got the manager’s highest praise.
“If Sam makes a mistake, he very rarely makes the same mistake again, he learns from it. He’s the best I’ve ever seen in terms of taking on information and applying information. He’s done exceptionally well, it’s been a good experience for him playing first-team football and hopefully the other young lads can follow in his footsteps and get experience under their belt.”
Keeping them is the next problem.
