Stephen Kenny has become the latest FAI manager to express the opinion that a friendly cap should resolve the issue of a player's international future but the Dubliner believes the association's policy with regard to British-born prospects has essentially been correct despite Declan Rice's decision to declare for England.
“I think it is,” he said at an event in Dublin to mark the launch of Local Enterprise Week.
“You’ve seen that with James McCarthy and Aiden McGeady for example. What we’ve got to have is good structure between under-15, under-16, under-17, under-18, under-19 and first-team manager so they know who the best players are, their character and everything early and if they’re good enough to play them in the first team.
“Ultimately, if someone doesn’t want to play for you they’ll decide that anyway but I think once you play for a senior international team there definitely shouldn’t be that option [to switch allegiance], no matter what the country and I probably wouldn’t be in favour of the residency rule being expanded in football.
“The five-year residency rule. My preference, my personal preference, would be that someone couldn’t live here for four or five years and play for us. That’s not the true essence of international football, in my opinion.”
All my players should be 1998 or 1999 but we don't have any in England. But we have eight centre halves
Kenny, who was heading to London on Monday afternoon to watch another London-born West Ham midfielder, Conor Coventry, in action for the club's under-23s, is due to name his first full squad next week and says he is happy with the progress he has made in terms of assessing the talent available to him ahead of this month's opening European Championship qualifier against Luxembourg.
One of his earliest realisations, however, has been that there are no Irish attacking players in the actual under-21 age group to watch in Britain right now.
Eight centre-halves
"It's interesting statistically," he says. "In the years 1998 or 1999 we have no centre forwards or wingers in England. Not none that are good. We actually have none. They've all come back. Aaron Drinan was in Ipswich but he's gone back to Waterford. He was the last one.
“All my players should be 1998 or 1999 but we don’t have any in England. But we have eight centre halves. We have a really good younger group, an interesting group of about six good young attacking players who are between 2000 and 2002 but a few of them are injured for this game.
"Some of the players that would definitely have started, like Michael Obafemi who would have played, he's injured. Aaron Connolly who is the top scorer in the U-23 Premier League is out until the end of March. Troy Parrott is very doubtful with a toe procedure, Troy would definitely come into the team but he's doubtful at the moment."
Beyond the solitary qualifier to be played this side of the summer, Kenny is awaiting further detail of the Toulon tournament in June but accepts that the timing might pose issues for a couple of managers in the league here with the squad likely to be in France for two weeks just before the break in the season.
“Obviously it’s a while away and we are not sure what players we are talking about yet,” he said. “So there is no point in me dealing with managers or players yet because we are not sure who is going to push themselves to the fore. We will probably have a better indication after the next camp.”
