‘There’s quality in the system’
OVERLOOKING THE improvement of the 80 children on the ground in the Sheffield Wednesday Development Centre are coaches ‘Tucker’ O’Brien and Jimmy O’Neill.
Both men are well known locally, O’Brien as a respected soccer coach, O’Neill as a prominent referee, as well as a notable influence in athletic circles.
Both men have been putting in hours of work, hoping that their efforts will eventually be rewarded with a signing to the Sheffield Wednesday Academy. O’Brien was delighted with the recent invitation extended to four of their charges to train cross-channel for a few days.
‘To be honest, Shane O’Neill has improved immensely,’ O’Brien said. ‘Liam Doyle, there’s one or two people looking at him, Stuart Hession did very well over there, his technical aspect was very good. They were very impressed with Leigh (Whelan).
‘The four boys are good players and their attitude is good, they want to play and they want to learn, that’s the most important thing. All the lads are all great kids.
‘There is talent, there are a couple of lads supposed to go over but because they were a bit younger they didn’t go. They are looking at four or five other players but we have to keep on developing them, that’s the most important thing.’
As well as being a great boost for the boys that went over to Sheffield, it also gave the other lads something to aim for. That, O’Brien believes, is vital to show that progress is being made.
‘It is a carrot because the young lads are looking up and saying “this is working, this development centre has sent over four of the older lads in the squad so I’d like to do that next year or the year after when I’m 13/14. I’d like to go over, I’m going to try make it so I can go over and train with their academy team”. It’s a progression, the kids know it’s a progression.’
The difficulty for the development centre is trying to keep up. In the Wednesday Academy the players are getting as much as 16 hours of quality training a week. Here, the players are being dragged between clubs and academies and are not getting the same hours.
O’Brien hopes to see a time when the centre doesn’t have to rent the facilities of others, as that should help improve the amount of quality coaching hours the players get. ‘We are looking for our own facility, we need more coaching hours. If we set up our own place, it can only get better and better,’ he said.
Now that the centre has continued its growth, what’s next? What is a reasonable expectation for players hoping to be spotted by the Championship side and possibly picked up for their Academy?
‘I expect Sheffield Wednesday to sign one or two of our players out of the system,’ O’Brien said. ‘I’m not saying they will sign ten or eleven players, they might sign no players but I’d expect them to sign one or two, there’s quality in the system.’