Under 17s to finally make their league bow

SSE AIRTRICITY U-17 LEAGUE Kerry v UCD Sunday March 25 Mounthawk Park, 2pm

BECAUSE of a bad weather forecast for the East coast for Sunday the game between Kerry and Cabinteely scheduled for Dublin for last Sunday was postponed on Saturday.

I think the Kerry management team were not too displeased that it didn’t go ahead as now Kerry will be playing their first game of the season at Mounthawk Park next Sunday against UCD.

Ths is a great opportunity to make home venue count and they will be going into the game with a lot of confidence. Most of the points they accumulated last season was at home games so they will be striving to keep this trend going for the new season.

Of course, they face a very difficult assignment against this strong Dublin side who have a huge pool of players to choose from. However the Kerry captain James Rusk says they will be trying to get as many points as they can in their home games.

There should be a big crowd at the game on Sunday and that will be a huge boost for the players. While Kerry have a few players from last year’s squad it will be a voyage into uncharted waters for most of the squad and only time will tell just how good they are.

All the players have been closely vetted through the underage ranks and the management team have chosen these 20 players from a group of 60 when the selection process began.

Of course the team is lacking in match experience and the only game they have had to date was a game against the Kerry under 15 team. They have been coached very well over the past month and by now the manager practically knows his starting line up for Sunday.

SQUAD: Leon Shalemba, James Rusk, Sebastian Vasiu, Padraig McCannon, Jr Tshikato, Jordan Barry, John Carmody, David Oba (all The Park); Patrick Dowling, Junior Ankomah, David Rogers, Nathan Gleeson (all Tralee Dynamos); Liam Collins, Shane O’Connell, Dylan Quirke (Abbeyfeale United), Owen Benson (Killarney Athletic), Dylan Murphy (Mastergeeha), Alex O’Connor (Killorglin), (Bojan Nikic (Inter Kenmare)

John Martin Horgan, Asdee and Cathal Moriarty, Castlemaine Utd in action during the game played at Mounthawk Park Tralee last weekend Photo by Domnick Walsh / Eye Focus