Former stars offer help to U-20 team

P.J. BANVILLE may have announced his retirement from inter-county football, but he has wasted no time in giving something back to the cause. General delight was expressed last week when it emerged that the Horeswood clubman has been ratified as a Wexford Under-20 football selector, and he will be joined on the backroom team by one of his former playing colleagues with the county, Eric Bradley of Adamstown.

The team manager will be another Adamstown clubman, Brendan Kehoe, a schoolteacher in St. Mary’s C.B.S. (Enniscorthy) who trained Ballyhogue this year, having represented Wexford himself at under-age level.

The fourth mentor is Kevin O’Reilly, a native of Mayo who is working in the motoring industry in Wexford.

This new-look competition, which will replace Under-21, has been divided into three groups, with Wexford guaranteed three games against Dublin, Longford and Westmeath respectively.

Those matches are due to take place on Monday, May 28, Monday, June 4, and Saturday, June 16, and will be followed by quarter-finals on Friday and Saturday. June 22 and 23.

Players who are part of county Senior squads will not be entitled to line out at this developmental level, although it is understood that some counties will be challening that ruling at Congress.

While the big guns like Dublin would have few, if any, Under-20 players on their Senior side, those in the lower divisions of the National League would be in a different boat.

In the interests of equality and balancing the teams, hopefully the rule will be relaxed and counties of Wexford’s standing will be allowed to field any Under-20 player regardless or not of Senior involvement.