Irish starlets living the dream in Paradise

Just days after Bruce Springsteen was dancing in the Páirc, two of Ireland’s most talented young exports were back in their hometown.

Eoghan O’Connell and Fiachre Kelleher are living the dream. They’re both defenders, they’re both 17, they’re both from Cork city (O’Connell from Ballinlough, Kelleher from Blackrock) and they’re both learning their trade at Scottish giants Celtic.

On Sunday, both featured in a Celtic XI’s 2-0 friendly win over Cork City at Turner’s Cross, with O’Connell playing 90 minutes at right-back and Kelleher coming on as a late substitute

“It’s a bit surreal,” Kelleher, admits of playing with such a famous club. “You don’t really understand how big it is only you sit down and people start talking to you about it. Once it hits you then, you realise it’s quite big. I got scouted while I was playing for Ireland. They saw me playing so they gave me a call the next day to come over and trial for them. I went over three or four times before they offered me a contract.”

O’Connell — who like Kelleher was speaking at Fota Resort, where Celtic were based ahead of the Cork City game — recalls a similar experience.

“They scouted me playing for Cork in a game so I went over there in Easter for a week. I heard nothing back but then in the summer I went to play for the home-based Ireland team against Celtic, I played against them in one of the games. I got a phone call when I came home and they said, ‘We want you to come over’. I just had to drop everything. I went over on a three-month trial basis until Christmas and after Christmas they offered me a contract. It all happened kind of quickly.”

Both are enjoying life in Scotland and O’Connell has relished the opportunity to work with All-Ireland winning Donegal football coach and Celtic performance consultant Jim McGuinness.

“He does one-to-one meetings with us,” O’Connell explains. “His attention to detail is brilliant. You can see why Donegal are so successful with him in the job.

“He goes on about focus, you see from Donegal, they work very hard and he kind of works on the basis of that off the field, how important it is to prepare and make sure you’re fully focused on what you need to do. You’re single-minded on things. You need to look forward to things properly and think about what you’re going to do.

“He comes and watches training but he doesn’t really get involved with coaching. His stuff is off-the-field based, meetings and things like that. He’s busy with Donegal so I haven’t seen him for a while but he’s usually there two or three times a week.”

Manager Neil Lennon says little but is a visible presence around the youth teams.

“You’d see him at the big games. He’d just be there, he doesn’t really chat to us,” Kelleher says.

O’Connell adds: “He’d see us around training and stuff like that and he’d usually come to the games or maybe the assistant manager would so there’s always someone there.

“Even if he’s not there you feel like you’re being watched because the word will go back to him.”