Another week, another cracking strike from Jack Byrne. Cambuur may have been officially relegated with the defeat to PSV yesterday but, as has been the case for much of the season, Byrne still managed to come away with his ever growing reputation increased.
The main problem with that is that every time we laud Byrne's potential, it's inevitable that thoughts turn to the players alongside Byrne that can take up the mantle from the likes of Wes Hoolahan and Jon Walters. Euro 2016 is going to be a natural slowing down point for quite of few of Ireland's heavily relied upon attackers and looking to the next World Cup, you'd be forgiven for being a bit worried about our options coming through at the top end of the pitch.
However, as we've said before, Ireland has never relied upon vast swathes of players coming through in each age group. A steady trickle of players making it through to the top level has been enough to replenish stocks and there's no reason to be overly worried about those stocks drying up any time soon. Take for example the emergence of 17 year old Josh Barrett at Reading.
Having made his first team debut back in March, the Ireland u-17 international was introduced as a half time substitute during the 2-1 defeat at home to Preston on Saturday. Reading's season has long ceased to have any real meaning with relegation avoided and promotion unattainable and Saturday's performance was another indication of that but if there was a positive for Brian McDermott to take away, it was the showing of Barrett.
I thought he acquitted himself really well and created some good moments for us. That was a positive. He’s only 17, he’s been training with us and I thought he took to it straight away, he thrived in the environment.
He got on the ball, was brave and made things happen. We’ll work with him, we’ll nurture him and I’m sure he’ll be a good player for us for years to come.
McDermott was understandably keen to shield Barrett from any undue pressure but, writing for GetReading, Royals fan James Cox was even more glowing in his praise of the youngster.
Josh Barrett replaced George Evans at the start of the second half and the 17-year-old was the spark that Reading had been missing. If he continues based on what we saw of him on Saturday, we should be very excited.
The accuracy and range of passing was phenomenal, picking out players all over the pitch. Especially going forward where he played in Rakels a couple of times creating great chances. Very impressive indeed.
We certainly won't be getting carried away but there's certainly a tried and tested route to the Reading first team open to Barrett and alongside Byrne, there's every reason to believe that Ireland's attacking future is not quite as worrying as we might choose to believe every now and again.
