The U-19 season kicked off with a win back on 30th August in our â€œDerby game” in Drom against city rivals Salthill Devon and is now just past the halfway mark following our dramatic cup win in Charleville against Limerick. Both were positive results, with a fair mix in between !

Competing in what would be fair to say is the more competitive – Southern Elite Division, with the all-conquering Cork City, Shamrock Rovers, Waterford, Limerick, UCD etc. A young Mervue side have been competitive in most games so far and have been on a steep learning curve throughout. We have a squad littered with talent and includes five U17's, six U18's and eleven U19's.

Starting with an away victory against local rivals Devon in Drom by a 2-1 scorline, with goals from two U-17's in Yoyo Mahedy & Ryan Forde for a perfect start. However, this was followed by reversals against Cobh, Waterford, Limerick, UCD & Cork. Most of these defeats were down to basic errors at crucial times by our young squad & has been part of the learning curve at this level. While you may get away with these at schoolboy & regional level – you will always be punished at this level.

We headed into November with just 3 points on the board and were detached at the bottom of the table. However, Training was always positive and everyone was working very hard. Our first game in November was away to Athlone and having led 3-1 midway through the second half, some astonishing decisions against us led to a sickening 4-3 defeat. 

This was quickly followed by a 0-0 draw with Bray, a 3-1 victory to Wexford, a shocking 4-0 defeat to Shamrock Rovers and a brilliant 4-3 victory at home to Salthill to do the “double” against or near neighbours and rivals for the first time in 7 years at this level.

This now lifted us above Devon in the league table and even at this stage – just six points of the “playoff” positions for the end of season.

With a lot of key/experienced players missing most of the season through prolonged injuries, including Paul Healy, Andrew Connolly & Joe Hynes & Skipper Gary Baily missing a lot of games due to work commintments, the younger lads have been getting a lot of game time and have been improving steadily.

This culminated with last weekend’s cup game away to Limerick in which we travelled with just 14 fit/available players & no goalkeeper due to exams!

But resulted in a terrific 1-1 draw which led to a 4-3 victory on penalties in which keeper for the day & just back from injury Andrew Connolly, put in a MOTM performance throughout and in the penalty shoot-out, saved two and scored the winning goal.

 In this period we are one of the league’s top scorers, but obviously are the side that have conceded most. Top scorer Yoyo Mahedy has contributed 9 of these goals and is second in the scoring charts in the lge. But wouldn’t be scoring these without the “assists” of Peter Walsh, Ryan Forde, Alan Murphy, Brian O’Connor amongst others.

U19 Squad:  Peter Healy, Eoin Curry, Moise Assogba, Ben Adeyemo, Chris Carroll, Maurice Nugent, Eoghan Kelly, Darren Murray, Alan Murphy, Brian O’Connor, Peter Walsh, Yoyo Mahedy, Ryan Forde, Gary Baily, Tony McHugh, Oskar Nowak, Joe Hynes, Paul Healy, Andrew Connolly, Mikey Fox, Robert Spelman & Aidan Coyle