It was the St Patrick’s Athletic under-14 coaches Phil Power and Mark Connolly who found him. “Mark rang me one Sunday morning, six years ago now,” says Power. “He was up watching a match in St Francis against Joeys.”
Connolly had never seen a better player at the under-11 grade. “His name is Mason.”
After getting permission from St Joseph’s AFC to approach the parents, a move to St Pat’s under-13s was rebuffed as Martin Melia remained loyal to the Joeys coaches who were moving with his son to Bray Wanderers the next season.
“That year, we played Bray three times and Phelim, a boy in our academy, marked Mason out of it,” Power recalls. “But you could see talent and because we kept the lines of communication open, his dad rang us a year later and he came in at 15s.”
Melia’s performances against Başakşehir Istanbul in the Uefa Conference League last year, when still only 16, helped to copperfasten the €1.9 million sale to Tottenham Hotspur in February.
“I’m biased,” Power admits, “but I’d like to think we’ve a few more coming.”
To date, 261 players have come through the St Patrick’s Athletic academy with 114 capped for Ireland at age grade and 84 going on to play first-team football, 28 of them for St Pat’s.
“I remember one of Mason’s first games, against Shamrock Rovers in Tallaght, when I thought: this is a big jump for him. He literally went from 15s to 17s to 19s to the first team in the space of 18 months.”
Melia’s age didn’t spare him, as defenders went through the back of him early and often.
“And he just jumped up and didn’t mouth off. Unbelievable talent, with an unbelievable attitude.”
Ger O’Brien runs the show at St Patrick’s Athletic. Having started and finished a 15-season playing career at Richmond Park, O’Brien became the club’s sporting director in January 2024 after eight years overseeing the academy.
“The evidence is there – if players come to St Pat’s they will get opportunities,” says O’Brien. ”The evidence is also there that we can produce internationals and if someone is outgrowing us, the club is not going to stand in their way.”
Anthony Delaney became the club’s financial controller in 2009, before being promoted to general manager in 2011. Club owner Garrett Kelleher credits Delaney for negotiating the finer details of Melia’s move to Tottenham. The player will make the move next January, after he turns 18.
The agreed contractual add-ons ensure that St Pat’s will more than double the initial fee if Melia’s career develops as expected.
It’s great to have a Mason. You don’t need data. Your eyes won’t lie to you for a player like him
— Phil Power
“Mason’s transfer fee has sent ripples around the football world and Ireland is being taken a bit more serious,” says Delaney. “I think it’s an important story to get out there for the credibility of all the academies.”
The 24 academies in Ireland are about to be stress-tested by an FAI, Government-funded audit that is supposed to lead to state-funding, with an ask of between €20 million and €80 million over 11 years. According to FAI chief executive David Courell, the Department of Sport is “nervous” about investing in “private enterprises” like St Pat’s and other League of Ireland clubs.
On the flip side, St Pat’s see the folly of waiting for state money or FAI oversight of their constantly evolving production line of talent. “This is a business,” says O’Brien. “The academy operates on a meritocracy – the aim is to produce players for our first team or to be sold for their true value.”
James Abankwah, who the club sold to Udinese in 2022, recently signed a contract extension with the Italians until 2029 before earning a senior Ireland call-up following strong performances on loan to Watford.
It was a delicate process to convince Abankwah and his father Isaac, a reverend minister in the Pentecostal Church, to sign for St Pat’s at 17 in July 2021.
“Aberdeen had come in, offering the change you’d have in the ashtray of the car,” says Delaney. “We had a bit of convincing to do, that it was the wrong move for him: ‘You are better than that, they will take you over and spit you out. You need to trust Ger’s vision.’”
O’Brien adds: “We offered James a professional contract [to turn Aberdeen down]. I remember going to the house to chat to his dad for two hours in the garden.”
Competition for “high potential” talent is fierce. St Pat’s developed another hot prospect, Michael Noonan, until the 16-year-old signed professional terms with Shamrock Rovers in January.
‘Your decisions need to be made by metrics’
Phil Power is the club’s secret weapon. He treble-jobs as under-14 coach, the academy’s head of data and works in procurement for Eir. Power created an app that saves “€20-30,000”, according to O’Brien. The app creates a depth chart of every teenager on the club’s radar and in the academy, split into three scoring categories: technical, tactical and mental.
“Ger brought me in seven years ago,” says Power. “I’ve a data background from my own job and I was saying to him the whole time, ‘your decisions need to be made by metrics’.
“It’s great to have a Mason. You don’t need data. Your eyes won’t lie to you for a player like him. The data is for the players who are not quite at that level yet.
“Like Kian Quigley, who signed his contract last week. Kian has never missed a match in four years in the academy. He is so robust and an eight-out-of-ten every week. I say he’s our next Jamie Lennon (St Pat’s first-team player). He might outgrow Pat’s but he’s the same style as Jamie, same build.”
The players are encouraged to self-assess performances in the notes on the app after every game. “The way our scoring system works, it’s your technical score plus your tactical score multiplied by your mental score.”
So, mentality above all else? “We want leaders - characters who drive the team on when they go behind. If you sulk or throw your hands up, you’re scored down.
“The boy Kiano, I think he’ll have a great career, whether that is in football or through school because he has a winner’s mentality in everything he does.”
Tuesday, April 15th – TU Dublin Campus, Blanchardstown
4.15pm: O’Brien and Delaney provide a tour of the Blanchardstown facility that the St Pat’s academy share with Dublin GAA. Pat Jennings Jr, the club’s goalkeeping coach, is already on the astro surface working with the young goalkeepers.
Behind the 4G pitch is a wasteland, owned by the IDA, that the club hope to transform into pitches (once they secure the site, bury the electricity cables and level the terrain). Stephen Kenny’s first team train across the road in Abbotstown, at the national sports campus, and the women’s squad use the facilities of partner club Cherry Orchard in Ballyfermot.
The under-15s arrive in their kits, three hours before their game against Dundalk. They’re fed by the academy’s nutrition partner, Wherelse. “That’s a big one for us,” says O’Brien. “Feeding 88 kids for 48 weeks a year isn’t cheap.”
Above all else, the double-jobbing of the club’s Uefa-qualified coaches, led by academy director Ian Bermingham, is gradually making the set-up comparable to the alternative for talented 16-year-olds – a full-time European club academy.
If it was my son, I’d be very sceptical of an Italian or Portuguese academy unless you are very close to the first team when you go
— Ger O'Brien
According to FAI figures, academies average 230 minutes of contact coaching per week. Data from St Pat’s paints a very different picture. In Blanchardstown, contact time for the under-15s is 450 minutes with three days off. It is 705 minutes at under-17 level with two days off, which is comparable to a Category 3 academy in England such as Bolton Wanderers and Preston North End.
“Three of our 17s - Billy Hayes, Billy Canny and Kian Quigley – exceed those hours as they are already with the first team,” O’Brien explains. “It’s the quality of training too. Billy Hayes is a right winger so he’s up against Axel Sjöberg and Ryan McLaughlin every week. Billy Canny, a right-full, has Jake Mulraney running at him.”
How have St Pat’s managed to double, even treble coaching hours? “By going back to Anthony and Garrett to loosen the purse strings.”
The Premier Division clubs recently rejected an FAI plan to increase coaching hours by mixing hand-picked academy players from across the country during school holidays. “I read about it in the media,” says one coach. “They want access to our players to train with players from other academies, seriously?”
St Pat’s have their own plan this summer to provide their five underage squads with double sessions, morning and afternoon. “It will give them a feel for being a full-time professional,” says Bermingham, who doubles up as Cherry Orchard under-13 coach.
Nobody here has one job.
O’Brien accepts that some players will leave St Pat’s before they can be signed at 16 or sold at 18. “I think the Scandinavian academy models are very good. If it was my son, I’d be very sceptical of an Italian or Portuguese academy unless you are very close to the first team when you go.”
Delaney adds: “The language barrier can be horrendous.”
Stephen Kenny warned, when he was Ireland manager, that the Italian boy at an Italian club will get preferential treatment over an Irish player who cost €300,000 in compensation.
“We use that example all the time with parents,” says O’Brien.
4.45pm: Next stop is the medical room, where two intern physios are on duty. “David Mugalu, our head physio, also began as an intern.”
Currently, there are four boys rehabbing ACL tears. Osgood-Schlatter disease, a condition involving swelling below the kneecap, is the prominent issue impacting adolescent footballers. The poor state of pitches, grass and astro gets an airing.
5pm: “There are no club fees – we cover kits, buses, food, everything, so parents see a professional setup,” says O’Brien as Bermingham and Power replicate the St Pat’s presentation for parents of “high potential” players.
They are the things we are already looking at in our recruitment
Power says: “We’ll have a coach at every underage game that matters on Saturday and Sunday mornings in Dublin and around the country. There are gems to be found at all levels, mainly GAA lads playing football with their mates.”
“Our name is our reputation,” O’Brien continues. “The last thing we want is another club going to the FAI saying our coaches are contacting their players. Recruitment is through the front door. We sign players at 16, firstly, because they have ‘high potential’ to become a professional and, secondly, because we want to protect our asset.
“If they are amateur, like what happened with Michael Noonan, they can just leave at the end of the season and we cannot do anything about it.”
Delaney says: “The professional contract at 16 is not massive money, but it is enough that they don’t need to supplement their income. They can put all their energy into their football instead of crying off on a Thursday because they have a shift in Sports Direct or McDonald’s.”
Since Kelleher hired Kenny as first-team manager last summer on a five-year contract, the academy has shaped recruitment around the type of player the former Ireland manager tends to select.
“Stephen likes to play 4-3-3, two wingers with pace, aggressive,” says O’Brien. “He likes a centre forward who is mobile and can chase in behind. He likes centre backs that can step out with the ball. They are the things we are already looking at in our recruitment.”
Later, the under-15s appear comfortable playing 4-3-3. “The aim is to win trophies under Stephen,” says Bermingham, “so a player has to be nailed-on to get into the first team. We can’t be testing out young lads, not when we are trying to win the league.”
O’Brien adds: “We want our players to win every week, and we are not afraid to say that. We don’t put it ahead of their development, but they’d be killing each other on PlayStation to win in Fifa. We don’t take that away from them.
“If it is 4-0 tonight against Dundalk, we will tell them – go win five, six, seven-nil. Because when they are brought into the first team, they will need to understand the importance of winning.”
6pm: Power brings us upstairs to the meeting rooms, again replicating what they show visiting parents. “There’s the study room for boys who come early – we have two travelling from Galway. We keep the pressure on them. If a player is in the first team at 16, we don’t want his schooling to suffer because the chances to be a footballer are tiny - they need the education side of it.”
Abankwah did his Leaving Cert before joining Udinese while others like Melia and Glory Nzingo focused purely on football after the Junior Cert. “Glory moved to Stade de Reims in 2021,” says Power. “He’s in America now (Carolina Core) but he was back here recently training with the under-20s, keeping sharp for the MLS [Next Pro] season.
“Glory was his age’s flair player, the Chris Forrester. He’d do something and you’d just go - wow. I asked Bermo (Bermingham) recently who is the most talented player that’s been in the club? ‘There’s been loads,’ he said, ‘and then there is Chris.’”
On cue, the unassuming Forrester lands in the coach’s room. The first team are familiar faces in Blanchardstown.
6.25pm, pre-match: Jamie Moore is the club’s media officer by day, the under-15s head coach by vocation. He treats the players like professionals, mentioning a recent session with club captain Joe Redmond to remind them to “step forward five metres after clearing the ball.” Assistant coach Ian Cully adds: “Overhit clearances, trust our wingers to get on to it.”
7pm: As the Dundalk under-15s arrive, we take a detour to the gym where the under-17s are embroiled in a lightning-fast game of futsal. “This is a particularly good group,” says Alan Brady, the under-17s head coach and operations manager over the entire club, “even after losing four players to under-20s.”
Power reappears: “It’s a race to 20s.” Nine of the St Pat’s under-20 squad are on professional deals, but the wonder is where academy players end up when they are not promoted to the first team? “A Pat’s kid?” Brady asks and answers, “he’ll be wanted by First Division clubs to go straight into their first team.”
7.10pm: We enter the domain of strength and conditioning coach Jamie McCrudden. As the rangy 15- and 16-year-olds zip through overhead squats and lunges, McCrudden whispers, “You have to remember they are kids. Watch, they’ll start complaining... PULL-UPS, LET’S GO!” There is a collective groan as they finish the session, eat and head out to watch younger teammates who they already are competing against for a contract.
7.45pm: Under-15s league – St Patrick’s Athletic versus Dundalk. It’s winter cold. There’s a smattering of hooded spectators. Parents, coaches, scouts. Dundalk number six Jamie Grace stands out, as much for his diminutive stature as natural ability.
O’Brien arrives in the dugout, pointing out Blake Devereux Lynch and St Pat’s other under-15 internationals. The sporting director is in perpetual motion – the following morning he’ll drive to Louth to make sure Kenny has what he needs before Shamrock Rovers on Friday and the Easter Monday trip to Drogheda.
“Stephen used to do most of this at Dundalk before he left [to became Ireland under-21 manager in 2018] - recruitment, signings ... he’s come back to a very different league.”
St Pat’s take the lead. Luke Fitzsimons scores from a corner. Already over six foot, the defender only turned 14 in December. “His dad is 6ft 6ins so hopefully there is more growing.” Luke Malone-Byrne, the skipper, makes it 2-0 with a shot from outside the box.
Half-time: St Pat’s 4-0 Dundalk. “We tend to give them three, four minutes by themselves,” says Moore at the changing room door. Inside, the pieces are already on the tactics table. “Stand up so you can see this,” he says. The Dundalk half is stuffed with 19 players before Jamie moves his centre backs over the halfway line. “Let their nine start offside. That’s a good ref, he’ll see offside. No linesmen, but at under-17 there are linesmen and you’ll need to be able to do this.”
How to motivate teenagers with a 4-0 lead? Moore mentions the recent loss to Liverpool, and how their opponents celebrated five, six, seven goals. The room goes quiet. It registers. Cully keeps their attention. “The 15s and 17s Ireland coaches are here. Use that as your motivation.”
Karl Lambe, the lead player development coach, makes a technical point before stalling in the changing room as the second-half resumes. O’Brien described Lambe’s recruitment from St Kevin’s as “a real coup”.
“I thought extra money had come from government when Ger approached me to come in and do this very specific, specialist coaching of individual players,” says Lambe. “It shows what Pat’s are about, it is not a role that exists in most League of Ireland academies.”
Lambe begins work at 7am for the Phoenix Group, where he assists clients with overseas investment, so he is on the pitch by 5pm. Ideally, he’d coach full-time but he recently became a father. Having guided Evan Ferguson and Brighton’s Jamie Mullins through their formative years at St Kevin’s, he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of academy prospects. Jamie Grace walks by and high-fives him. “Kevin’s lad. Just back from injury so they only played him 45 minutes.”
9.33pm: St Pat’s 5-1 Dundalk.
10pm: The lights are still on in the coach’s room. St Patrick’s Athletic’s academy is at full capacity. O’Brien, Forrester and the rest are eating biscuits, decompressing before they do it all over again.
