Brendan O'Connor is delighted that Galway United U19s were afforded an opportunity to feature in three fixtures in England this week.
United's players and management returned to the west of Ireland on Thursday following games against Northampton Town, Cambridge United, and MK Dons.
"It is great really for our lads to bring them into a different environment playing academy teams," O'Connor says.
"On Monday we played Northampton, they are a full-time academy so it was brilliant for our lads just to see the standard."
O'Connor is encouraged about how his squad continues to develop in 2022.
"I know it is the UK, it is a good level, but against Northampton you could see that if a lot of our lads were living in England they would be signed with a lot of full-time academy teams," he says.
"It is just comparing the U19 elite phase teams with the English - we are not a million miles away. Don't get me wrong you have a lot of good players over here (in the UK ) and so on, but the underage academy has improved so much in Ireland.
"That is a credit to our own club and to the coaches throughout the country. Players are now getting coached at a very good level."
O'Connor is grateful that his management team consisting of Paul Sinnott and John O'Connor, and squad were able to make the trip.
"It was Johnny Glynn, in fairness to him, who set this all up with the U17s over next weekend, the U14s and U15s are coming over in August," O'Connor adds.
"Johnny has done a lot of work in setting that up for the teams to give us that environment playing these teams. Players can get used to playing in the national league, but now we are testing ourselves on a different level."
The fact that squad members David Tarmey and Ben Molloy have been involved with John Caulfield's first team is a significant boost according to O'Connor.
"Thankfully we have had Dave Tarmey and Ben making the bench in the last few weeks," he says.
"John is not afraid to blood youngsters. We played the first team fringe players a few weeks ago. John spoke to the lads afterwards, he has brought in a number of lads training in the last few weeks.
"Seven or eight of our lads were in training, John spoke to them after the session. He told certain players that they might need to get quicker or stronger.
"He had great time for the lads telling them what they need to do to get to first team level."
**Listen to the full interview with Galway United U19 manager Brendan O'Connor on this week's 'Cian on Sport' podcast available on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
