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Football

12th Sep 2017

It was some night for Irish footballers over in England

Not there to take part

Darragh Culhane

Not a bad night at all.

Looking at the Ireland team playing Serbia you wouldn’t be wrong being filled with dread, in short the team is old.

Jonathan Walters is 33-year-old, Shane Long is 30 and Stephen Ward is 32.

It looks a bit bleak especially when off the bench there wasn’t a whole lot of promise.

Sean Maguire wasn’t in the matchday squad, it was kind of upsetting in all honesty but he has done some job in making sure Martin O’Neill can no longer ignore him after scoring at the weekend and now he went another step further to donning that Irish jersey.

The former Cork player was out for Preston against table toppers Cardiff and mad light work of them winning 3-0 and the 23-year-old got in on the act.

Maguire netted the second of Preston’s three goals, a pivotal moment in the match.

https://twitter.com/GoochTheHawk/status/907707114956750848

But the Irish performances didn’t stop there, 21-year-old Jack Byrne has finally started to find his feet in England too.

The former Manchester City player is on loan at Oldham and was instrumental in securing his team’s first win of the season, firstly bagging a goal and then set up the second goal as his side went on to win 3-2.

https://twitter.com/shanecostellos/status/907708455858962433

And just for good measures, the ever youthful Daryl Murphy scored for Nottingham Forest too as they beat Sunderland 1-0 .

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10

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