16 May 2026; Clayton McKeever of Finglas United celebrates after scoring the opening goal of the game against Peamount United during the FAI Youth Cup final match between Finglas United and Peamount United at Frank Cooke Park, Tolka Rovers in Dublin. Photo by Matt Browne/Sportsfile
Damned if you do…
Cathal Dervan, Editor
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Dawson Devoy, Alan Reynolds and Bohemians have been short changed by the League of Ireland fixtures for the sake of a Dublin derby that comes around at least three times a season.
Dramatic? Maybe but let’s consider the facts. Dawson Devoy is 24 years of age and playing the best football of his career. To date his international caps have come at Under 19 and Under 21 level with the Republic of Ireland but he has never made any secret of his desire to play for the senior Irish team.
The Meath man’s form has been such all season at the heart of the Bohs midfield that many have clamoured for him to be included in Heimir Hallgrimsson’s men’s national team squad.
The Icelandic coach finally agreed earlier this month when he named Dawson in his squad for the end of season friendlies against Qatar in Dublin next Thursday and Canada in Montreal on Saturday fortnight. A good move, we all agreed.
After all Bohs boss Reynolds has been saying all season that Devoy deserves this chance, that he is good enough to become the first Gypsy to play for Ireland since Dawson himself was only a year old. Rennie even suggested he wouldn’t stand in the way of Dawson playing for Ireland - but now that stance has been reversed as we discovered on Thursday.
The Qatar game is outside the international window when clubs are forced to release their players by FIFA but that doesn’t bother most of those players available to Hallgrimsson as he looks at all his options post Prague.
Those in the Ireland frame who play below the top divisions across Europe and weren’t still involved with their clubs, got their chance against Grenada in Murcia last weekend.
The rest, including many established international and some trialists for want of a better word, will feature against Qatar and Canada, in Dublin and Montreal respectively. Or will they?
We found out on Thursday that Heimir and Rennie have now agreed that Devoy will stay with his club for Monday’s home derby against Shamrock Rovers and the trip to Sligo the following Friday. Only after that second match will be report into the Castleknock hotel with his new Irish team-mates.
After recent ups and downs, the two matches are just too big for Bohs before the international break at the start of June that comes with calendar year football. Fair enough - or is it?
Shamrock Rovers manager Stephen Bradley hasn’t the same concerns as Rennie as his team look the most likely to win the League. So, as well as losing Pico Lopes to the World Cup, he has released goalkeeper Ed McGinty and winger Adam Brennan to join Ireland ahead of his last two games before the summer recess, against Bohs and then St Pats.
Is Bradley being fairer to his players than Reynolds? You could argue that but I won’t. Instead, I’d have called Monday night’s game between Bohs and Rovers off and postponed the Friday matches as well.
At a time when the League of Ireland is doing everything in its power to improve the product, and doing a good job at it, the international call-ups for these three and for Cork City’s Connor Brann should have been celebrated.
They should have been used as the perfect excuse to show that we take our League seriously, to prove that we take pride in our League, that we are proud of our best young players.
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Dawson Devoy may never get the chance to play for Ireland again. That’s not being pessimistic, it’s just accepting facts.
Because Heimir is in experimental mode at the moment, this was the time to show what Dawson can do - for two games and for the full international camp. Not for a six day trip to Canada, jet lag and all.
The player deserved better from the League he illuminates every weekend. Much better.
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Dawson Devoy will join Ireland late in order to play for Bohemians against Shamrock Rovers in the Dublin derby at Dalymount Park on Monday night - but the Hoops have released goalkeeper Ed McGinty and young winger Adam Brennan for international duty.
Bohs boss Alan Reynolds confirmed on Thursday that he has reached an agreement with Irish boss Heimir Hallgrimsson that Devoy will meet up with the senior squad after the games against the two Rovers - Shamrock on Monday and Sligo next Friday - before reporting for the Canada friendly in Montreal.
Unlike McGinty and Brennan, Devoy will miss the Qatar friendly at the Aviva Stadium next Thursday night, the first of the two end of season friendlies.
The Irish Sun’s Neil O’Riordain reports that Bohs boss Alan Reynolds said: “Whenever a player gets international recognition, as a club we want to put their name up in lights because it’s a huge honour and one they have really worked hard for.
“You want them to enjoy the moment and to enjoy the deserved praise that comes with it. But when the Ireland squad was named, we had to pause and check what the implications were for everyone - ourselves as a team and club, Dawson himself and obviously the international set-up and manager as well.
“I have said repeatedly that I never want to stand in any player’s way when it comes to representing their country – we want our players getting international recognition.
“But the Qatar game falling outside the international window added a complication. It was the right thing to do to take a breath and see what that meant for everyone and whether disruption to our own fixtures could be avoided.
“Thankfully we have spoken to Heimir who respects our league and knows how important it is for us to have Dawson available for us for two big league games next week.
“The correct decision was made that he will link up with the Ireland squad after those games and we are really looking forward now to our own games ahead, and looking forward to Dawson showing what he can do with the Ireland set-up afterwards.”
O’Riordan adds that Devoy will now team up with the squad on Saturday week and could become the first Bohs player to win a senior Ireland cap since Glen Crowe in 2002.
Devoy said: “This is a proud moment for me and my family. It has been a dream of mine since I was a kid to play for my country, so I’m looking forward to the opportunity of linking up with the squad, showing the manager what I can do in training, and hopefully getting an opportunity.
“I was proud to represent Ireland at Under-19 and Under-21 level but to get an opportunity to represent your country at senior level would be a dream come true.
“I want to make my club proud, my family proud as well as all the coaches and players who have helped me get to this point.”
Boss Reynolds added: “This isn’t a token call-up. It’s something he deserves. He has been in and around the conversations for previous squads and has been in provisional squads
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with him previously with the Under-21s and I think he has the talent, the skillset and the mentality to make the step up to senior level.
“Supporters of the club don’t need to tell me how big an impact Dawson has made at this club. He is obviously our captain and our captain for a reason, and it is a role he has really grown into.
“But he is so much more than that - for me he is the best midfielder in the league. He is a joy to work with and he is a joy to watch.
“I’ve said for a long time that I saw him as a future Ireland international, so we are over the moon for him that he has got this opportunity.”
Martin O’Neill is in a verbal war with Hearts again after taking exception to remarks made by the Edinburgh club’s part-owner Tony Bloom on Talksport Radio, the same station O’Neill was on when he became embroiled in a spat with presenter Jim White the day after his team’s dramatic title win.
Bloom repeated the allegation that Hearts players were ‘assaulted’ by Celtic supporters during a pitch invasion at the end of last weekend’s Celtic Park title decider according to a report in the Irish Examiner.
Hearts themselves haven’t claimed that their players were assaulted but Bloom claimed in an interview with White that: “Hearts players were in danger, one or two were assaulted, it was completely unacceptable”.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday ahead of this weekend’s Scottish Cup final, O’Neill hit back at the Brighton and Hearts shareholder.
The former Ireland boss said: “Tony Bloom has had some reflections himself to Jim and he said that two of their players were assaulted.
“If that’s the case then obviously that would be a deep apology from all of us at Celtic Park. That’s a fairly severe allegation as well, so that’s not been proved.
“If it is eventually proved, and there’s been a lot of searching round over videos and things like this here, then obviously that would be very serious indeed.
“But he did use the word ‘assault’ and that hasn’t been proved yet. So I’m surprised that no one has further investigated these assault charges. I thought that Mr Bloom might have been questioned a wee bit further by Jim on that, but seemingly not.”
The paper reports that O’Neill again responded to claims by Hearts that the scenes at the end of the Parkhead game had embarrassed Scottish football.
He had said on Monday: “As they might do. I just don’t believe it. I think it’s nonsense.”
And on Thursday he confirmed what he had meant to say. “I think that I should really have referred the word ‘nonsense’ to when Jim had mentioned whether the winning of the title had been tainted,” said O’Neill.
“I do say some things in the heat of the moment that I find myself probably regretting. If you’re going to stop pitch invasions, if you’re going to do it all over Europe, then I suppose something is going to be lost in the game.
“Pitch invasions are not new, at the end of the day. And if you want to stop all pitch invasions, well that’s up to the authorities. I think you’re taking the emotion out of the game. I’ll tell you something now: I bet you there’ll be another pitch invasion in the next 10 years if a team wins a league or a cup.”
An Independent Disciplinary Commission commissioned by the English Football League has ruled that Southampton’s spying on rival clubs was authorised by head coach Tonda Ecker.
The report also concluded that the spying was a “contrived and determined plan from the top down” and said it was “deplorable” of the club to have used junior staff members to “conduct the clandestine observation”.
The BBC Sport website reports that the Saints were expelled from the Championship play-offs after admitting observing opponents’ training sessions and have been deducted four points for the 2026-27 Championship season.
Eckert took charge in mid-season and is said to have “accepted that he had specifically authorised the observations”. Such spying “seriously violated” the integrity of the competition, the commission said in an explanation of why it applied such a serious sanction.
Southampton admitted spying on Middlesbrough, Oxford United and Ipswich Town. Middlesbrough will now meet Hull City in Saturday’s final at Wembley for a place in the Premier League.
The independent disciplinary commission said: “We have concluded that there was, on the part of the respondent [Southampton], a contrived and determined plan from the top down to gain a competitive advantage in competitions of real significance by deliberate attendance at opposition training grounds for the purpose of obtaining tactical and selection information.
“It involved far more than innocent activity and a particularly deplorable approach in its use of junior members of staff to conduct the clandestine observations at the direction of senior personnel.
“There was transmission and internal dissemination and analysis of footage and observations.”
The tears flowed as Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice to steer Al-Nassr to the Saudi Pro League title with a 4-1 win over Damac, his first silverware in three years with the club.
Ronaldo scored twice in the second-half to win the game and the league title.
All photos on TheSportsHacks are provided by Sportsfile.com
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