Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson has singled out Rory Finneran for praise after watching the Newcastle United player in training ahead of Saturday's friendly against Grenada.
Finneran became Blackburn's youngest ever player in January 2024 after making his debut as a 15-year-old in an FA Cup tie, before Newcastle moved quickly to snap up his services.
The 18-year-old has yet to make a senior appearance for the Magpies but impressed last November whilst captaining Ireland at the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Qatar.
Hallgrimsson did not call Finneran into his original 21-man squad for this week's training camp in Spain.
However, he was subsequently drafted in as left back Joel Bagan and winger Kasey McAteer withdrew due to injury.
The Irish boss, with nine uncapped players in his squad in Murcia, spoke glowingly of those new recruits on Friday, saying: "What we have felt is really positive and the players have done themselves proud. The game is tomorrow and we'll get more answers then."
Expanding more on the chance that some will get against Grenada, Hallgrimsson said of Manchester-born Finneran: "We'll see if he's ready or not but based on training he's a really impressive young player. The future is his now, so he needs to nurture his young talent."
Hallgrimsson also spoke about Dundee United defender Will Ferry, another late addition to the squad.
"Will was supposed to come earlier, then the club denied him a chance, but then he got the chance to come. It's an opportunity to see him, we've only had him in the squad once before so we were happy when the club released him."
The Irish manager revealed that a personal connection within the Grenada FA helped bring about the fixture: "It's not easy to have an opponent at this time of the year but I know the president and I gave him a call, he added.
"They play a lot of games outside the FIFA window so they were ready to come. They have a lot of players in Europe, in England, so I knew there would be a lot of players in their squad that would be out of competition."
And while the integration of new blood is the main aim of this end-of-season training camp, Ireland winger Chiedozie Ogbene was looking at the bigger picture when he spoke to reporters.
"We are trying to win this game on Saturday, we know how important it is to win games like this, to give us a better FIFA ranking in points.
"The way the new guys carried out their business here has been phenomenal, they are talented players, the boys have really gelled, standard has gone up, a culture and professionalism, and that is the culture we want to create here."
On Tuesday last, the Irish warmed up for Saturday's international friendly encounter with Grenada in Spain with a 2-0 training game win over Real Murcia B.
Watch Republic of Ireland v Grenada on Saturday from 5pm on RTÉ Player. Follow our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and RTÉ News app
