IT’S been quite the year for Caheragh teenager Liam Murray, whose success on the soccer fields has been recognised with a Celtic Ross West Cork Youth Sports Star quarterly award.
The rising young soccer star has enjoyed a terrific 12 months and it was made even better when he was presented with a prestigious West Cork Youth Sports Star award at the Celtic Ross Hotel on Friday night.
Each year, four talented young stars are lauded for their sporting achievements with a quarterly award, and these four then go into the mix for the overall West Cork Youth Sports Star. In the running for the award this year are Republic of Ireland U15 international Liam Murray, All-Ireland winning minor footballer Ryan O’Donovan, dual All-Ireland winning minor ladies’ football and camogie star Fiona Keating and Sacred Heart Secondary School All-Ireland winning junior camogie captain Daire O’Brien.
For Skibbereen Community School student Murray he will take great satisfaction from the year just finishing, as he made his mark on the international stage with the Republic of Ireland U15s. He played in all three games during Ireland’s UEFA Development
Tournament success in Mayo in October, coming on as a sub in the 3-1 victory against Latvia, starting the 4-0 win against the Faroe Islands and also coming on as a sub in the 8-0 hammering of Luxembourg.
The former Skibbereen AFC player, who now plays for College Corinthians’ U15s, also played with the FAI Emerging Talent Programme’s 2005 National Academy that faced The Netherlands National Academy in Dublin earlier in the year.
There has also been interest from cross-channel clubs and Murray has made two trips to Championship outfit Charlton Athletic, which suggests that there are bigger and better things to come from this rising star in the years ahead.
