The New Year is upon us, and while it remains to be seen which Irish players shine in '23, one young prospect certainly signed off in style on New Year’s Eve.As we eagerly anticipate a bright future for Brighton striker Evan Ferguson, we got a timely reminder from another Brighton attacker that patience and perspective is important when assessing promising young forwards.So let’s hark back to an autumnal Saturday afternoon in October 2019 when an energetic and exciting Irish teenager let off some early Hallowe’en fireworks on the south coast of England.Aaron Connolly scored twice on his first league start as Brighton beat Tottenham 3-0 at the Amex Stadium; the 19-year-old becoming the youngest player in the club’s history to score in the Premier League.It only took a matter of hours for the latest striking sensation to be catapulted into the Ireland squad, plucked from the Under-21s as Mick McCarthy brought the young Galway native away with the senior side for a week-long trip across Europe, first to Georgia and stopping off in Switzerland on the way back from Tbilisi.Connolly, the latest Ireland striker to be dubbed the next Robbie Keane, would make his debut off the bench in the Georgia stalemate, before making his first international start in what turned out to be a comprehensive defeat to Switzerland.Difficulties for Connolly in recent seasons - he is on his way to Hull after the plug was pulled on his Italian loan - suggest that he will not turn out to be the next international record goalscorer.But he has time, he is still only 22.
He is young, as is Adam Idah and Troy Parrott, other promising Irish attackers who have had much expected of them at a young age.Ferguson is the latest new kid on the block and will take