Mason Melia example shows upsides of current Ireland U17s' post-Brexit pathway

The Republic of Ireland men's Under-17s will get their European Championship campaign underway today when they take on Poland.

It will be a match that will be live to watch on the RTÉ News channel and the RTÉ Player at 3.30pm as will the subsequent group games against Wales [Saturday, KO 3.30pm] and hosts Hungary [next Tuesday, KO 7pm].

Former senior international Keith Treacy played at that age grade back in 2004 and the potential exploits of Colin O'Brien's current crop brought back memories of his involvement in Ireland's Toyota International Youth Cup trip to Japan which he reminisced about on this week's RTÉ Soccer Podcast.

"There are a couple of memories," he said.

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"The flight to Japan was 11 hours to get to where we were going and we had to fly onwards then to Nagoya. So it was an awful long time to get there.

"But once the jet lag wore off and we got into the tournament, I really enjoyed it I have to say.

"I didn't have any idea that football was so, so big in Japan back then, so it was brilliant to go over there and play football for Ireland at that age group and it was excellent just to be able to travel and do those sorts of things.

"Brilliant memories and probably ones you don't realise at the time, but they're probably some of the best memories you have now, so excellent memories to be able to look back upon."

Half of the squad named at the time by the late Sean McCaffrey