Molumby and Connolly star for Ireland at Toulon Tournament
Brighton and Hove Albion duo Jayson Molumby and Arron Connolly have enjoyed a fruitful Toulon Tournament as they helped the Republic of Ireland Under 21s to a fourth placed finish in the competition.
The Boys in Green topped Group C by beating China and Bahrain and drawing with Mexico. A talented Brazil side proved too good in the semi finals before the Irish lost on penalties in a third place play off after another stalemate with the Mexicans.
Molumby in particular impressed. He captained the Irish and ended the tournament by being named the fourth best player out of over 200 from nations including Portugal, France and England.
Only three individuals were considered better than Molumby from across all the 12 competing nations.
Molumby captained the Irish and ended the tournament being named as the fourth best player out of over 200 from the 12 competing nations.
Only three players were considered better than Molumby in the whole tournament. The winner was Brazil’s Douglas Luiz, a midfielder who Manchester City forked out £10m for last summer.
Second was Luiz’s Seleção teammate Lyanco, a defender who Torino paid £6m for and who has attracted the interest of Manchester United, Juventus and Atletico Madrid among others and third was Japan’s Ao Tanaka.
Molumby’s achievements are all the more impressive when you consider the fact that he only returned from injury in February after 15 months on the sidelines.
The midfielder has effectively had a new kneecap fitted. He originally missed six months with a knee problem which wasn’t operated on as experts said his young body had a good chance of healing itself.
But after just three sessions, his kneecap dislocated as it wasn’t stable enough. Molumby ended up having an MPFL replacement which involved putting a donor hamstring into his knee to stabilise it, resulting in another nine months out.
Molumby was named on the first team bench twice by Chris Hughton following his comeback but he is still waiting for his league debut.
With Graham Potter expected to be more willing to give young players a chance than his predecessor, Molumby’s form in France makes a decent case for him to be one of those that the new Albion boss takes a close look at in pre-season.
The same is true of Connolly. This was the striker’s first experience of Under 21 football and within one minute of his debut against China he had an assist for Zak Elbouzedi’s opening goal.
Within five minutes he’d scored himself as Ireland were well on their way to an easy 4-1 victory. He also successfully converted the Boys in Green’s third penalty in the shoot out defeat to Mexico.
That was a good way for Connolly to round off what has been a remarkable campaign. He was named as Premier League 2 Player of the Year having scored 17 times in 20 appearances for the Albion’s Under 23s, became the first Seagull to win a PL2 Player of the Month award and made his league debut while on loan at Luton Town in the second half of the season.
