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Short article on Patrick Meehan


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GOLD Coast kid Patrick Meehan has defied the doomsayers and landed a shot at the big time by inking a two-year apprenticeship deal with sleeping English football giant Sheffield Wednesday.

Just months after being told he didn't have the qualities to pursue his dream by Brisbane club Lions and the Queensland Institute of Sport, the midfielder has won a place on the elite youth development squad headed by top coach Sean McAuley.

Meehan, who has been in Yorkshire since June, has just turned 17 and is likened to a young Brett Emerton -- minus the brute power -- by his Palm Beach mentor Adem Poric, who spent six years with Sheffield Wednesday in the 1990s and paved the way for his move to England.

"The boy was written off but he has worked his nuts off, trained five days a week, never gave up and now he has a big chance," said Poric of Meehan who spent three years under his stewardship at the Total Football Academy

"It was just a school of hard knocks for him but then the penny dropped and now it's up to him.

"He's a super fit kid who also has a great technique. He was physically weak but he's worked on that -- and nobody is pretending he's the finished product.

"I talk to Sean every other day and he's delighted with his progress. It's a matter now of how his body matures -- his mind is already at an advanced level."

Derided as too small by his detractors, Meehan is now 179cm and a part of a 20strong boutique group of crack youngsters being groomed by McAuley.

Meehan is the first kid to graduate through Poric's program, in what will be an enduring arrangement with Wednesday.

Poric has earmarked two more of his charges, an 11-year-old (attacking midfielder Zac Raffiti) and an un-named 12-year-old, for trips to Sheffield at the end of the year to be assessed by McAuley.

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Edited by malek
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Guest MVFC_SWFC

he is currently in training camp with the young socceroos. He must be catching someone's eye for them to bring him back for that

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