Derry City coach Neil McCafferty feels Irish Football Association is now going in the right direction

McCafferty, was part of Kris Lindsay's coaching team that took part in the under 16 training camp in Leuven, joined the Talent ID Team, which has been set up to spot potential recruits for the Irish Football Association’s pathway for young elite players.

And he believes this is a great opportunity for talented players from Derry and the North West to showcase their talent.

McCafferty was approached to head the Talent ID team in the North West region by former Linfield striker Andy Waterworth, who is now Head of Elite Player Development at the IFA.

The 38-year-old believes the IFA, under Waterworth's direction, are going in the right direction by starting to branch out throughout the country.

"I've done my badges and I did my UEFA B Licence a few years ago in Belfast. Andy Waterworth is someone who I sort of knew during our playing days, but he liked the way I coached and we had a chat about the IFA regionalising Northern Ireland," he insisted.

"Everything had been based in Belfast and Andy felt he needed to branch out to areas like the North West and Portadown and maintain the centre in Belfast, but he wanted to get more people from the North West and try to get the best players from the area at a younger age, so we started things up around three seasons ago now and it has been going really well.

"There have been a lot of players coming through and playing for Northern Ireland at underage level in the Victory Shield and other internationals and the young players continue to progress from our region and force their way into the underage teams."

McCafferty heads the North West coaching team, which features former City striker Rory Patterson and Coleraine midfielder Stephen Lowry and he admits all three are improving each other.

"Andy asked me to be in charge of the North West, but we've also brought in Rory Patterson and Stephen Lowry," he explained.

"Both guys have done their badges and I suggested Rory and Andy was delighted that we could bring in a player who has nine international caps for Northern Ireland, being from the area and he's a prime example to the young boys coming through and saying to them that this is where it can go and where you can get to and then Andy rang me and suggested Stevie.

"He's a brilliant footballer and you could just tell he's a good football mind and there's no doubt in my mind he'll go on and be a coach or manager in the Irish League or League of Ireland.

"Look, we all work together well, we're all still learning. Myself and Rory are probably coaching a wee bit longer than Stevie, but we're all learning and we all bounce of each other and the most important thing is just get the kids to enjoy it, they want to come to the training and we want to just try and improve them a wee bit at time and I think that's what we're doing.

"Andy seems to think it's going really well and we seem to be producing players. We're maybe surprising people how good some of the players are in the North West compared to the players from say Belfast, so we've surprised a few, which is good and we want to keep getting players good enough to get into the squads going forward.

"Andy has said it's important to make sure that Northern Ireland don't miss out on players and the only way to do that is cover the whole country for starters and he felt it was important that the people who was coaching in the North West was from the area, so that they relate to the kids who are coming to the sessions.

"There's no point sending people from Belfast up around to Derry, Omagh, Strabane, Coleraine or Limavady, because the young lads will be saying 'your not from the area from where I'm from' and they won't relate, so that's why me, Stevie and Rory are idea.

"I'm from Derry, Rory's from Strabane and Stevie's from Limavady, we're from all around the North West.

"So that was Andy's suggestions and to be fair it seems to be working and his motto is if we get them in young, we treat them well, the coaching is really good, players are going away on trips on a regular basis, were just back from Belgium and there was four young lads - Callum Downey, Glenn McCourt, Aron KC and Oliver Devlin - from Derry City in the trip. So look that was Andy's thinking and while it will take time, we're going in the right direction.

"We're seeing more players from the North West region in a lot squads, which you probably wouldn't have seen in previous years, it would have probably been dominated by the Belfast area.

"It's great for the young boys here in the North West to play against top quality players in Belgium and they'll also be the Victory Shield team for this season and for me that’s brilliant.”