Season › 2016-17 › News Academy prospect secures 12-month loan deal , 31 July, 6comments | Jump to most recent Steven Kinsella of the Everton's Finch Farm Academy has joined St Patrick's Athletic in his native Ireland on loan. The 17-year-old was picked up by the Blues from Templeogue United a couple of years ago and signed on a scholarship contract after being scouted extensively by the Blues' Ireland scout Paul Hamilton. Kinsella, an U17 international for the Republic of Ireland, will spend the season with the Saints. Reader Comments (6) Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer John Dean 1 Posted 31/07/2016 at 22:48:39 He hasn't featured for the U21s and hardly played a game for U18s when other players his age have (Feeney, Davies). I have not seen him play but perhaps we've seen the last of Steven in a royal blue shirt. Anthony Dwyer 2 Posted 01/08/2016 at 00:32:05 True John, a loan deal to a team playing at such a low standard can't be good. Alan J Thompson 3 Posted 01/08/2016 at 05:51:33 17 and picked up a few years ago. Homesick? Hugh Jenkins 4 Posted 01/08/2016 at 06:44:25 I am not sure what "scouted extensively" implies here?Is that "scouted extensively" by Everton, i.e. our scouts went to see him on numerous occasions or "scouted extensively", i.e. numerous clubs went to see him play over an extended period of time?Either way, it doesn't matter, but, if it is the former case, the original implication would have been "we had a tip off and liked what we saw", if the latter, then " many had heard of him , but we were the first, in the race to sign him".He's a bit young to be written off, when you consider where Seamus Coleman came from. Frank Wade 5 Posted 01/08/2016 at 12:42:54 When Steven was signed it was reported that Everton had beaten other top clubs to his signature, City, Utd and Spurs. Hence the extensively scouted reference. Martinez flew to Dublin to talk to him at the time. Anthony (2), not sure what standard you would expect a 17-year-old Academy player to move to on loan. St Pats are currently 7th in the Irish league Premier League and recently were edged out on a 2-1 aggregate in a Europa Cup tie by Dinamo Minsk of Belarus. It's at least League 1 standard and, if it's a homesick issue as Alan suggests, this will surely help him.If he plays with the St Pats first team for the rest of the season, we will expect he will return a better player. If he is with their youth team, different story. The Irish League runs in calendar year from March to November, so this is not likely a 12-month loan.He hasn't featured with the Irish U17s in recent matches, but has 9 caps for them. Could have had an injury. Let's hope he can impress with Pats. Dave Abrahams 6 Posted 01/08/2016 at 15:59:27 I think the main reason the lad's career has stalled is that he suffered a bad injury in his first season here when he was 16. He hasn't really picked up after that injury, so maybe a year back home will aid his form and we still will hold his registration if he improves. Add Your Comments In order to post a comment, you need to be logged in as a registered user of the site. » Log in now Or Sign up as a ToffeeWeb Member — it's free, takes just a few minutes and will allow you to post your comments on articles and Talking Points submissions across the site. About these ads © ToffeeWeb