2017 UEFA European Under-17 Championships
This was Colin O'Brien's first tournament as Under-17 Head Coach having beaten Andorra, Kazakhstan, Greece, Faroe Islands, Slovakia, and Cyprus in qualifying.
It appeared that everything was falling nicely into place for the team ahead of the tournament with Aaron Connolly topping the goalscoring charts with seven goals and several players showing tremendous promise.
However, both Conor Coventry and Glen McAuley were unavailable for selection, plus they were paired with Bosnia & Herzegovina, Germany and Serbia in a tough Group C for the tournament taking place in Croatia.
A late goal dashed their hopes of overcoming Serbia in the first game, but they bounced back against Bosnia & Herzegovina with Rowan Roache and Adam Idah on target in a 2-1 victory.
An extremely powerful German side showed them little mercy in a one-sided encounter, but Ireland had done enough to progress through to the knock-out phase.
In the quarter-finals, they came up against England, who had future stars in Manchester City's Phil Foden, Chelsea's Callum Hudson-Odoi, and Borussia Dortmund's Jadon Sancho - with the latter scoring the only goal of the game.
It was a decent effort by O'Brien's squad and they can look back knowing that there was still more to give but a quarter-final finish wasn't too bad.
Republic of Ireland Squad
Brian Maher (St Patrick's Athletic), Kian Clarke (Bohemians), Lee O'Connor (Manchester United), Kameron Ledwidge (St Kevin's Boys), Jordan Doherty (Sheffield United), Nathan Collins (Stoke City), Aaron Bolger (Shamrock Rovers), Luke Nolan (St Patrick's Athletic), Callum Thompson (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Rowan Roache (Blackpool), Adam Idah (College Corinthians), Aaron Connolly (Brighton & Hove Albion), Brandon Kavanagh (Bohemians), Daryl Walsh (Waterford), Richard O'Farrell (St Patrick's Athletic), Joe Redmond (Birmingham City), Gavin Kilkenny (Bournemouth), Tyreik Wright (Lakewood AFC)
Results
Republic of Ireland 0-1 Serbia
Republic of Ireland 2-1 Bosnia & Herzegovina
Republic of Ireland 0-7 Germany
Republic of Ireland 0-1 England