Richmond Park had a better feel about it last week - no aggro from the visiting directors, one of the best games the league is likely to produce this season, coffee for the press at half-time - that sort of thing. But the league's hero of the week was elsewhere on Friday night.

Well, he would have been, wouldn't he? After all, Wesley Houlihan plays for Shelbourne.

Those of us in Inchicore, of course, missed Houlihan's performance in the win over Longford but it doesn't matter much. It was in Helsinki that he earned this new and, if a generous sponsor decides to contact the office here, soon to be coveted award.

Tuesday's game in the 11,000 seat Finnair stadium wasn't exactly world-beating stuff and the few Irish journalists who managed the 500 metres walk from the hotel to see it passed much of the first half expressing bewilderment - the same sort voiced at almost every under-21 away match - as to how it is that on the whole island of Ireland there isn't a venue as attractive, modern and comfortable as the one the match they were at was taking place in.

No disrespect to Shelbourne, Tolka Park has come an awful long way over the past decade or so, but it's hard to imagine anybody up in Drumcondra declining a straight swap for this baby.

The conversation was broken, though, at irregular intervals by the outbreak of something approaching action on the pitch and on almost every occasion the cause of the disturbance was Houlihan, the young Shelbourne winger who was only making his debut at this level following the elevation of Thomas Butler to the senior squad.

Don Givens, who later described the Dubliner as Ireland's man of the match, had intended giving the newcomer a game against Austria back in April, but his side staged one of the great second-half collapses that day and throwing on a lightweight wide man hadn't seemed like the thing to do in the circumstances. Having finally gotten the chance to have a look at his man, however, Givens was clearly well pleased by what had seen.

Houlihan looked strong on every count last week. Technically, he looked the match of almost anybody on the pitch, he was sharp and quick throughout while his application, movement and work-rate all clearly marked him out as a prospect for the future.

Similarly, Jason McGuinness, who has barely played first-team football for Bohemians, looked very comfortable on his debut, while UCD's Robert Doyle did well too after coming on.

If there is a difference between the quality of the way these players have been brought on at clubs here in Ireland as compared with the development of those Irish players who have been in England for the past four or five years then it was very hard to spot.

On the journey home two days later, Givens highlighted the point when he expressed mild surprise that players from the league here would still leave this country's leading clubs in order to join even an English third side.

"I saw Bohemians play Shamrock Rovers a few weeks ago," he said, "and I was very impressed with them. I felt that in terms of their movement and all-round ability they were as good as I've seen in Ireland over the last few years and I can't see why they wouldn't be able to compete in the first division in England.

"Behind the top few, I know there's a bit of a gap, much of which comes down to facilities and money, but most premier division clubs are fairly much on a par with sides in the second division, I would have thought, and it's difficult - to see in the short term at least - how a lad can be improving himself by going to a side any lower than that in England."

Givens, in fact, believes that the traffic in the other direction may well increase dramatically over the next couple of seasons as the contracts of young Irish players run out and they find that their financially troubled employers can no longer afford to keep them on.

He mentions one player who, after a struggle to find himself a new club during the summer agreed to play in the second division for just £400 a week. Many won't even be that fortunate, he predicts, and some may be caught out by how things have moved on back in Ireland.

"I think that some of the lads are still stuck in a bit of a time-warp. They don't really realise that the clubs in Ireland have come on so far in terms of being full-time set-ups.

"There would have been a feeling before that, well, if things didn't work out then a lad would be picked up by a club back home, but with the standard having gone up some of them are finding that they're not considered good enough in Ireland either and the clubs there are about to have a lot more players to pick from."

The quality of facilities in Ireland, he admits, is still a considerable source of frustration, but he nevertheless firmly believes that many of the players he has been involved with over the past few years would benefit from being involved with teams where there is vastly more at stake than they have grown used to.

"There are players who have grown used to reserve-team football and whose careers have gone stale because they are playing games week in week out where it doesn't matter whether they win or lose and they've grown very comfortable with that.

"More of these players are either going to have to move on or, at the very least, go out on loan, that's what I'm telling the ones not getting regular first-team football.

"They need to be involved in games where there's something at stake, where the manager could be out of a job if the team loses, and that's as true in the Eircom League as it is in the lower divisions in England."

In the meantime, of course, Houlihan might well fancy his chances of bucking the trend by moving in the opposite direction. If Givens' reaction to last Tuesday is anything to go by, he'll certainly have another couple of chances to catch the eye in Ireland's remaining under-21 internationals over the coming months.