Nottingham Forest is a home away from home for the Irish. There are so many at the club that if manager David Platt wanted to he could field a full Green team.

And that could well happen after Keith Foy became the second of the young Irish brigade to make his senior debut this season.

Goalkeeper Barry Roche was the first to make the breakthrough and he had an immediate impact when he came off the bench in the 90th minute against Crystal Palace after Dave Beasant was sent off and impudently saved a spot kick to earn his side a win.

He played from the start against Sheffield Wednesday as Beasant was serving a suspension for his sending off and again had a stormer as he kept a clean sheet to lead his team to a win.

The 18-year-old Foy has been knocking on the door for a first-team place since the start of the season, after impressing on a number of occasions for the club's reserves and u19s.

He got his chance at the weekend against Grimsby and, according to his manager, David Platt, he had a fine match, even going to close to scoring only to see his shot go agonisingly the wrong side of the post.

Platt said: "Keith is typical of the lads who have emerged from the Academy in so much that nothing seems to faze him. He did very well indeed.

"Making your debut isn't easy but Keith just got on with it without any fuss and can be very pleased with himself."

Platt has even more Irish knocking on the door with Andy Reid and Niall McNamara scoring for fun for the u19 team. Reid, especially, can't stop scoring at the moment and he led the u19s to a 3-1 win over Wolves at the weekend.

Reid scored two of the three goals and McNamara got the other. Reid scored his first in the 18th minute when McNamara broke through the Wolves defence and then squared the ball to him in front of goal. Reid made no mistake with the chance.

McNamara scored the second and it was a fine individual effort. He cut in from the right and hit a curling shot which gave the Wolves goalkeeper no chance.

Wolves hit back but it was always going to be Reid's day and he killed off the game late on when he was set up by another Irishman, Brian Cash, before crashing home a left-foot shot from the edge of the box.