Rhys McCabe and Jamie Ness

M

MurtyMania

Well-Known Member
Rhys McCabe has officially signed today for St Pats Athletic, a League of Ireland team based in Dublin. He was previously with Sligo Rovers.

Jamie Ness is now playing semi-regularly for Plymouth in League 1.

Got me thinking - these boys had tremendous potential with us and looked like future stars until the unpleasantness in 2012. But what went wrong for them?

I know Ness was always injury prone, but McCabe wasn’t. Were they simply not as good as I remember?
 
McCabe was just a daft, thick wee boy who was badly advised.

I think his career would always have been destined for that trajectory, staying with us or not.

Ness, I think was a level or two above McCabe and could have potentially gone far were it not for the fact that his body is made of glass.
 
It happens a lot when you have young players playing with a higher standard of player their games is raised and they look better than they really are.

Look at Gregg Wylde, Maurice Ross, Bob Malcolm to name some off the top of my head as soon as they left Ibrox their real skill and ability level came out.
 
Never saw the hype with McCabe. Looked nowhere near good enough for me.

Ness looked the real deal but his injuries held him back and he never fulfilled his potential in my opinion. Not the first and won’t be the last player to struggle to hit their potential.
 
Happens to so many.

That's why I'm always quite cautious and don't get overly excited when a young lad starts to break into the team. The failure rate is absolutely massive.

Might not be popular on here, but I can see Middleton potentially being another who has a reasonable start at Rangers and then fades away.
 
Every decision, minute or otherwise, creates it's own trajectory, and it's only further down the line where you can see it's real effect; like taking a saw down a pencil line, but being 2 degrees out at the start of the cut, barely identifiable at the beginning, but by the time you get to the end of that cut, you're miles out from the original path.

That's how I believe Rhys' career has went. 1000 potential paths, but unfortunately I think he made decision(s) along the way that lead him to where he is; I think he had talent, and who would know how his career turned out if he stayed at Rangers for example.

Ness still is a good player imo but does have some issues with injury and also consistency. I'm not sure where he would lie on the scale of things now in comparison to who we've got currently.
 
Rhys was in the year below me at school. He was a good footballer but wasn't really known for grafting. A good Rangers man, but I don't think his career path would've changed much regardless of what happened to us.

I was told at the time that no one spoke to him about his future etc and he was left to sort himself out.
 
McCabe was overrated beyond belief cause of one good match against Celtic who gave him the freedom of the pitch.

Ness was just injured constantly and could never recover from it. Stoke was a bad move for him as well. Wasn't ready for Premier League football at that stage even if he had been fit.
 
Both must have been very badly advised. I thought Ness was a really good player. If he had stayed and been trained appropriately he could have been a good player for us.
 
ELGers said:
It happens a lot when you have young players playing with a higher standard of player their games is raised and they look better than they really are.

Look at Gregg Wylde, Maurice Ross, Bob Malcolm to name some off the top of my head as soon as they left Ibrox their real skill and ability level came out.
Click to expand...

Maurice Ross admits that by saying it was easier to play for Rangers in the sense that he was surrounded by top class players.
 
If McCabe is at that level now, then he was never going to make it at a decent club. Surprised Ness is even getting a game in and about a league one side considering how little we hear about him, so that suggests he's actually a decent player who has been blighted by injury.
 
When a young player leaves for whatever reason they are really starting over. They don’t have the same relationships that they had while going through the ranks or people to turn to, father figures in the game who understand the player well, and they go to a club where a first team manager maybe expects too much or they don’t get the time they would have been given due to the relationships they had at their other club. Easy for a youngster to lose his way and as Big DJ says get lost to the game!
 
They were probably seen as better than they really were during their time with us. Ness has had so many bad injuries that I guess they've taken their toll.
 
Kyle Hutton playedin the champions league against man u and looked ok. Top players are standout in poor teams. they were average players playing in a good team and when taken out of a good team, are shown to be average
 
adidasler said:
Much the same as John Fleck and Gregg Wylde - Talented to a point, poorly coached and questionable attitude.
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John Fleck is on another level to the folk mentioned in this thread. He didn’t become Wayne Rooney, but he is a very good player.
 
McCabe came across as an arrogant, thick as shit, little prick.

He made some crass comments about Rangers fans when he was at Wednesday.

Ness was a decent player. You see the stick Rossiter gets now, would we have been anymore lenient with Ness?
 
Ted Rangers said:
Both must have been very badly advised. I thought Ness was a really good player. If he had stayed and been trained appropriately he could have been a good player for us.
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they would have been first team regulars if they'd stayed
could see why the senior players left back then but lads?
 
Ness was and had potential to be a great player, unfortunately from a young age he had terrible problems with Injury, at one stage he was advised to give up playing, Rhys McCabe again had potential but was badly advised and was probably a victim of circumstances,,, it just shows that football is hard game for youngsters, and if you make the wrong choice you can get lost so easy
 
While Nesd looked a player a perhaps can put down his lack of progress to injurirs, i was never convinced about McCabe
 
MurtyMania said:
Rhys McCabe has officially signed today for St Pats Athletic, a League of Ireland team based in Dublin. He was previously with Sligo Rovers.

Jamie Ness is now playing semi-regularly for Plymouth in League 1.

Got me thinking - these boys had tremendous potential with us and looked like future stars until the unpleasantness in 2012. But what went wrong for them?

I know Ness was always injury prone, but McCabe wasn’t. Were they simply not as good as I remember?
Click to expand...

McCabe never had tremendous potential

Ness did , he had a footballing brain and an eye for a pass, excellent technique.

Made of glass though, IMO Very very similar to Rossiter in terms of how the careers will go and it is all down to body.
 
I think if they stayed and not taken bad advice they may have made a good living from Rangers.
WE will never know
 
A lot was made of these two, on here in particular but as happens with 99% of our youth players, they are not the best.

Ness dined on a stunning goal and some nice passes but I always felt he looked a bit slow and rigid, probably because he was always injured.

McCabe looked tidy in an OF game but when he came up against a similarly aged Celtic midfielder in a subsequent game, he was really found wanting but the Celtic midfielder was Victor Wanyama.

Wish them well nonetheless.
 
Thought McCabe was too big for his boots whilst Ness had a raw deal with injuries.

Wylde was another who promised much
 
songsofglory said:
He will play in the Premier League IMO. Made a solid career and would be a good addition to our squad at the moment.
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I'm really not getting this.

He's achieved none of the promise expected of him.

Being a solid performer for Coventry then having a strong season at Sheffield Utd is fine but nothing special.

If he was any way decent he would walk into the Scotland squad too.
 
adidasler said:
I'm really not getting this.

He's achieved none of the promise expected of him.

Being a solid performer for Coventry then having a strong season at Sheffield Utd is fine but nothing special.

If he was any way decent he would walk into the Scotland squad too.
Click to expand...


Not doubting you mate but
Scotland squad is no guide. They had players from the Scottish championship a year or so ago yet EPL players couldn't get in the squad.
 
ELGers said:
It happens a lot when you have young players playing with a higher standard of player their games is raised and they look better than they really are.

Look at Gregg Wylde, Maurice Ross, Bob Malcolm to name some off the top of my head as soon as they left Ibrox their real skill and ability level came out.
Click to expand...

The Maurice Ross interview with Si Ferry he alludes to something similar. Playing with better players, you always have options and look the part. When you then go to play with inferior players you get found out as the options when on the ball just aren't available to you. Most noticeable in those with limited ability.
 
adidasler said:
I'm really not getting this.

He's achieved none of the promise expected of him.

Being a solid performer for Coventry then having a strong season at Sheffield Utd is fine but nothing special.

If he was any way decent he would walk into the Scotland squad too.
Click to expand...


He has been called back in recently, rightly so. The Scottish squad selections are always pretty wild and not really a true reflection.

He hasn't hit the heights expected, but I don't think we done a good job with his development. He was in and out of the team and moved around position which I think hindered him.

He was a stand out at Coventry and Sheffield United have been strong performers in the Championship for the last two years. He's not playing with some diddy mob struggling between League one and League two like a lot of players who have left us at a young age.
 
songsofglory said:
He has been called back in recently, rightly so. The Scottish squad selections are always pretty wild and not really a true reflection.

He hasn't hit the heights expected, but I don't think we done a good job with his development. He was in and out of the team and moved around position which I think hindered him.

He was a stand out at Coventry and Sheffield United have been strong performers in the Championship for the last two years. He's not playing with some diddy mob struggling between League one and League two like a lot of players who have left us at a young age.
Click to expand...

Agreed, that was part of my original point. Our coaching has been poor - We spent the best part of a decade squandering young talent or buying decent players an making them go backwards.
 
Kyle Hutton was “brilliant” against Man Utd

Yet never amounted to anything.

The reality is, these boys stepped into teams with better players who were able to carry them.

They were decent at best for us. As time goes on they seem to get better than they actually were.

Out of the 3 I thought Ness had the best chance but injuries unfortunately went against him.
 
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