The Irish games have been confirmed this week with Springfield the venue for the U21s on Tuesday 7 February while Dave Walsh’s Jersey U18s will play the visitors the following night at the same venue.
Last year the Jersey Football Association started their centenary celebrations with two matches against Northern Ireland’s Schools’ FA squad.
They turned out to be two well-matched games, Jersey’s U18s lost on a penalty shoot-out after sharing two goals while Jersey’s U21s were beaten 2-1.
The games provided the visitors with excellent preparation for their Centenary Shield campaign where they went on to be pipped for the title despite winning for the first time in over 70 years away to England.
The JFA, its team managers and Sporting Eventualities directors Iain Mackenzie and Paul Sowney have met recently in an attempt to secure more games for Jersey’s teams.
Mackenzie said: ‘The JFA and their team managers are putting a cohesive games plan together; we have the contacts and we will try and get the games for them.
‘Once a fixture is secured we will look at costs and help with the fund-raising to get the game on.
If the product is right by way of a games plan then we can help bring in potential sponsors.’ JFA president Charlie Tostevin said: ‘We are delighted Northern Ireland are planning to come to Jersey again as part of their Centenary Shield celebrations; they’ve always proved to be quality opposition and challenges for our young players to meet.
‘With regard to our games programme we continue to look to improve it.
Sporting Eventualities offering to help and meeting with our managers is great and between us we hope to come up with an improved programme for the future.’ Northern Ireland started their build-up towards the Centenary Shield on Monday afternoon coming from a goal down to beat Australia under-19s 2-1 in Belfast.
