Fitzgerald and Kenny sign for Waterford United

Waterford United have confirmed that Patrick Fitzgerald and Stephen Kenny have joined the first team squad for the 2014 season.

Defender Fitzgerald, who turns 19 this week, has played a central role in pre-season in the centre of the Blues defence. Fitzgerald made the step up to the senior side last summer, after an outstanding season with the Under 19s in 2012/13 - and was awarded Airtricity U19 League Player of the Month for October.

Fitzgerald has also starred for the Under-19s  He also was a member of the victorious DLS school side in 2011, represented the Blues in for Ireland’s U18 Schools side in the Centenary Shield, and finished 3rd in the race for a place in Celtic’s Academy on the RTE reality TV show Football’s Next Star.

Attacker Stephen Kenny joins the Blues from Cork City. Stephen starred for the Cork City Under-19s in their double winning season in 2011/12 and made the step up to the senior team making 14 appearances in 2012 - before making the step up during the summer of 2012, then making eight league appearance last season.

“I’m very happy to be here - it’s a great club to be at,” 20-year-old Kenny told www.Waterford-United.ie. “This is a big club that should be up in the Premier Division and hopefully we can get up there this season. Pre season has been tough but it’s been good, it’s tough playing Premier Division teams and that’s where we want to be - we just have to learn from those games and get out of this division. We’ve got a good, big squad so we’ll have a lot of good competition for places.”