IRELAND WILL PLAY France, South Africa and England as part of the Six Nations U20 Summer Series, which will take place in Italy from 24 June to 12 July.
Alongside the Oceania Rugby U20 Championship, the series has been organised this summer as an alternative to the postponed World Rugby U20 Championships, which returns in 2023.
And Ireland have been drawn in Pool A alongside England, South Africa and France as they look to build on the positive momentum generated by their brilliant Six Nations Grand Slam success earlier this year.
All of Ireland’s matches will be held at the Payanini Centre in Verona, and will be streamed on the Six Nations Rugby U20 YouTube channel.
Pool B consists of Scotland, Wales, Georgia and host nation Italy, will all Pool B games to be held at Treviso’s Stadio Di Monigo.
The completion of the pool stages will be followed by one round of cross-pool games which will see the top two teams from each pool play each other, while the second, third and fourth-places sides also go head-to head.
Julie Paterson, Director of Rugby at Six Nations Rugby said: “Six Nations Rugby is committed to providing the best possible rugby pathway to allow unions, nations, players, and coaches to develop, and the chance to stage an Under-20 Summer Series is an exciting opportunity to support this commitment.
“The absence of a World Rugby U20 Championship this year, means South Africa and Georgia will also be competing in the Series, which will provide added opportunities for teams to test themselves against new opposition.”
Ireland head coach Richie Murphy added: “It’s really exciting. It’s going to be a good opportunity for us to have a look at some of the guys from the Six Nations and some new guys coming into the group.
“We’ve been training now for the last two weeks, we’ve a couple more camps coming up before we get away and we’re looking forward to getting over to Verona.
“We have France up first, then a five-day turnaround to South Africa and six-day turnaround to England, then we play one of the other nations at the end of that, so it’s a very tough schedule.
“We’re planning to bring 30 players with us, so the squad is going to be really important at that stage.
“We’ve brought in a number of the extended squad of the U20s from last year, and a number of guys from the U19s who played against France around Easter time, so those guys are in at the moment, staking a claim for a place and we’re glad to say that the lads are moving in the right direction, but we have a lot of work to do between now and then.”
Murphy’s U20s will step up their preparations for the series by taking on a Munster development side at the IRFU’s high performance centre this Friday, before two sets of three-day camps, including a training session with Andy Farrell’s senior men’s team.
U20 Six Nations Summer Series:
Pool A: France, Ireland, England, South Africa
Pool B: Scotland, Wales, Georgia, Italy
Ireland U20 fixtures:
[All games Payanini Centre, Verona, KO 8pm local time/7pm Irish time]
France v Ireland, Friday, 24 June, Payanini Centre
Ireland v South Africa, 29 June, Payanini Centre
Ireland v England, 7 July, Payanini Centre
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