THE IRELAND U20s’ preparations for their World Championship opener against England have been disrupted by poor weather conditions, with the group unable to train at their base in South Africa this week.
With heavy rain in South Africa over the last few days, the group have been unable to make proper use of the pitch at their Hamilton training base. Tomorrow’s Captain’s Run in Paarl has also been cancelled as a precautionary measure, with the venue set to host three games on Saturday.
It’s made for a frustrating build-up to Ireland’s opening World Championship pool fixture against England this Saturday.
“We haven’t been in Paarl Gym yet,” explained Ireland head coach, Richie Murphy.
We arrived in Cape Town, our training ground was Hamilton but unfortunately it was practically unplayable, untrainable.
“We did do a very light run on it on Wednesday which was way below the standard a Junior World Championship (team) should be training in, but today we got a decent run out. We found a new pitch, got a decent run out and we’re in a good place now.
“But we haven’t been in Paarl. The Captain’s Run is at Paarl but has been cancelled, which is probably the right thing to do considering there’s three games on it in one day. It’s going to be very interesting to see how it holds up.
“We had a member of our staff at the pitch and he says it’s in good condition. We’ll go there with our kickers tomorrow and get a feel for it.”
Murphy has been able to stick with a reasonably settled team on the back of Ireland’s Grand Slam-winning Six Nations campaign, but his players will have to negotiate their way through a difficult group – facing Australia and Fiji after Saturday’s opener against England.
It’s set to be a testing couple of weeks, but Murphy hopes the group can use the competition to advance their game on the back of their highly impressive Six Nations displays.
“I think the big thing is after the Six Nations, we talked to the players about coming back in a better place than they were in on that day,” Murphy added.
“We’ve looked at our game really, really hard and found areas in relation to that that we needed to improve. We’ve had a number of camps leading into this. We don’t have a huge amount of gametime under our belt, and that’s probably one disadvantage that we have, but what we’ve managed to do is really highlight some areas and work hard on those, and let’s hope that they appear on Saturday.
You’re always excited to play England but you’re never happy that you’re playing them. It’s always a big challenge, a real tight rivalry between the guys.
“So I suppose in some ways, it’s probably better that we start against England because at least we have a bit more of a feel for them and can get another look at Australia before we go there.
“But yeah, it’s a very tough group. Obviously four good teams that have aspirations of going further in the competition, so something’s going to have to give somewhere.”
With the competition taking place for the first time since 2019, it’s set to be a new experience for both the players and the head coach, with Murphy taking on the role in 2021.
“I had a massive interest in it (World Championship), watching it from afar and seeing it when I was involved with the (Ireland) seniors, and then back at Leinster. It always seemed to be a competition that the best players come through.
“Trying to bring some of the experiences that I had from the senior team down to our guys, building a team over the course of a season where we’re in and out sporadically in camps, and trying to build a little bit of a culture, but also a mentality that we’re able to compete at the very top level.
“If you look at it, we’ll have a lot less senior experience than a lot of other teams. Going into the Six Nations we only had Ruadhan Quinn who had played URC. After that, Conor [O'Tighearnaigh] played down in South Africa with Leinster, Sam [Prendergast] got a couple of runs with Leinster.
“We still don’t have massive experience in relation to that, what we have is a very tight-knit team, guys who were massively keen on really putting their best foot forward on what is the world stage. We’re in a good place in that regard.”
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