AFTER A FRUSTRATING week, the Ireland U20s will be glad to finally get to gameday with Richie Murphy’s side taking on England in their U20 World Championship opener in South Africa this afternoon [KO 12.30pm, Virgin 2].
Following heavy rain in South Africa, Ireland were unable to train at their base in Hamilton and saw yesterday’s Captain’s Run in Paarl cancelled as a precautionary measure, with the pitch due to host three matches across a busy day of action today.
For a group with big ambitions following their Grand Slam success earlier in the year, it’s all about rolling with the punches and putting in a performance.
“The training field is definitely a frustration but you can’t do anything about the weather,” Murphy explains.
The big thing is we’re in a competition where we don’t have complete control of where we are and what we’re doing. So we just have to roll with that and adapt and move on.
“The Captain’s Run, I think it’s probably a good idea that it’s cancelled, with how heavy some of the pitches are so that will probably save it for the first day but it is a worry in relation to, you know, if you’re game three on a particular day it’s going to be pretty tough to play.”
While today is expected to be a drier day, the underfoot conditions might require Ireland to move away slightly from the fast, free-flowing attacking gameplan which served them so well in the Six Nations. Following today’s game, Ireland have a five-day turnaround before facing Australia next Thursday, with Fiji their final pool game the following Tuesday.
“There’s some slight changes in the way we play but we are who we are and we want to be true to the way we’ve played the game until now. So we’re not going to go massively away from what we’ve done in the past.”
A familiar looking Ireland team will take to the pitch against England, with Brian Gleeson’s inclusion on the bench the only big surprise – the Munster player has been recovering from a knock.
Elsewhere, winger Andrew Osborne – younger brother of Leinster back Jamie – and second row Evan O’Connell – nephew of Ireland legend Paul – come into the team after injury disrupted their progress during the Six Nations.
“Andrew is a very good player,” Murphy continues.
“He had a broken finger or hand going into the Six Nations which limited his involvement early on. Very classy, a similar type of player to his brother, good in the air, deceptively quick, good temperament so it will be interesting to see how he goes.
Evan has been in with us most of the time. He missed the last game with a head knock. He started against Scotland so he has much more experience probably than people think even though he’s a year young.
“A big poach threat, obviously a good lineout player, moves well, so it will be very interesting to see how he goes. I’m sure he’s massively excited. He’s probably thinking he might have started on the bench but he’s earned that right to get into the second row and get going.”
The message to the players going into their tournament has been clear: the Six Nations is over, now it’s all about what they deliver over what promises to be a testing few weeks in South Africa.
“We don’t look back, we look forward,” Murphy adds.
Probably from the very start of the year our focus was on trying to prepare to get ready for the Junior World Cup and compete at the highest level.
“That’s never really changed. It didn’t change through the Six Nations so we’ve come here, it finally feels like it’s here because we’ve been waiting for it for quite a long time. The players are in good spirits, they’ve settled in well.”
First up it’s another date with England, who provided Ireland with their most recent competitive match – the Grand Slam-clinching game at Musgrave Park in March.
“England are obviously a good side, some big ball carriers. The guys that stand out, Ma’asi-White, Cunningham-South, Fisilau, Carnduff in the back row, all threats over the ball. They’ve put some good stuff together at times but they’ve been a little bit mixed in some of their performances; they won’t probably have been too happy with going to Georgia and losing that second game but it had a bit of a feel of a pre-season game when you look at it. So we’d expect them to be a lot tighter this week.
“We haven’t really focused that much on them except from knowing they have some really good individuals that can really hurt you. We’ve been very much concentrating on ourselves, making sure our team performance is where it needs to be.
“Realistically if you want to win it (the tournament) you probably have to win all five games don’t you. I suppose in this first game you do have a little bit of a luxury that if it doesn’t go well but you pick up a couple of points in it, then you might be able to squeeze your way through.
“But our focus is very much not even on winning the Junior World Cup, it’s just trying to get through this English game at the weekend. We’ve very much focused on them.
“We’ll move on, obviously there’s plans in the background that the players don’t really need to know about. There’s plans with the coaches in relation to what we do against Australia and then Fiji. Some of those are results dependent but if you want to win a Junior World Cup you’ve got to have 30 players who are able to play and you’ve got to be brave in some of your selections as well.”
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