Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Four changes for Ireland for must-win encounter versus Australia

(Photo by Grant Pitcher/Gallo Images for World Rugby)

Ireland have made four changes to their starting XV for Thursday’s second pool match at the Junior World Championship. The U20s Six Nations champions were held to a dramatic 34-all draw in their opening game versus England last Saturday and head coach Richie Murphy has now made some alterations to his line-up to take on Australia back in Paarl.

ADVERTISEMENT

A statement read: “There are four changes to the Ireland starting team from Saturday’s opening Pool B draw with England, as James Nicholson, Ronan Foxe, Charlie Irvine and Brian Gleeson come into the XV.

“Nicholson is named on the left wing as part of the Ireland back three with Henry McErlean and Andrew Osborne, with Hugh Gavin and John Devine forming the midfield partnership. Sam Prendergast and Fintan Gunne continue in the half-backs.

Video Spacer

Video Spacer

“In the pack, Paddy McCarthy moves across the front row to loosehead prop, with captain Gus McCarthy at hooker and Foxe in line for his U20s debut at tighthead. Irvine comes into the side to partner Conor O’Tighearnaigh in the engine room, while James McNabney, Ruadhan Quinn and Gleeson make up the back row.

“On the bench, Danny Sheahan, George Morris, Fiachna Barrett, Evan O’Connell and Diarmuid Mangan provide the forward options, with scrum-half Jack Oliver set to win his first U20s cap. Harry West and Rory Telfer complete the matchday squad.”

Related

With the tournament’s three pool winners and just a single best runner-up set to progress to the semi-finals, the likelihood is that Pool B will only provide one qualifier and it means there is pressure on Ireland in what is essentially a cup final fixture for them due to last weekend’s draw.

Murphy said: “It has been a quick turnaround from Saturday, but we were able to turn the page positively and learn from our first outing of the tournament.

ADVERTISEMENT

“We know the very nature of this World Rugby U20 Championship is that the big games come thick and fast and facing the Junior Wallabies is another huge test for our group. We’re looking forward to the challenge.”

Australia, meanwhile, have made 10 changes to their starting XV following their opening-round comeback win over Fiji last Saturday in Stellenbosh.

Ireland (vs Australia U20s – Thursday, 11am SAST, 10am Irish time)
15. Henry McErlean (Terenure/Leinster)
14. Andrew Osborne (Naas/Leinster)
13. Hugh Gavin (Galwegians/Connacht)
12. John Devine (Corinthians/Connacht)
11. James Nicholson (UCD/Leinster)
10. Sam Prendergast (Lansdowne/Leinster)
9. Fintan Gunne (Terenure/Leinster)
1. Paddy McCarthy (Dublin University/Leinster)
2. Gus McCarthy (UCD/Leinster)(captain)
3. Ronan Foxe (Old Belvedere/Leinster)*
4. Charlie Irvine (Queen’s University/Ulster)
5. Conor O’Tighearnaigh (UCD/Leinster)
6. James McNabney (Ballymena/Ulster)
7. Ruadhan Quinn (Old Crescent/Munster)
8. Brian Gleeson (Garryowen/Munster)

Replacements:
16. Danny Sheahan (UCC/Munster)
17. George Morris (Lansdowne/Leinster)
18. Fiachna Barrett (Corinthians/Connacht)
19. Evan O’Connell (UL Bohemians/Munster)
20. Diarmuid Mangan (UCD/Leinster)
21. Jack Oliver (Garryowen/Munster)*
22. Harry West (Buccaneers/Connacht)
23. Rory Telfer (Queen’s University/Ulster)
*Denotes uncapped at U20s level

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 49 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.


Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.


So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).


You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.


I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?

120 Go to comments
f
fl 4 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

120 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING James O'Connor on Crusaders preseason: 'I haven't experienced anything like it' O'Connor on Crusaders preseason
Search