England U20s may have won the ultimate prize but Ireland's young conveyor belt of talent shows no sign of grinding to a halt
They also confirmed that skipper Evan O’Connell, the nephew of Paul O'Connell who last took the field in the July 4 pool win over Georgia, has been ruled out for the remainder of the tournament through injury.
The Irish were impressive 55-15 opening day winners over Italy last Saturday at DHL Stadium and Willie Faloon has now changed four forwards and three backs for Thursday’s clash with Georgia in Stellenbosch.
We stand at the start of another huge week of international age-grade rugby, and you can watch it all live and for free on RugbyPass TV.
Numerous winning teams caught the eye on Saturday across the opening round of the World Rugby U20 Championship, but Ireland deserve a shout-out for the manner of their comprehensive dismissal of Italy in the middle game at DHL Stadium.
Australia felt hard done by in their round two loss to Ireland in Paarl because in the aftermath of their 10-30 defeat, Irish back-rower James McNabney was cited and banned for foul play that happened in the 35th minute that was missed by the officials in real time.
Back-rower Brian Gleeson and captain Evan O’Connell are among those aiming to go one better than last year in South Africa.
Ireland went into last year’s World Rugby U20 Championship with very high hopes after clinching their second successive Six Nations age-grade Grand Slam and they lived up to that hype in the pool stages, following a high-scoring opening round draw with England in Paarl with victories over Australia and Fiji.
Forwards Max Flynn and Mikey Yarr, along with backs Ruben Moloney and Jake O'Riordan are the new names added to the squad that Richie Murphy guided to within a whisker an another U20s Six Nations title.