Ireland Under-20 2024 Team

Ward has a good physical game. Abrasive and always seems to be around the 🎬. I like this lad.

and lacking consistency with the academy players doing the hokey cokey all season between injuries, irish academy for 4 matches, u20 and some not being allowed to play…

Started three games in 2022. One in the 6N (home to Wales) and two at the summer tournament in Italy which was a replacement for the U-20 World Cup. He also made two sub appearances in the 6N (away to England, home to Scotland).

He was largely behind Rory McGuire in the THP pecking order during the 6N and shared duties with Darragh McSweeney and Kieran Ryan in the summer tournament in 2022.

Interesting. He looks a better prospect than Maguire now.

Been very impressed by him for ulster.

Kinda shows 20's is often so subjective

A few changes.

Good call, Tom Brigg on the bench.

Corrigan has been very effective off the bench though, so it might be tough to drop him even if he has another year. I would love to see another Ulster player but didn't McKillop go off early in the second half at the weekend? Was that an injury?

Not surprised to see so many changes in the pack after the forward performance against Italy. I'd go so far as to say that those who were retained can count themselves lucky that there weren't suitable candidates ready to step into their spots too and make more changes. I thought Hopes was very good against France but awful against Italy. Good to see a bit of a message being sent out to the team though.

No changes in the backline but I think the halfbacks can breathe a sigh of relief and Hugh Gavin is fortunate that he has shown his quality already as he'd be dropped from the 23 if his Italian performance was the sole metric for selection this week.

Yeah, Hopes mixed the good with the bad against Italy, and had a couple of clear fluffs, but "mare" is a bit strong, and he didn't embarrass himself in defence like quite a few others. Spicer is just potential at the moment, on account of his size. Doesn't even look in particularity good nick fitness-wise.

Less so in recent years with Murphy, his rotation has been questionable up until this year. Getting results, but squad members losing out as a result.

On the match: Christ Edogbo is a strong boy