Ireland Under-20 2024 Team

What happened Portugal, thought they were the big improvers at under-age ?

Scotland seamed to have improved big time in a short space, good to see Spain improving too.

That's right. Even in down years there's been some good players that have come through.

Nothing. They had 3 good years in trophy before covid close to qualifying for world championship, finishing in top 3 of world trophy and then haven't qualified for trophy since. You have to qualify from European u20 competition every year for trophy and they haven't been able to do that.

No comparison between this year and last , but that’s fine i always felt it was an unfair comparison as last year was a golden produce. Coming 4th isn’t something to sniff at although it would have been better if they played and beat Australia. Great tournament always a great watch and England deserved victors

fair eneogh, surprised they are so far behind Spain, given progress of senior team

Maybe but he wasn't there so why bother even speculate about it.

😂 funny response.

I don’t think so , there was little change from 6N to WC

Why not speculate?

Maybe. I'd say the team looked better in the 6nations. In my mind, it was a poor performance in this tournament.

It could be depth? But I guess the drop off from Sheehan to Yarr is big. Very big. Also having weak scrummaging does not win tournaments. There was a good bit to like and there was some poor moments.

Nah because it was the same in the PS, even against Italy where we won comfortably the weaknesses were on show and it was clear once we came up against a side good enough to test us we'd be exposed and we were and then even Georgia managed to do it.

The scrum was the biggest concern issue and it seemed nothing was done too address it.

A team of 19 year olds being bad at scrums is not indicative if being "poorly coached", let's be real.

Think we've been a bit spoiled by the last few years of 20s teams to be honest. Says a lot about where we are now as a nation that there's people here fuming that we finished 4th.

It wasn't that long ago that we had to beat Japan to avoid relegation.

Saying "nothing was done to fix the scrum" is wrong too.

He changed the prop combination in every game trying to come up with something that worked:

He called up Ben Howard (a loosehead prop) as a replacement for the injured Evan O'Connell and then put him straight into start in the semi in the home that would help rectify the scrum.

We finished the tournament with two U19s starting at prop, and we lost Usanov (another U19) before the tournament began.

The scrum was unquestionably poor throughout, but claiming "nothing was done to address it" is patently wrong.

Pushing beyond a metre and a half won't be allowed. It's the same regulation in place everywhere else in the world at those age groups.

Improve coaching. Get more games at higher level - regional and provincial and more coaching be it with provincial coaches or guys like seamus harty.

The French props at u20 tend to have very little senior pro experience, the four picked for the final have 18 mins between them. I assume the Top 14 teams are a lot slower to introduce props due to the focus on scrummaging in the league.

The RFU are specifically focused on scrummaging as a key skill (link below). Obviously Opoku-Fordjour is a bit of a phenom but none of their other props have particularly considerable senior experience, outside of a few Premiership Cup appearances.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2023/10/03/england-rugby-front-five-young-players-world-cup/