Ireland U20s Face Baby Boks In Play-offs

The Ireland Under 20 team will face South Africa this Wednesday, 22nd June at 8.10pm local time (7.10pm Irish time) at Stadio Plebiscito, Italy, in the Junior World Cup play-offs.

This match forms part of the 5th – 8th place play-off at the championship with the final placing to be decided by the last game on Sunday the 26th June.

Just one change has been made by Head Coach Mike Ruddock from the starting lineup that beat Scotland in Ireland’s final pool tournament naming David Doyle to start in the back row.

Following Irleand's defeat 26-42 against South Africia in the Pool C qualifying round, Ruddock said “It's not that often that you get the opportunity to benchmark yourselves against the might of South Africa at this age grade and so having a second chance within eight days is rather unique. It is up to my players to put into practice the lessons learnt last time out. If we do that then we will improve our performance. If we improve on our last performance then we will be in the game big time.”

U20 Squad:

15 Tiernan O'Halloran (Galwegians/Connacht)
14 Andrew Conway (Blackrock/Leinster)
13 Brendan Macken (Blackrock/Leinster)
12 Luke Marshall (Ballymena/Ulster)
11 Andrew Boyle (UCD/Leinster)
10 Paddy Jackson (Dungannon/Ulster)
9 Kieran Marmion (UWIC/Exile)
1 James Tracy (UCD/Leinster)
2 Niall Annett (Belfast Harlequins/Ulster) (capt)
3 Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf/Leinster)
4 Michael Kearney (Clontarf/Leinster)
5 Iain Henderson (Queen's University/Ulster) Daniel
6 Eoin McKeon (Galwegians/Connacht)
7 David Doyle (UCD/Leinster)
8 Jordi Murphy (Lansdowne/Leinster)

Replacements:

16 – Finlay Bealham (Belfast Harlequins – Ulster)
17 – Conor Carey (Ballymena/Ulster)
18 – Daniel Qualter (Buccaneers/Connacht)
19 – Shane Buckley (Garryowen/Munster)
20 – Peter du Toit (UCD/Leinster)
21 – James McKinney (Queen's University/Ulster)
22 – Alex Kelly (UCD – Leinster)