Tough Junior World Cup start for Irish

RUGBY NEWS:HAD IRELAND Under-20 coach Mike Ruddock asked for the most difficult opening to the IRB Junior World Cup, which kicks off in Italy in 10 days time, there would have been several combinations.

Facing England first on June 10th followed by South Africa on June 14th in the opening salvo might have been among the contenders. Such is the draw for this year’s event in Pool C, Ireland are asked to do just that and then play Scotland in their third pool game on June 18th, packing in three matches in eight days.

England, the Six Nations Grand Slam champions, who beat Ireland 46-15 earlier in the year, represent a huge physical challenge to what will be a much changed Ireland side to the injury- and Magners League-hit team that lined out a couple of months ago.

Ruddock’s quick mental arithmetic tells him there will be around eight changes. In that respect England will face a different looking Ireland side, one that understands it must win at least one of those opening games to prevent the tournament from unravelling.

After the Pool phase all the teams are ranked one to 12, with the top four sides contesting the semi-finals.

“Yeah, yeah. Absolutely we need to win one of those,” says Ruddock. “I haven’t finalised the team against England yet but it’s floating around in my head. You are talking about eight or nine changes to the team that lost to England in the Six Nations.

“In the Six Nations we changed week to week because of different demands on players. We have more cohesion for this tournament.”

Ruddock has some players back, like the Leinster-contracted Andrew Conway, who was injured for three months. Trinity flanker Dominic Gallagher also comes in, as does Kieran Marmion as two players who did not feature in the Six Nations. Ulster’s Niall Annett is again captain.

“In many ways it’s the Olympic Games of rugby for these lads as it only comes around so often. It will be savage,” added Ruddock. “Certainly the physicality that England are going to offer and then the turn around in just a matter of days . . . it’s going to be massive.

“As I said there were too many lads dropping off tackles last time, going to high. We got to go low, we got to chop them, put them on the floor and then put some heat on the ball there after. That’s the big message. It can be done.”