Ireland Under-20s squad?

[Fireworks]

With all games now played the final rankings and the pool draw for next year are below
1 england
2 wales
3 south africa
4 new zealand
5 france
6 argentina
7 australia
8 ireland
9 samoa
10 scotland
11 fiji
12 usa
world trophy
1 italy

england. argentina, australia, italy
wales, france, ireland, fiji
south africa, new zealand, samoa, scotland

Pity after a great start to the tournament. We finished where people outside of Ireland would have picked us to finish. Outsiders will say we played to form. Personally thought we were good enough to finish ahead of Agentina & France but it wasn't to be!

Disappointing. There was an improvement in strength but just not enough. They were so close against both NZ and France.

[dropkick]

Against Australia they were missing Tom Daly, Sweetnam, Taylor, Dooley, Olding, Henshaw and Ryan Murphy. Not a bad effort overall especially considering they lacked a kicker.

[hugonaut]

Luke McGrath finishes his U20 career with 19 of a possible 20 caps [13 starts + 6 substitute appearances]. Excellent going for the lad and a great preparation for his senior career.

[goreyguy]

Hopefully he can continue to work on his pass.

[blockhead]

Luke McGrath finishes his U20 career with 19 of a possible 20 caps [13 starts + 6 substitute appearances]. Excellent going for the lad and a great preparation for his senior career.

Joe already has trusted Luke to start a vital, must win, end of season fixture against our bogey team. And he did pretty well.
Ouh Ahh Luke McGrath I said Ouh Ahh Luke McGrath!!!!
Just sayin, we could do with a few more chants.

[Donny B.]

Luke McGrath finishes his U20 career with 19 of a possible 20 caps [13 starts + 6 substitute appearances]. Excellent going for the lad and a great preparation for his senior career.

Joe already has trusted Luke to start a vital, must win, end of season fixture against our bogey team. And he did pretty well.
Ouh Ahh Luke McGrath I said Ouh Ahh Luke McGrath!!!!
Just sayin, we could do with a few more chants.

Oi!!!! That was already used for Jack McGrath a couple of times towards the end of the season, so hands off buddie!!!

[Armchair]

whispers going around that Tom Farrell has been offered a Munster Academy spot, Leinster only offering another year at sub-academy. Would be a strange decision if true from Leinster. Girv and co seem to be the only ones not rating him!

[ceemec]

Well, they've already taken in two centres this year and have Coughlan and O'Shea there already. Only so many places they can give for certain positions. Farrell had a good JWC but made some very silly mistakes too. He's probably good enough for a contract but wrong time for him.

[goreyguy]

2 centres?

Byrne doesn't look like a centre to me, barely looked like a wing at the JWC especially defending.
Daly is a pure inside centre aswell, not suited to any other position.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

McGrath aside, there are no players who look bound for a standout professional career.

Bump.

[paddyor]

Moriarty banned for 7 weeks

The more things change, the more they say the same

[Oldschoolsocks]

McGrath aside, there are no players who look bound for a standout professional career.

Bump.

Tbf in retrospect that was a good year

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I'm sure this is only interesting to me but I had a look back through my own posts here hoping that I'd predicted VDF would win WPOTY. I said he was excellent but didn't talk him up to that extent unfortunately(mods must have edited my posts) but saw some posts that stood out.

What might have been...

I'm trying not to get too excited but have to echo what everyone has said about Leavy, what a prospect. I know he's a flanker but he has a presence and maturity that reminds me of Poc at his best. When you need him, he's there, and always (bar the offload against Oz) seems to do the right thing. If he was to suffer an injury and lose some pace and power then he'd still be a really effective player because he just always seems to be one step ahead of everyone else. His workrate is phenomenal and his technique is just perfect for most things. He strikes me as someone who soaks up everything a coach says.

I don't remember having this opinion but perhaps it hints to why Dooley never kicked on. I'm glad I decided to stop being overly harsh on underage players at some point, definitely too much here.

I can remember criticising Dooley for an embarrassingly bad workrate in one of the 6N games but he got better and better throughout that game and really changed my opinion of him.

His workrate in the last few games has generally been very good again but I do think he drifts in and out of games and tends to need to walk around (literally) for spells during a game. He's certainly a talent, just needs to get a bit fitter imo. I'd certainly prefer a prop with good technique who needs to do some conditioning work over an athlete who can't scrummage!

And it seems I've been defensive of Luke from the start

For those criticising McGrath, I didn't actually think he was too bad but regardless of that he took a couple of very heavy knocks which may explain why he wasn't at his best.

[dropkick]

McGrath aside, there are no players who look bound for a standout professional career.

Bump.

Tbf in retrospect that was a good year

Not particularly. 2012 and 2016 were good years. 2019, 2020 and 2022 were good years also and I'd say next year is shaping up to be good too.