Ulster players arrive at the Aviva stadium yesterday in preparation for today's departure to Italy.
Ireland’s U20′s fly out to Milan today to start preparations for what promises to be an intriguing Junior World Cup campaign.
The squad will travel from Milan to their headquarters in Venice where they’ll settle in and tomorrow they’ll begin their build up for, what looks like, their decisive opening fixture against England U20′s on Friday evening in Treviso. KO 15:10 [UK Time].
Ireland’s schedule sees the youngsters face five games in sixteen days and the man tasked with nursing the squad through the exhausting schedule is Ireland U20′s Assistant Coach, and Ulster’s Elite Player Development Officer, Niall Malone.
The Front Row Union caught up with Niall prior to departure to discuss Ireland’s prospects and according to the former Ulster and Ireland player it really is a case of taking the tournament one game at a time.
It’s an exhausting schedule playing a game every four days and such is the nature of the competition that you can’t afford to look beyond your next match. We’re in a tough group with England, who would be one of the tournament favourites, South African and Scotland. Obviously we’re going out to win all three games but with only three pools it is possible to go through to the semi finals with two wins. A win against England on Friday would set us well on that path.
We feel that we are capable of surprising England in the first game. We lost to them heavily in the recent Six Nations but we were missing quite a few of our key players through injury and senior rugby commitments for Ulster and Leinster. We like to think we will be more competitive this time round and if England are not at the top of their game and we can raise ours we have a chance of an early upset.
Although Ireland fielded weakened sides against England and France in the Six Nations it was up front where they struggled with Ireland finding it difficult to come to terms with their big physical packs. Little has changed in terms of personnel in the forwards so what steps will Ireland be taking to nullify this threat?
England and South Africa do offer a huge physical challenge up front. Looking at the group from the outside they would be the favourites to go through but we do have something to offer to upset them. We won’t be playing what would be regarded as “a typically Irish game” but with so many of our backs involved in the Magners League this season we’ll look to use this experience and move the bigger teams around and counter attack.
Of course we’ll also be doing a lot of work with the forwards throughout the competition. There won’t be much physical training as such, the tournament is just too physically demanding for that, but we will be working a lot on technique and our game plans.
Obviously, as you said, you will go out there to target wins in all your group matches but it is a tough group, especially with England and South Africa back to back. Should you fail to qualify for the semi-finals is there a fall back level that you would find acceptable?
I still think we are capable of a top two finish but even with that we might not qualify for the semi finals. Failing that we would target a position in the 5th – 8th place play offs with fifth being a possibility. We finished ninth last time round in Argentina [in the 2010 Junior World Cup] so a fifth place finish would be seen as a big improvement.
As an Ulsterman, what does it mean to have nine Ulster players in this years squad?
As one of Ulster’s Elite Development Officers, on a personal level, I’m obviously delighted to have so many Ulster players involved and with large groups from one province, like Ulster and Leinster have this year, it can help in terms of player familiarity. However we do spend a lot of time with Ireland trying to get rid of the provincial tag, it’s important that it’s seen as an Ireland team, not a group of provinces thrown together. As a group of coaches, we do believe that we select the best player for each position no matter what province they come from.
These things can be cyclic and this season it’s Ulster and Leinster, but as they showed at the start of the season in the combined provinces game at the Aviva they do deserve to be there.
They didn’t have this sort of competition in my day and I just hope that all the players make the most of their opportunity, and not just on the rugby front. They can’t all play in every game, and if you’re not involved it’s easy to mope, but I hope they gel as a team and as a group and get the most out of the experience. They are in Venice, a great city, and I hope they get together and enjoy the city rather than stay in their rooms playing X-Box!
While we do have our Ulster bias at the Front Row Union we would like to re-iterate Niall’s thoughts at the end and wish all of Ireland’s young players all the best for the competition and make sure you get out of your room!
ASSISTANT COACH: Niall Malone is a former Ireland international. He won three caps in 1993 and 1994. Niall was player coach with Instonians and is an Elite Player Development Officer with Ulster.
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