Niall Annett and Alex Grey with the JWC Trophy.
Eight Ulster players have been included in the squad for Ireland’s opening Junior World cup fixture against England in Treviso tomorrow night KO 5:10pm SKY Sports.
Captain Niall Annett is joined up front by Iain Henderson in the second Row and Dominic Gallagher in the back row with Patrick Jackson, Luke Marshall and Craig Gilroy lining out in the backs. Ulster’s representation is completed with Conor Carey on the bench along with James McKinney bringing the Ulster total to eight. Leinster supply nine players to the 22 man squad with Connacht and Munster chipping in with two apiece. Exile Kieran Marmin completes the squad.
It’s going to be a big ask for Ireland up against a strong England side who turned Ireland over pretty comprehensively in the recent Six Nations Championship but with Ireland only starting four players from that encounter in tomorrow’s match they will have a few surprises in store for their opponents.
The experienced Annett and Furlong return to the front row in a pack bolstered with Henderson, Gallagher and, the hugely impressive Connacht youngster, Eoin McKeon all bringing a bit of bulk and if the pack can get any sort of parity with their beefy counterparts Ireland have a definite chance of an opening round shock.
We will be purring for years over some of the names in the back line and Patrick Jackson’s head to head with English wunderkind George Ford is certainly a battle to savour. However you can give no higher recommendation for Jackson in that he has deposed fellow Ulsterman James McKinney at out half and the Dungannon youngster has the potential to be one of the players of the tournament.
However, fellow Ulsterman Luke Marshall, would be voted the Irish player most likely to receive that award if the vote was taken today and the chunky centre certainly has all the qualities in abundance. Affectionately known as “The Golden Child” by the senior pros at Ulster, Marshal has the ability to turn any game and he links with Jackson particularly effectively with the pair, very much, playing off each other’s strengths to sometimes dazzling effect.
Whether they get time on the ball against England to weave their magic is another matter but with Leinster trio Boyle, Macken and Conway in the line up it’s certainly a back line that will look for the half chance.
We can get no bigger indication of the type of game that Ireland are looking to play with our own Craig Gilroy at full back instead of Conway, with the Ulster scoring machine instructed to run at every opportunity.
Really looking forward to this opener and I hope it doesn’t disappoint! Ireland to sneak it in a opening round sensation!
| England | Ireland | |
| Mako Vunipola | 1 | James Tracy |
| Mikey Haywood | 2 | Niall Annett (C) |
| Henry Thomas | 3 | Tadhg Furlong |
| Joe Launchbury | 4 | Michael Kearney |
| Charlie Matthews | 5 | Iain Henderson |
| Matt Kvesic | 6 | Jordi Murphy |
| Matt Everard | 7 | Dominic Gallagher |
| Alex Gray (C) | 8 | Eoin McKeon |
| Chris Cook | 9 | Kieran Marmoin |
| George Ford | 10 | Patrick Jackson |
| JJ Joseph | 11 | Andrew Boyle |
| Ryan Mills | 12 | Luke Marshall |
| Elliot Daly | 13 | Brendan Macken |
| Andy Short | 14 | Andrew Conway |
| Ben Ransom | 15 | Craig Gilroy |
| Rob Buchanan | 16 | David Doyle |
| Ryan Bower | 17 | Conor Carey |
| Sam Twomey | 18 | Daniel Qualter |
| Sam Jones | 19 | Shane Buckley |
| Dan Robson | 20 | Peter Du Toit |
| Owen Farrell | 21 | James McKinney |
| Marland Yarde | 22 | JJ Hanrahan |
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2 Responses to “JWC 2011: Eight Ulster Players in Squad for England”
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Massive test coming up for Annett, Gallagher and Henderson. How they cope with the rush of the Young Orcs is a big clue, for me at least, as to how much of a professional future they have.
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Massive test indeed Peat. I’ll be very interested to see how all three cope. Annett will need to be pushing for senior starts next season to continue his development which is going to be a big ask with the three hookers we have in place. Haven’t seen much of Gallagher this season as he’s down at Trinity but by all accounts it was a massive performance against Leinster Development that got him on the plane and now into the starting line up so looking forward to seeing how he performs. Hendy has really bulked up this season but he’s still another year to go at this level I believe so I think we can give him another season on the weights before the final assessment!
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