Brent Pope departed with a squad of St Mary's College school players for Japan on Friday to compete in an under-18 tournament. The majority of this year's Senior Cup team has made the trip to the Land of the Rising Sun where they will join 23 teams from 15 countries including Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Scotland, Italy, Fiji and Samoa.
Pope will not be staying for the entire competition and he returns in the middle of the week while the schoolboys return on Monday, May 7th. The New Zealander will miss St Mary's AIB League game with Garryowen. Once the season is finished he will take five promising young players to Christchurch, New Zealand where they will stay and play for three months.
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