Under-20 World Cup: John O'Sullivantalks to under-20 coach Eric Elwood about the IRB Junior World Championship where he has targeted the Argentina game

THE HIGH turnover in personnel on an annual basis in age grade rugby lends itself to fluctuating fortunes in terms of results. Eric Elwood appreciates this truism based on his experiences in coaching the Ireland Under-20 team for the past two seasons.

In 2007 Ireland won a first ever Grand Slam at that level but this season with a new squad could only manage two wins from five matches in the same tournament, beating Italy 6-0 at Dubarry Park and then narrowly ousting Scotland 17-12 at the same venue.

There was mitigation in terms of the character displayed against France (24-13) and Wales (11-6) in defeat before an England Grand Slam-winning side ran amok (43-14) at Kingsholm. What the two separate Irish campaigns underlined on a superficial level is the importance of having a spine of quality to any team.

The Irish Grand Slam side had some outstanding individuals to supplement character, the latter attribute important when considering they fell behind in all five matches. The current Ireland Under-20 side is not similarly endowed ability wise but as Elwood has discovered, there can be no questioning their work ethic.

Next month Ireland will travel to Wales to compete in the IRB Junior World Championship where they will face Argentina, Tonga and a New Zealand squad that has five players with Super 14 experience this season.

Elwood smiles as he considers the ridiculously tough fixture schedule before distilling Ireland's ambition into a single sentence.

"We have targeted the Argentina match as the game for us if we are to get out of the pool in second place.

"It's not a case of dismissing Tonga but we have to aspire to win that match anyway. New Zealand has a star-studded squad, comfortably the best in the tournament. We have to be realistic about what can be accomplished."

The Ireland squad has been preparing assiduously, including the spending the guts of a week at the recently opened state-of-the-art Aspire (Advanced Sports Performance Ireland) fitness centre in Clara, the brainchild of Offaly and Clara footballer Joe Quinn.

Elwood enthused: "It has all the facilities any squad would require, including accommodation on a 35-acre site. The players trained four times a day and pretty much napped and ate in between. The priority was to develop muscle bulk during that time.

"It's fair to say they were delighted to see me arrive with a few balls for the rugby part of the camp that weekend."

The Ireland squad will face their Scottish counterparts in a match ahead of the tournament and will also take on an Ireland Under-23 team drawn from the Churchill Cup squad.

It'll be a condition match and with one eye on the Argentina game, Elwood has asked that Churchill bound players will ape the Argentine style.

Elwood has spent the last few weeks pouring over DVDs of a junior Pumas side that unlike their elder siblings, plays expansive patterns.

The Ireland coach admitted: "We are a small side and to be fair we have probably boxed above our weight during the Six Nations. I suppose we won the games that we were expected to win and we'll be looking to give a good account of ourselves in Wales.

"We treat the players as young professionals and look for them to develop as players. The attitude has been excellent."

Elwood has looked at the national Under-19 squad and a couple of players in Ciarán Ruddock, son of former Leinster and Wales coach Mike, and Ulster openside flanker Michael Entwistle, injured for a large part of the season, have made strong cases.

The Ireland Under-20s assemble for a three-day camp next week and will repeat the process the following week at Ashbourne Rugby club before departing for Wales. If they did manage to get out of their pool in second place then the "reward" would be a tilt at either Wales or France. For now, though, the focus is on preparation in pursuit of realising their ambition.

For this particular group of young Ireland players success or failure can't simply be gauged by results but rather in the meritocracy of performance, individual and collective.

Ireland's fixture schedule

POOL A

June 6th: Ireland v Argentina, Arms Park (7.0)

June 10th: New Zealand v Ireland, Arms Park (9.0)

June 14th: Ireland v Tonga, Arms Park (3.0)

June 18th: Match day four.

June 22nd: Finals day.