The Offload: Ireland Under-20s short on international experience

Under-20s short on international experience

Reuben Crothers faces a more difficult task in leading the Ireland Under-20 team side in the Six Nations than those embraced by his recent predecessors.

The Coronavirus pandemic has largely wiped out the last two years of age-grade rugby in Ireland, so the squad assembled by head coach Richie Murphy for the first game against Wales at Musgrave Park on Friday night is undercooked in terms of experience at international level. Ordinarily many would have represented Ireland at Under-18 and/or Under-19 levels.

Ireland will field an undersized pack compared to their rivals so will have to rely heavily on any cohesion gleaned from three warm-up matches, an international in which they were beaten at home by Italy and games against Munster and Leinster Development XVs.

Crothers, who came off the bench in all five of the 2021 Six Nations matches - the entire tournament was staged in Cardiff last summer - is one of four players alongside Jack Boyle, Chay Mullins and Mark Morrissey back from last year.

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An undergraduate in Law at Queen’s University, the Irish captain is not cowed by the challenge: “It is a real privilege to be captain of your country. It’s an honour but I have so many leaders around me in the team that it makes my job a lot easier,” Crothers said.

“I was captain of my High School (Wallace) for two years, just in the Schools Cup. In Ulster I captained the age-grade teams (but) it is the first captaincy role that I have had for a few years because of Covid.”

He has been training with the Ulster senior squad for the last year and a half and paid tribute to senior forwards’ coach Roddy Grant and academy forwards’ coach Willie Faloon - he’s also the Irish U-20 defence coach - in his development.

So what type of captain is Crothers? He admitted: “I would step in when the words need to be spoken but at the same time our group is player led. The standards are driven within the squad. I have so many leaders around me that can talk when they want to; I like to lead by example, by my actions rather than my words.”

He’s looking forward to playing in Musgrave Park in front of a few more people than were there for the game against a Munster Development team. “It is going to be a huge benefit to us, having the home crowd there. Hopefully we are going to get somewhere close to full capacity.”

Number of the week

11 - The number of tries scored by prolific Clontarf hooker Dylan Donnellan this season in the AIL Division 1A, including one against UCC at the weekend. The 27-year-old former age-grade international previously played professional rugby with Biarritz Olympique and Yorkshire Carnegie.

Quote of the week

"What was disappointing was the lack of energy, the lack of spark and stupidity of some of the penalties we gave away. We kept giving them access. Areas that have functioned well for us before didn't function. There are no excuses. That was unacceptable, that performance." Connacht coach Andy Friend rightly calls out his team's performance.

Galthié hoping to emulate Jacques Fouroux

Fabien Galthié would dearly love to emulate the achievement of legendary former French scrumhalf Jacques Fouroux in captaining and coaching France to a Grand Slam. Fouroux led the French to their second ever Slam in 1977, the five foot three inch scrumhalf known as ‘le petit general’ was a pivotal figure in the triumph.

In 1981 he coached a France team captained by flanker Jean Pierre Rives to the country’s third Grand Slam and repeated the feat in 1987 with hooker Daniel Dubrocca as his on-pitch leader. Fouroux won 27 caps for France (1972-1977) and coached the national team from 1981 to 1990.

Galthie wasn’t the original captain when France won a Grand Slam in 2002, that honour fell to Olivier Magne, but the scrumhalf took over for the final three matches of the campaign including a 44-5 victory over Ireland in Paris on the final day. Galthie appointed Antoine Dupont as his captain further strengthening the scrumhalf connection.

Twice hookers Karl Mullen (1948) and Rory Best (2018) have captained Ireland to a Grand Slam, the other occasion it was centre Brian O’Driscoll (2009). Indeed it is 44-years since an outhalf led their country to a clean sweep of wins in the tournament and that honour belonged to Phil Bennett in the 1978 Five Nations.

Wales’ new captain in the absence of the injured Alun Wyn Jones, Dan Biggar would love to bridge that gap as would Ireland’s Johnny Sexton.

The Kay Bowen Cup

The Kay Bowen Cup, contested by women’s senior inter-varsity rugby teams, will take place at Maynooth University Barnhall RFC and North Kildare, next Wednesday. Teams from UCD, Maynooth, the University of Limerick, Trinity, NUI Galway, Dublin City University, UCC and Queen’s University will compete in two pools of four teams in a blitz format.

Pool matches are 13 minutes per half with a five minute break with the final 15 minutes a side. The inaugural tournament set-up by the Irish Universities Rugby Union (IURU) in June, 2012 is named after the popular Trinity rugby administrator, Kay Bowen.

In the 2011-2012 season became the first woman to be elected President of an Irish University rugby club, when she was honoured by Trinity, having begun her role as the rugby club administrator in 1997. Like many sports events affected by the pandemic it was last contested in 2019 when DCU took the honours.