Murphy’s Ireland U20s Building Towards Six Nations

Ireland U20s Head Coach Richie Murphy says his extended squad is building cohesion and connections as they resume work at the IRFU High Performance Centre this week.

A group of 36 players assembled for a four-day camp in Dublin last week, as Murphy and his coaching team of Colm Tucker and Denis Leamy, continued to shape and mould the squad ahead of next month’s rescheduled U20s Six Nations.

Ireland returned to the Sport Ireland Campus on Monday for the first of back-to-back five-day camps, as preparations intensify for the Championship opener against Scotland at Cardiff Arms Park on 19 June.

“The application from the players has been really good and we’ve seen the progress they’ve made over the last camp, which gets us excited about what we can achieve over the next couple of weeks,” Murphy told IrishRugby.ie.

“We’re starting to build a few combinations and players are starting to take a little bit more ownership. The first couple of weeks we were together we were trying to give them quite a lot but now you can see that process changing and players stepping up, which has been fantastic.

“They’re a really good bunch of young men and hopefully in a couple of weeks, we’ll be able to give a good account of ourselves in the Six Nations.”

Ireland open their campaign against Scotland in Round 1, before facing Wales in Round 2 on 25 June. Murphy’s side then go head-to-head with England on 1 July, before concluding the Six Nations with ties against Italy on 7th July and France on 13th July.

“It’s just about building in,” Murphy said of this week’s focus. “We’ve got two five-day camps over the next two weeks. All the time that squad is evolving a little bit and the fixtures have given everyone a focus.”