Ireland excited to test youthful squad on tour

BBC News

01-07-2025

Ireland interim assistant coach Denis Leamy says this month's Tests against Georgia and Portugal offer an exciting opportunity to introduce inexperienced players to senior international rugby. With 16 Ireland players on British and Irish Lions duty in Australia, Ireland interim head coach Paul O'Connell - overseeing national team matters while Andy Farrell is away - has 13 uncapped players in a squad captained by 26-year-old Craig Casey.The Irish face Georgia in Tbilisi on Saturday (18:00 BST) and Portugal in Lisbon on 12 July (19:00 BST)."I think it's about implementing old and new into the Irish gameplan and playing the Irish way and seeing how players do in this environment and how they can produce big efforts and big performances," said Leamy, who has taken the Ireland defence coach role while on secondment from Munster."It's about building, I suppose, that catalogue of experience with those players and giving them a feel of what Test rugby looks like."
Ireland are first tasked with taking down Georgia, who are ranked 11th in the world and possess quality operators like 22-year-old back Davit Niniashvili, who will play under former Ireland fly-half Ronan O'Gara at La Rochelle next season. "They're a very experienced Georgian team, a lot of them have played in World Cups. A huge amount of them play in the Top 14 so they're well accustomed to big games, being in tough environments."So it's a really good challenge for a young team and to go to Tbilisi, into a bit of a bearpit, it's going to physical, it's going to be hot, it's everything we want to expose our young players to."Former back row Leamy - part of Ireland's 2009 Grand Slam-winning squad - also offered a positive fitness update on uncapped Munster forward Tom Ahern, who has been nursing a hamstring issue. Calvin Nash is also fit, while uncapped Ulster prop Scott Wilson was added to the squad on Tuesday."He's fit and he's ready to go," Leamy said of Ahern. "Tom has progressed hugely over the last couple of years and he's put in some excellent performances for Munster. So he's a guy we have high hopes for and absolutely, hopefully, he'll get game time and do really well."He's such a promising player, I've no doubt he can do that."