10-07-2025
Ireland U20s in wooden spoon battle, but relegation trapdoor may shut
The scale of Ireland's 69-22 hammering by New Zealand on Wednesday evening has meant Neil Doak's side now go into the lower tier to see who finishes bottom of the World Rugby U20 Championship in Italy.
But even if Ireland finish bottom — they play Scotland with the loser facing either Georgia or Spain — they are unlikely to be relegated as World Rugby proposes increasing this tournament from 12 to 16 teams in 2026.
Ireland have played in every one of the 15 tournaments since this grade started in 2008, twice finishing runners-up, but they have been in this position before and came close to being relegated to the U20 World Trophy in 2018 with a management team headed by Noel McNamara and which also included current interim senior Ireland coach Paul O'Connell.
Back then they were pushed all the way before seeing off Japan 39-33 in the relegation final in Beziers with a side which included current Irish captain Caelan Doris and other future internationals such as Dan Sheehan, Harry Byrne, and a duo, Tommy O'Brien and Jack Aungier, who made their senior bows in Georgia last weekend.
That 2018 team finished mid-table with 12 points in that season's Six Nations with wins over Scotland and Italy, while the current crop were bottom this year with just six points and one win over Scotland, a 33-15 victory in Edinburgh.
The scale of the loss to New Zealand saw Ireland finish below Wales and Italy on points difference and drop to the third tier of play-off games. They will now face Scotland in Verona on Monday (5pm Irish time) where a win will see them bid for ninth place the following Saturday and a loss will see them in a battle to avoid the wooden spoon of a tournament where they were semi-finalists last year and runners-up the previous season.
Captain Éanna McCarthy, who has done extremely well to front up after the losses, said they can take a lot of positives from Wednesday's loss, not least the way they took the game initially to the Junior All Blacks and built a 12-0 lead.
'There are a lot of learnings from that but we can take energy from the first 20 minutes,' said the Connacht academy player from Cork. 'There are not many teams that can do that to an All Blacks side. We can take the learnings and the positives out of it as well."
