Ireland Women’s U20s squad, sponsored by PwC, will head to Italy to begin their Six Nations Summer Series campaign this Thursday, where they will face England in their opening match.
Head Coach Niamh Briggs named her 28-player squad last week, including captain Jane Neill and vice-captain Kate Flannery, who recently won the Energia All-Ireland League title with UL Bohemians in Aviva Stadium.
Briggs has selected five U23 players to travel with the squad - Ruth Campbell, Amanda McQuade, Chisom Ugwueru, Faith Oviawe and Ivana Kiripati - with three permitted to have involvement in each of the matchday squads.
Neill and Flannery will start v England tomorrow, with Campbell, Ugwueru and Kiripati also featuring in the starting XV.
Team Announcement
The Ireland Women's U-20s team to play England in the #U6NSummerSeries has been named. #futureisgreen @PwCIreland @SixNationsU20— Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) July 3, 2024
‘Exciting’ times ahead for Ireland U20s and vice-captain Kate Flannery
Speaking to Irish Rugby TV ahead of the inaugural Six Nations Summer Series, vice-captain Kate Flannery emphasised the excitement within the squad and explained how they’ve prepared to go up against the other teams.
“It’s such an honour to be given such a leadership role like that. I think we’ve a great group of girls and our team is building over the last few weeks, and I think we’re just so excited to get in there.
It’s been such a competitive camp over the weeks, there’s just so much talent in this group so it was really hard to make the 28.
I think we’ve put in a lot of work behind the scenes, and I think our group is just so excited to get out to Italy, see what we can do as a team, and really just test ourselves against the international teams around the world.
Head Coach Niamh Briggs also spoke about the preparation necessary in order to face the likes of England, and the development journey the Ireland U20s are on at the moment.
This week’s been pretty stressful around selecting a 28-player squad, I think it’s been really difficult for us as coaches and the management group because the competition’s been huge.
The [opening] game’s obviously very tough, I think England are an unbelievable team. We went over there a few weeks ago to do a training game against them - it was really really good, we got loads of information around ourselves and around our own development.
I think for us, it’s about kind of concentrating on ourselves - that’s our big message around us, getting better as a team, I think we’re both in very different paths around our development right now. So we’ve just got to make sure that we look after ourselves, and hopefully put a good display on again on Thursday.
I think everyone’s really excited to get going.
Ireland will begin their tournament against England on 4th July at 17:30 in Parma, with all matches being streamed live on the U6N Women’s Summer Series YouTube channel.
They’ll face Italy on the 9th July, and Scotland on the 14th July in what will be the final matchday.
