Ireland’s head coach Joe Schmidt is keen to get his young stars on the field in this year’s Six Nations tournament.
At the start of the 2015 World Cup, the average age of the Irish squad was 28.2 years. This was lowered to 27 for last year’s Six Nations, and will go down again to 26.5 for this year’s edition.
Of his moves to lower the age of his squad, Schmidt said:
“You have always got to be trying to spread the net and then invest in those guys so that they get as comfortable as they can in the Test arena,”
His team includes Jordan Lamour, an uncapped fullback/wing who could make his Irish debut aged just 20. With a jaw-dropping highlight reel, the Leinster star only started playing senior rugby in September, and is set to enter international rugby just four months later.
Another Leinster product is James Ryan, who captained the Under-20 Ireland team to the final of the World Cup in 2016, and has already made four appearances for the senior team aged 21. The second row will be in and around the ball as much as he possibly can. A future Irish captain? I would say so.
Moving north of the border now, Ulster fullback/wing Jacob Stockdale also has four caps by the age of 21, and his 17 tries in 36 appearances for Ulster will make him one to look out for this tournament.
These three present themselves as just a small selection of the supreme rugby Ireland can rely on from their youth. Other ones to watch include Leinster’s Andrew Porter (22) at prop, and Joey Carberry (22) who plays fly-half.
