Over the next couple of weekends, some of Ireland’s top Under-18 players will compete in a Five Nations tournament in Bristol and Caerphilly and a Tri-Nations one in Ashbourne.
In recent times the IRFU rotated between sending Schools and Youths teams to the FIRA AER Under-18 Championships, a knockout competition, but the union has embraced a change of emphasis and so the Schools and Youths have been combined into A (Bristol and Caerphilly) and B (Ashbourne) squads.
It is part of an overhaul of the underage system within Ireland. The schools and clubs will continue to provide handsomely to the elite underage structure but the IRFU is looking to broaden the playing base. To that end they are planning to entice players from a non-rugby background into a post-primary Sevens programme.
The premise is that Sevens is more conducive to smaller numbers and easier to learn initially while developing all the core skills required to transfer to the 15-a-side game if so desired.
The Ireland Under-18 A side begin their tournament against England at Bristol tomorrow where the priority, as is the case with the B side who take on France in Ashbourne on Saturday (2.0), will be to review individual performances rather than the result.
The IRFU's Performance Director David Nucifora explained: "It's important that we have three games for one team and two for another to see where they are up to at this point in their careers and that will tell us more about the players, which will help us make a judgement on what we will do with them next.
Not make or break
“These game aren’t make or break for these players. We want to be able to judge performance based on a number of things, not just whether they win or lose the game. I think winning is an important part of development but it is not the sole thing that we are chasing.
“The process that we are moving to by moving away from a less generic form of development, is that we understand that not all of these players are going to move through and become professional rugby players. So for us we are investing more in individuals than we are in teams.
“We really invest in teams the further up the food chain we go. At this time we are still investing in a lot of individuals, seeing what they have got and the potential they have to go further into the game.”
There is a commitment to provide a specialised programme to the best 20 or so players at U-16, U-17, U-18 and U-19 levels that will be implemented in conjunction with schools, clubs and academies where applicable. There will also be an emphasis on finding playing outlets of a suitable standard to test the players.
