U20s enjoy 'one of our best sessions' up against Irish senior counterparts

IRELAND U20S assistant coach Andrew Browne found himself reconnecting with some familiar faces when the underage international side trained against their senior counterparts at the IRFU’s High-Performance Centre last week.

During 12 years (2006-2018) as a professional player with Connacht — for whom he is currently employed as an elite player development officer — the Galway native lined out alongside current Ireland squad members Bundee Aki, Robbie Henshaw, Finlay Bealham and Caolin Blade.

Yet Browne also donned the green jersey at a number of levels throughout his career and some of his former team-mates from those teams were also active participants for that joint session at the HPC.

“There’s a lot of young fellas as well that I don’t know. I obviously would have played with Bundee, would have played with Finlay and still we’re fully integrated in the academy in Connacht. You’re nearly working with them day-to-day. Then even going back to as far as Emerging Ireland in 2015 with Jack Conan and a few other lads,” Browne remarked on a video call yesterday.

“Myself and Keats [Ian Keatley, his fellow Ireland U20s assistant coach] were on the U20 team with Cian Healy back in 2007 and it’s just amazing that he’s still going. It was good to catch up with a few of those lads as well.”

As for the workout itself, Browne — the younger brother of former rugby player and extreme adventurer Damian Browne — felt it was the best session the Ireland U20s have enjoyed thus far in 2025.

When you couple it with a morale-boosting win over Scotland in Edinburgh on the previous weekend, he believes the Irish squad are in fine shape ahead of their round three bout away to Wales in this year’s U20 Six Nations tomorrow evening (kick-off 7.45pm).

“It was honestly one of our best sessions of the year so far. Just going against quality players, a quality team. A different pace. Lads came out of it saying it was obviously really fast and really tough, but they belong there. Which was the real positive thing.

“I think going into this week then, obviously the confidence from the win against Scotland, but also the confidence with that training session against Ireland [has helped]. So we’re in a pretty good place.”

While head coach Neil Doak has largely kept faith with the side that secured a 33-15 victory against Scotland last Saturday week, Eoghan Smyth and Tom McAllister have been introduced to the Irish starting line-up for tomorrow’s game in place of Gene O’Leary Kareem and Alex Mullan respectively.

Elsewhere, Mikey Yarr, Conor Kennelly and Tom Wood (son of legendary former Munster and Ireland hooker Keith Wood) have been added to the replacements with Connor Magee, Oisin Minogue and Dylan Hicks all missing out on the match day 23 on this occasion.

Although an ankle injury sustained playing club rugby for Shannon has ruled Minogue — who scored a try off the bench in the Scotland game — out of contention, Browne explained the remaining changes are about giving players a chance to impress at this level.

“It’s not like the other lads that are dropping out of the starting team or dropping out of the squad deserve to be dropped, they don’t. We’ve always talked in the past with 20s about strength in depth and especially, when you get to the World Cup in June/July and not having lads exposed to a high level of rugby.

“You have Tom McAllister coming in at tighthead, who has done really well when he did come on in games and then you have Mikey Yarr come onto the bench in the hooker position. Tom Wood coming onto the bench. There are a few changes there, a few lads in line to get their first cap as well, which will be a nice thing.”

Whereas Ireland bounced back from an opening-round defeat to England by getting the better of the Scots, Wales responded to a heavy reversal against France on 1 February by claiming a 20-18 triumph against Italy in Treviso six days later.

After examining their performances to date in the 2025 edition of the U20 Six Nations, Browne is acutely aware of the threats the Welsh are capable of posing in their backyard tomorrow night.

“We previewed their maul this week and they’ve got a number of tries from their maul against France and Italy. That’s going to be a big weapon for them. Then some really good outside backs,” Browne added.

“You’ve got the likes of Tom Bowen, who has got a number of Cardiff caps and you have [Aidan] Boshoff as well. They like to get the ball in their hands as much as they can. We’re previewing from that point of view.”