Ruddock retains on-field focus

IRELAND U20s head coach Mike Ruddock is doing his utmost to focus on matters on the field amidst speculation tomorrow’s IRB Junior World Championship clash with Wales could be the side’s last outing in this tournament.

According to reports, the Irish Rugby Football Union has, because of concerns over player welfare, decided to turn its back on an annual competition which, this year, has condensed five rounds of fixtures into just 16 days.

Certainly, Ruddock’s charges, who impressed in the pool stages in running both England and South Africa close before beating Scotland, looked to be suffering the effects of fatigue in their 57-15 defeat by the Baby Boks in their fifth-place play-off semi-final in Padova on Wednesday.

However, when pressed on the issue of whether Ireland should continue to compete in a tournament which so severely tests the stamina of young players, Ruddock was non-committal.

“It’s all just speculation to me at the moment,” he said. “I haven’t been told anything. My focus is just on getting us ready for the game against Wales.”

Ruddock did concede, though, that his players looked jaded during Wednesday’s resounding defeat.

“This is a tough tournament,” he confessed. “You saw in Padova that we were limping out there with some injuries.

“But you’ve just got to dig in. That’s all we can do now. We’re hurting. But what we’ve got to do is focus on the fact that we were very competitive in our first three games, so we need to keep our confidence levels up.”

Ireland still have something to play for, too. Their best previous finish was eighth place in Japan two years ago so victory over Wales in tomorrow’s play-off for seventh in Treviso would represent a creditable achievement.

The Welsh only narrowly missed out on a place in the semi-finals after racking up wins over Italy and Argentina either side of a humiliating 92-0 defeat by three-time defending champions New Zealand.

However, they too looked like a spent force at the Stadio Plebiscito on Tuesday night, in losing 34-20 to Fiji.

“I watched the second half of the game and they fell off a couple of tackles, just like we did against South Africa, so it looks like it’ll be a game between two tired teams,” Ruddock admitted. “It’ll probably be the fresher side which comes out on top.”