A learning exercise as Irish U19s dip into Sevens scene

Ireland, 2014 Six Nations champions, are the only nation in the IRB’s top 20 test sides without a men’s Sevens team.

As New Zealand beat Canada 54-7 last Sunday to win the Glasgow leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series, 86 teams played in the Kinsale Sevens that same weekend. In August, Thomond Park will host the European Club Sevens, but the absence of Ireland from the men’s international game will continue. In that context, it will be of interest to Irish Sevens fans that this weekend, the IRFU will send a 12-man squad to the FIRA-AER U19 Sevens European Championships in Lisbon. FIRA-AER is the administrative body for rugby union in Europe.

Twelve teams competed in the inaugural tournament, won by France, and invitations for the 2014 competition were issued last autumn. When the responses came back a month later, the organisers were pleased to see that Ireland had given it a thumbs up. “It was a surprise but a good surprise,” said FIRA-AER director, Gilles Bizot.