Irish walking wounded look to regroup

It might be a good omen but, for the first time since they arrived in France on Saturday, there was warm sunshine and pool weather yesterday for the Irish U20 squad as they recovered from the bruising encounter with the hosts the previous night.

Up to now the weather has been warm and sticky, interspersed with thunderstorms and rain coming down from the Pyrenees, but the squad could at least bask at their team hotel in Narbonne yesterday as they came to terms with the agonising 26-24 loss to the Six Nations champions.

First up for Noel McNamara and his management team was to assess the walking wounded ahead of Sunday’s crunch clash with South Africa.