{"id":172947,"date":"2025-12-03T13:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/172947\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T13:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:55:11","slug":"team-by-team-analysis-of-irelands-pool-d-opponents-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/172947\/","title":{"rendered":"Team by team analysis of Ireland\u2019s Pool D opponents \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scotland<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coach: Gregor Townsend<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Captain: Sione Tuipulotu<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">World Ranking: 9<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">WC debut: v France on May 23rd, 1987<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Appearances: 10 (1987-2023)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Record: Played 46, Won 26, Drawn 1, Lost 19<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Head-to-head with Ireland at World Cups: Played 3, Won 1 (1991, 24-15 at Murrayfield), Lost 2 (2019, 3-27 in Yokohama; 2023, 14-36 at Stade de France)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Best placing: Fourth (1991)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lowdown: For the third World Cup in succession, Ireland will face their Celtic cousins at the pool stage, having won both games in Japan (2019) and France (2023), tournaments in which Gregor Townend\u2019s side failed to reach the knock-out stages. The Scots do have a pool victory over Ireland, at Murrayfield in 1991. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It would be wrong to say that familiarity has bred contempt but there\u2019s little love lost when Glasgow meet any of the Irish provinces in the URC, while it has also got a little bit chippy in recent times at Test level. Both sides will point to the fact that the World Cup is two years away and plenty can change in terms of current fortunes. They will face each other twice in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/six-nations\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/six-nations\">Six Nations<\/a> before then, starting with the upcoming clash at the Aviva Stadium. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Agustin Ormaechea of Uruguay in action against France during a Pool A game at Stade de France in September 2023. Photograph: Dave Winter\/Inpho\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/5456HBIZ27XEQKBZFXAUVE65FE.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"508\"\/>Agustin Ormaechea of Uruguay in action against France during a Pool A game at Stade de France in September 2023. Photograph: Dave Winter\/Inpho <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Uruguay<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coach: Rodolfo Ambrosio<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Captain: Manuel Leindekar<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Nickname: Los Teros<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">World Ranking: 14<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">WC debut: v Spain on October 2nd, 1999<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Appearances: 5 (1999, 2003, 2015, 2019, 2023)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Record: Played 15, Won 3, Drawn 0, Lost 12<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Best placing: Pool stage<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lowdown: Uruguay have qualified for a fourth consecutive World Cup as Sudam\u00e9ricano 2025 champions. Head coach Rodolfo Ambrosio will head into a third World Cup and enjoys a rather unusual distinction. Born in Argentina, he moved to Italy in 1985 to play for CUS Roma, and as he had an Italian grandfather qualified to play for his adopted country. He played in the opening match of the 1987 World Cup against New Zealand. He was Chile\u2019s attack coach at the 2023 World Cup in France and will now lead Uruguay to Australia in 2027. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Ormaechea name is synonymous with Uruguay. Diego \u2013 he is the oldest player at 40 to line out in a World Cup match \u2013 who captained Los Teros in their first WC in 1999 before his sons Juan and Agust\u00edn also played in subsequent World Cups. They have never faced Ireland in a Test match, while they have not played Scotland since their maiden Rugby World Cup in 1999. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Cian Prendergast scores Ireland's 10th try during the Test match against Portugal in Lisbon back in July. Photograph: Ben Brady\/Inpho\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/B762ZVSOWL5UPB52WZTLU6DNY4.jpg\"   width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>Cian Prendergast scores Ireland&#8217;s 10th try during the Test match against Portugal in Lisbon back in July. Photograph: Ben Brady\/Inpho Portugal<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coach: Simon Mannix<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Captain: Tom\u00e1s Appleton<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Nickname: Os Lobos<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">World Ranking: 20<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">WC debut: v Scotland on September 9th, 2007<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Appearances: 2 (2007, 2023)<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Record: Played 8, Won 1, Drawn 1, Lost 6<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Best placing: Pool stage<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lowdown: Ireland, with Paul O\u2019Connell as interim head coach, and assisted by Mike Prendergast and Cullie Tucker, racked up a record 106-7 victory over Portugal in Lisbon, that included most tries (16) and most conversions (12, Jack Crowley) as well as a highest points total and margin of victory. The three Irish debutants Hugh Gavin (two), Shayne Bolton (two) and Alex Kendellen scored tries. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Under the coaching baton of former French wing Patrice Lagisquet, they had a brilliant World Cup last time out, the second in their history, drawing with Georgia and beating Fiji. The current head coach is Simon Mannix, formerly a backs coach with Munster (2012-2014) and he is assisted by Andi Kyriacou, who also spent time at the Irish province as a forwards coach. Portugal lost to 2027 pool opponents Uruguay 26-8 earlier this year and Scotland in November 2024. Thirteen of the squad play their club rugby in France with Sim\u00e3o Bent, Vincent Pinto, Nicolas Martins and Tom\u00e1s Appleton the pick of them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scotland Coach: Gregor Townsend Captain: Sione Tuipulotu World Ranking: 9 WC debut: v France on May 23rd, 1987&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,1449,43,1255,75784],"class_list":["post-172947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ireland-rugby","tag-news","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-scotland-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}