{"id":292618,"date":"2026-02-11T16:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292618\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T16:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T16:00:07","slug":"ireland-under-20s-make-three-changes-for-six-nations-clash-against-italy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/292618\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland under-20s make three changes for Six Nations clash against Italy \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Andrew Browne has made three changes and a positional switch to the starting team that lost to France in Perpignan for this Friday\u2019s Under-20 Six Nations clash against Italy at Virgin Media Park (kick-off 7.45pm, live on RT\u00c9 2).<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Cashel\u2019s Rob Carney is named in the centre alongside fellow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/munster-rugby\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/munster-rugby\/\">Munster<\/a> man James O\u2019Leary with Johnny O\u2019Sullivan dropping to the bench. Lee Fitzpatrick, who missed the France game through injury, returns at hooker with Rian Handley moving to the replacements. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Garryowen\u2019s Joe Finn has been promoted to the starting line-up at blindside flanker, Josh Neill switches to openside with Billy Hayes on the bench. Old Belvedere scrumhalf James O\u2019Dwyer has been promoted to the matchday 23, with Fergus Callington and Ethan Black dropping out of the match squad for Friday night\u2019s game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ireland lost 50-21 at the Stade Aim\u00e9 Giral but beat Italy 29-10 in a pre-tournament warm-up game in Belfield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Italians lost heavily to Scotland in their opening Six Nations fixture, taking a 36-10 defeat at Stadio Monigo last Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ireland Under-20s: Noah Byrne; Derry Moloney, Rob Carney, James O\u2019Leary, Daniel Ryan; Tom Wood, Christopher Barrett; Max Doyle, Lee Fitzpatrick, Sami Bishti (capt); Dylan McNeice, Donnacha McGuire; Joe Finn, Josh Neill, Diarmaid O\u2019Connell. Replacements: Rian Handley, Christian Foley, Blake McClean, Ben Blaney, Bill Hayes, James O\u2019Dwyer, Charlie O\u2019Shea, Johnny O\u2019Sullivan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Browne has made three changes and a positional switch to the starting team that lost to France&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,39220,43,15551],"class_list":{"0":"post-292618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-ireland-rugby-u20s","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-six-nations"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292618","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=292618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}