{"id":293249,"date":"2026-02-12T00:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293249\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T00:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:24:09","slug":"irish-rugby-opta-facts-under-20-mens-six-nations-ireland-u-20s-v-italy-u-20s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/293249\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish Rugby | Opta Facts: Under-20 Men\u2019s Six Nations \u2013 Ireland U-20s v Italy U-20s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Purchase Tickets for Ireland U-20s v Italy U-20s<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland have lost just one of their previous 17 matches against Italy in the Under-20 Men\u2019s Six Nations (W15 D1), however, that defeat came in the final round of last year\u2019s Championship (15-12 in Treviso)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland\u2019s most recent home victory against the Italians came by a single point (23-22 in February 2024)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland have lost five of their six games in the U-20 Six Nations since the start of the 2025 edition (W1), after going unbeaten across the 2022, 2023, and 2024 campaigns (W14, D1). They have lost each of their last four, their longest such run since 2015-2016 (L5)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland suffered a 50-21 defeat to France in last week\u2019s first round, but have not lost their opening two encounters in a campaign since 2016, when they were defeated by Wales and France before going on to win each of their remaining three fixtures<\/p>\n

\u2013 Italy have won just one of their previous 18 round 2 games in the U-20 Six Nations (L17), a 6-0 win against England in the 2022 edition. However, they have led at half-time in each of their last two such fixtures<\/p>\n

\u2013 Italy have alternated between wins and losses across their last nine away clashes in the U-20 Six Nations (W4, L5), losing their most recent one 33-24 to England last March<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland (3\/3) and Italy (2\/2) were the only teams to register a 100% place-kicking success rate across the opening round of the 2026 Championship. Meanwhile, in open play, they had the fewest kicks from hand of any sides last week (Ireland 13, Italy 21)<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland (127) and Italy (126) completed the most tackles across the opening weekend. Italy also had the second best tackle success rate of any team in round 1 (88.7%, behind France\u2019s 92.7%). Ireland had the lowest with 82.5%<\/p>\n

\u2013 Ireland completed 62% of their rucks in just three seconds or fewer against France in round 1, the highest rate of any team in their U-20 Six Nations opener. Italy restricted Scotland to a 29% rate, the lowest of any side last week<\/p>\n

\u2013 With a well-taken brace, Ireland\u2019s Christopher Barrett was the only player to score multiple tries during the opening round of this year\u2019s 2026 tournament. He was the first Irish scrum half to score a brace in the Championship since Craig Casey did so against Italy in 2019<\/p>\n

\u2013 No players completed more tackles in round 1 than Italy\u2019s Christian Brasini or Ireland\u2019s Diarmaid O\u2019Connell (14 each, also France\u2019s Romeo Bonnard Martin). Italy\u2019s Enoch Opoku-Gyamfi ranked just behind them on 13 tackles<\/p>\n


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\n Ulster Add Irish-Qualified Pair To Academy Squad <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Purchase Tickets for Ireland U-20s v Italy U-20s \u2013 Ireland have lost just one of their previous 17…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-293249","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-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293249","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=293249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}