{"id":323316,"date":"2026-03-01T11:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T11:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323316\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T11:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T11:17:09","slug":"hopefully-one-day-i-can-put-on-the-senior-green-jersey-meet-josh-neill-the-young-star-who-turned-down-the-springboks-for-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323316\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hopefully one day I can put on the senior green jersey\u2019 &#8211; Meet Josh Neill, the young star who turned down the Springboks for Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive\u00a0|\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nOne of rugby\u2019s hottest young prospects has turned down his native South Africa in favour of Ireland and Leinster\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ireland U-20 players, from left, Christopher Barrett, Derry Moloney, Ben Blaney and Josh Neill after theIR U20 Six Nations Championship victory over England at The Rec in Bath. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sports3363115 (2).jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Ireland U-20 players, from left, Christopher Barrett, Derry Moloney, Ben Blaney and Josh Neill after theIR U20 Six Nations Championship victory over England at The Rec in Bath. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Josh Neill turned 19 yesterday. He made the most of the Six Nations fallow week by jumping on a train from Dublin to celebrate his birthday with his brother Jordan (20) in Belfast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The Neill boys are a long way from South Africa, where they were born and raised, but they are both very much feeling at home in Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive\u00a0|\u00a0 One of rugby\u2019s hottest young prospects has turned down his native South Africa in favour of Ireland&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25747,13503,61,60,4174,11287,112],"class_list":["post-323316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-andy-farrell","tag-cian-tracey","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-rugby-football-union-irfu","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323316","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=323316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}