Head Coach Andy Farrell has named the Ireland Men\u2019s Squad, sponsored by Vodafone, for the upcoming Nations Championship Southern Hemisphere Series.<\/p>\n
Ireland will kick off the inaugural Nations Championship against Australia, Japan and New Zealand in July, with Farrell selecting a 36-player squad to travel to Sydney on Monday.<\/p>\n
Caelan Doris will captain the Ireland squad, which includes the uncapped Connacht trio of Billy Bohan, Sam Illo and Sean Jansen.<\/p>\n
Bohan was part of the Ireland squad for the Guinness Men\u2019s Six Nations earlier this season, while Illo and Jansen \u2013 who have featured for Emerging Ireland previously \u2013 have earned first senior squad call ups after impressive seasons for their province.<\/p>\n
Ryan Baird, Shayne Bolton, Jack Boyle, Jack Crowley, Edwin Edogbo, Tom Farrell, Mack Hansen, Paddy McCarthy, Calvin Nash and Andrew Porter are all unavailable due to injury.<\/p>\n
Ireland open their Nations Championship campaign against Australia at a sold-out Allianz Stadium in Sydney on Saturday, 4 July (8.10pm local time\/11.10am Irish time), before going head-to-head with Japan at McDonald Jones Stadium in Newcastle on Saturday, 11 July (8.10pm local time\/11.10am Irish time).<\/p>\n
Farrell\u2019s side then travel to Auckland for a Round 3 clash with New Zealand on Saturday, 18 July (7.10pm local time\/8.10am Irish time), with all matches in the Nations Championship live on Virgin Media One and Virgin Media PLAY in the Republic of Ireland and ITV in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Ireland Head Coach Andy Farrell said: \u201cI\u2019m pleased to announce the Ireland squad for the opening three rounds of the Nations Championship. This competition will bring the best of the northern hemisphere up against their southern counterparts and the road for that Sunday evening slot for Finals Weekend in London starts now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have three tough Tests against Australia, Japan and New Zealand and it\u2019s important that we hit the ground running in this new tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe experience of playing down under will be priceless for us and even though we\u2019ll be playing in front of largely partisan home crowds, we are also excited about playing in front of a huge Irish support. Their dedication to the team never ceases to amaze us and with a huge diaspora down under I\u2019m sure we can count on a large Irish following in Sydney, Newcastle and then on to Auckland.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, we are aiming to build on our positive performances during the recent Guinness Men\u2019s Six Nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe non-Leinster contingent across the three provinces have completed a three-day training block this week in the IRFU HPC ahead of our departure on Monday and it has given us the chance to look at the squad going forward. Congratulations to Billy, Sam and Sean on their selections and each of them has earned the right to be selected after their performances this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir selection, allied to an experienced majority who we hope to see perform strongly for Leinster in the BKT URC final on Friday night, will add great energy to the squad which we\u2019ve been building over the last number of campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ireland Squad<\/p>\n
(Club\/Province\/Caps)<\/p>\n
Forwards (20):<\/p>\n
Tadhg Beirne (Lansdowne\/Munster)(70)<\/p>\n
Billy Bohan (Corinthians\/Connacht)*<\/p>\n
Thomas Clarkson (Blackrock College\/Leinster)(13)<\/p>\n
Jack Conan (Old Belvedere\/Leinster)(59)<\/p>\n
Caelan Doris (St. Mary\u2019s College\/Leinster)(captain)(60)<\/p>\n
Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf\/Leinster)(86)<\/p>\n
Sam Illo (Buccaneers\/Connacht)*<\/p>\n
Cormac Izuchukwu (Ballynahinch\/Ulster)(4)<\/p>\n
Sean Jansen (Connacht)*<\/p>\n
R\u00f3nan Kelleher (Lansdowne\/Leinster)(48)<\/p>\n
Jeremy Loughman (Garryowen\/Munster)(8)<\/p>\n
Joe McCarthy (Dublin University\/Leinster)(24)<\/p>\n
Darragh Murray (Buccaneers\/Connacht)(3)<\/p>\n
Tom O\u2019Toole (Ballynahinch\/Ulster)(21)<\/p>\n
Cian Prendergast (UCD\/Connacht)(11)<\/p>\n
James Ryan (UCD\/Leinster)(80)<\/p>\n
Dan Sheehan (Lansdowne\/Leinster)(39)<\/p>\n
Tom Stewart (Ballynahinch\/Ulster)(5)<\/p>\n
Nick Timoney (Queen\u2019s University\/Ulster)(11)<\/p>\n
Josh van der Flier (UCD\/Leinster)(79)<\/p>\n
Backs (16):<\/p>\n
Bundee Aki (Galwegians\/Connacht)(69)<\/p>\n
Rob Baloucoune (Enniskillen\/Ulster)(8)<\/p>\n
Harry Byrne (Lansdowne\/Leinster)(4)<\/p>\n
Craig Casey (Shannon\/Munster)(28)<\/p>\n
Nathan Doak (Banbridge\/Ulster)(1)<\/p>\n
Ciaran Frawley (UCD\/Leinster)(12)<\/p>\n
Jamison Gibson-Park (Leinster)(51)<\/p>\n
Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers\/Leinster) (84)<\/p>\n
Hugo Keenan (UCD\/Leinster)(46)<\/p>\n
Stuart McCloskey (Bangor\/Ulster)(28)<\/p>\n
Jimmy O\u2019Brien (Naas\/Leinster)(11)<\/p>\n
Tommy O\u2019Brien (Blackrock College\/Leinster)(9)<\/p>\n
Jamie Osborne (Naas\/Leinster)(15)<\/p>\n
Sam Prendergast (Lansdowne\/Leinster)(15)<\/p>\n
Garry Ringrose (UCD\/Leinster)(74)<\/p>\n
Jacob Stockdale (Lurgan\/Ulster)(42)<\/p>\n
*denotes uncapped<\/p>\n
Ireland Fixtures \u2013 Nations Championship Southern Hemisphere Series<\/p>\n
\u2013 Saturday, 4 July: Australia v Ireland, Allianz Stadium, Sydney, 8.10pm local time\/11.10am Irish time<\/p>\n
\u2013 Saturday, 11 July: Japan v Ireland, McDonald Jones Stadium, Newcastle, 8.10pm local time\/11.10am Irish time<\/p>\n
\u2013 Saturday, 18 July: New Zealand v Ireland, Eden Park, Auckland, 7.10pm local time\/8.10am Irish time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head Coach Andy Farrell has named the Ireland Men\u2019s Squad, sponsored by Vodafone, for the upcoming Nations Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-504680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504680","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=504680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}