{"id":521405,"date":"2026-06-27T15:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/521405\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T15:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T15:42:16","slug":"star-is-born-as-ryan-gets-hat-trick-but-ireland-u20s-still-suffer-defeat-to-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/521405\/","title":{"rendered":"Star is born as Ryan gets hat-trick but Ireland U20s still suffer defeat to England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Connacht\u2019s Daniel Ryan scored a hat-trick, but it wasn\u2019t enough as Ireland U20s suffered a 34-27 defeat to England in the Junior World Championships in Georgia.<\/p>\n

It was all Ireland from the get-go in Tbilisi as the backline were in scintillating form in the early stages. Ryan already bagged himself two tries after just six minutes as Ireland were in red-hot form, with Charlie O\u2019Shea<\/a> pulling the strings.<\/p>\n

However, momentum shifted quickly as Ireland\u2019s discipline began to wane. Dylan McNiece received a yellow card, and Ireland suffered while down to 14. England scored three tries in quick succession as Blaney followed McNiece to the bin as Ireland were 19-12 down, playing for a short period with 13 men.<\/p>\n

\"\"Daniel Ryan Ireland U20s scores. Pic: Tamuna Kulumbegashvili\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

Shields kicked over a penalty for England as they led 22-12 at the break, but Ryan completed his hat-trick just after the restart as he received a lovely offload from O\u2019Shea and was able to fend off the English defender to bring Ireland back to within a score.<\/p>\n

However, Ireland couldn\u2019t stay in the fight for too long as England scored the killer try from Will Knight, and as the form was all day, Shields knocked over the conversion to extend England\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

Ireland did mount a comeback with tries from Noah Byrne and Jack Deegan, but missed conversions meant Ireland were still chasing the game, and a last Shields penalty gave England the advantage to see the game out, winning 34-27.<\/p>\n

\"IrelandJosh Neill of Ireland U20s. Pic: Tamuna Kulumbegashvili\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

It was heartbreaking stuff for Ireland, as they had done enough to win the game, but poor place-kicking, as well as ill discipline in the first half, gave England too much of a lead for Andrew Browne\u2019s side to catch up.<\/p>\n

Ireland has to hope Argentina could do a job on England if they are to make it to the final four of the Championships. The Pumas hammered the USA 78-14 earlier on Saturday to sit atop Pool C on points difference. If Ireland win their final two group games and England lose to Argentina, they could make the semi-finals.<\/p>\n

Their next game comes against Argentina on Thursday, July 2, with kick-off once again at 12:30pm Irish time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Connacht\u2019s Daniel Ryan scored a hat-trick, but it wasn\u2019t enough as Ireland U20s suffered a 34-27 defeat to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-521405","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\/521405","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=521405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}