Emerging Ireland Heading To Romania For IRB Nations Cup
Emerging Ireland will travel to Romania in June to take part in the IRB Nations Cup which will see a development squad play three matches in nine days.
Connacht’s Dan McFarland has been appointed as head coach of the Emerging Ireland squad and he will be assisted by Ulster’s Neil Doak.
Dan is assistant coach at Connacht and a former Ireland Under-20 assistant coach.
Neil is backs coach at Ulster Rugby and in recent seasons has formed part of the coaching ticket for the O2 Ireland Wolfhounds as well as assisting on last season’s summer tour to USA and Canada.
Emerging Ireland’s first game of the tournament takes place on Friday, June 13 with Russia providing the opposition at the Stadionul National Arcul de Triumf in Bucharest.
They will then take on Uruguay on Wednesday, June 18 with the team’s final fixture of the IRB Nations Cup coming against hosts Romania on Sunday, June 22.
Romania are the highest ranked team in the tournament at 17th in the IRB World Rankings with Russia ranked 19th and Uruguay ranked one further spot back in 20th position.
The hosts won the Nations Cup in 2013 beating Russia, the Argentina Jaguars and Emerging Italy.
Last summer the newly-established Emerging Ireland squad competed in the Tbilisi Cup, beating host nation Georgia and Uruguay but they lost out to the eventual tournament winners, the South Africa President’s XV.
Joey Miles will manage the Emerging Ireland squad which will be announced in the weeks preceding the tournament.
2014 IRB NATIONS CUP (Bucharest, Romania):
Friday, June 13 –
EMERGING IRELAND v Russia, Stadionul National Arcul de Triumf, Bucharest, 4pm local time/2pm Irish time
Wednesday, June 18 –
EMERGING IRELAND v Uruguay, Stadionul National Arcul de Triumf, Bucharest, 4pm local time/2pm Irish time
Sunday, June 22 –
Romania v EMERGING IRELAND, Stadionul National Arcul de Triumf, Bucharest, 7pm local time/5pm Irish time