Ireland's players are taking a short break after a long hard season and will begin their Rugby World Cup preparations in earnest on 19 June when they arrive at the high performance centre in Dublin for a series of camps, which will also take in a trip to Portugal in early August.Head coach Andy Farrell has selected 42 players, which will be whittled down to 33 and confirmed in the days following the warm-up match against Samoa in Bayonne on 26 August.The game will be the last of three warm-ups following on from home ties against Italy (5 August) and England (12 August) .Elsewhere, Ireland's Pool B opponents are in various stages of preparation with Romania, Tonga and Scotland working towards warm-up matches in July and August, while 2019 winners South Africa have three Rugby Championship games to take care of in July before a three-Test run of friendlies just prior to the World Cup.The final 33-man squads must be submitted to World Rugby by 28 August.Here's our quick guide to the recent form and upcoming fixtures for Ireland's group opponents. ROMANIA Romania qualified via a second-place finish behind Georgia in Rugby Europe qualification.
Spain had initially finished ahead of Romania but lost 10 points due to fielding an ineligible player in two games.Former England head coach Andy Robinson was in charge from 2019 until late last year when Eugen Apjok took over.Most recently, Romania finished third in the Rugby Europe Championship.
They recorded victories against Poland and Belgium but lost to Portugal in the pool stages.Georgia beat them in the semi-final but they finished off with a 31-25 win over Spain in the third-place play-off.Bar the 2019 tournament, the Oaks have been at every World Cup since its inception in