No title talk as Richie Murphy names Ireland U20s team to face England

It's first against second in the table with just two rounds left but the Ireland Under-20 camp are not talking about titles ahead of their meeting with England (Friday, 7.15pm).

Richie Murphy’s side sit on 14 points, one behind England, as they defend an unbeaten championship run that stretches back to 2021.

"We’ve two games left. We always take it one game at a time. We are not thinking of anything further down the line," said defence coach Willie Faloon.

"On its own it’s a huge game to go over to the Rec. That’s our focus for now, it’s that simple."

England have powered to three bonus-point wins so far, based on a powerful forwards game and some clinical back play.

Asked if they had to employ a horses for courses approach in order to negate England’s strengths, he said: "There are always going to be little areas that we can focus in on to try and get a foothold in the game or somewhere we think we can exploit them.

"That’s something we plan for.

"The fact that we are three games into the tournament as this stage we have a fair bit of footage on them.

"Sometimes that can be off-putting because you have so much footage to look at.

"The two teams have come up against each other five times in the last three years...so we know each other pretty well."

Murphy has named an unchanged back line, while Alex Usanov, Danny Sheahan and Jacob Boyd start in the front row, with Alan Spicer returning to the match-day squad to partner captain Evan O'Connell in the second row.

Joe Hopes switches back to blindside flanker alongside Bryn Ward and Luke Murphy in the back row.

"Sean [Edogbo] is dropping down to the bench," said Faloon (above).

"Sean was brilliant for us over the last couple of games.

"We started Alan over in France and he did a really