U20s ready for Italy after invaluable senior session

With the U20 Six Nations championship following the senior tournament with a break last week, it allowed Richie Murphy's side a chance to reflect on their opening wins, as well as fine-tune the engine ahead of another Gland Slam push.

Crucially, the fallow week offered them a chance see how they matched up against Andy Farrell's senior squad, with the sides training together at the High Performance Centre in Abbotstown last Friday.

"It was awesome," said scrum and contact coach Aaron Dundon.

"Friday was 15 v 15. We had our attack and they had their attack so we got defence sets and attack sets against them, lineouts, maul. We mixed up the players for the scrums so it was half seniors and half 20s guys."

As well as the experience of mixing and matching across the senior team's training session, the real payoff came with the individual work, with the various units in the team able to pick the brains of their opposite numbers around the minute information, in particular for the technical elements of the game.

"So they can get some feedback from those senior guys and that's stuff that we can’t coach," he added.

"In fairness to the senior players and coaches, they were so willing with their time and they gave some awesome feedback to the players.

"Each week we are starting to see players come out of their shell and show the talent they have. Probably the key thing for us now is making sure that they keep that connection as a team and not work as individuals. Don't lose focus and make sure we keep playing as a team because that is what will bring the best performances."

Just like the senior side, the U20s travel to Italy looking to make it three wins from three in this year's Six Nations, taking on the Azzurri in Treviso on Friday