There were two factors at play in this game that made it a very credible and important win for this group.

One, the withering heat in which the game was played. I was sitting in similar heat watching this game on my phone, and I couldn’t hack it, even with a shade, a swimming pool nearby, a baseball cap and one, two, three mojitos. These lads were out tackling and getting tackled by a shower of Georgian lads who all looked like 40-year-old bricklayers.

Two, this Irish side came into this World Championship with broadly the same injury issues that plagued – and subsequently ruined – the U20 Six Nations, leading to a sixth-place finish, the lowest ever by an Irish side in this tournament. Even with the context I’ve just explained, it’s hard to say that their collective performances in the Six Nations deserved anything more than what they got.

This 20s side were coming off a generational run under Noel McNamara and Richie Murphy, so starting fresh under Neil Doak and his newly assembled coaching team was always going to be difficult, as was the very real fact that these teams broadly change every year. Sure, there are always a few two-year players, but for the most part, you’re at the whim of what’s come through in any given campaign, and if injuries take out key forwards, then sometimes you’re pushing water uphill, and that’s that. Player development comes in cycles, and after seven really strong years, one where you’re missing some stardust at halfback and in the front five can mean standards fall. That doesn’t mean this group doesn’t have generational talent in it – I think three guys meet that criterion – but sometimes you don’t have the horses where it counts, and other sides do.

That said, I think it’s fair to say that this Irish side did not look like a well-coached team at any point of the 2025 Six Nations, offensively, defensively or at the set piece, so even individual excellence, from guys like Michael Foy, in particular, was almost always on the back foot in losing efforts.

When I looked back at this win, I saw a mish-mash of a ton of guts, real efficiency in the 22, and individual excellence mixed in with stodgy-looking attacking concepts, defensive switchoffs and issues in the scrum that threatened to derail this game at key points.

It’s all in there, the good and the bad, and this reflects a lot of where this 20s side is at the moment – a halfway house between where they want to be, where they can be and where they are.

One thing that stood out was how both sides looked to conserve energy in the heat. Unlike me, they didn’t have endless mojitos to keep their stamina up; they only had two 20-minute breaks. Ireland conserved energy by kicking at a pretty high volume and tried to stretch the field to make the heavier Georgian pack, in particular, move around that bit more. This approach was aided by a nicely taken early try right from a freakishly reclaimed kickoff by Charlie Moloney.

From there, Ireland pieced up Georgia with efficient, piercing phase play.

Wood, Foy and Smyth linked up incredibly well on the initial break to the point where that sequence alone nearly deserved a try. Some excellent cover defence by the Georgians kept Smyth out, but when the ball reset, Wood had the vision (and timing) to get a left-footed kick pass away; Derry Moloney and Paidi Farrell did the rest.

I really loved the initial break, though, where Wood made two pass feints at pace to stand up the Georgian midfield defence. The first feint showed an inside pop pass to Walker, the second was a pass into the screen to Smyth, and the killer pass was the flat ball across the line to Foy, who’d arced his run outside and all of this while Wood jabbed towards the Georgian cover to hold them in place.

That’s all very encouraging stuff from an u19. Understanding that feints actually have to look like real options, all while your own run option is established, is not something that even multi-year professional flyhalves have mastered.

This allowed Ireland to play with some breathing room on a day when fresh air would be hard to come by.

Ireland immediately started to kick the ball into the mid and long range, looking to create as much space away from the heavy Georgian carrying rotation as possible, while shuttling them up and down the field on a day you’d keep the dog indoors.

The idea was that keeping the Georgians between the 10m lines would burn their forwards on the gainline, which, in turn, might limit the calories they had in the tank for scrummaging. It was a good plan in theory, but it required keeping the scrums to a minimum and keeping tackle discipline. Without penalties, Georgia would struggle to advance up the field but penalties soon began to appear. First, for not rolling away. Georgia kicked deep and then mauled for position before finishing a series of tight phases.

But then that individual excellence popped up – it was Tom Wood again.

Just look at this 50/22 off a scrum launch.

A left footed dagger diagonally down the 5m tramline, right onto the five. Not easy. Ireland would maul over from that position and extend the lead. 15-7.

From there, I felt Ireland went looking for too many big moments in defence. The kicking game was working, but the accuracy wasn’t there to hem Georgia in after the catch. Here’s one example of something I saw a fair bit – do we need to be getting trapped in that collision? Do we need to chase the jackal when Georgia can’t get outside us in regular phase play?

This was all in the context of the scrum battle going dominantly in favour of the Georgians, which is something of a cliche but it’s a cliche for a reason.

There’s no secret sauce to this really – it’s just that their loosehead was slicing through the Irish tighthead, and that let their hooker go right over the top of ours and they went straight through the middle of the scrum as a result.

No shame in getting beasted by these lads, but it made the kicking game even more dangerous, and handling mistakes incredibly costly. Most of the Georgians field position came from the back of these scrum penalties and Ireland did really well to scramble off their lineout to deny them from close range multiple times. It got sticky though. At 23-19 it really did feel like the Georgians power was going to push them on in the last quarter.

Right after the Georgians’ powered over to make it a four point game, more Tom Wood magic broke the game decisively for Ireland. Again, just look at the energy, desire and physicality to turn that scrappy ball into something special. McCarthy and Ronan combined well to set the position before Ireland eventually burrowed over from close range.

Decisive.

Ireland’s kicking strategy worked over the longer haul as the Georgian’s began to run out of steam. Ireland’s decisive fourth try came off the back of some tired defensive folds and strong work from Ireland in the edge spaces.

Georgia huffed and puffed for the next few minutes and finally got a try bonus point in the 81st minute but the game was sealed with this vital bit of maul work by Mikey Yarr with the Georgian’s advancing up the field after back to back to back penalties.

With that, Ireland saw out a huge win for this group. Our narrow attacking game worked here because we were counterpunching the Georgians off the back of a heavy kicking game. Any advances they made were through the boot and gave us a structured attack off the set piece to work against. We did well in those moments, for the most part, when it counted.

Our attacking work seemed to rely a lot on Tom Wood making something happen on a screen on in broken play, and we didn’t seem to have a concept built around moving the ball any wider than the first pass off the #10 more often than not. I don’t think this will fly against Italy or New Zealand, but taking this game on its own merits, there was a lot to like about the quality of this squad’s individuals, and something to hope for when they play again later this week. A little more structure, some deeper concepts and a way for our undersized front five to compete in longer sequences of play.

Star Ratings

I don’t like rating U20 players negatively, so I’ll focus on the positives and only show the players I rated higher than ★★★ stars.  

Tom Wood – ★★★★★
Charlie Moloney – ★★★★
Michael Foy – ★★★★