U20 RUGBY WORLD CUP: Johnny McPhillips hopes Ireland can push on

Ireland finished third in the Championship earlier this year.

However if Ireland are going to go one better than 2004 when they finished runners up they will have to do it the hard way as their pool includes grand slam winners Wales, New Zealand and Georgia.

Ireland kick of their campaign against the Welsh at the Manchester City Academy Stadium on Tuesday evening (5.30pm) and will be looking to avenge a 35-24 in the Six Nations.

“It will be a good opportunity to right a few wrongs especially against Wales,” said McPhillips.

“We really put them to the sword in patches but our accuracy let us down.

“There are a couple of good venues in the World Cup and the AJ Bell and the Manchester City Academy Football Stadium will be really good football surfaces.

“If conditions are good we can play good rugby and hopefully get out of the group,” added McPhillips.

“We have got a physical enough group with the Grand Slam winners, the Baby Blacks and Georgia but I think we have to go in with the mentality that we are more than capable of getting out of the group.

“If we truly believe that then when we click we are a very good slick team and hopefully we can put good performances together and build of the back of three wins in the Six Nations.

“The most important thing is to go out there and give it our all.

“With a group like that there is no point in saying lets win every game by 20 points.

“We have to be realistic and take each game as it comes. We have to focus on each game and do our preparation well.

“We have had the experience now of being through a campaign together.”

The Wolfpuppies mirrored the senior team in their Six Nations campaign finishing strongly after a slow start.

McPhillips said: “We had quite a tough fixture list going into it.

“Wales at home I think we played a good game against them it was just our accuracy let us down and they were there for the taking.

“Then to go away to France in Narbonne was tough. In the first 20 to 30 minutes I thought we were very good then we maybe got slightly over powered but it was good experience.

“The important thing about England was we’d learned from France.

“At half time we were down, the spirit was good and everyone played with a bit of heart and passion, our accuracy was good and we backed ourselves and we ended up getting the result and that seemed to change everything.

“I think it was disappointing we didn’t manage to put a complete performance in during the whole tournament but we played very well in patches and that got us the three wins and we’ll take that.”

The turning point of the campaign was a 26-20 victory at Kingston Park over England a game McPhillips particularly enjoyed as he’d left the Newcastle Falcons to come to Ulster.

“It was a bit nostalgic to be back there seeing all my old academy coaches and the England coaches from the year before,” he said.

“It was good and I think if anything it revved my up a bit more to get more out of myself.

“It’s a great bunch of lads down at the 20’s and great management and it was a really enjoyable experience.”

Ireland backed up the win over England with wins against Italy and Scotland.

“It was a tough one against Italy, they were dogged and did a good job of disrupting play and they didn’t allow us to get into our shape or pattern but we had learned from England to have that winning mentality to kick on and we weren’t going to let anyone deter us from what we were capable of and we took that into Scotland and we managed to dog it out and get the result in the end which was good.”