Offaly stars train with Ireland ahead of upcoming summer tour

Offaly rugby stars Michael Milne and Cormac Izuchukwu are in training with the rest of the Ireland squad ahead of the upcoming summer tour.

With their departure for Tbilisi now just a week away, the Ireland Men’s squad have been training at the IRFU High Performance Centre under the guidance of interim head coach Paul O’Connell.

The 32-man squad, and five training panellists, continued their preparations for the Tests against Georgia on July 5 and Portugal on July 12.

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Tullamore's Cormac Izuchukwu pays with Ulster's and is a versatile forward who can play in the second-row or back-row. Birr's Michael Milne is a powerful prop who has recently moved from Leinster to Munster. He is on of 11 uncapped players in the panel as the tour provides the Ireland management with an invaluable opportunity to build squad depth and expose high potential players to meaningful game time in a green jersey.

Speaking about the playing group, assistant coach Mike Prendergast said: “There’s a real good unity there. The big thing I’ve noticed is they’re just willing to help each other. Guys in the same position, some guys are more familiar with stuff than others.

“You can hear just the little micro-chats going on with each other, and (it’s) been really encouraging, because we’ve come together as a squad, as a staff, and we’ve a goal to go and win two games and that’s what we want to do.

“Everyone realises that, we’ve pulled together. There’s a squad there, it’s a squad effort. Ideally we’ll want everyone playing over the next few weeks.

“So the best way of putting your best foot forward is connecting together and having one goal at the end of it, and that’s game by game, and getting our two performances and our results after that.”

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