ROSS MOLONY IS already sick of the sight of England and he has only turned 20. The Leinster and UCD lock has faced England three times in the past three seasons and ended on the losing team each time.
Following the Wolfpuppies’ bonus point win over Fiji, in their final pool game, Molony insists he is delighted to be facing the English in Sunday’s Junior World Championship semi-final.
“We knew we had a job to do against Fiji,” he told TheScore.ie, “but the [weather] conditions were tougher than expected. We attacked their set-piece and knew that the scores would come if we kept the pressure on.
“It is a big pressure environment and even though a lot of people are praising us, we know there is a lot of work to do. Our goal is to win the tournament and we’ll be one step closer if we can overcome England. I’ve not got a good record against them through the aged grades so Sunday offers a big chance to put that right.
The years come and go but England always seem to have a physical, forceful team each time out. They’ll run at you hard and you have to front up for the full 80 minutes to get the result.”
Molony’s parents have travelled down to New Zealand for JWC 2014 and are part of a growing contingent of Irish fans, and locals, cheering on the Wolfpuppies. The former St Michael’s College player insists his teammates landed in Auckland with a Six Nations fourth place finish far from their minds.
He said, “What happened earlier in the year has not affected our ambition. We always wanted to win the tournament and have been taking each game as it comes. Where we are is down to the whole squad; everyone has put in their shift. I know every single player in this squad believes we can win.”
TG4 and Sky Sports will broadcast the game live from 6:05am on Sunday.
