To put the four-year gap between these World Rugby Under-20 Championships into context, you only have to look through some of the names in the Irish squad from their last tournament in 2019.
Among those who played for Ireland at that tournament in Argentina were Ryan Baird and Craig Casey, who may well go on to play in the senior RWC later this year, as well as the likes of Thomas Ahern, John Hodnett, Niall Murray, Dylan Tierney Martin and Stewart Moore.
Of the current Irish senior summer training squad, Jack Crowley, Tom Stewart, Cian Prendergast, Joe McCarthy and Jamie Osborne all missed out on the chances of even playing in a junior World Championship during its Covid-19 hiatus.
The global U20 tournament returns this weekend, with the Cape Town area in South Africa hosting the championship, as Ireland get their campaign under way against England at Paarl Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon (12.30pm Irish time).
For Ireland, the challenge will be replicating their incredible recent Six Nations record into the summer.
The 2023 Six Nations title was their third in five years, and had Covid-19 not seen the 2020 championship abandoned with Ireland holding a 100% record at the time, the IRFU could well be boasting four U20 Grand Slams in five years.
Historically, Ireland have struggled to peak for the U20 World Championship. There have been some impressive campaigns, but two semi-final appearances in 12 years has been a sparse return for the annual event. Since reaching the final in 2016, Ireland have finished ninth, eleventh and eighth in successive years, the last coming when they were Six Nations champions in 2019.
For Richie Murphy, who is bringing Ireland to his first World Championship since being appointed in 2021, improving on that modest record has been a big priority.
"We don't look back, we look forward," Murphy said.
"Probably from the very start of the year our focus was on trying to prepare to get ready for the Junior World Cup and compete at the highest level.
"That’s never really changed. It didn’t change through the Six Nations, so we’ve come here and it finally feels like it’s here because we’ve been waiting for it for quite a long time. The players are in good spirits, they’ve settled in well.
"I had a massive interest in it [the U20 World Championship], watching it from afar and seeing it when I was involved with the seniors, and then back at Leinster. It always seemed to be a competition that the best players come through.
"Trying to bring some of the experiences that I had from the senior team down to our guys, building a team over the course of a season where we're in and out sporadically in camps, and trying to build a little bit of a culture, but also a mentality that we're able to compete at the very top level."
With the tournament split into three pools of four, only the pool winners and the best runner-up will advance to the final four.
A defeat to England would leave Ireland needing two bonus-point wins against Australia and Fiji to stand any real chance of reaching the semis, and Murphy says the margins between success and failure will be razor thin.
"Realistically if you want to win it you probably have to win all five games don't you?
"I suppose in this first game you do have a little bit of a luxury that if it doesn’t go well but you pick up a couple of points in it then you might be able to squeeze your way through.
"But our focus is very much not even on winning the Junior World Cup, it’s just trying to get through this English game at the weekend. We’ve very much focused on them.
"We’ll move on, obviously there’s plans in the background that the players don’t really need to know about. There’s plans with the coaches in relation to what we do against Australia and then Fiji. Some of those are results dependent but if you want to win a Junior World Cup you’ve got to have 30 players who are able to play and you’ve got to be brave in some of your selections as well."
Murphy's side have won each of their last three meetings with the English, the most recent being their 36-24 in the final round of the Six Nations at Musgrave Park in March.
The head coach has made two changes from that game with Andrew Osborne and Evan O'Connell coming in for James Nicholson and Brian Gleeson (above) who both drop to the bench, the latter having been limited in training due to injury.
"Brian's been carrying a little bit of a knock and hasn’t been able to train fully since we were in Italy the week before last. So it was just the decision made. We’ve got a very strong squad, we can mix and match.
"Over five games, we’re not going to be able to roll out the same team so it was purely a case of picking the guys who probably more ready to go from the start and also Brian will give us good impact off the bench."
"Andrew [Osborne] is a very good player. He had a broken finger or hand going into the Six Nations which limited his involvement early on. Very classy, a similar type of player to his brother [Jamie], good in the air, deceptively quick, good temperament so it will be interesting to see how he goes.
"Evan [O'Connell] has been in with us most of the time. He missed the last game with a head knock. He started against Scotland so he has much more experience probably than people think even though he’s a year young. A big poach threat, obviously a good lineout player, moves well, so it will be very interesting to see how he goes. I’m sure he’s massively excited. He’s probably thinking he might have started on the bench but he’s earned that right to get into the second row and get going."
Follow a live blog of England v Ireland on RTÉ Sport Online and the RTÉ News app from 12.15pm
