Cricket Ireland has confirmed that their Under 19 cricketers will attend a training camp in Sydney ahead of the World Cup In New Zealand.
The players will depart for Australia on January 1st, and will spend seven days at the camp at the University of New South Wales, before heading to Christchurch for warm up games against Afghanistan and West Indies.
The team then switch to Queenstown ahead of the tournament proper which gets under way on January 15.
Coaching support at the training camp for Matt Dwyer and Ryan Eagleson will come from ex Pakistan coach and Australia cricketing legend Geoff Lawson, and ex England assistant coach Mark Garaway, who is now the Irish Cricket Operations Director.
The camp has been made possible through the support of team sponsor RSA, and the assistance of both Sport Northern Ireland and The Irish Sports Council.
The team will play two warm up games whilst in Sydney, against NSW University and a Grade XI side.
Mark Garaway explained the rationale behind the decision to opt for Sydney. “The camp was set up to provide the players with outdoor, match specific practice in world class facilities in the lead up to the Under 19 World Cup. The camp will be based at the University of New South Wales through links between myself, Global Cricket School Director Sachin Bajaj and ex-Australian fast bowler and Pakistan Coach, Geoff Lawson, who is the Director of Cricket at UNSW.”
“Sydney is a stop off on the way through to New Zealand and can offer the players for a chance to acclimatise to time zone differences before getting to New Zealand. Tony Hiley (Cricket Ireland Strength & Conditioning Coach), Simon Harland (Under 19 Physio) and members of SINI Support Staff have devised a physical, sleep and diet programme to help the players to align themselves with the time zone changes so that the maximal impact can be gained from the training camp.”
“The aim of the camp is to ensure that the squad are physically, mentally and tactically attuned after practicing and playing in world class facilities, against First Class opposition with World Leading Coaching.”
The Ireland Under 19 squad have been helped in their intensive preparations for the competition with specialist coaching sessions from a number of the Senior Squad, augmenting the hard work of Matt Dwyer, Ryan Eagleson and Brian Walsh.
As well as Ireland senior coach Phil Simmons attending nets, there have been visits from Andrew White, Alex Cusack, Nigel Jones, Kyle McCallan and Trent Johnston.
