Hugo McLaughlin

And even though we got to a final last year, I think Bordeaux showed that there is... a gap and that we are on the wrong side of it and so I think it'll remain our goal to get into the final four it'll remain our goal to get into the final unfortunately success this season could just mean losing another European final but I think if we're honest with ourselves and if I think the rugby viewing public is fair with us it's not reasonable to say that we're we're an expected victor anymore we're just not there and we've lost a lot of good players as you've said and probably more than we would have in seasons past if that's just a function of the way the rugby landscape is changing um there's less money going around you know that we would reach a point where we you know james low was deemed surplus to requirements by either lenster or the rfu is a is a A hard one to imagine, but that's where we've landed.

So it'll now fall to the JJ Kenny's of the world and the Hugo McLaughlin's of the world to, to take a step up lens or have for a long time, uh, been viewed as very strong developer players.

We've.

had a strong academy system for years.

So that goes without saying.

But I'm going to be looking at JJ Kenny.

I'm going to be looking at, I know I mentioned it already, but Hugo McLaughlin, very good player, has performed very well when he's got the chance of 15.

Hugh Cooney, another great lad coming up at 13.

Our replacements there and mind you it is an extended squad but I'll go through the actual 23 first 40.

Number 16 Stephen Smith, number 17 Peter Dooley, number 18 Alex Mullen, number 19 Ryan Baird, number 20 Josh Neal, number 21 Cormac Foley, number 22 Jack Deegan and number 23 Hugo McLaughlin.

Now, as I said, an extended replacements bench there also includes Andrew Sparrow, Alan Spicer, Dylan McNeice, Alex Soroka, Oliver Coffey and Charlie Maloney.

So, yeah, look, a fantastic team to put out there that's really going to test Zebra and really actually test probably, you know, the up and coming players.