Ireland Head coach Ged Corcoran wants his squad of players to inspire future generations in Ireland

Even though he was only appointed in April and has yet to coach a game for the Wolfhounds, Ged Corcoran speaks passionately about the direction Irish Rugby League needs to go in.

Having named a strong 24 mean squad which is headlined by the inclusion of three time NRL premiership winner Luke Keary they are well placed to turn a few heads at this tournament with a real opportunity to make it out of their group.

For Corcoran, he wants his group of players to inspire the next generation of players from Ireland and believes this squad has the ability to do so.

“It’s the strongest team since 2000, if you go through the draft of the 24 there’s some real smart players in there and you’ve got a big middle pack and some real IQ in that spine.

“If you go through the whole squad of 24 we are just shy of 2000 games across the NRL, Super League and the Championship.”

For Corcoran the impact this team can have goes beyond results on the pitch as he is looking for a big shift in mindsets around Rugby League and wants to put steps in place to improve all areas of the game.

“I think its got to be used as a bench mark, we need to draw a line in the sand and go off the momentum of this.”

Corcoran continued. “For once, every player in this 24 man squad are proud of their heritage and we need to feed that back to the kids at home.

“Coaching the coaches and the officials in the grassroots game. I made it very clear when I came in that I wanted the connection with the elite level seniors to run right down to the grassroots level.

“We need to revitalize and we need to spark the players to inspire to be something.

“The new hungry heritage players were screaming to represent Ireland. They’re not here just to make up the numbers they want to be part of this for the next 10/15 years.”

It is so refreshing to hear an international coach speak so passionately and if his energy transpires to his squad then the Wolfhounds could be one of the surprise packages from this years World Cup.