Ben Symes

I don't know how much I learned.

Overall, I'd say I'm quite happy with the squad.

I suppose what I've learned is Hamer, how Grimson is willing to kind of give young players a chance.

And that was the one thing that...

We didn't necessarily know what was going to happen in the squad.

Like we both had, I think we all might have had Jadon Numa in our squads last week, but we didn't really know if he'd be actually giving the call up.

And it's interesting because I asked about another player that we might touch on in a while, Victor Ozinvuna, and the response was he needs to go play under-21s.

Basically, that's the next step for him.

But Jadon Numa, he said, is physically ready.

He's ready to play senior football.

And this is a camp where...

basically you're going to find out those players who you're hymning on are they good enough are they not good enough this is where you're going to find out are they good enough and if you find out that they're not that's fine you've learned that they're not ready yet and they will be ready in time I'm fairly happy with the squad there's nine uncapped players seven called up for the first time I don't think anyone can have any recommendations I'm actually quite excited like I'm quite excited to see players that we wouldn't usually see and I do yeah Ireland are quite wedded to this system but just looking at the players that were called up

I think we might see maybe a little shift in how we set up at the back a couple of injuries obviously are hampering that like Harvey Vale is unavailable Jimmy Dunne is injured Joe Bagan is a doubt actually I should preface by saying that he is in the squad but we don't know if he's going to end up playing or not and obviously there is that extra spot to be filled

Yeah, I kind of asked Hamer, I spoke to him and I asked him in bated breath, you know, you kind of really, you want the answer but you don't want the answer, what's going to happen here?

But yeah, look, I'd heard rumours before that article came out, but I didn't know how strong they were.

And then you kind of doubt yourself when you see an article like that.

But yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say Owen Elding will play for Ireland.

Yeah, look, it's important to say Stephen Kenny did bring a lot of players through, but maybe not fast-track this much.

And it's something that I have definitely wanted Ireland to do for a long time.

I know, especially when you watch our close neighbours, Wales bring through the likes of Ethan Ampadu, Ben Woodburn, I know that didn't work out quite well, but Harry Wilson, these players all came through at 16 years of age and they were, you know, okay, Harry Wilson's a bit older, but Ethan Ampadu's in his mid-twenties and, you know, he's going to end up retiring for Wales with about 120 caps, 130 caps overall.