Shannon’s Greg O’Shea enjoying the San Jose experience in the lead up to today’s sevens action

Shannon winger Greg O’Shea will get back into the thick of the action with the Ireland 7’s squad today following an injury layoff.

The twenty-two-year-old set off for California in the early hours of Tuesday morning, to take part in the Silicon Valley 7’s.

O’Shea didn’t feature in the squad for the Elche 7’s, as he continued his return to full fitness but is itching to get back out onto the pitch at International level.

“I’m absolutely delighted to be back in the squad for this tournament. I am only back fully training about three weeks since the injury I picked up during the summer so doing Elche and San Jose back to back would have been too much of a load for me. I can’t wait to get out there now this weekend, I’m feeling fresh and ready to go.”

O’Shea and the rest of the squad are staying at the Fairmont, along with the rest of the teams taking part in the competition, during the week they had the chance to take in some of what San Jose has to offer.

“It’s been a great experience so far; the city is amazing and we are getting treated very well by the competition staff. We even managed to get to an ice hockey match on Wednesday evening which was cool.”

“All teams are staying together in a hotel called the Fairmont. It’s top class and the facilities are perfect for what we require. They have gone all out for us here really even down to the food. The heavy lads in the team are all loving the American grub!”

The Silicon Valley 7’s will take place at Avaya Stadium – home of MLS side the San Jose Earthquakes.

“Definitely looking forward to playing in Avaya Stadium. We haven’t gotten to see it yet but from all accounts it’s an incredible surface. The San Jose Earthquakes play there so I imagine it’s a quality stadium. The capacity is also 18,000 and with 7s being so popular in America it should be a great atmosphere there too.”

The invitational tournament has no bearing on the 7’s world rankings but will instead be seen as a chance to continue preparations ahead of the Hong Kong 7s (World Series Repechage) which takes place at the beginning of April. Ireland will have the chance to rub shoulders with a number of sides that compete on the World Series, with Ireland’s Pool A opponents Canada, England and Samoa all core teams.

“It’s a great chance for us to get some game time in against top opposition. All tournaments we are playing before Hong Kong are just to build and get us ready so we can give it our best shot.”

“There’s no better way to learn and see where you need to improve than playing against the best. The All Black 7s, Fiji, Australia, USA are all here with strong sides so we are so excited to get out there and test ourselves against them. We should learn a lot from this weekend.”

Silicon Valley 7s:

Saturday, November 4 – Pool A:

Samoa v Ireland, Avaya Stadium, 12.06pm local time/7.06pm Irish time

Canada v Ireland, Avaya Stadium, 3.44pm local time/10.44pm Irish time

England v Ireland, Avaya Stadium, 6.54pm local time/1.54am Irish time

Sunday, November 5:

Play-Offs.