IT'S all happening in Belfast. This week we witnessed Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting at right angles to each other at Stormont . . . they're not quite ready for face-to-face or sideto-side just yet . . . while this coming Wednesday, the city, and one venue in Bangor lest we forget, will host the IRB Under-19 Rugby World Cup, world rugby's premier underage tournament. It's the third proper 'world' event the city has hosted since the end of the Troubles, after the World Cross Country Championship of 1999 and the World Amateur Boxing Championship of 2001.

Twenty-four teams will compete over the course of the competition's 18 days but it would be wrong to say that they'll all be aiming to become world champions.

The Under-19 RWC is an odd little tournament in the sense that it's divided into two separate pools of 12, one containing the cream of the crop, the other hosting the rest.

Pool A, the big boys, sees everyone you'd expect . . . England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Samoa, Japan, Argentina and Romania . . .

compete for the title of world champions, while Pool B, containing the minnows alongside some big names like Italy, Fiji, the US and Canada, fight for the right to win promotion to Pool A for next year's tournament. This effectively removes a whole host of embarrassing mismatches from the tournament, something that has to be applauded. It's a system that the IRB have already hinted at implementing for the senior 2011 World Cup in New Zealand, albeit with 16 teams at each level.

Back to the Under-19 event, it's difficult to see Ireland making any significant mark on the tournament, despite the advantage of being hosts. They start their campaign against holders Australia at Ravenhill on Thursday night, before facing Scotland and South Africa in the space of four days, and although they're capable of winning those latter two games, that's unlikely to be good enough to earn them a semi-final spot.

In fairness, their lack of preparation time won't help their cause. Thirteen of their 26-man squad for the tournament . . . including five members of the St Michael's College Leinster Senior Cup winning team . . . have been tied up at schools' level since the beginning of September which points to a few things.

First of all, this team have hardly had any time together as a unit and secondly, a fair few of these players will have the added worry of the Leaving Certificate on their minds over the next couple of weeks. There's another issue. All but three of England's squad, for example, have been learning their trade in the academies of Guinness Premiership squads over the past nine months, while Australia's U19 players have been doing likewise with their Super 14 franchises. That effectively leaves many of Ireland's best a year behind in the development cycle. It will make a significant difference in the coming weeks.

They're still looking forward to it though. "The pressures of also playing as tournament hosts will be a big part of our challenge, as will the top class opponents we will be facing, " says Irish coach Charlie McAleese, who will be assisted by exLeinster forwards guru Bobby Byrne and former Irish centre Kurt McQuilkan over the next couple of weeks. "It does not get much tougher then playing the defending champions in your opening game and Australia are always tremendously strong at this level. We will need to be at the very top of our game to be able to compete with all of our Pool A opponents over the next couple of weeks, but if we get off to a winning start it will set us up for the rest of the tournament."

Irish captain Paul Ryan from Blackrock College, the club not the school, is backing the ferocity of the Ulster crowd to give his side a lift, particularly against the power of the southern hemisphere nations. "Playing at home will hopefully give the team an edge and we know that the famous Irish, and especially Ulster, support will give us a great reception during all of our games, " he says.

"Playing Southern hemisphere teams will be a new experience for the majority of the team and we know that they will be physical in all aspects of their play and we expect some really tough games in all our opening pool matches. The chance to play at home in such a great tournament is a great opportunity for myself and the rest of the squad, so we are really looking forward to the start of the competition."

Ryan is one of 12 Leinster players in the 26-man squad, which brings about an interesting point. With seven other players in the squad from Ulster, and just six from Munster and one from Connacht, it would seem that balance of underage talent in this country has shifted to the capital. Take the U-20 team that won the Grand Slam so spectacularly a few weeks back. Of the 15 that started most games, nine were from Leinster, three from Ulster, two from Connacht and one from Munster.

All this points to a very strong future for Leinster rugby but we'll see how good this U-19 crop are in the coming weeks. As we've already mentioned, they'll probably need to win all three of their initial games if they're to get to the competition's semi-finals, but if they can't manage that, they'll be looking to mirror the fifth place achieved by last year's side. And remember, they went on to Grand Slam glory the following year.