Ireland 2023: Wild Youth with ‘We Are One’

Following a tight h2h in last night’s Eurosong, Wild Youth have been sent on the short trip to Liverpool:

Wild Youth are more assured and experienced performers than what Ireland have been failing with recently but their song is the issue. It's the definition of mediocre and approximately half as anthemic as it thinks it is. Middle of the road, safe, and utterly boring, falling into the no-one's favourite trap. This is even more of a problem this year with no juries to help with qualification.

There’s really not much to discuss with the song and staging should be fine but doesn’t offer much room for improvement- we are just going to get the live band look recreated on a larger scale.

Instead we have more to talk about with the voting intricacies and Ireland are starting from avery low base with the UK not even voting in this semi. The draw in general is unfavourable with Israel, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Czech Republic and Moldova almost certain to be stronger and Serbia, Portugal, Azerbaijan and Switzerland likely to be too.

Would this qualify if it was sent by Lithuania in the second half of semi 2? Yes, but thems the breaks and Ireland should try and up their game before complaining about results. Every one of their last 5 NQs has been 100% merited.

The only positives are that Malta, Latvia and Croatia are all looking fairly desperate (though all are yet to select so that's up in the air still) and the reduced field. That makes an 11th/12th fairly realistic which on paper puts them close to qualifying, but in practice I don't think this can rack up the points required- there's not much variance or potential in Ireland's scoring range.

I'm also assuming this could be our semi final opener (with the 'we are one' pun and as an "honour" for the UK's neighbours) if you believe that counts for anything. It's probably better than going 2nd-4th but still, unlikely to help much.

Personal Rating: 4/10.

Competitve Rating: 2/10.

Early Prediction: Semi Final 1: NQ 11th- 14th.