Queensland Reds will blood young and inexperienced players during the Super 14's side's pre-season tour of Europe.

Wallabies duties and injury have forced coach Phil Mooney to select a chunk of his 26-man squad that are aged under 20 and from the Reds Academy and club rugby sides. The franchise has will play matches against Irish provinces Ulster, Connacht and Leinster before taking on Nice in France.

Mooney said that the squad had been hastily convened before today's departure for Dublin. But the coach remains positive about the talents of his young squad.

"Whilst it's not ideal that we go away with a limited preparation, it's a fantastic opportunity for this group to begin our Super 14 2009 preparations," he said.

"One of the beauties of this tour is we can take players out of their comfort zone in terms of the travel, in terms of the short schedule between games, so guys will really have to be vigilant with their preparation."

Each player will play a run in the first two games, Mooney said.

"They (the Irish) won't be pulling any punches," he said.

"You don't get any easy games in France so they'll provide us with a different style of opposition to the Irish.

"We're hopeful that we'll give a good account of ourselves in all four matches."

Queensland Reds squad: Albert Anae, Adam Byrnes, Rod Davies, Anthony Faingaa, Charlie Fetoai, Will Genia, Ben Gollings, James Hanson, James Harvey, Scott Higginbotham, Greg Holmes, Leroy Houston, Van Humphries, Digby Ioane, Jack Kennedy, Jono Lance, Poutasi Luafutu, Brendan McKibbin, Luke Morahan, Jake Schatz, Andrew Shaw, Shon Siemonek, Robert Simmons, James Slipper, Aidan Toua, Morgan Turinui.