'A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE CHASING IRELAND NOW. WE CAN’T BE LOOKING IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR'

THE THING DAVID Nucifora takes most pride in as he enters the last few weeks of his decade-long spell as the IRFU’s performance director is what he sees as a big shift in Irish rugby’s mindset.

The former Wallabies hooker isn’t with Andy Farrell’s Ireland in South Africa at the moment, instead spending the closing stages of his 10 years with the IRFU helping the Ireland 7s teams to get ready for their tilt at Olympic medals in Paris later this month.

While the Springboks are being touted as the favourites this weekend, Farrell’s men won’t be talking themselves down. The Ireland U20s are currently chasing a World Championship in Cape Town, while both Ireland 7s squads will be aiming for gold.

This mentality is what gives Nucifora some satisfaction ahead of his return to Australia.

“No longer is it OK to do OK,” said Nucifora in an interview at the IRFU’s training centre in Dublin.

“We now chase it, we go to win, we know it’s OK for Ireland to strive to be best in class.

“That’s something that has really started to be ingrained in how we think of ourselves as a rugby nation.”

Nucifora never thought he’d spend a decade in Ireland but says he has loved getting to know the place and the people. He will help out Rugby Australia when he gets home, the Aussie union trying to get its messy house in order. Nucifora stresses that it’s far from a full-time position. He’s due a bit of a breather. 

Nucifora believes he’s leaving the IRFU in a strong place but he also has words of warning and regrets about some things that didn’t develop the way he had hoped they would.

“A lot of people are chasing us now, asking questions about what’s going on here, and we can’t be looking in the rearview mirror,” said Nucifora, whose successor David Humphreys has formally started the role after a three-month handover period working with Nucifora.

“You’ve got to be looking a fair way down the road for what’s going to give us that edge.” 

There have been big successes in Nucifora’s time in charge of high performance rugby in Ireland, with two men’s Grand Slams, two other men’s Six Nations titles, a series success in New Zealand, stints as the number one ranked team in the world, three U20 Grand Slams and a World Championship final, as well as obvious progress in 7s.

There have been notable failures along the way too, particularly for the Ireland women’s 15s team, which will be addressed in a separate article on The 42 tomorrow.

One of the areas in which Nucifora had hoped to make more progress was player movement between the provinces. When he landed in, he saw big opportunities for the IRFU to facilitate transfers between the provinces and while there has been a high-profile example in Joey Carbery going from Leinster to Munster, it hasn’t really happened.

“I’m not a magician,” said Nucifora. “We’ve tried to create a model where we make it as easy as possible for change to happen. If a player doesn’t want to make that decision, we are not in a position to force them to go somewhere.”

He points out that there has been increased movement at academy level but it’s a frustration that more senior players are content to sit at second or third in their province’s pecking order, mainly at Leinster, than potentially being first-choice somewhere else.

“They have a finite career and you don’t want to be in a position where you’re late out of the blocks because if we’re all doing our jobs, that player can get passed by another player,” said Nucifora.

“There’s definitely room for more of it to happen and that might solve some of the positional issues we have around the place.”

In one of the latest examples, 21-year-old Leinster out-half Sam Prendergast, who is on tour with Ireland now, had a chance to move to Connacht on loan next season but will stay with his native province instead.

“Sam is a young fella who backs himself which is part of his strength, so he has made that decision now,” said Nucifora.

“He doesn’t have the full say because Leinster have got to pick him and give him the opportunity. One of the things we have to be cognisant of is that we only have four teams, so we have got to make sure that the best players are playing.”

Nucifora said the IRFU did explore the possibility of investing in London Irish when they hit financial trouble last year but making sure the four provinces are strong is the real key.

“That’s not to say that you should take something like that off the table. We just need to keep producing players at the rate we are so it would even be viable.” 

Nucifora believes increased player movement would help Ireland to continue developing depth for Test rugby, exposing more of the highest-potential players to regular starts. 

One obvious area of concern for Ireland right now is at loosehead prop, where Andrew Porter has never been more important. Cian Healy is a legend of Irish rugby but at 36, isn’t the force he once was. The lack of faith in what’s behind them was shown by Farrell bringing Ulster tighthead Tom O’Toole to South Africa as his third loosehead option.

“Are we better than we were five years ago? Yes, absolutely,” said Nucifora of Ireland’s depth.

“Have we got everything covered? No, we don’t. Are there things we’re always chasing looking for better solutions of how we get three or four players who all have the ability to step in? Yes.”

He recalls how much fear there was about Ireland’s tighthead stocks when he first joined the IRFU. Mike Ross was indispensable for a while but Tadhg Furlong burst through and Finlay Bealham, O’Toole, and now Oli Jager offer strong options. Nucifora is adamant the same will happen at loosehead.

“It will, I have no doubt it will. We might go through a period where we’re thin but the solutions will come.”

One other worry among some in Irish rugby is how the Ireland team would look without New Zealand natives Jamison Gibson-Park and James Lowe, who qualified via the old three-year residency rule, and Australian-born Mack Hansen, who was eligible thanks to his Irish grandmother.

They are Ireland’s three most creative players but Nucifora feels that Irish rugby can produce playmakers like them.

“I think there are players here like that. The more we try to look for players like those with our talent ID and how we develop players, it’s evolving.

“The fact we have world-class players who have come through like that, it’s never easy to replicate. That model has changed now.”

In that regard, he adds that it’s important for the IRFU to keep their eyes wide open with their Irish Qualified [IQ] programme. 

It has become easier for the union given the success of players like Hansen, with many agents and individual players who are IQ now getting in touch with the IRFU directly to flag their eligibility.

Antoine Frisch looked like he was on the pathway to becoming an Irish international through his family roots, but the Munster centre has instead been lured back to his native France, joining Toulon this summer.

Frisch played for Emerging Ireland in 2022 but was never involved in a senior Ireland camp. Nucifora rejects the idea that Ireland could have capped Frisch to tie his eligibility down.

“I’d never do that, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do,” said Nucifora. “I know other people around the world do it. I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

Even though he thinks there’s still a way to travel, Nucifora believes that Irish rugby has improved at identifying and developing young talent.

In 2016, he the key driver in the launching of the National Talent Squad programme, with the IRFU investing heavily into a programme that essentially means they work with talented young players much earlier and more closely than before.

It has paid off with the success of the Ireland U20s and in preparing players to go into academies, although it has been pointed out that the private schools are also responsible for preparing teenagers to kick on into professional rugby.

Nucifora says that IRFU head of elite player development, Peter Smyth, works closely with those schools, providing any assistance they need.

“There is a reliance obviously because the schools become such investors in the game and the biggest schools, particularly in Dublin, they do that,” said Nucifora. “They’re great partners of the game with what they invest into the game.”

But he believes the IRFU can continue to spread the game, getting more players from different places in the country.

“The players who aren’t in those schools, how do we fast-track them? How do we make sure we give them the support that gives them every opportunity to be the best player they can be?” said Nucifora.

“It will probably take them a couple more years because they haven’t been exposed to the levels some of those schools players are, but there are more players coming through from outside of that system.

“Yes, it could be more and it could be better, I think we’ve got to continue to chase that. The size of your talent pool is massively important. We need to keep expanding the talent pool and keep giving people access to rugby in Ireland.”

The four Irish provinces’ performances this season prompted some worry that they might not be improving at the rate of some clubs in France and even England.

The provinces’ efforts have fallen under Nucifora’s remit during his time as performance director but he says is not worried. He recalls panic about the provinces remaining competitive at other stages of the last decade.

In his opinion, two URC semi-finalists and a Champions Cup finalist “isn’t anything to be sneezed at.”

While the IRFU specifically targeted more trophies for the provinces during Nucifora’s time, he also feels that Connacht, Leinster, and Munster all winning Pro12/Pro14/URC titles, with Leinster earning one Champions Cup and going very close in three other finals is not underachievement.

The recent tweak to IRFU national contracts – with each province contributing 30% of a nationally-contracted player’s deal, that money then being redirected to the other provinces – was necessary because the financial inequity in Leinster’s favour was too great, according to Nucifora.

He stresses that the new system will need to be monitored closely and probably tweaked along the way, pointing out that it’s not that long ago that there was a feeling Munster had too many nationally-contracted players.

“When I started, the whining was from everyone else because Munster had too many. It has just moved. You make sure you don’t worry about the whinging but worry about what’s important – was the model servicing the need of Irish rugby?

“It is but we did need to look at the financial component of it and how we make it more robust and fair between the provinces.”

Since he brings up ‘whinging,’ it’s as good a time as any to discuss Nucifora’s at-times frosty relationship with the provinces.

During his decade, Nucifora has been frustrated and had falling-outs with all four of the provinces. But he sees these “debates and discussions” as part of the gig.

“We can all be self-serving at times. A good day is if two of the four are happy. Three out of four is unbelievably good and four out of four never happened.

“Look, if you’re working in high performance and there’s not tension, you’ve got a problem because you’re not pushing hard enough. If trying to keep everyone happy all the time, Irish rugby is going to be passed in a blink. It can be uncomfortable at times but that’s what it is.”

Discussions about non-Irish-qualified [NIQ] signings have been part of the job for Nucifora, who has had the final say on whether these transfers happen.

He says there are fewer requests from the provinces for NIQ signings than people might imagine, but careful thought is given to each one. He works with Smyth to have an up-to-date awareness of the Irish talent coming through the pipeline and whether those players would be negatively impacted by an NIQ player arriving.

Leinster being approved to sign Jordie Barrett and RG Snyman for next season raised some eyebrows and Nucifora said they were tough decisions to make.

While he didn’t go into detail, he confirmed that the IRFU and Leinster agreed strict conditions around when and how Snyman can be used, but on the whole he says Leinster’s argument about wanting high-profile signings as they moved out of the RDS and had to sell season tickets for the Aviva Stadium was convincing.

“A couple of short-term players, I think, are not a bad thing,” said Nucifora. “They’re high-profile players which is an acknowledgement to Leinster and Irish rugby, but it has got to be managed. They are both short-term contracts.”

Veteran French tighthead prop Rabah Slimani has since confirmed he will also join Leinster.

Nucifora added that the provinces are aware and diligent about the need for their own homegrown players to be the basis of their squads.

That encourages him, even though he thinks there’s more progress to be made in ensuring that every single player in Irish professional rugby is of the highest standard.

“If someone becomes overpaid and underperforming as a professional player, the system should squeeze them out because young talent should be competing so hard that they should be the cost-effective choice,” said Nucifora. 

One particularly aggravating IRFU decision was the rebirth of the Emerging Ireland team at short notice at the start of the 2022/23 season, with young players leaving their provinces to go on tour to South Africa with Farrell’s Ireland assistant coaches.

The fact that Emerging Ireland will tour again later this year underlines that Nucifora and the IRFU thought 2022 was a major success.

He admits that he “sort of stumbled on” the tour when Toyota decided to fund a series of games for the Cheetahs, who they sponsor, but Nucifora had been plotting something along these lines anyway.

He had been discussing more international A fixtures with other unions for a few years, but that wasn’t exactly what he was looking for.

“The A fixtures serve a purpose but they’re different to what we found we got from Emerging Ireland,” said Nucifora. “That was for players who weren’t getting consistent exposure at the high end of the game, high-potential players, and we needed them to know we were looking at them and interested in them for Ireland.

“The key piece was the coaches, getting the national team coaches to spend the time and learn more about them. The only time Emerging Ireland can function is outside Test windows, the only time A rugby can function is in Test windows, so they’re two different things.”

Nucifora admits that some of the players who did well on the Emerging Ireland tour would have progressed into the senior Ireland squad without it, but he’s certain that others’ progress was accelerated.

Nucifora said the Irish assistant coaches were delighted with the experience, with Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby getting particularly valuable time in the saddle as head coach, which he will do again later this year.

Nucifora essentially confirmed the poorly-kept secret that Easterby will step up as Ireland head coach while Andy Farrell is away on Lions duty, backing Easterby to do a good job.

“Simon is well up for it,” said Nucifora. “He did an excellent job of running that tour, he’s a vastly experienced coach and had been a head coach in Scarlets. He’s had 10 years working with Joe and Andy.

“He gives the group continuity going into the next Six Nations and they work together. I think he’ll do a really good job. I think he’s the logical person to look at.”

There are plenty of folk in club rugby who will be glad to see the back of Nucifora, viewing him as a figure who didn’t have time for the All-Ireland League.

Nucifora said he was frustrated when his proposal earlier his his tenure to move to a semi-professional top-end of the AIL was knocked back twice by the clubs.

“There was no way I was going back a third time because if we didn’t do something to find another way, we would have been left behind in our player development pathway,” said Nucifora.

The bridge was never mended but provincial academy players continue to get the vast majority of their game time in the AIL and Nucifora said the club game is “still really important and needs to remain connected to the pro game.”

Of course, one of the biggest disappointments in Nucifora’s time with the IRFU was Ireland’s inability to get beyond the World Cup quarter-finals in 2015, 2019, and 2023.

He is certain that Ireland’s time will come sooner rather than later and he is philosophical about those three tournaments. He strongly believes that Ireland have made big strides with their mental game under Farrell and Gary Keegan, highlighting that a team have to be mentally strong to win a Test series in New Zealand. 

“Each World Cup is different,” says Nucifora. “We probably didn’t have a big margin for error in 2015 and we got hammered there in the pool game against France with injury. 2019, we had a really good run but we didn’t get our timing right and how we evolved.

“You go back to the last one and leading into it, we used what we learned from 2019 and chased it with the New Zealand tour and the Maori games. That put us in a strong position but sometimes it doesn’t pan out. It’s a one-off tournament. As disappointed as everyone was, everyone can walk away from it and feel they gave everything to it. We just didn’t get the result.”

He may be in the stands in Australia in 2027 with a beer in his hand watching as Ireland take their next shot at a World Cup under Farrell.

But before that and before he moves home, Nucifora is excited about Ireland’s chance to make history at the Olympics in Paris.

It has helped that Hugo Keenan has returned to the men’s 7s squad, with Nucifora complimenting him as “a freak in his ability to have the physical DNA to change back into the game so quickly.”

Questions continue to be asked about why Keenan isn’t in South Africa with Farrell’s squad but Nucifora says this was all discussed from over a year ago. Keenan wanted to do it, Farrell “was really good about it,” and Ireland’s hopes of a medal have been boosted.

Nucifora is pleased that the Ireland 7s are contributing to the Irish rugby in an overall sense, citing how Cormac Izuchukwu came back into the system through 7s, moved into the Ulster academy, and is now in South Africa.

But he admits that 7s rugby hasn’t yet reached the level of popularity and interest he had hoped would be the case. He’s convinced that these Olympic Games are the chance to make a huge impression on the Irish public.

Nucifora says the men’s team have become ultra-consistent, while the women’s success in Perth earlier this season showed what they can do. 

“I’ve got total confidence in them both.

“It’s about being there and when something opens up, you’ve got to be good enough to take your opportunities.

“We’re good enough.”

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