Can you sum up your first season at the helm of the Ulster Rugby Academy?
It’s been a really exciting year. It’s hard to believe that we’re at the end of my first season in the position. It’s been very busy and we’ve seen lots of changes from a personnel perspective and developments within our programme. These first twelve months have given me an opportunity to better understand how the current programme works, and most importantly, how we can best utilise the skilled staff resource we have. For me, it’s also about how we can better support our club and school game with our connections in Rugby Development. That is something we’re putting a real emphasis on, working closely with domestic rugby, aligning with an integrated programme. It’s been massively exciting and has flown in. It whets the appetite to look forward to what is to come next year.
How has the season has gone for the players in the Ulster Rugby Academy and the wider pathway?
The most pleasing aspect of our programme is seeing the individual journeys and the support of players at different stages of players in their pathway and how we manage that playing profile with the number of games and training. This season has been really important coming off the back of the previous season, which was disrupted by COVID, particularly for our younger players. They didn’t get a lot of playing opportunities with no club or schools’ rugby. It’s been fantastic to see those Academy and pathway players representing their clubs and schools across the province. It’s something we’re grateful for, how well the clubs and schools have worked with us to support those plans for the players, particularly for the Academy guys.
We didn’t have a formal ‘A’ team programme in place, so it was great to see the Academy, National Talent Squad (NTS) and Provincial Talent Squad (PTS) guys contribute to a lot of the success clubs have to secure league status, and for a couple of clubs, pushing for promotion. Some of our guys were involved in the Bank of Ireland Senior Cup win with Queen’s University at the end of the season. Picking up a couple of ‘A’ team fixtures against Leinster and Munster provided a fantastic opportunity for some of those young guys to get exposure playing alongside senior players and get a better understanding of what the next level of rugby looks like with regards to their development.
We have seen a lot of Ulster representation throughout the Ireland Age-grade teams over the last season - that must be very pleasing and encouraging for the future?
Absolutely! The primary aim of our programme is to support those players with the highest potential to play for Ulster and Ireland. It’s a great reflection of the hard work undertaken by our club and school coaches, Ulster Rugby staff and the players. That hard work has been recognised and rewarded with the opportunity to represent your country. The thing that delighted us the most was the individual performances from the Ulster players across those various Age-Grade teams. That’s a strong reflection of how our programme and the club and school programme supports those players for those challenges. It does give those players a great insight into what’s required of them. I see guys going away representing Ireland at U18, U19 and U20s coming back with a lot of clarity and understanding of the areas of their game they need to continue to improve on. It gives us an opportunity to support those guys to progress to the next stage of the pathway.
In particular, Ireland U20s won the Six Nations Grand Slam, led by Reuben Crothers with a large crop of Ulster forwards involved; what are your hopes for those players in the season ahead?
It was one of the highlights of the year for all of us as a staff group and certainly for those players. It was a very proud moment to see the large representation from Ulster in that squad. Those guys were a real credit to themselves, their families, clubs, schools and Ulster. We noticed a real growth in all of those players in that period. It was fantastic sitting down with those players off the back of the Six Nations campaign; they were brimming with confidence, excitement and understanding of what’s required of them to get to the next level.
For a lot of those guys, they are on different journeys. The next twelve months will be really important in terms of them pushing for opportunities to train and play regularly with the senior squad and demonstrate to the senior coaches that they have got the ability and mindset to become a senior player. For the other guys, they’re at an earlier stage in their pathway and will have the opportunity to play U20s rugby next year. It’s important for them to build on those performances. They have a chance to gain more exposure in the U20 Summer Series in Italy. Coming into our Academy programme, at the end of July, they will want to push on and make a good impression. It’s a really exciting period for all of those guys. We’re really committed to helping them achieve what they want to get out of the next twelve months.
What do the next few months look like for the Academy set-up and wider pathway?
It’s our busiest and most exciting period with regards to the whole pathway and Academy programme. We’ll start our summer programme – I love this period as it gives us an extended period of time to work with other pathways from U16, schools and clubs through to our NTS programme. Having those 6-8 weeks with the players gives us an opportunity to learn lots about them as individual. Most importantly, it provides a development opportunity with regards to the support those guys get from a tactical, physical, mental, and nutritional perspective.
We have a few fixtures arranged. We will welcome IQ Rugby and EIRA from USA. That gives those players an opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities and building towards the summer Inter-Pros that take place at Age-Grade level. That gives us and national staff the chance to benchmark those players from each of the provinces against each other and gain an understanding of who our high-potential players are and how we can support them in the in-season programme.
At the top-end of the pathway in the Academy, those players will come back after a few weeks off into pre-season alongside the senior squad. We’ve got a lot of guys who will play for Ireland U20s in Italy, and we’ll welcome them back later in July. Those players will hopefully have a strong pre-season alongside the senior squad and get opportunities to play meaningful fixtures in September and October. Hopefully there will be development and ‘A’ teams fixtures confirmed as well.
Looking a little further ahead, can you share some of your goals for next season?
We’ve had a number of changes to our pathway programme this year at Regional Development Squad (RDS) U16-level. There have also been changes to our NTS and PTS programmes, so we’ve undertaken an in-depth review of the successes and challenges of those programmes and made changes for next year. We want to continue improving and building the whole pathway programme.
We’re also looking at a model next year to closely align our NTS and PTS players with the Academy and senior programme to give them sight of what the next level looks like. That’s got to support their development and it’s one of the areas we want to get our teeth into to support players in their environment – how can we get our staff more regularly into schools and clubs to support the coaches working with our players in those environments. They will hopefully make a difference and enhance the provision we have in place.