Pack of Ireland Lions masks problems, but Humphreys eyes better balance

Irish Examiner

9 hours ago

A British & Irish Lions touring party with the largest Irish contingent of players and coaches in its 137-year history and Leinster crowned URC champions suggests rugby in Ireland is rude health. Yet IRFU Performance Director David Humphreys is uncomfortable with that overview.
There will be 11 Irishmen wearing the Lions' red jersey in their opening tour match in Australia on Saturday morning, when they face the Western Force in Perth, part of a record group within Andy Farrell's 38-man squad of 16 players more regularly seen in green.
Leinster's URC title victory, secured earlier this month at Croke Park is another cause for optimism. Humphreys, though, is concerned about the gulf between the champions and the other three provinces.
His decision to close down the men's sevens programme and redivert funds towards the men's player pathways in Connacht, Munster and Ulster, as well as accelerating the development of the women's game, is part of his strategy to close the gap. While the recent announcement to increase provincial contributions to centrally contracted IRFU contracts, most of which are held by Leinster players, will also see a net gain for the other three provinces.
While recognising the decision to axe men's sevens was a difficult and unpopular one, Humphreys, who succeeded David Nucifora as Performance Director last summer, is adamant there must be a better balance across the four professional men's teams.
"The biggest challenge we've got is that we have one province that is incredibly good at nearly everything,' Humphreys said this week.
'That's a huge credit to Shane (Nolan, CEO), Leo (Cullen, head coach), and Guy (Easterby, head of operations) for the work they've done with what you see on the pitch but also how they interact with the IRFU, certainly over the time I've been here, they have been great to deal with. So they've got a brilliant set-up.
"When I first came in, there was a lot of talk around 'Leinster are too strong.' In a high-performance system, a team can never be too strong. Ultimately, the goal is to be the very, very best. They are very close to being in that position.
"But the challenge I believe we in the IRFU have and in my role, is to make the other three more competitive. This year has definitely been a transition year. It's been a transition year because there's been a turnover in coaches, because two of our provinces in particular have had massive injury crises across the course of the season, so it's felt like a lot of things that could go wrong have gone wrong.
"The challenge then becomes how we close that gap in the provinces. We can do it a little bit by recruitment, by being a little bit more flexible in terms of who they can recruit, when they can recruit, but that's a short-term solution.
"To me, we've got to go, 'What is the longer-term solution?' I fundamentally believe, based on my experience, what we've seen working through the Irish system is that if we can support players below what is traditionally considered the pathway, going into the schools system and putting directors of rugby in there or supporting schools in a way they feel is necessary to improve their rugby programme, we can get a longer-term fix which will ultimately improve the provinces and ultimately support Ireland.
"How are we going to do that? Well that was part of the decision to finish the men's sevens programme. It wasn't simply a financial decision. It was a performance decision based on, we have to be able to reallocate the resources in our system. The budgets are not being cut. (IRFU CEO) Kevin Potts has said we can't continue to keep doing what we've always done.
'So what that has meant is we've made a performance decision based on the financial reality of the world that rugby is in, not just the IRFU but the wider world, to say we're going to take a longer-term solution which is the money we're going to save from finishing the men's sevens programme is going entirely into investing in the three provincial pathways and the women's game.'
Humphreys does not necessarily expect Leinster to be caught by their interprovincial rivals but he does believe the gap to them can be closed with the coaching teams now in place for next season, with Stuart Lancaster taking the reins at Connacht, Clayton McMillan set to move to Munster this summer, and Ulster's Richie Murphy having bolstered his backroom staff after a disappointing 2024-25 'I wouldn't look at it as a vision...' Humphreys said, 'what we've got in our strategic plan for the next four years is we want to create winning teams.
'Winning teams, it's about making them better. It's not about winning every league, it's not about winning every cup. That doesn't happen when you have four teams in the same competition. For me, what we have to do, we have to take small steps. You look back over the last three or four years, our provinces have been very competitive.
'I think this year is a blip for a number of reasons that were around changes in coaching teams, player injuries. I think with our recruitment we're going to have stronger squads next year. With the coaches we've brought in we're going to have strong coaching teams next year. That's going to allow us to close the gap.
'How long will that take? I don't know. But, ultimately, if Leinster keep pushing the boundaries but the other provinces keep working towards closing it, we're going to have a stronger national team and stronger provinces.
'The timeline is almost irrelevant, the challenge is to make sure we are closing the gap, and from an IRFU perspective that we're making the decisions which are right, to ensure that yes, the challenge is on the provinces to do what they need to do, but the challenge is on us as the governing body to make sure that we're supporting them to close that gap.'