Wow.

Did a post-grad diploma in management and did some, uh, did finance after that.

So I always wanted to kind of keep myself slightly distracted, slightly occupied with a couple things outside of rugby.

Otherwise, it becomes just, I, I think the rugby environment, or maybe sport in general, uh, or professional sport, when you're completely immersed in it, it's quite unhealthy.

You're surrounded, like rugby especially, you're surrounded by grammar school educated, same types of families, rugby families, same types of interests, same opinions.

Yeah.

And I think it's been a brilliant thing, and you've got like real ind- like real characters have come out of it.

I don't think we see it.

Did you know like almost immediately that this is something you're going to stick with or did it take a little bit to really get into the flow with it and find your footing in it?

Um, so actually it's funny cause like the first class, um, I had actually been to a jujitsu class, um, a while back.

Uh, one of our, uh, close friends, Jordan, uh, me and him went when I was a lot younger, like maybe 2021.

And, um, I just did like a normal class and it was pretty cool.

I kind of, so like when you do a lot of the techniques and stuff, especially if you've never trained or done any sort of grappling, it can be a little bit overwhelming.

Like you're not going to remember the moves.

The moves are like a foreign thing.

With that, what's something you used to think was true about jujitsu that actually you're wrong about, like as you got into it and learned kind of firsthand?

What are some of the ways you provide hockey IQ education to kids or coaches within your organization?

Yeah, I mean, we follow a lot of USA Hockey's models with ADM and our coaches.

station-based practices.

But then we like to finish with a lot of small area games.

One of my favorite small area games, we call it the tire game.

Everywhere in the country, they call it a different game, but there's three sets of tires and it doesn't, you score points by moving away from the puck, finding space, passing through those tires, you get a point.

You can't pass through the same tires consecutively.

How did you inject that into the program that you rebuilt?

[laughs]

And I was like [laughs] "Trying to keep a brave face," like, in my career's in, in the, in the gutter.

Um, I suppose, like, the important thing for me in hindsight was, you know, get people who understand the game, understand me, understand what I'm capable of doing, and maybe just trying to find out a strategy or a route back to, um, to starting for Ireland again, which was always my, my goal and what I wanted to achieve.

Schmidt coming in made that easier because there was a simplicity to, to what Schmidt did.

There was a pragmatism.

I was like, "Okay, well, I can't do maybe that range of what Zebo or Gil- Gilroy can do." My range is a little bit narrower, but I can be really, really effective i- in this space and just do, like, five or six things.

And, uh, Zeb, or, um, Schmidt never communicated this directly to me, but I just...

First of all, like how much attention do you pay to all that, and how do you get back on the horse? Like do you-- did you guys see a psychologist over the years or how common was that?

Yeah, he's late-ish 20s, yeah.

I mean, I, I ...

Sorry, if you're, if you're 29, uh, you m- must have had opportunities to impress behind the scenes, to train well, to, to lead the week well.

Again, using inverted commas here, but, uh, I don't see Frawley.

I think he's different, slightly different profile, but I don't see him being head and shoulders better than Harry Byrne.

And the second half performances might be a little bit of us kind of leaning in that a little bit, but everything about that second half performance from Leinster's perspective, it's all a bit artificial.

They're chasing a game.

Just completely outclassed on Friday night.

But I don't know, just even in that sort of 20 minutes of the second half of the final game, there was enough for a whole Six Nations championship.

Yeah, and, and that's actually, the, the way you've kind of summarized that, that kind of sums the whole thing up.

Sums up k- that game and the unpredictable nature of it and the rest of the tournament as a whole.

It was ...

We saw so many momentum changes throughout.

The England game was, was that times 10.

But we saw that throughout the whole tournament.

[laughs]

I know the way he kinda flicked that ball over for Tommy O'Brien in the final try was like a, a moment of inspiration, but that's literally happening 10 times a game with him now.

I just find all, all the, all the thoughtfulness around performance and, um, yeah, performance philosophy and how they play and, uh, Borthwick's spreadsheets and data and, and all the, all that sort of stuff, all that-- If you set that all aside, there's definitely some magic that can't be captured in, in a, a coach's kind of performance philosophy.

There's some magic, I think, that I agree completely, and I think Stuart McCloskey just inc-encapsulated that.

There's something very, very special and unique about him.

The fact that, yeah, we can get into all of the different areas.

He's so, so dominant in fi- like, five different categories, completely different categories.

Defensively, with ball in hand, just carrying, um, looking after the, looking after the ball, his pass, now his distribution, everything, all that.

[laughs]

Former Irish international rugby player Andrew Trimble is joining us here as well Amy on the line have you noticed significant improvement Andrew?

Yeah, I suppose women's rugby, kind of experiencing that kind of more close to home for me anyway, and seeing the comparison, I suppose the last couple of years have been pretty significant in women's rugby.

And I suppose whenever I think back to where women's rugby was the last 10 or 15 years, you know, it wasn't really on top.

on our radar at all even a lot of the guys you know wasn't on our radar and you know like professional players you know seem to kind of keep our head in the sand a little bit and you know just just focus on what we we do and there's a selfishness to kind of professional sport and i'd say that there's a lot of kind of support that we could have given the ladies game that we didn't back then but certainly in the last few years i mean uh rfu invested um in women's in the in the women's team recently in the last couple of years and they were like a cold spring immediately the The standard improved, the facilities were there, the skill set, everything.

It improved the product really significantly.

And then the other thing that's been really important for women's rugby is the girls themselves showcasing their own personal brands, getting to know the individuals and getting an understanding for how compelling some of them are, how some of the great personalities and celebrating those.

That's all part of that kind of showcasing that sport and that product.

sport too, though.