And so sometimes I see young players who want a voice, but then they don't do all the right things.

Yeah, no, I think there's a couple of things I would try and do with the young players.

I'd first of all get them to understand that leadership and having a voice is a skill that can be learned.

And it's not just a skill that's given to a chosen few.

And I think that...

Once they grasp that idea, and I talk about my own evolution as a coach and my leadership development and how I learned how to lead, I think that's definitely one thing.

I think competence builds confidence.

Was that, I mean, was that England time? was that your lowest moment in coaching because you've talked about how you grew from that time but um yeah how did you come back from that

Anything on that that you want to go a bit deeper on?

I mean...

Every meeting's a learning opportunity and every training session's a learning opportunity to grow and develop.

So...

When I set out in pre-season, I have a sort of framework of ideas that I'd like to embed.

But they come from so many different areas.

You know, there's no one way I could say, right, you need to do this.

oh okay there's something here like and they're they're moving in the right direction you mentioned earlier as well for example like that your your mindset around a playoff game versus a regular league game might be slightly different but like when you're going to belfast for example before you guys produce that performance like what's what's that week like or how are you building those guys up for a game of that significance

Was there a point, Stuart, where you could feel as though what you were trying to indoctrinate in your players was actually landing? Was there a point in the season where it felt as though it was turning for

you? I think it was all...

It all landed from the get-go, but actually getting it to land and getting it to become unconscious and to be ingrained...

in pressure moments in big games against very good teams is a different thing.

Do you know what I mean? And, you know, if we broaden the conversation out beyond defense, it's everything from leadership, decision-making under pressure, staying emotionally in control, having a plan A and a plan B, You know, do we play Connacht rugby? Do we play the pressure game? All those little things, you know, you're always layering into your meetings, your training sessions, your one-to-ones.

And so I think JT mentioned it, the compounding effect of all those little things gradually begin to improve the competency and confidence of the group.

So they're under pressure.

Anything on that that you want to go a bit deeper on?

as as you're trying to answer uh the really rubbish question i asked see dealing with that stuff in real time and not letting it compound and not making another mistake so what's the kind of go i know it's hard to distill these things down but what's for instance a go-to message mistake happens

um well understand how you how you respond to it and then have a strategy for yourself to deal with it you know what is it what is it you need to do to shake off um to shake off that mistake and to um reset your body language, reset your mindset, and then move on to the next moment.

You think you've let the team down, and so you go into this sort of like negative spiral, and then, you know, you're actually being selfish by staying in that negative spiral for the team.

So it's getting the players to understand that.

Listen, say, listen, boys, I understand you've made a mistake and I know you're feeling bad about it.

I said, but it's not actually helping the team by staying in this moment.

We need to get out of this moment and get onto the next moment because we can still win this game.

I don't I don't class Connacht as a one of the more kickier teams maybe you're kicking more than I realize but but I suppose a complaint would be unintended or not that the game now has massively incentivized kicking that is becoming the prevalent attacking tactic and invariably that means more knock-ons that means more scrums that means beefier teams coming out on top so talk to us about the trends in the game where is the game in 25 Stuart um