David Humphreys

They have to be good.

And if they're Irish qualified, well, then they will definitely be an option for us longer term.

my answer would have been that I think we've become too narrowly focused in this breaking the quarterfinal hoodoo.

Because of the success we had at Six Nations, to me, the best opportunity to break the hoodoo is to be successful year on year leading into it.

And I know people will say to me, well, Ireland won 17 or 18 games in a row leading into the last World Cup.

It couldn't have gone any better.

So I suppose...

The goal for the next five years, Tommy, 2027, we have got this generational group of players that have come through the system and have delivered the success for the national team.

And we're going to ask them really to push and do it again in 2027.

We've got a great opportunity with the players that we have, but we've also then, as I said earlier, we've got to take a view beyond that.

Will getting past the quarterfinal,

be the single defining factor of success in the Irish setup?

Absolutely not.

It'll be about our Six Nations performance.

It'll be about our world rankings.

It'll be about how the women's game continues to evolve and our WXV competing in knockout stages of world...

world rugby competitions it's about the nation's championship that's coming and being very competitive there but yes if you said to me when we get to 20 28 29 and we look back and go we broke that that will get rid of that hoodoo and will allow us then to start going right that's one part of a very big rugby ecosystem but it's a very important part

I know you boys, particularly Donika, enjoy these holidays.

But you do forget that not long ago, going into this period of the season, we were going on a six-week tour.

So the length of season, the season itself in the calendar isn't any longer.