David Humphreys

I think Donachan went to school.

I think he went to school in Cork.

And then this week we've been in the Ulster skills because I fundamentally believe that while we've got some very, very good structures and pathways in place, we've forgotten a little bit about what feeds those pathways, what makes sure that this is a success that Irish rugby is achieving.

enjoying at the minute is sustained for a period is ensuring that the players who come in are given the right support and we all look obviously at what Leinster have done in the schools programme they have there and we're not trying to replicate what happens there everywhere else but we know we can learn some lessons from the pilot scheme that we've done over the last 12 months to ensure that we're giving other provinces the chance to

build their pathways, bring players through, and probably more importantly, boys, give them the opportunity to become professional rugby players, club rugby players, in the same way that the Leinster school system allows their players to accelerate their development.

I think it's about experience.

It doesn't really matter what field of work you're in.

Being able to broaden your mind, seeing opportunities, seeing things that are done differently.

Like you guys, we've come through playing a huge transformation in Irish rugby from the amateur game.

You'd seen it in the early stages of professionalism.

Compared to where it was even 10 years ago, it has moved massively on.

And that is due, obviously not experience that I have, but that's due to the insights that have been brought in from lots of different sports and from people, from David Nusifora, who came from a very, very different system to what we had.

So it's about trying to...

Use some of the things that you've seen and experienced that you can implement here that I believe, from what I've seen, has made a difference.

And you'll have heard me say it before.

I think the fascinating conversation in cricket was with Brendan McCollum, who is the England cricket head coach.

And certainly when I was there, he was still playing rugby in New Zealand every week when he was at home.

And he had this very, very different outlook, Donnach, in that he felt that one of the challenges that rugby faced was that we have a structure, we have a schedule that we use for players, that we tell them what they're doing, 7 o'clock in the morning till 4 o'clock in the afternoon, Monday to Friday, we put them in the pitch and we sometimes wonder why they can't make decisions.

England cricket went to the other extreme where he made everything optional.

Players could choose when they trained, how they trained, and...