Tommy Bowe

And listen, we're really appreciative of you coming on because we want to get a bit of a lay of the land of where you see Irish rugby at the minute with provinces, women's rugby, even the amateur game.

I know it's not really under your remit as performance director, but for people who are listening on

who here, David Humphrey's performance director.

Can you explain to us, what does that title entail?

I used to go in there, yeah.

It's so different to what we've grown up with in the rugby world.

the mindset of what coaches would have drilled into us in years gone by.

But I think you can see that from the leadership style of Andy Farrell and the way he encourages players to be themselves, to challenge their... to be open amongst each other.

And I suppose some of the areas that we would have been told, things that we would have been worried about, you would have hidden to the background because it would have been seen as a weakness, where nowadays he tries to bring that to the front.

So...

For you to sign him on to 2031, there was an awful lot of talk.

We're still a long way out from the World Cup next year as well.

How important was it to put pen to paper with Andy Farrell and be that kind of shining light going forward to 2031?

What is it that's special about him?

Sorry, can I just, in terms of that, because we've had so many coaches over the years.

I've worked with Faz, with the Lions and with Ireland under Joe Schmidt as well.

But he seems to have just stepped it to a whole new level.

The players absolutely adore him.

How important is balance in the books, so Humph, as opposed to trying to catch the French system, or even the English system, in terms of, you know, in France, they have, you're allowed to bring in a couple of players beyond the budget.

In France, it just seems to be a bit of a runaway train at the minute.