Last week was a fortuitous time to have arranged an interview with David Nucifora, for on Monday we saw evidence of the value that he brings to his role as the IRFU’s performance director. Rassie Erasmus’s appointment as Munster’s director of rugby was presented as a brilliant bit of business by the province but in reality it had far more to do with Nucifora’s standing in the southern hemisphere game than it did with Munster’s pulling power.
Slipping into an armchair at the Ballsbridge Hotel on Tuesday evening, Nucifora was slow to accept all the credit for landing the South African — though he did admit a certain excitement at having overseen the deal.
“I’ve known Rassie through coaching against him in Super Rugby and obviously he’s been doing a job very similar to mine in South Africa,” Nucifora said. “I’ve a lot of respect for what he’s done in both areas and I think we’re very lucky to have snared him.
“Professional sport is all about getting the best people and this means we’ve another top-class operator in the Irish system. When you add Rassie to the mix of Pat [Lam], Les [Kiss], Joe [Schmidt], Andy Farrell and so on, we’ve got some real coaching intellect in this country and I can’t stress how important that is to get the best out of what is a narrow playing base. Things are falling into place.”
So you’d hope. Nucifora has his feet well under the desk now, two years after he was unveiled as the first of his kind in this country’s rugby history — effectively tsar of Irish professional rugby. Schmidt reports to him, as do all the provincial coaches. He in turn reports to the CEO but Philip Browne is happy to defer to Nucifora on all matters rugby. “Nothing gets done in Lansdowne Road if Nucifora’s not there to okay it,” says one well-placed observer. “They’re all a little scared of him.”
Advertisement
“I’ve a lot of respect for what he’s done. We’re very lucky to have himDavid Nucifora on Munster's director of rugby Rassie Erasmus
It tells us something that he was offered the gig ahead of one Eddie Jones, another Australian 50-something ex-hooker who’s had such a transformative effect on English rugby, albeit in a coaching role. Nucifora isn’t as audible or as visible as Jones — this was a rare media interview — but he seems equally as convinced that his way is the right way.
From a strategic point of view, he probably could have timed his arrival better. Ireland had just won a Six Nations, Munster were lined up for a Heineken Cup semi-final and Leinster were about to win the Pro12. Two years on, the national team has limped out of another World Cup quarter-final and the provinces’ grip on Europe has slipped.
Nucifora seems happy that things are under control at the top end — when he says ‘we’, you naturally assume he’s referring to his partnership with Schmidt. As for the sagging provinces, he’s confident that their absence from the knockout stages in Europe isn’t a long-term condition.
“Not at all,” he says. “Just look at the quality of the Leinster team. Any club in Europe would kill for that playing roster, so I’d have a total expectation that they would be there next season, Ulster too with the roster they’ll have next year. If Munster can keep their best 15 players on the field, and depending on that sort of a draw they get, it’s not impossible. And who knows what Connacht can do?”
Ah, Connacht. Who’d have thought that they’d become teacher’s pet? Where once they were seen by the IRFU as unjustifiable loss-makers, now they’re the model of efficiency — literally. It’s understood that the Union has agreed to inject about €2.5million — Munster’s projected financial loss for this season — but only on the proviso that they work to a Connacht template, with clear, measurable plans for how academy products will see Pro12 game-time.
Advertisement
“Connacht got themselves there by being pushed down that path but now they’ve built a model that is sustainable and they are benefiting from it,” says Nucifora. “They’ve got a good coaching group, good young players and they are giving them opportunity. They’re being well-managed, well-run, they’ve got good systems and processes in place, so their success on the field doesn’t happen by accident. There’s no reason why that model can’t work elsewhere.”
Four efficient provinces should, in theory, make it easier to transfer players from province to province, thus ensuring optimal exposure and minimal wastage. The wastage issue is still a bugbear for Nucifora, especially certain players’ reluctance to leave their native province.
“Sometimes there’s a mistaken belief out there that we can force people to do things and make people go places,” he says. “We can’t do that. The player has to want to move and that tells us a little bit about him. You want people who are driven, ambitious, hungry for opportunity and success and some of the players who have gone out to Connacht have shown that. They’ve been rewarded for the risks they’ve taken.
“However, it’s also obvious that you can’t ask somebody to move somewhere if you can’t guarantee them the quality of what they are going to. We’ve worked hard with Connacht to make sure you could confidently ask any player to consider going because you know the coaching they will receive will be as good as they can get anywhere.”
The most difficult aspect of his job? Nailing down the contracts of some top players was challenging, he says. He seems more animated by maximising the talent that is available down the food chain, the late developers, the stagnaters. In particular, he’s evangelical about the sevens programme and how it can be a harvester of such talent.
Advertisement
“Three boys spring to mind — Tom Daly and Adam Byrne in Leinster and Alex Wootton in Munster,” he says. “They weren’t in the picture to be re-contracted at the end of their academy cycle but after one summer in the sevens programme, the provinces said to us: these blokes are transformed players. It can happen for a lot more players. From the viewpoint of expanding the skill set of our players, sevens is a must.”
He accepts that Ireland has jumped aboard the sevens bandwagon a little late for the men to make the Rio Olympics, while the women still have a bit of work to make it. But he’s more excited by potential longer-term benefits, especially as an access point for girls and boys from outside the game’s traditional bases — a simpler game, easier to play and coach. “I firmly believe that sevens is going to explode in popularity after Rio and we can’t be left behind,” he says.
Some ask why he spends so much time on sevens, given that he has a lot on his plate as it is — he has only just returned from watching the women’s team play tournaments in Canada and the US. And these aren’t the only grumblings you hear.
People want to know why the Ireland Youths team has been dropped from the system, and why the under-20s interpros may soon follow. (Nucifora’s logic, in short, is that players at that age should spend more time in individualised skill development programmes, as they do in the southern hemisphere.) People want to know why he took so long over player contracts. (In fairness, he only lost two players this season, Ian Madigan and Marty Moore, and Moore almost changed his mind.) Supporters in Munster and Leinster also want to know why Ulster seem to have been given preferential treatment in the quality of their imports.
Ultimately, people want more of a say but Nucifora sees his job as being more about decision-making than consultation. It was the same during his five years in charge of Australia’s high performance unit, when not all of his calls met with the approval of Super Rugby coaches — we understand Michael Cheika is not his biggest fan.
Advertisement
But those five years prepared him well for this job, primarily because Australia’s system is so similar to the Irish one.
“Australian rugby understands very well how it has to develop every player as best as it possibly can because competition for athletes is so intense that you can’t discard anyone,” he says. “We don’t have a lot, and those we do have got to be the best they can be, so it’s about utilising your resources to the max. It’s exactly the same here. We’ll get there, I’m sure.”