Building with McEntee
The next generation are still on the job. Beefy young men walk with purpose around the Riverview complex in Clonskeagh, others are huddled together in small groups nursing coffees while one exits an office with papers in hand, like a kid from a headmaster’s study.
The office belongs to Colin McEntee, Academy manager, A team and U20 coach, but the duties undertaken in the pursuit of future success stories spill far beyond such inadequate confines.
Days off are a rarity and, though he has a match ticket, flight and accommodation booked for today’s events in Cadriff, the day job may yet keep him at home. Such are the prices associated with success.
McEntee came to the role in 2004 having worked in the same area of development for the IRFU and the conveyor belt of talent established under his watch has become the envy of every other province.
Eight of the squad that accounted for Toulouse in the semi-final graduated from the Leinster academy but more telling is the number of players – 52 at the last count — who have sat through their coursework in Dublin before graduating elsewhere.
Munster and Connacht have both benefited. So too, have a raft of clubs throughout the English Premiership and second tier but perhaps the greatest source of pride is the negligible failure rate among inductees. Potential players are first identified as early as 15 but such is the strength of the game’s structure – especially in the schools – that Leinster are content to play a supporting role until the recruit leaves school. It’s a flexible approach which facilitates late bloomers and one which seeks to sculpt the person as well as the player. Every member of the academy must take third-level exams as well as an academy diploma which involves everything from how to prepare for life after rugby to dealing with the media and understanding the game itself.
“An educated player is better than a non-educated player,” says McEntee, “especially when you put him in an environment like on Saturday with 80,000 people and he has to make a decision in a split second.”
Jonathan Sexton and Sean O’Brien were among the first to receive their scrolls but the bottom line remains performance on the pitch and — take away all the sports science, support structures and pathways — God-given natural ability. McEntee has seen his fair share of wunderkinds but clapping eyes on a talent like Sexton or O’Brien never gets old.
“When Sean and Jonny were coming through they had that natural ability. I remember with Sean, he was doing that damage at age grade as well but with a lot of guys you see the ability on the pitch and then you talk to them off it and there is a burning ambition and a competitiveness about them as well.
“Sean is very keen to drive himself as well. When you bring players like that in, that allows our programmes to challenge them but also allows them to challenge us. That is ultimately where you want to get. We have been lucky we have had a good calibre of players coming in.”
The challenge for Leinster is to maintain that turnover. With prospects like Ian Madigan, Dominic Ryan and Rhys Ruddock dipping their toes into the Magners League this season the immediate future looks secure but keeping a side at the game’s summit while assimilating new blood is a trick that very few coaches and managers have been able to pull off.
“You have to be ruthless in relation to your succession planning as well. There’s no point being reactive. You have to be proactive in professional sport and ultimately players aren’t going to play at 40. It’s easy to get caught in that wave of success and then, two years down the line, look over your shoulder and say ‘right, who’s next?’ It’s not quite looking to reinvent but the programme next year should be better than this year.”
And on it goes.
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