Irish rugby must 'stay ahead of the game', Nucifora advises Humphreys

The former Ireland and Ulster No 10 will succeed the Australian next year. 

HANDOVER: David Humphreys who is set to succeed David Nucifora as IRFU performance director. Picture: David Davies/PA Wire.

David Nucifora has urged David Humphreys to keep Irish rugby one step ahead of the competition when he succeeds him as IRFU Performance Director next summer.

Former Ulster and Ireland fly-half Humphreys will join the IRFU in March for a four-month transitional period before assuming the role Nucifora performed for 10 years as the IRFU’s first head of its high-performance programme.

Since playing for his home province, with whom he won the Heineken Cup in 1999, Humphreys has been director of rugby at Ulster and then Gloucester before a role as High Performance Consultant with Georgia Rugby and his current position as Director of Performance Operations at the England & Wales Cricket Board.

Nucifora will depart following next summer’s Paris Olympics, for which both the Ireland men’s and women’s sevens teams have qualified. While the Ireland Women’s XV has struggled of late, the Australian yesterday giving them only a passing mention in his annual briefing to the media to acknowledge a change of head coach and success in World Rugby’s third-tier WXV3 tournament following a Six Nations wooden spoon, Nucifora can point to high-achieving men’s XV and Sevens programmes and he believes his successor will have to keep innovating to keep them at the highest levels of the world game.

"There's always threats, you've got to stay ahead of the game; you can't stay still,” Nucifora said.

"You've got to keep finding ways to evolve in high performance and the period that we were on top there, everyone's looking at what we're doing, so at the same time we're looking at how we can improve what we're doing.

"The pathway, the way we develop our players; it's really strong and solid, we've got to make sure we find a way to protect that talent... there's already lots of clubs that come looking for our talent because they're well prepared at an early stage of their career, we've got to make sure we're able to maintain a system where the best talent finds a spot in our ranks and has the ability to constantly impress for higher honours and selection.

"The pace that talent comes through needs to be unhindered, it needs to be able to evolve for Irish rugby to stay on top."

Nucifora added: “He’s a wise guy who’s been around the block and I’m sure he’s well capable of being able to steer the ship really well.” 

Of his own legacy after a decade as IRFU Performance Director, Nucifora referenced Ireland’s failure to reach a Men’s World Cup semi-final but added: “There's been lots of other achievements in there, from beating New Zealand to Grand Slams to the evolution of our pathways, the sustainability of the pathways that are in place.

"We're producing players now at such a rate we've left a healthy system both provincially and internationally.

"Something I'd be proud of is the mindset. Irish teams go on to the field now and they know they can beat anyone. That shift in mindset is something that's super important for success going forward.

"We weren't in that position 10 years ago when we hadn't beaten New Zealand.

"Now, we've got players coming in and that's what they expect. So, for me, that's something that's particularly important."