Aled Walters' arrival a real show of strength for Farrell's Ireland

Aled Walters will return to Irish shores six years after leaving Munster to join Rassie Erasmus in South Africa

LINED UP: Aled Walters in his job as the England head of strength and conditioning. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Have Ireland boss Andy Farrell and the IRFU pulled off another masterstroke in their ongoing quest for improvement? 

Those ripped Springbok bodies from 2019 and the high praise of former employers Rassie Erasmus and Steve Borthwick should be evidence enough that Aled Walters is an exciting recruit as head of athletic performance,

Walters will return to Irish shores, a move from England Rugby that was announced on Thursday, six years after leaving Munster to join Erasmus at the start of his mission to transform South Africa from hard times to world champions. 

That picture of the topless, ripped Springboks, with skipper Siya Kolisi proudly flexing his biceps at its centre, was a pre-World Cup statement of intent. It was as bold a declaration as any that the Boks had transformed themselves from also-rans to contenders that also served as a testament to the fitness, strength and conditioning work orchestrated by the Welshman in the first 18 months of his tenure alongside the South African coaches.

Munster had been sorry to see Walters depart in March 2018 as he followed director of rugby Erasmus and defence coach Jacques Nienaber out the door. They would eventually be followed by assistant coach Felix Jones, each of the quartet injecting new life into the Springbok cause with stunning results when Kolisi lifted the Webb Ellis Cup in Japan in November 2019.

It made the rugby world sit up and take notice and Borthwick was only too eager to lure Walters back to the Northern Hemisphere when he took the reins at Leicester Tigers the following year, the former Munster man again playing his part in a transformation that took the East Midlands club from sleeping giants to English Premiership champions inside two seasons.

When Borthwick was elevated to England head coach ahead of the 2023 Six Nations following the implosion of the Eddie Jones regime, he brought Walters with him, extolling his performance coach’s credential in glowing terms by saying: “Wherever he has worked, players improve. I have never met anyone who is able to get more out of players than he does.” 

And that is an endorsement Ireland boss Farrell and new IRFU performance director David Humphreys believe still rings true as they bring Walters into the Irish fold. 

The departure of his predecessor Jason Cowman following the successful Six Nations title defence last March was as under the radar as the man who vacated the role, but his head coach noted his exit yesterday, saying he “contributed a huge amount to Irish rugby over 15 years and we thank him for his incredible service over that time”.

Replacing Cowman, who has recently launched the ply.life app to offer personalised “elite workouts”, may have seemed a tall order but Walters appears to be the ideal candidate and IRFU insiders are describing his recruitment from a revitalised and upwardly mobile England camp as “a huge coup”.

He will be in the post ahead of Ireland’s November internationals at home against New Zealand, Argentina, Fiji and Australia as Farrell looks to build on the successful summer tour to South Africa, when a new-look and injury-hit team shared their series with the double world champion Springboks thanks to a second Test win in Durban. 

That Ireland matched their buffed hosts in the physicality stakes suggest Walters has an excellent base level from which to begin his work, yet he joins a set-up built in Farrell’s image and the search for further excellence will not abate. It seems a perfect match.