Garry Ringrose and Ireland feeding eagerly off 'inspirational' Brian Fenton

The seven-time All-Ireland winning midfielder was a guest in Ireland’s mini-camp this week where he sat in on meetings and, in his own words, looked to add value where possible.

MASTER...: Of all he surveys. Dublin's midfield maestro Brian Fenton. Pic: Dan Sheridan

Twenty years have come and gone since Mickey Ned O'Sullivan spent time in South Africa showing some of their players, a 22-year old Bryan Habana among them, how Gaelic footballers went about mastering the art of high fielding.

Both sports have shed various skins and grown others across that two decades but the aerial games in both are now back in fashion after recent, respective rules/laws changes that have reintroduced the art and the chaos that was once taken for granted.

It was probably no coincidence then that seven-time All-Ireland winning midfielder Brian Fenton was a guest in Ireland’s mini-camp this week where he sat in on meetings and, in his own words, looked to add value where possible.

Transferable skills, was the phrase du jour.

Garry Ringrose didn’t play Gaelic or hurling growing up. Soccer was his other love, but the Leinster and Ireland centre loved seeing his native county rack up those trophies in Croke Park and he has been exposed to best practise shaped by the native code before.

Garry Keegan, performance coach to all the stars, was a long-time presence in Jim Gavin’s dressing-room. So was Declan Darcy. Both men have since added immense value to the oval code behind the scenes.

High-fielding wasn’t a huge part of Fenton’s role given the priority on possession and short kickouts but the man was brilliant at every skill demanded of him through one of the great GAA careers and Ringrose clearly mined plenty of use.

“Yeah, it was cool having him in. He's a pretty inspirational figure, certainly as a Dub, but I think everyone in the room was admiring him for what he's achieved as a player and with the team he's involved in.

“There's loads of crossover between high-performance environments so I was picking his brain a little bit and even on some of the aerial stuff. He's some man to win a ball in the midfield and, with the new rules, we were asking him for some tips and cues that he uses that helped him through his career.”

As with Gaelic football, where the new rules have reintroduced the concept and need for high fielders, rugby’s catch-and-kick game has been revolutionised by laws speeding up kicks at the ruck and clamping down on players cordoning off catcher.

Some things remain constant, though. Ringrose can look back ten years to his early days and see that some of the principles driven by Joed Schmidt in this area remain bedrock today but the element of uncertainty around it is something Ringrose welcomes.

“It's great. Certainly the crowd get involved. The players… It can give us energy so it's something we're continually trying to review and get better at because it's kind of ebbed and flowed from when I first started.

"But as I said a couple of the principles Joe spoke about are still being spoken about now."

Evolving with these changes is just one of the reasons the Leinster centre remains at the forefront of such a high-achieving Irish system, a fact reflected this last week by the new three-year central contract he signed with the IRFU.

David Humphreys, the union’s high performance, spoke about how the best is yet to come from a player who turned 30 just last month and the prospect of a first ever – and overdue – tour with the British and Irish Lions would mark a new peak on his journey.

Self-effacing as he is, Ringrose again opted to talk obliquely about any such ambitions as the Ireland squad went about their mini-camp on this Six Nations down week with a run-out against Neil Doak’s U20 team at the training centre in Abbotstown.

Simon Easterby’s side is pole position to claim a second Grand Slam in three years and a third Championship title on the trot having claimed a maximum ten points in their opening two fixtures. The injury situation is pretty acceptable too.

Mack Hansen and Joe McCarthy are both good to go for the trip to Wales next weekend after recent injury-enforced absences although Tadhg Furlong remains a wait-and-see as he looks to recover full fitness after a frustrating four-month period.

Captain Caelan Doris is another being managed right now, in his case with unspecified issues, after what the head of athletic performance Aled Walters called two “attritional” games. Ringrose will be as keen for action as any of them.

Eighty minutes were banked in round one against England but he had to make do with only 23 against Scotland last time, Bundee Aki and Robbie Henshaw starting in Murrayfield, as Easterby backed up his stated intention to rotate his three world-class centres.

“Certainly as centres we'd be pretty open and relaxed amongst each other,” said Ringrose. “Over the last couple of years, we've all been challenged to play on any given week, either it's rotation, injury, form.

“What's brilliant is it's really competitive in training but then at the end of the day, certainly as a centre group, we just want to do our best to help the team win.

“If you ask myself, Bundee or Robbie at the moment that are rotating - and there's a few guys that haven't been in yet - that would be their answer as well. We're all kind of on the same page from that perspective.”