‘Any bad decisions, I can still say that’s David Nucifora’s fault!’ – David Humphreys promises progress in IRFU role

The former Ireland out-half is in the final stages of a transitional period in anticipation of the Australian’s exit and his growing influence could be seen as he sat alongside chief executive Kevin Potts and strategy and projects manager Kate Binchy at the launch of the union’s strategic plan from 2024 to 2028 today.

Previous iterations of the plan had high-level performance targets for the national teams and provinces, but the union will now write their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) into their Annual Reports and review them every year.

Humphreys says it doesn’t detract from his determination to have winning Irish teams.

“My view is that, having come in and seen all the good stuff and having a much greater awareness of what has been done very well, but also a much great understanding of where some areas perhaps that we can do things, not necessarily better, but very differently and hopefully the outcome will be that we know from a high-performance point of view that we’re winning games.

“That’s the big difference in the strategic plan when we talk about winning teams. Twenty years ago, it was about what game we could win to avoid the Wooden Spoon.

“The big difference now is we’re coming into every season with the expectation our Irish men’s team is going to win, our provincial teams are going to be winning the URC, our provincial teams are going to be winning in Europe, so our mindset is absolutely that we’re here to win.

“We’re here to continue that.

“We know that so many of those teams within the system are at very, very different stages of their evolution and what that means is we will be working as quickly as we possibly can with them to address some of the areas.

“If you look at the women’s 15s going into a World Cup year, that’s a huge priority for us.

“Kevin has been very vocal in terms of where that sits in our strategy going forward. It’s about giving them support at a coaching level, playing level, preparation level that will ensure that by the time we get into the World Cup, they’re in a good position to compete.”

Although he came into the strategic planning process late, Humphreys was keen to not have specific KPIs in the document.

“Coming in from the outside, I was very strong in terms of not having really specific KPIs,” he said.

“Why I say that is one of the things you’ll hear, and it’s a bit of a cliché in sport, you talk about a player leaving the jersey in a better place or someone who’s in a role moving onto a different organisation and leaving it in a better place.

“If you look at the 2018 to 2023 strategic plan and what was set out there, I don’t think any of us would sit here and say that Irish rugby isn’t in a better place today than it was at the beginning of 2018, regardless of what we have and haven’t won, so that’s a very important part of it.

“But I also have a really strong view that high performance can’t stand alone. The success of this strategic plan won’t be on what we achieve on high performance, but it’s about making sure that the game in Ireland benefits from what we’re going to do right across the strategic plan.”

Humphreys will travel to South Africa with Andy Farrell’s team, while also spending part of July with the U-20s, who will be competing for the World Cup in Cape Town.

And he says spending time with Nucifora has been a key part of getting up to speed on the job.

“I first went through the process and the appointment was made, we knew there was going to be a three-month handover period and I wasn’t too sure what that was going to look like,” he said.

“Having gone into and through cricket in a pretty short period of time, I had some experience of it, but now, on reflection, the three months with David have been fantastic in terms of what he’s been able to share.

“But it’s also being able to spend those three months with all the different teams – the men’s 15s, the women’s 15s, the men’s and women’s 7s, the U-20s, U-19s, U-18s – so you’ve got a really good sense of what’s been going on and getting to know some of the staff but also the players, without the pressure of decision making.

“Any bad decisions, I can still say that’s David Nucifora’s fault!

“But it has been really good, really effective in terms of the information. David and I have worked pretty well together. We haven’t been in each other’s pockets and it’s worked very well.”