LEINSTER HAVE CONFIRMED that former Leitrim and Dublin footballer Declan Darcy has joined the province as performance coach.
Darcy worked with the club at various points throughout last season and has now signed up to join Leo Cullen’s backroom team.
Darcy was a key member of Jim Gavin’s coaching team during a glittering era of success for the Dublin footballers, serving as defence coach between 2013 and 2019, a period which saw the county win an unprecedented five successive All-Ireland SFC titles.
He has been working with Leinster throughout their pre-season preparations, with his appointment now officially confirmed by the province today.
Speaking during a press conference to preview Saturday’s United Rugby Championship season opener against Zebre yesterday, Cullen explained what Darcy’s role will entail.
“There’s always somebody who has been in that space as a performance coach,” Cullen said.
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“What a performance coach is depends sometimes on the individual and the skillset they have. Dec comes from a different code, Gary (Keegan, former Leinster performance coach) worked in high performance, particularly with the boxing. So slightly different skillsets.
“In terms of Declan Darcy coming into us, there’s that little bit of observation around the body language of training.
“Like, coaches are a bit more focused on the actual session itself, the move, the player, blah blah blah, but there are other parts to it… Hugely experienced Declan, as well, in terms of working with a high quality team, a very successful group, the dynamic of a successful group, the continued success of a group, how do you keep reinventing yourselves.
“You can’t go stale, you can’t be the same because players need to be challenged in different ways, coaches need to be challenged in different ways as well.
“We’ve coaches who have come into the group as well, which is hopefully a good thing because it’s fresh voices and then at the start it’s right, are we all on the same page? And that’s the challenge because everyone’s throwing new ideas in.”
Leinster also confirmed that Eoghan Hickey has joined as senior performance nutritionist, adding to the high profile summer additions of Seán O’Brien as contact skills coach and Andrew Goodman as attack coach.
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