ON A WARM JULY day, during this long hot summer, a large door has been slid aside on the refurbed shed housing Ulster’s next generation.
Their presence inside, however, ensures that the air circulation is almost completely cancelled out.
It’s sweltering.
26 young forwards, enlisted either with the Abbey Insurance Ulster Rugby Academy, sub academy or the U19 team are working hard in the gym in their Newforge base.
Some are already enormous men, shifting considerable tin, but under the close watch of former Ireland international Amy Davis many more are following a programme pitting them against their own bodyweight, or bodyweight plus a relatively small plate. Others work their way through knocks and niggles with resistance bands.
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There was a level of humility required, strength and conditioning coach David Drake will admit, to pull away from a devotion to numbers and measurable improvements. Modern sports science makes so many training aspects quantifiable, but rather than lifting a hammer and viewing every issue as a nail, Drake and the rugby coaches within Ulster are using their tools sparingly with the ultimate goal being: ‘fluidity in athletic movement’ rather than simply pushing faster, longer, stronger.
Two recent Ulster stars are the ideal example of the distinction between the goals: Ruan Pienaar and Jared Payne displayed a sort of quiet athleticism that gave them a grace when on the field. That kind of fluid movement, together with maximising a player’s likelihood of remaining fit in order to train and play more often are the key drivers behind Ulster’s S&C at this development stage.
[image alt="Claire Molloy and Amy Davies dejected after the game" src="http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2018/08/claire-molloy-and-amy-davies-dejected-after-the-game.jpg" width="100%" height="2156" credit-source="INPHO%2FPaul%20Railton" caption="Davis%2C%20right%2C%20with%20Claire%20Molloy%20in%202011." class="alignnone" /end]
Davis, a former Ireland international in Sevens and 15-a-side, stands with her back to a partition wall separating a section aside for physio and medical.
In between answering questions for the awkward clump of slowly-cooking media members invited in by Ulster Rugby, she shouts out encouragement when one of her young charges is struggling towards the end of his reps.
When the player completes the set, he will walk to the laptop to input his work. We’re at the end of a five-week training block and the data will soon be reviewed to assess progress, weaknesses and so that the individual programmes can be tweaked for the next block ahead.
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Willie Anderson stands proudly by the doorway watching the work take place. The former Ireland captain plays an important role as elite player development officer for forwards – where Ulster’s production line has come under scrutiny. Now and then a young buck will cross his eye-line and he will proudly recount a story in testament to his character and the work he has done to earn his place in this humming environment.
Anderson’s passion will flow out in a clearer fashion in a meeting later that afternoon. While detailed measurements are compiled on players’ gym progress and ‘Fiji’ training-ground scores hewn from positive actions and errors bring about a revealing formbook when tallied, Anderson’s turn in front of the Powerpoint involves graphs and pyramids attempting to illustrate a great intangible.
The word ‘Warrior’ is the pinnacle of Anderson’s pyramid, below that comes ‘Winner’, then comes a larger group of ‘Waverers’. Below that the run of Ws is maintained for the larger subset dubbed with a pithy vulgar two-syllable insult.
Anderson very much represents the emotional prong of Ulster’s endeavours. Aside from his ‘Warrior scale’, which the more analytically minded staff welcome warmly to counter-balance their own data mining, every word from the former lock bleeds Ulster Rugby.
“I’m lucky to have this job at my age,” says the 63-year-old, and every movement in his demeanour brings energy and meaning to what he preaches.
He practically bounces around when speaking about the potential of the young forwards in his current crop, pointing to one teenager and predicting a Lions tour, for another the bar of 100 Ulster caps should be easily cleared.
The pride in the work is well-founded. Great strides have been made behind the scenes to develop forwards in Ulster and the indicators are pointing the right way with eight pack members advancing to senior Ulster caps over the past two years – and more on the way.
Indeed, there are healthy readings across the board. Eight players have made the step up in each of the past two seasons, a bit of rapid catch-up played after the throughput rate was five, three and zero from 2014 to 2016.
Of course, progression to the senior Ulster side is far from a perfect measure as it can depend on innumerable factors and injuries in the top tier of a province’s players. So academy manager Kieran Campbell prefers to gauge the level of representation in green jerseys for Ireland Schools, clubs and schools, U19 and U20.
This past year, Ulster provided 10 players to Ireland U20s, nine to U19 and Schools and two for the clubs and schools side. That total of 30 is slightly up on the 2016/17 season, but double the figure offered up to green jerseys in 2012/13 and 2013/14.
If Anderson represents the emotional side of the Ulster academy brains trust, then Campbell is the rational thinker monitoring the dials in the pilot seat.
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The former Ireland and Ulster scrum-half has been head of the northern province’s academy since 2015 and has placed a large emphasis on developing indigenous forwards. A massive step towards that goal has been his efforts to widen the scope of Ulster’s search, reaching more to the traditionally under-represented border counties in the Republic of Ireland. As an indicator of the progress in their talent identification, this year Ulster’s U19 team includes players from each of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, which is a first in the memory of Ulster’s academy staff.
“When we talk about resources, what we mean there is: we don’t need facilities, what we need is population,” says Campbell, who is preparing to redouble these efforts in the years ahead.
We’ve probably dragged the programme to where it needs to be over the past two or three years, next part of the process is the people, can we bring the province with us? Can we make everyone buy into being a key stakeholder at the club to really become a part of this journey and give these guys the platform to make it?”
We’re speaking to Campbell after he has allowed access to his team meeting; a short, sharp analysis session of the previous training day’s phaseplay.
He speaks about his crop of academy sub-academy and U19s as a family, and that is borne out in how he deals with the boys from his position at the top of the room.
In our time here he has asked stern, fair questions over their thoughts and intent in a given training ground moment. He never so much as stutters over a first name of the 40-odd bodies amassed in front of him and encourages open discussion and positive appraisals of analysis clips. It can be all too easy to issue call-outs and place demands from this position, but the goal here is to offer a handful of points to keep in mind for the session ahead.
“We purposefully don’t put information up on the screen with the clip, or I don’t fill it in.
“There’ll be a lot of ‘why?’ Once they get to the pros they can skip past it a little bit because they don’t need to understand, whereas these guys need to understand why you’re showing that.
“Hopefully by that process, which is a little more time-consuming, they’ll begin to understand why they need to run that line as opposed to: ‘just run that line effectively.’”
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“What I’m trying to do is get them used to a professional environment, to take away the trepidation of fear. What I won’t do is make it personal. As you say, it is personal to an extent, but what I want to do is get them used to ‘feedback is feedback’. If you can get used to, ‘this is making me better and it’s helping the group improve’, then you’re on the right track as a person.”
That humility is key.
Although a variety of people come from different angles to add to the pot, it’s difficult to escape one strong common theme continually being touched upon in Ulster: Culture, values.
“I want them to go out as proud, rounded people for the future. I think that’s more important because ultimately that will drive the culture.
“When I came into the job I purposely went and got Willie (Anderson). We’ve always had the desire that: along with anything else, when our boys walk out of here – whether they make it for Ulster or not – they’ll be good people.
“That’s reflective of our characters and personalities too. I’d be a quite reserved sort of person, Willie is the opposite end of the spectrum, but when you talk to him there’s a level of humility too.”
Culture, values and a player’s commitment to them are, of course, expected to be displayed on the field. Anderson’s ‘Warrior’ scale comes back into play here and work-rate viewed as a bare minimum rather than anything deserving of a medal of commendation.
There is an inescapable touch of the Yin and Yang to the combination of Campbell and Anderson, yet the former scrum-half is working to build strong structures and foundation to create repeatable success in producing players in and for Ulster. So he balks at a suggestion that he and Anderson are key to the strides being made.
“In professional sport, no one is indispensable. We’re trying to develop something that leaves a legacy, that give Ulster a system and a platform to work from.
“The reality of our world and the way it moves is that myself and Willie mightn’t be there. But if we keep having the success we have we’ll hopefully be able to tie in to sustain the process.
“What I talked about earlier and what I do feel is important is: we care. We have an intrinsic value which you get from playing for the province, whether you’re born and raised in the province like Willie or, my family are from Donegal, so you have a natural attachment to Ulster.
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“You have that emotional attachment which is important, particularly when you’re working with young people. They attach themselves to that and feel the emotion and passion which you hope draws them towards the cause and making it.
“From those aspects, I think we’re important, but I like to think the programme needs a legacy. This isn’t about me, it’s not a crusade for Kieran Campbell or Willie or any of the staff. It’s about making sure, whoever steps up, you leave something tangible and Ulster Rugby has years of success from.”
Campbell rises from the table and looks anxiously towards the Newforge training field. The last session of the week is set to be a gruelling one for players, with some literal grilling to be done by the losing team when the squad gathers for a barbecue to mark the end of the intense summer training block.
Having started the day with upper-body work in the gym, players’ legs and lungs are getting a severe testing on the field. A high-tempo training game will test their fitness and mental resilience.
Campbell is keen to see every step of it unfold.
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