Training and approaches to physical fitness should take a different turn in the coming years if the IRFU's newly-appointed National Director of Fitness, Dr Liam Hennessy, can convert players to his way of viewing physical exercise.
"Fitness is a much broader term than bench pressing or running laps. It is a much broader term, especially in rugby," he said yesterday. "And in schools' rugby, laps and bleep tests have no role."
Heart-stopping stuff if you are the type of school coach who doubles up training with punishment and who views a weekly trudge up and down the wet back pitch as just the character-building exercise every team needs.
"I've spoken to players like Mick Galwey, who has a GAA background. People like him and Keith Wood have had a broad motor development and it is likely that people with that sort of background will survive longer in the game and be able to perform at a higher level," the new man said.
Hennessy's role is to take the whole concept of training and fitness in rugby and move it into a new era. His responsibility is not that of the stereotypical fitness trainer, he will direct and co-ordinate the work with coaches in youth rugby, schools and clubs.
He will head a team comprising Craig White, the National Fitness Adviser, and provincial advisers Fergal O'Callaghan (Munster), Mike Bull (Ulster), Jason Cowman (Leinster) and John Glynn (Connacht).
"Kids will mature and get strength through good eating, good living and lots of activity. The techniques of doing the exercise is what is important. It is not the volume or load but how much of a vocabulary of movement you use," he said.
A native of Tipperary, Hennessy has a long history working at the highest level in a variety of sports. A former national pole vault champion, who represented Ireland on 55 occasions, the 39-year-old physiologist has also spent time working with a number of major European soccer clubs, including Liverpool and Bayern Munich.
He has also been involved with Bective Rangers, Old Wesley, Lansdowne and Leinster rugby clubs, the Tipperary hurling squad and Dublin football players.
Former head of the Cardiopulmonary and Human Performance Department in the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin, Hennessy has also attended the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympic games as exercise physiologist to the Irish teams.
What makes his slant on fitness training particularly interesting is that it considers the lifestyles of today's young people. Less active than 10 or 20 years ago, they spend most of their time sitting, whether they are travelling, studying or working. To achieve balance in such instances, development should therefore be focused on basics like the core of the body, i.e. the back and the stomach, rather than in making pectoral muscles pop up on command.
Yesterday's media gathering was also told by Hennessy that the muscle builder creatine had no role in schools' rugby and that players who use it would gain nothing. He also warned against nutritional supplements, many of which are not accompanied by accurate details of their contents.
Philip Browne, the chief executive of the IRFU, said that the union have issued a directive to all affiliated schools that creatine should not be considered by coaches.
