Basically, he's the standard-bearer. By dint of deed rather than word, Dion O'Cuinneagain tends to stand out in an Irish squad session anyway. Whether it's a full-scale, semi-contact match, or a speed drill, or a run, he is usually pretty prominent. But since being made captain, he sets the standards even more so, and now by word as well as deed.
That the upturn in the work-rate and intensity of the sessions has coincided with his elevation to the captaincy is surely no coincidence. Yes, he concedes, he has been striving to work even harder in sessions, and the rationale is simple.
"If I'm asking more from the players, I've got to ask more from myself, to lead from the front. If I'm talking about you must go a week without dropping a pass, then I mustn't drop a pass during that week. If I'm saying you must push yourself to new fitness levels then I've got to get myself up there as well.
"That's basically how I try and captain, and yet still try to maintain the enjoyment factor. When training is over, it's over, and we're in an incredible city in Sydney and guys must go out and enjoy themselves. You can't take that element away from a rugby player. It's a team game, it involves bonding."
His cv is littered with captaincies, right through school, junior levels, Stellenbosch University, Western Province under-20s, the state side once, the South African sevens for three years and Sale on a few occasions.
There's a touch of the Gary Teichmann's about O'Cuinneagain's captaincy. Both are easy-going, are image-friendly, non-Afrikaners who captain from the back-row. Indeed, it wouldn't be entirely surprising to see O'Cuinneagain revert to his more customary position of number eight on this tour, although this first comparison with Teichmann prompts a gentle laugh.
He thinks that this is indicative of "most English-speaking people who came from South Africa, rather than the hard-nosed, unsmiling . . . " he pauses, and smiles himself, "I won't say it, other style. Let's leave it at that."
Comparisons with Lawrence Dallaglio are relatively odious at the present time. "I don't have any skeletons in the closet yet". His sportsmanship, lack of abrasiveness and general likeability he attributes, with that engaging smile, to his Irishness. "Most Irish people are like that. I came from an Irish home and my old man is the most relaxed person you'll ever meet."
He keeps a cool head on the pitch as well. "I can be upset like anyone else," he says, though retaliation is usually kept to "hitting him harder in the tackle next time, or run past him and score a try." When rucked by Andre Venter in the second Test last summer "being able to speak a bit of Afrikaans helped. I expressed my feelings about his heritage in his own language, which was very useful. I didn't actually have to throw a punch. Just to see his face was enough."
Although deeply inculcated in his family's Irishness, it's assuredly no bad thing that his father Conal and mother Vivienne moved to South Africa to further their medical careers. The irony is that O'Cuinneagain is now going to great lengths to complete his medical degree in Ireland.
Hence, Ulster (through Queen's University) have entered the fray along with Leinster and Connacht, appropriate given his late grandfather hailed from Belfast and his grandmother from Galway (she lives in Templeogue). Now a free agent, he wants to set up home in Ireland for several years, even if forfeiting a year of his studies next season, and to that end make a decision by early July.
However he learnt his rugby in a country where standards are altogether higher. O'Cuinneagain would never say so, of course, but his explanation for his approach to training belies this. "I come from an ethos whereby you play as you train, and training was always very intense in the years I grew up.
"I don't mean long, drawn out sessions but intensive sessions, and training under pressure, whereby you can't drop a ball, you can't throw a bad pass. The talent that Ireland has got is immense, and the guys on this tour, by training at a higher level, they'll take their actual match play to a new level."
Aside from conceding that O'Cuinneagain has had a considerable input into the nature of the training since the squad came together in Greystones last weekend, Gatland also admits that O'Cuinneagain is amongst the top athletes he has worked with in rugby.
"Physically, he's world-class," says the coach. "He benches 160170 kg, which is exceptional, he does 15 on the bleep and is as quick as the backs." Gatland gives a slight, matter-of-fact shrug, as if to say O'Cuinneagain is a natural for the role as standard-bearer/captain.
"I want to get the best out of players and maybe try a bit harder than they realise they can. We're still letting ourselves down in training sessions and that's maybe the reason we let ourselves down in matches. We've still got to go up one or two rungs of the ladder, and hopefully we'll be there two weeks into the tour."
To accentuate the positive of the Irish rugby characteristics, O'Cuinneagain says: "The incredible camaraderie they've got for each other. I mean, you'll never, ever get involved with a team as close as an Irish team is and I think that's been the most outstanding feature I've noticed."
Though some of us at times think the Lansdowne Road factor is ove-hyped, O'Cuinneagain adds: "When you play at Lansdowne Road on a Five Nations day, you know that you've got the whole country behind you and you get the feeling that every Irish person around the world is going to put the television on that day. Irish people are incredible people and to play for an Irish side is very special."
On foot of being made captain, O'Cuinneagain asked me to furnish him with reports of Ireland's eight matches in the 1994 tour. "It looks like I better do some homework." His contention that Ireland are "far better prepared" this time is supported by one of the liaison officers common to both tours.
"Certainly, we're not going to relax after one victory, which seemed to happen on the last tour against Western Australia at the start. Of the next seven games we only managed one more. We've got a good chance of winning on Monday, and then we've got three really tough, Test-match level games.
"We'd like to come away with four wins. I know it sounds ridiculous, expecting us to come away with four wins. But that's the standard we've got to set for ourselves. Take each match as it comes. Win on Monday and approach New South Wales, and build from it."
Aside from results, O'Cuinneagain swiftly cites other collective targets from the tour. "Improved fitness levels, improved ball handling levels, a mental edge to us and on the field a sort of confidence and arrogance about our play. I don't mean arrogance in a horrible way. I mean arrogance in `I'm the man for the job. I'm better than the man I'm playing against, and I'm going to show the skills today'.
"If you look at the All Blacks, that's their body language on the field. The way they stand. They just look like `I'm going to turn this game.' And there are boys in the Irish team who can do that but they give the opposition too much respect, rather than saying `I'm a good player and today I'm going to be the man who wins this game and go out and do it'."
High targets, and if achieved, then the standard-bearer will have helped to ensure a benchmark Irish tour.
