THE NUCIFORA YEARS: 3 BIG TESTS

Japan fallout

THE 2019 World Cup was meant to provide a fitting farewell for Joe Schmidt, perhaps the outstanding figure in the history of the professional game here.

Instead, it was the culmination of an awful year when the Ireland team he so painstakingly put together was pulled apart by a succession of opponents.

The review overseen by Nucifora that followed was brutal, highlighting performance anxiety among the players, and leaving the distinct impression that the man heading out the door was being saddled with the responsibility for the failures in Japan.

That narrative continued right up to the World Cup just concluded, when unflattering comparisons between Schmidt’s Ireland and the culture created by Farrell were repeatedly made by players.

Carbery goes south

IT is one of the curiosities of his role that Nucifora is said to have a poor relationship with Leinster, suppliers of the great majority of players to the national team.

Much of the animus stems from a reported visit by Nucifora and Joe Schmidt to Leinster’s training base in April 2018, when the province were preparing for a Champions Cup final.

They were said to have delivered a blunt message: the province needed to move one of their blossoming young out-halves, Ross Byrne or Joey Carbery, above.

The preferred destination was Ulster, then floundering after the Belfast rape trial and in need of a replacement for Paddy Jackson.

Carbery eventually moved not north, but to Munster.

Women’s game

IT is almost two years since a sensational letter was signed by 62 current and former Irish internationals excoriating the IRFU for its ‘substandard commitment’ and ‘inequitable and untrustworthy leadership’ when it came to women’s rugby.

This was on the back of the failure to qualify for the World Cup, and the controversy came right to Nucifora’s door. The IRFU resoundingly lost the PR battle with a catastrophically ill-judged response.

Anthony Eddy, seen as a key ally of Nucifora, left as head of sevens’ and women’s rugby and the long process of recovery is only beginning.