“How do we get to a Rugby World Cup ready to compete with the world cup contenders?”
This was the coach’s challenge to Ed Slattery, Head of Athletic Performance with Ireland Women’s Rugby, two years before the tournament at the WXV3 in Dubai. .
In a recent webinar, Aligning Athletic Performance to Game Strategy, Ed provided an insight into the journey from last place in the 2023 Six Nations tournament to the quarter final of the Rugby World Cup in 2025.
The Starting Point
“For us, that was actually the kickstart. That was the piece now where we go, we can continue this path or we can really make a change here and really accelerate that.”
Following the 2023 Six Nations campaign, a professional system and performance team was built that provided support that wasn’t there previously for the women’s rugby team.
“My role as Head of Athletic Performance was the first person to have that role. It was a non-existent role previous to that. We hired nutritionists, we hired physiotherapists, we hired video analysts and created a performance team supporting the women’s programme that wasn’t there previously.
Everything Goes Through The Rugby Funnel
“Anything you do to enact effective change in a successful environment needs buy-in from the whole collective.”
Before any physical targets were set, there was clarity around what athletic performance was actually serving. That hierarchy, rugby first and everything else aligned around it, became the foundation of the programme.
“Performance on the rugby field has to be the centre of everything we’re doing. Your performance support team, your medical team, your logistics team, everything around that, is centred on performance on pitch. Knowing the playing style, knowing the outcome goal and knowing the training identity influences how we work as a performance support team. Everything goes through that rugby funnel.”
That alignment extended to the language used across the whole environment.
“Instead of calling it a power session, we’re calling it collision winners. So if you’re making a tackle, a collision isn’t just carrying the ball — it’s making big hits as well. It applies to both sides of the ball. They know that the work I’m doing today, this is where it applies.
The language has to be the same, from the moment the player meets the physio, athletic performance coach in the morning, into rugby meetings, into nutrition meetings, dealing with team managers, even when they deal with the media. The alignment of the language has to be across all aspects. If it’s important to us, it has to live in the environment.”
Phase 1 – Building the Foundation
With players aged 18 to 25, many on their first professional contract, the opening phase had one core question to answer before anything more specific could begin.
“A lot of people very, very quickly try and get very specific. The hard part is just taking that step back. Before I get overly specific, can my players actually tolerate that? Do they have the physical capacity to train the way we want to train? And the short answer was no. Some did. A lot didn’t.
The big thing here was we had to set clear objectives. Clear objectives are clear targets.
So players had no question about what we were going after in this stage. We made it really, really simple for them. We’re gonna lift heavy, we’re gonna sprint fast and we’re gonna work hard.
If it’s important to us, it has to live in the environment. So the key things for us were standards, alignment, feedback and opportunities. So standards were set. Now from an athletic performance side, what are they? They’re your strength standards, they’re your aerobic capacity standards, your speed standards, your power standards. We made them very, very clear to the players. There was no ambiguity. These are the standards we expect you to hit.”
Phase 2 — Marrying Athletic Performance and the Game
“The big thing here is collaborative session design — rugby and athletic performance have to make sure we’re working together in how we approach this. We do this on a micro and meso and a macro level.
At micro level it’s simple. Are we effectively giving players chances to get better at passing, better at stepping, better at sprinting, better at tackling? I would say in most environments the answer is yes. Generally that will look after itself.”
At meso, small-sided games — 2v2s, 3v3s, 5v5s — gave players the chance to express physical qualities in contextual settings. At macro, the training week was built across five phases: install, fundamentals, prime, power, and finish — moving from information and learning at the start of the week to executing with confidence the day before the game.
Underpinning all of it was the question – are sessions actually preparing players for the longer ball-in-play periods that decide top-level games?
“We wanna be ready for 60 seconds, 90 seconds, two minutes, three minutes plus. That’s the part we need to get to. So we need to build sessions along with the rugby coaches that make sure we’re preparing players for those longer duration ball and play phases.”
Early in the programme, reaching those durations meant manufacturing situations to keep play alive.
“Especially early on, they’re absolutely manufactured. Where we have to accept, if we want high levels of learning, we have to accept a moderate to high level of error. So we manufactured moments where we would just play the next ball. If someone kicked the ball into touch, all the people on the sideline were armed with a second ball in their hand. We played on. We want to create scenarios for players to physically live in those long environments.”
Phase 3 — Narrowing the Focus
“When we’re talking about narrowing focus, it has to be measurable, targeted and impactful. What we’re going after here has to have very specific measurable results. Getting fitter, getting faster, getting stronger has an impact on the game. We know that. But this now is narrowing focus to say, can we make a change in one or two specific areas? It requires players, it requires coaches and the entire staff to really go after these areas.”
The two areas they went after were very high speed running and extended ball-in-play tolerance. On speed, the target wasn’t simply maximum output — it was the ability to access high speed more regularly across a game.
“We want the players who could run at an all-out effort faster than they ever could before. But more importantly, we want the players who could pull from that well quicker. It’s not just the player who’s at 100% effort who’s faster — it’s the player who can get to 80, 85% more regularly than they could before. Because I’ll take a player who’s slightly slower but can repeat it, than the player who’s faster but can only do it once.”
On ball-in-play duration, the blocks that had been built to four minutes in Phase 2 were extended further still, shaped around the specific demands of each opponent.
“We wanted to know we can live longer in those two minute, three minute, four minute spaces. So what started as four minute blocks for us became six minute blocks, became eight minute blocks, became 10 minute blocks. And depending on who we were playing, we really tied in how we train. Is it a high transition game? Is it a high contact game? What kind of tactics are the other team gonna use? Can we mirror them in the training to lead into the weekend?”
Reviews happened live — not after:
” I will be on the radio talking to the coach throughout. I’m getting data — where’s our ball-in-play, what’s our metres per minute, what are our HML figures? If they’re not where they need to be, I’m making a beeline out, I’m speaking to Scott (Head Coach) and saying, hey, we’re not hitting our numbers, we need to adjust. We’re not sacrificing our outcome goal, but we’re adapting the session to make sure we’re getting what we need to get.”
In the quarter-final against France — Ireland’s last game of the tournament — they recorded 44 minutes of ball-in-play against a game average of around 36, and their highest physical output of the entire World Cup.
“In the game where the players were required, players had their highest physical output. So we knew they were ready. Unfortunately France were a better team, but we were able to fly home knowing we’re on the right track.”
Watch the Full Webinar
The full webinar ‘Aligning Athletic Performance to Game Strategy’ is available at www.setantacollege.com/webinars.
