Client Brief
The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is responsible for all aspects of the game from schools and clubs to the professional and international teams.
The IRFU requirement was to find a new Performance Director for the first time in a decade. A critical role in ensuring the long-term success of Irish Rugby, the Performance Director is responsible for overall leadership and management of the Professional Game (Men and Women) in including the management of the key coaching and technical support staff involved in the professional men’s and women’s game in XVs and Sevens, including the National Teams Coaches, Provincial Head Coaches, High Performance Manager, Head of Women’s Performance and Pathways, Medical Director, Director of Athletic Performance and National Team Performance analysts.
Our Approach
Irish Rugby has enjoyed consistent success for over a decade and especially for the men’s national team and the Provinces. The challenge for high performing sports organisations is to stay at the top. The Performance Director’s responsibilities were broad and required a global search to identify suitable individuals not only from rugby but other comparable high performance environments.
We led the search for the new Performance Director together with our network partners in Australia and Asia Pacific, Europe, South America, and the United States.
As such, it was important for us to hire someone who understood and was culturally aligned to the unique position of OS interfacing into government, yet with the commercial nous and go-to-market transformation credentials to drive high impact.
The IRFU interview panel included Ireland’s High Performance Expert, Gary Keegan, along with members of the IRFU senior leadership team. A shortlist of experienced candidates from around the world were identified, with a selected few being put through a rigorous selection process which included interviews and assessments.
The Outcome
- David Humphreys unanimously selected as the preferred candidate and candidate capable of doing an excellent job by the NomCo and Gary Keegan.
- A credible and known entity within Ireland and the wider rugby world, David is a former player, coach and Director of Rugby and understands the role from the different perspectives bringing nearly three decades of high performance expertise and learnings gained in elite rugby environments.
- He has extensive knowledge and understanding of world class talent development and performance pathways in a high-performance environment and rugby in particular and demonstrated a strong understanding of what is required to support and develop high performance athletes in rugby.
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