DAVID NUCIFORA BELIEVES the IRFU “would be mad to say no” to Johnny Sexton if the now retired out-half expressed a desire to take on a coaching role within the Irish system.

Sexton retired from playing following Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand in October. The 38-year-old was swiftly linked with a return to the Ireland set-up amid speculation Mike Catt was set to step down as Ireland attack coach.

Yesterday, IRFU performance director David Nucifora confirmed Catt would be moving on at the end of the 2023/24 season. Catt will depart his role after seeing out the 2024 Six Nations campaign and the summer tour to South Africa.

Nucifora said the IRFU hope to announce Catt’s successor in the coming weeks.

“We’re obviously talking to someone and it’s confidential but we’ll probably be in a position to announce it within a few weeks.”

The Australian then said the IRFU would be keen to have Sexton on board, should the former Leinster and Ireland captain decide to move into coaching.

Look, if he chose he’d like to do that we’d absolutely work with him. I think for Johnny at the moment it’s just taking a bit of time to take a deep breath. It’s been a long career to decompress and work out his in his own head what he really wants to do.

“There’s obviously a lot of rugby intellect in there and you’d like to access it or use it in some way if you had the ability to do it, but he’s got to decide what it is that floats his boat over the next period of time, but if he ever chose to want to come back into coaching the Irish system would be mad to say no to him.”

Nucifora was speaking to the media shortly after the IRFU confirmed a new four-year contract for head coach Andy Farrell.

Farrell first joined the Irish system as an assistant coach in 2016, before succeeding Joe Schmidt as head coach after the 2019 World Cup. This he steered Ireland to Grand Slam success and was named World Rugby Coach of the Year.

And with the Wigan native now on board to lead Ireland through to the end of the 2027 World Cup, Nucifora believes Farrell has the potential to become one of the all-time coaching greats.

“Certainly, we approached Andy very quickly in 2015 because I saw him as a guy who definitely had the ability to be a head coach and we’re all aware of Andy’s career as a player; the guy’s a winner, he finds an ability to get things done,” Nucifora said.

“The first four years of his tenure, the way that he contributed as an assistant coach was outstanding and he’s actually gone on to become a better head coach that I ever thought he would be in such a short period of time.

“When you look at what he’s been able to do in four years, I think that in another four years he’s going to have evolved himself personally as a head coach as well and the way he looks at things.

“If he keeps improving himself at the rate that he’s done in the first four years, I think you’re going to have a coach that is going to be one of the all-time great coaches.”