It's been a summer of upheaval at Connacht, but back rower Paul Boyle says new forwards coach Dewald Senekal is firmly making his presence felt at the Sportsground.
The South African joined the province in the summer after spells coaching in France with Bayonne, Grenoble and Stade Francais, replacing the long-serving Jimmy Duffy in charge of the Connacht pack.
It was one of several changes to Andy Friend's coaching ticket in the off-season.
Peter Wilkins moved to a new role of senior coach, similar to the roles held by Stuart Lancaster and Stephen Larkham and Leinster and Munster respectively.
And the province have also brought in two more assistants who have experience with their underage teams, with former Munster wing Mossy Lawler coming in to work on attack and skills, while Colm Tucker's brief will involve defence and forwards' technical skills.
On top of that, head coach Friend is on record saying he wants his side to increase the tempo of their game in the coming season, starting with an away trip to Cardiff in round one of the United Rugby Championship.
Boyle says the coaches have brought new ideas to the side, particularly his new forwards coach Senekal.
"He's a coach with fresh eyes looking on the place, he's laying down the law quite a lot and he's coming up with some really good ideas around what he wants implemented," he said.
"We've been training away with them in the last few weeks, and we've another week of training and then trying to implement them against Cardiff."
Connacht's pre-season run outs haven't been pretty, however, with a 52-39 defeat to Worcester followed up by a heavy 47-14 loss at home versus London Irish.
But Boyle says the changes they've made in their pre-season training camp are for the long term.
"We're looking to play fast," Boyle said at the launch of the URC yesterday.
"The biggest change we made with our pre-season this year was that there was actually very little 'get on the line and run' fitness, it was all with the ball.
"We got a lot of hard training done but it all had the ball involved between conditioning and games, a lot of 15 v 15, so we're well used to throwing the ball around at this stage and I think our fitness has gone up another level.
The Wexford native starts the new season as an Ireland international, having made his Test debut in the 71-10 win against the USA at the Aviva Stadium in July.
It was the 24-year-old's first call-up to the Irish squad, following another excellent season where he scored eight tries in 17 games, and captained Connacht on occasion.
Boyle says his three-week stint in camp with Ireland was an eye-opening experience, as he learned both the mental and physical demands of Test rugby.
"On the field I was expecting the step-up and the step-up was there but when it's expected it's not as bad," he said.
"It's more the off-field stuff that was kind of surprisingly a big step-up, whether that was the video work you do, the analysis, learning new calls, that was probably the toughest part to learn but after a couple of days I was well used to it and I'm looking forward to getting back into it again.
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"The three-week camp was really enjoyable, it was unbelievably intense. I learned a lot and since then I've just been trying to implement the things I've learned, whether it was work-ons or good things I need to improve as well.
"I've just been enjoying implementing those, I got some good feedback from coaches, learned a lot off other players I was in camp with and hopefully come game time I can implement some of the things I've been working on.
"It was something that I had been working towards but I suppose when the call comes it is always a surprise, it's a lovely surprise but it's something I've been working towards for the last number of years so I was delighted as well."
