As Ryan Baird sits down to speak to a handful of writers, he seems slightly on edge.
A bit fidgety, a bit distracted. Is everything OK?
"I'm great, yeah!" he reassures us.
"Out of the ice bath so shivering with the cold, but it’s good."
How long was he in it for? "Ten minutes," he adds through chattering teeth.
In a World Cup camp, there’s a huge emphasis placed on recovery, whether it’s ice baths on their non-training days, or the compression socks that every other player seems to be wearing as they walk around the High Performance Centre at the Sport Ireland Campus.
"The big ones for me are eating well, sleeping well and then hydrating. If I can do those three, then anything after that is considered a bonus in my eyes."
Given the intensity of life in World Cup camp, mental recovery is just as important as the physical recovery. This week, the Irish squad have broken up to go wherever they please. Training programmes will still have to be completed, but on their own time.
For Baird, mental recovery comes when he is outdoors. Golf features among the list of hobbies, as it does with a lot of players. Playing off a handicap of eight, he’s more than an occasional hacker.
His face lights up when he talks about his other way of switching off.
"I love fishing," the Dubliner adds.
"It’s very therapeutic, fishing, because you’re out there and you don’t know when you’re going to get a hit, and you might not get a hit, so it teaches you a great level of discipline and patience.
"Then if it’s a good day it’s calm, still, you can hear the birds around you and just chill out.
"It’s very nice. A lot of the time I’d just go by myself. It’s very relaxing. I feel very present when I’m there.
"My dad brought me on my 12th birthday down in Wexford, Kilmore Quay, we went out mackerel fishing and caught some mackerel and some pollock, caught some cod as well.
"Then I didn’t do it for about 10-12 years, then last summer or two summers ago, I was actually down in Kilmore Quay again and went out, got a mackerel, came back in and bought a rod and just started from there."
While his athletic profile eventually led him to rugby, tennis was the number one sport in the Baird household. Long before Paul O’Connell would become a major influence on his career, it was Rafael Nadal who he idolised growing up.
"It was just his fight, his competitiveness, his passion. I loved him."
A few weeks ago he made his second Wimbledon visit during a down-week from Ireland camp, with he and a few friends queuing up the last minute to pick up an £18 ticket on day one of the tournament.
Wandering into Court 17, Britain’s world number 164 Jan Choinski was taking on Serbia's Dusan Lajovic.
"He was a set down, 1-0 down, and me and my two mates were like 'Right, we’re gonna get behind Jan.’
"We looked him up, he’d never won an ATP match, he’d never won a grand slam match or a Davis Cup match, so he was not expected to win this match.
"So we got behind him, we were bringing huge energy, shouting and screaming at him, giving him ‘Come on Jan!’ and all that throughout the game. It was incredible fun.
"He wins in five sets and the atmosphere was just incredible. Afterwards he was saying ‘the crowd were incredible, it was electric’ and we got a photo with him. It was a real memory for us. We were texting him on Instagram after saying ‘Awesome work, so delighted for you!’ and he was like ‘Thanks, roll on the next round!’ It was a really cool day."
If Baird wasn’t a rugby nerd as a kid, he certainly is now.
Since making his Ireland debut against Italy in 2021 he’s gone on to earn 11 caps, with his most significant contributions coming in the last three of those, where his performances in the Six Nations against Italy, Scotland and England have left him well set to earn a place in the 33-man squad for the World Cup.
He admits the aura around Paul O’Connell was lost on him growing up, but he’s come to fully appreciate the Ireland forwards coach’s level of detail since establishing himself in the Irish camp.
"Ah I love it," he gleams, when asked about working with the former Ireland captain.
"The first day he came in I was just blowing out, it was incredible. His attention to detail, his passion for it, it’s just incredible. I love it so much.
"I pick his brain about anything and he'll have a video of it somewhere on his laptop. It’s impressive looking at all the folders he has. I love working with him.
"Paulie, to me, when I came in, I was just blown away. You see him on TV but I never really focused in on watching him, it was Paul O’Connell, great captain, Lions tours, so successful, but then you come in here and you see why he was so successful. That was the most impressive part."
And that level of analysis has filtered through the rest of the squad, with players constantly asking and sharing for pieces from each others’ games.
"You can learn so much by just watching them on the laptops, seeing how they do something. If I’m struggling to get square in a defensive line, for example, I’ll watch someone who’s really good at it and pick their brain and they’ll say ‘Oh, what I do is set up this way and then I look this way’…
"There’s probably someone in the building here who is better than you at pretty much everything. You’ll have your one or two super strengths - you don’t want too many of those -and then you see someone else’s and you pick on them.
"That’s when you get the best results, when everyone is sharing and it’s collaborative, because everyone has their point of difference and you’re trying to learn from each and every person."
Watch live coverage of Ireland's Rugby World Cup warm-up games v Italy (5 August), England (19 August) and Samoa (26 August) live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 or follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app.
