Aoife Wafer is the best example of a rugby native in the Ireland women's squad.
She plays like she's played the game for years, and that's because she has.
For many years Ireland relied on crossover athletes from Gaelic football, basketball, or the best of the Sevens specialists to bolster their ranks but Wafer, who turns 22 today, has been honing her 15s craft since the age of six, running out for Gorey RFC, and steadily growing into one of the world's best back rows.
She was named the Guinness Rugby Writers and the Rugby Players Ireland player of the year last season, and made the 2024 Six Nations team of the tournament.
Her 16 years of playing experience is complemented by a smart rugby brain and when the conversation with the Energia ambassador turns to how forwards coach Alex Codling has improved her skills, she's able to articulate an issue that has been prominent in the women's game as it plays catch-up on its male counterpart.
"Sometimes, not always, but sometimes a male coach will come into a women's environment and they won't necessarily be completely honest," says Wafer.
"Because they're afraid the woman might be upset with what they say or that they might not like it or that kind of thing.
"But Codders has come in and he's just been like, 'this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it', and we're like, 'okay, let's try it'.
"He's not afraid to say, 'Aoife, your strength is this, you're not as good as somebody else at this, so this is what we're going to do'.
"I think it's that mindset that it doesn't really matter what we do, because if it's best for the team then that's all that matters.
"He's very honest in those conversations and he has no problem with saying to somebody, 'you're better at this, so let that person do the job.'
"That's probably what I've taken from him."
Scott Bemand's side began their Guinness Six Nations campaign with a disappointing 27-15 defeat to France in Belfast on Saturday.
It was a match in which they had enough chances to record a first victory over Les Bleues since 2017 but 32 handling errors and poor decision-making across the team cost them dearly.
After recording impressive wins last year over Australia, USA and New Zealand, it was an uncharacteristically sloppy performance by the team, who face Italy on Sunday (3pm), and Wafer reflected on a missed opportunity.
She said: "It's a disappointing result and it's one that we're quite frustrated and disappointed by but what can you do? It's in the past.
"You can only learn from what went wrong and what kind of decisions you might do next time.
"We pride ourselves on learning fast so we've got to reflect and learn fast for Italy and try to right those wrongs.
"We had a big run-in to this campaign but we knew if we played the best we could then we'd beat France.
"Some people might have called that optimistic and said we're reaching a bit far but we are an optimistic group and we want to be the best, we want to bring success back to Ireland."
Italy, who lost 38-5 to England on Sunday, have beaten Ireland in their last two meetings and Wafer says no stone will be left unturned as they bid to end that losing run.
"Our analyst Cian O'Brien is probably one of the best in the world at his job," said the Wexford woman, who scored two tries against France.
"There’ll be packages with Italian lineouts, scrums, kicks, player packages where there are certain people that we can go after.
"He'll have everything set up for the whole group or for a strategy group that consists of certain players in the squad, and then they feed into to the coaches too, to make a plan of how we're going to target the Italians.
"We know the Italians have quite a big kick variety and that's something that we'll have to look at, and they can be quite physical as well.
"They've got a pack that can have a good set-piece, like we saw last year, the mauled us over for a try that proved to be quite crucial in that game. So yeah, it's something that we’ll definitely kind of target."
Wafer shares her birthday with Ireland co-captain Edel McMahon, aka Tricky, but there won't be any excessive celebrations mid-campaign.
"Hopefully the social committee will have a little bit of cake or something," said the Leinster number eight, who has 12 international caps.
"I share my birthday with Tricky so that's pretty special.
"My first time in camp was just before my first cap and we were prepping for the Wales game .
"Brian O'Driscoll came in to present jerseys so we had a selection of cakes and Tricky and I were celebrating away the night before the game.
"It's pretty cool to have a birthday in the middle of a campaign."
Watch Sharks v Leinster in the URC on Saturday from 4.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
Follow a live blog on Italy v Ireland in the Women's Six Nations on Sunday from 3pm on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch Wales v England in the Women’s Six Nations on Saturday from 4.35pm on RTÉ Player
