Ireland's interim head coach Simon Easterby is eager to downplay the significance of his role in a title-winning team.
No, we're not talking about the men in green where he's been part of their backroom staff since 2014, and the team he'll lead into this Six Nations while Andy Farrell is on British & Irish Lions duty.
No, first of all, we're talking about his son Ffredi's school Bro Morgannwg where Easterby can be found on the odd training session -- when Ireland commitments allow -- running the water, or passing on the odd kernel of insight from a pool of knowledge filled by 12 years as a player, 65 Test caps for Ireland, one tour with the Lions in 2005 and 15 years spent as a coach.
"I've played a tiny role with them, so I really can't take any credit for that," Easterby says.
Last year, Ireland lifted the Six Nations trophy on March 17; four days later, back-row Ffredi was clasping the Welsh Intermediate Schools Group Year 10 Cup, with his proud father watching on.
"They'd done all the hard work of getting to the semis and the final and I just, well, took the glory," Easterby says, laughing. "You get to play in the Millennium Stadium and honestly, I'd kind of turned up and done a couple of things and been waterboy. My role has been very minimal, but I've loved the opportunity."
But any part-time secondment to Ffredi's school will have to wait for the next six to eight weeks.
Easterby is decked out in his Ireland suit. With Farrell focusing on the Lions' tour to Australia this summer, it's Easterby who is aiming to help Ireland become the first team to win a third outright Six Nations crown on the bounce.
For one spring, he will take the step from defence coach to head coach, looking to mould together yet another title-winning team. But while his head coach title is temporary, he wants to leave a lasting impression in the role.
"I want to embrace it. I want to enjoy it. I want to make the most of the opportunity," Easterby explains.
"I've been fortunate enough to be in this group for 11 years and I've loved my time as an assistant and I've worked under two great head coaches in Joe [Schmidt] and Faz [Andy Farrell], and certainly I'll be taking a lot of what they delivered to the team over the years into the next six, eight weeks. But I'll be trying to put my stamp on things as well."
The life of a caretaker coach in the Six Nations in a Lions year has produced mixed results. It's been the Rob Howley role over the past decade as he stepped in for Warren Gatland at Wales.
In 2013, Wales won the title. Four years on they finished fifth with two wins from five. Easterby will use Farrell as a sounding board through the tournament as he wishes, but ultimately, this is his chance to show what his capabilities as the leading role, when for so many of Ireland's triumphs he's been the supporting act.
Easterby's playing career was in the back-row at the Scarlets, learning from Phil Davies and Gareth Jenkins. "Gareth had an incredible ability to get the best out of people who probably as individuals weren't as good as others, but could get a team working together," Easterby says.
Easterby retired in 2010 because of a knee injury, then moved into a defence role at the Scarlets and was head coach from 2012 to 2014. Ireland came knocking, offering him a post in charge of the forwards, one he held for seven years before moving into his current defence coach spot in 2021.
In his 11-year spell with Ireland, they have won five Six Nations titles.
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"He's a guy who'll give you everything when you're in the trenches," former Scarlets teammate Ken Owens says of Easterby. "How passionate he is about what he does makes you want to give him that in return. You know he'll have your back. There's no coincidence Ireland have been one of the best teams in the world since he's been there."
Easterby also coached the Emerging Ireland team on their tour of South Africa in 2022 and again in 2024; making that hop from assistant to head coach isn't new.
"I guess I have a wider remit in terms of looking at the game, a bigger picture and I think all coaches are looking to try and influence and guide players and coach them through different things," Easterby says.
"I'm still going be doing the defence, but I'm going to be looking at sort of the bigger picture, how we evolve the team and keep moving it forward. We need to make sure we keep evolving and we keep nuancing our game, which we need to try and keep layering and adding to, otherwise everyone else just catches up."
Easterby will welcome Johnny Sexton into camp in his roaming consultancy role, while he will also be supported by Andrew Goodman, Paul O'Connell, John Forgarty and Aled Walters. He will lean on the knowledge he's gleaned from Jenkins, Davies, Schmidt and Farrell, but he'll also look to his captain Caelan Doris for leadership.
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"[Easterby's] got a tonne of respect amongst the players in how he leads our defence and how he is as a person and the one-on-one time he puts in with players too," Doris says.
"A lot of what you look for in a head coach you've seen from him over the last number of years. Instead of any one person trying to fill the void, it's shared responsibility. I'm sure the leadership group will take a bit of that on too. But there's a tonne of faith inside as well."
Up first are England on Saturday in Dublin. Easterby wants to see evolution in Ireland's gameplan across the board. "That's part of our challenge, is to keep pushing how we attack and defend, to make we don't become predictable," he says.
If Ireland do become the first team to win three titles on the bounce, then it will be some job advert for any future head coach vacancies. The man himself isn't thinking of that, though. After years of mastering the dark arts of the back-row, and doing all he can to make Ireland as impregnable and formidable as possible, it's his time to bring it all together. But as for this being an audition for future top jobs? He's not so sure.
"I'll come back to you on that in six or so weeks," Easterby says.
"Look, I'm really lucky to have been in my role in the team for as long as I have. This is I guess a natural progression, me evolving my role a little bit. I'm fortunate that the union have seen and trust in me to do that. I enjoy the change, and wider scope.
"The most important thing is that we prepare and I prepare the team as best I can as that's what we'll be judged at the end of the day."
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