The IRFU yesterday formally unveiled their plans for an Irish rugby academy, potentially the most significant of any long-term investment which the union has ploughed into the game.

Essentially, the academy is a rejigged and improved version of the foundation scheme, with young players, mostly drawn from their post-school years but with allowance also made for late developers, being contracted for one to three years at regional centres in each of the four provinces.

The numbers will vary depending on the quality of the crop each season. "It could be seven or it could be 15 quality players, picked by trawling through the schools and youths systems," explained John Hussey, the chairman of the union's board of management in control of the academy.

Hussey, along with Ray Southam, director of rugby development, and Stephen Aboud, the elite player development officer, formed a working party which has been examining the possibilities of setting up an academy since last November. Aboud, particularly, will have a very hands-on role.

Players from each province will be nominated for a position in the academy by the respective provincial directors of rugby, who in turn will be guided to a considerable degree by their informants at schools and youths levels. It is anticipated that the annual cost of the programme will be in the region of £300,000500,000.

Aside from its prime goal of identifying and developing future international players, the academy is also seen as a means of counter-acting the lure of professionalism from English clubs, who have already begun to scout at schools' level in Ireland. Hence, built into the contracts will be a loyalty clause, whereby players who have completed their academy contracts will be honoured bound to inform the union of any offers from abroad.

Hussey revealed that the national coach and the provincial directors of rugby will also have an imput "the type of game they want to play and identifying the type of player they are looking for and the positions in which their need is greatest."

Warren Gatland praised the academy as "an excellent structure" and said that by comparison the New Zealand Academy was an academy in name only.

The academy will come into being in July and such is the increased workload for players contracted to it, by comparison to the foundation scheme, that Hussey conceded that those players who, say, wish to enter college, possibly won't have the time to join the academy.