Hunched over the counter of Kiely's in Donnybrook with a morning cup of coffee, dressed in polo shirt and shorts, Mike Ruddock blends in seamlessly with the new rugby environment. Not the pub, I hasten to add, but the young professional coach in a professional game (well, sort of) and a true Celt in his home from home.

Born and raised in a "tough little mining village", Blaina - home to Davey Watkins, Rob Norster and other first-class rugby players - Ruddock's eight-year career as a back-rower with, first, Tredegaar and then Swansea was cut short at 26 by an accident at work: he fell from a ladder and fractured his skull and damaged vertebrae. So, a fledgling coaching career with Blaina and then Cross Keys started earlier than planned.

He is steeped in the Welsh game, but a Clare mother and a Dublin wife entitles him to use the word "Celtic", and he does. His second son was even born in Mount Carmel ("a grand Irish name, Rhys"). That first foray into the Irish game with Bective Rangers is a long time ago, but after six highly successful years with Swansea, Ruddock needed a new challenge. And, as Leinster's new director of rugby, he certainly has that.

The player drain, though, is something he's used to, as would be any Welsh rugby player with first-hand experience of the 1970s, when English rugby league clubs combed the valleys while the home unions clung rigidly to their amateur ethos.

Reeling off the mass exodus from Wales in those days, and then the drain of Irish players to the English club game, leads Ruddock to conclude: "No country, certainly no Celtic country, can afford to lose that sort of talent, and obviously it's happening now in Ireland, and I would agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments of the other provincial coaches. We need full-time professionals, and we need to stop the player drain."

Ruddock provides another slant on this whole debate by stressing the importance of facilities. "It's one thing to have a professional rugby team, it's another to provide them with professional facilities. Warren Gatland said his dream would be to have a fully professional team in three years. Well, I think in three years my dream would be to have a fully professional team and a fully professional training centre with topclass facilities that would motivate the next generation of young players coming through and show them that there is a future in Ireland."

Allied to more top-class competition, such as a Celtic Cup, Ruddock believes that "suddenly you could attract more sponsorship, and create a new environment".

"I know the clubs would possibly disagree, but if it seems already that the provinces are accepted in Europe, rather than the clubs, then I feel that it would be a step backwards to recreate the provinces through the clubs at this stage.

"What we have to do now is accept that the provinces are now representing Ireland in Europe and strengthen the provinces both in the playing strengths and the facilities; create a state-of-the-art centre of excellence in each province." In other words, the equivalent of Limerick's NCTC in Dublin, Galway and Belfast.

Ruddock's concern is not so much the players already contracted to the Irish or provincial squads, but those on the fringe. He cites the departure of the former Blackrock back Emmet Farrell to West Hartlepool, "and there's one or two other lads just outside the top 30 who've told me that they've had offers from England and they see their future in Newcastle seconds or Mosely seconds. To me that's short-term gain for them, and if we could promote a new coaching environment that would help them progress here through top-class facilities it would be better for them and us."

Long-term, the emergence of DLSP's recent GAA recruit Declan O'Brien shows the importance of a more complete scouting network, or what Ruddock calls a "talent identification system".

"I've been very impressed with the amount of talent in the province. We had 10 guys at the first training session in May and I couldn't wait for the guys in New Zealand, so we called in all the youngsters. Very quickly we had over 40 players training four or five times a week, and they all want to play for their province. Some of the senior guys realised they had to come back to training very, very quickly. A very healthy situation."

If the players have never been more primed and ready for the interpros, Ruddock, too, seems to be straining at the leash.

The Munster and Ulster director of rugby shenanigans have been quite a mess, but in Connacht's Gatland and Leinster's Ruddock, not to mention Ireland's Ashton, it seems that Irish rugby has engineered quite a triple coup. Three progressive, professional coaches. Now all they need are professional environments.