Training camp: Derek Scallygoes to Spala, Poland, to see the facilities the Ireland rugby team are using to put the finishing touches to their preparations for the World Cup

In the sticky afternoon air, the men in white IRFU T-shirts are working up a sweat. One group are doing stretches at the side of the training pitch, half a dozen have gone for a jog in the woods, while a third group swap jokes and practise tackles.

"Cut him off, that's right," shouts coach Eddie O'Sullivan as birds chirrup support from the trees.

When the team finish,

the ultimate cool-down awaits them - three long minutes at

minus 140 degrees Celsius in the cryochamber of the Olympic training camp in Spala, Poland.

Just 90 minutes south of Warsaw, the camp has been a home from home for Irish rugby players - with 19 visits in the last six years. Last Saturday, 50 members of the Ireland squad arrived for a week-long stay in what is now an integral and vital element of their training regime.

"Nobody knows the players here so there's no intrusion into our daily routine," says Dr Liam Hennessy, IRFU national fitness director. "Spala has been a fairly big contributor to what we want to do as a team."

He was the one who heard about the camp through the sports grapevine seven years ago, making the Ireland squad the first from western Europe to train here.

Word has spread since; last year the camp attracted a record 6,000 visitors from 65 countries - from Scottish, Italian and South African rugby teams to volleyball teams from Qatar.

The camp's world-class facilities - and the lack of such facilities in other countries - help fill Spala's registry with foreign bookings, and the camp managers with pride.

"If you want to drink a beer you don't have to buy a brewery," laughs Jacek Malinowski, the moustachioed marketing manager. "We have a long tradition of sport here."

The Spala camp was a public-private partnership before the term was invented - one-fifth of the annual budget comes as government subsidies while the other four-fifths is generated by private bookings from organisations such as the IRFU.

Their fees help subsidise over 50,000 annual visits from Polish athletes, whose success in world championships keeps the Polish sports ministry happy, the public funds flowing, and the camp open to all.

"We earn our everyday living ourselves, but it is the state who invests and pays for new facilities," says Malinowski.

The interconnected complex is a mixture of communist structures and modern buildings, like a newly completed hotel that has doubled the accommodation capacity of the camp to over 400 beds.

Below the new hotel rooms, a team of nurses and therapists in the new rehabilitation centre preside over a bewildering assortment of treatments. Everything is on offer, from diathermy, electrotherapy, magneto-therapy and physiotherapy to something called laser biostimulation.

The most unusual stop in the centre is the salt chamber - a cavernous room with a generous coating of bitter, Dead Sea salt on the floor. Salt stalactites hang from the ceiling as you lie back in a recliner and try to relax.

"The air clears out your lungs," says the nurse, "45 minutes in here is as good as three days at the seaside."

But Spala is no day at the beach, nor is it a feel-good day spa. It is a no-nonsense factory where athletes go through their daily grind.

The camp's pride and joy is the blue cryochamber built seven years ago and by now notorious all over Europe.

Twice a day, after training, the Irish team put on socks, shorts, gloves and masks, and, in small groups, step into the first chamber, where the temperature drops to minus 60 Celsius.

After a minute, they progress tentatively into the second chamber, where liquid nitrogen plunges the temperature to minus 140 degrees.

Therapists recommend the occupants walk briskly around the chamber, where the only things to look at are huge freezing elements on the back wall and, bizarrely, a piece of beige living-room carpet on the floor.

Four minutes in the chamber would cause your eyeballs to freeze, five minutes would mean death - it's only a matter of time before the cryochamber features in a James Bond film.

When the door opens after a frozen eternity - or three minutes in the real world - the occupants stumble out in numb shock.

Therapists warn them not to touch their bodies - not because of any Polish Catholic hang-ups, but to prevent them giving themselves frostbite.

Before the thaw sets in, it's straight into the room next door to warm up on exercise bikes.

The benefits of the treatment soon become apparent - a rush of euphoria hits as the mind-numbing cold flushes out lactic acid and other chemicals that cause aching, muscle inflammation and exhaustion.

But as Hennessy points out, the deep freeze is still no substitute for old-fashioned legwork on the pitch: "We use cryotherapy as an adjunct to training," he says.

The team get a physical and mental boost from the treatment, a crucial bonus to the camp's secluded training atmosphere.

"We can do far more work than normal and speed up recovery, so there is far less damage internally around muscle membrane. The players can work harder and push themselves."

Hennessy says a growing body of medical evidence supports the benefits the IRFU have seen for their players since 2001.

Next September, the IRFU hope to further investigate the benefits of the procedure when they start their own cryotherapy study project with the University of Limerick.

The therapy is only catching on in Europe - a Wexford hotel now has a cryochamber - but it has been used in Poland for years.

"Your physical condition improves considerably - your circulation picks up, it's even good for cellulite," says Tadeusz Rogos, a Spala camp manager who recently completed a 10-day course.

"Your sexual condition improves too," he says with a laugh. "But I guess the Irish rugby team has to explore getting rid of that energy in other ways."

The camp in Spala doesn't come across as a hotbed of fun and games.

Completely surrounded by woods, it's quiet at night and certainly no place for a stag weekend.

The highlight of the Irish team's stay this week was a trip to the local cinema on Tuesday night.

Back in Ireland, the camp's reputation has spread beyond the rugby world: Athletics Ireland brought a junior team of 24 athletes here in April.

Gary Ryan, director of coaching at Athletics Ireland, praised the camp and its staff for sending home the young athletes on a high.

"They felt like professionals for the first time because they were being treated professionally," he says. "Spala was built during the communist era and they had a great appreciation of sport and how to train well. We have good facilities in Ireland, particularly at UL, but we need a larger scale."

That's a view shared by Hennessy. He says that Spala, originating in the communist era and greatly expanded since, outstrips any sporting facility Celtic Tiger Ireland has to offer.

"There's nothing like this in Ireland, despite what we may think," he says. "The powers that be have no interest in creating anything like it.

"We come to Spala because if we waited for these things to get going in Ireland, we'd be going backwards."

The town of Spala, 140km south of Warsaw, has been a home to Polish sports since 1928. The original 1930s stadium was destroyed during the second World War, but athletes returned when the new sports complex (above) was built in the 1960s.

By 1976, the place had been upgraded and included in the Olympic training system.

The camp covers 22 hectares and offers world-class provisions in 25 disciplines. There is a pool as well as three large athletics halls with room for a 200-metre indoor track and every discipline from pole vault and long jump to fencing, shot put and shooting.

The entire Polish Olympic team train here, inspiring the camp's slogan: "The medals come from Spala."

Foreign visitors value the secluded setting and the modest prices - packages are available for €70 per day, including full room and board, airport transfers and access to all camp equipment.