Pete Wilkins looking to impart New Zealand tour wisdom with Connacht

Pete Wilkins takes his Connacht side to South Africa knowing his last tour will take some beating.

Nine weeks after helping Ireland to a series win in New Zealand, Wilkins is hoping to use the learnings from that tour as Connacht prepare for back-to-back fixtures against the DHL Stormers and Vodacom Bulls.

Wilkins accepted an invitation from Andy Farrell to join the Ireland coaching staff for the five-match tour in July and was "humbled" to play a role in the historic victory.

"I found it immensely valuable," said the Connacht head coach. "Obviously it was a privilege to be involved in terms of being invited, but also then to be able to share in the success they had. I was very humbled by that.

"From a rugby perspective, there were several things that I took out of it that I think we can adopt and put our take on for Connacht. How they train, the intensity they generate within training is a key part in terms of then seeing how that transfers to how they play the game.

"It's something that we have been chasing for the last couple of years, but it's always good to see a different version of good or a version of other people who are seeing it through a different lens.

"How we train, how we prepare to train, how we review training in terms of the messaging we give players – that's been incredibly helpful.

"There are aspects of that we will adopt and aspects of that we will put our own slant on. I think that will help grow us as a coaching group and as a rugby programme as well."

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