Shane Daly reaping rewards from Emerging Ireland experience

It was met with a fair degree of scepticism at the time, but last year's Emerging Ireland tour of South Africa is ageing better than expected.

It put an enormous strain on some of the provinces, Munster and Connacht badly hit in terms of playing numbers at the time, but it's starting to bear its fruit.

When Munster's Emerging contingent returned to provide the backbone of a string win against the Bulls in October, head coach Graham Rowntree was quick to mention how his players had come home from Bloemfontein looking and acting like new people.

It's provided the springboard for Jack Crowley to become an Ireland international, while his other Muster teammates Diarmuid Barron and Calvin Nash have spoken of how Simon Easterby's tour empowered them.

For Shane Daly, the Emerging Ireland trip was about getting back into the Test picture. The versatile back won two Test caps earlier in the World Cup cycle, but a lack of gametime with Munster - and the emergence of Mack Hansen and Mike Lowry - saw him fall down a few rungs on the ladder.

"I think for me, I was maybe out of the Irish scene for the guts of 12 months before that [Emerging Ireland]," he said.

"It really put me into the spotlight, in front of the Irish coaches again and to be able to get back in. Obviously small things had changed over time that I needed to catch up on, and I came in as an older player in the Emerging Ireland set-up, which was different for me because my whole career I have always been one of the younger people in the squad."

And the 26-year-old says the biggest challenge he faced was to come out of his shell as a leader in the group.

"I think that really gave me a different experience as I was in the leadership group over there and it taught me to kind of