IRFU provincial and national age grade coaches - Under-18s, Under-19s and Under-20s - and IRFU elite player development staff from the four provinces gathered recently to review their experiences, discuss challenges and align closer to ensure the development of more effective elite players across the IRFU Elite Player Pathway.

Fitzgerald Close To Leinster Return

The Leinster squad trained in UCD today as the province gears up for Friday night's second successive away match in the RaboDirect PRO12 against Aironi.

With next Sunday's rescheduled Six Nations clash away to France set to rule out a large number of Ireland players, the province at least look likely to be able to call upon Luke Fitzgerald after his return to full training last week.

Mat Berquist (fractured patella) could also come into contention after missing over five months. The Leinster medical team are pleased with the New Zealander's recent progress after increasing his time on the training pitch.

Back rower Dominic Ryan successfully came through his first start in over three months against Glasgow Warriors last weekend, in a game which also saw winger Andrew Conway return to the fray after a three month lay-off.

Ireland international Rhys Ruddock, who was rested for the Glasgow encounter, may also return to the panel for Friday's game in Italy.

Meanwhile, over 46,000 tickets have now been sold for Leinster's Heineken Cup quarter-final against the Cardiff Blues at the Aviva Stadium on Easter Saturday.

The final batch of tickets are still on sale online here and with a sell-out expected, supporters are advised to secure their tickets soon to avoid disappointment.

Connacht elite player development officer Jimmy Duffy chats about the province's latest programme, 'Grassroots to Green Shirts', which they hope will increase the number of indigenous players coming through the provincial player pathway. In the westerners' current senior squad, there are 19 players who have come through the Connacht system.

Speaking about Connacht's 'Grassroots to Green Shirts' initiative, the province's CEO Tom Sears said: "We like to think we're innovative in our approach, that we're looking at things slightly differently. We've shown that the production line is working with the young players coming through. The system is working, we just need a bit more investment to make sure we can get more players through."

Connacht's head of commercial and marketing Alex Saul talks about some exciting developments off the pitch for the province, including their 'Grassroots to Green Shirts' crowd-funding initiative which gives fans the chance to play their part in growing and developing the future stars of Connacht and Irish rugby.

Speaking after the 30-11 home win over the Dragons, Connacht head coach Eric Elwood said: "We're a little bit disappointed we didn't get the bonus point, but the good thing is we got a good victory at home and we had a great crowd. We're back on the horse and it sets us up for Harlequins (next week)."

Speaking about recovering from the disappointing defeat to the Scarlets, young Leinster centre Noel Reid said: "We went over looking for a result and we didn't perform the way we wanted to. So we need a big week now of training and focusing on the things that didn't go our way - the breakdown in particular."

Speaking after Leinster's 31-30 RaboDirect PRO12 final defeat to the Ospreys, head coach Joe Schmidt said: "They scored a try in each of those instances (when we had a player yellow carded). It obviously has an impact, particularly in the last ten minutes when we felt that we would have a bit of fatigue."