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The model for The Leinster Playbook is to start small and grow incrementally, giving readers value for what they pay. Let the body of work build and hopefully speak for itself.

Working with CounterPress has been a pleasure. Where they come in is that they support all the technical and publishing side, leaving the writers on their many sites to focus on what they are in this for. To write and to tell stories.

On The Leinster Playbook, the team of journalists is growing, even at this early stage, and I am really excited to have Ailbhe Nolan and Pat McCarry on board.

I’ve always thought that sports writing, in particular feature writing, allows for some of the most engaging content you can read.

In 2014, the late Michael Parkinson was a guest on the Second Captains podcast. Parkinson was a sports journalist for a long time before he effortlessly cajoled with guests on his long-running chat show.

His stand-out and well-known line from that interview on the Second Captains podcast is that sport is “not war and death and famine, it’s not that at all. It’s the opposite of that, it’s to persuade us there’s a world outside of that. That’s why sport’s important.”

For me, sport is the great leveller. It ties in with exercise and the endorphin release and serotonin - the chemical that gives you that relief of stress. Games, organised sport, competition - they all give children a solid base in childhood. Self-respect, respect for others, resilience, a sense of belonging, structure and the want to compete and better themselves.

The interest in sport outside one's own immediate environment grows and sport as a narrative in your life takes hold. Local teams, national sides, international competitions; they all open up your imagination.

I remember the 1987 World Cup in New Zealand and Australia and it captured my imagination in the same way the Irish football team would 12 months later. The concept of a rugby World Cup was an unknown quantity. The stand-out moment for me was watching Canada play Tonga. I couldn't believe Tonga had a rugby team. In fact I didn’t know they were a country. It was exotic, exciting and honestly, there was a magical element to it.

Growing up in a house where there was a newspaper every day underpinned my own interest in sports writing. Reading the sports section of The Irish Times was an essential part of my day, and often the best part. Sports feature writing stems from those days.

But fear not, this website will not be a self-serving trip down memory lane. It will be analysis, interviews and feature pieces. It will be very much about providing people with good quality stories rather than immediate updates, removing itself from the modern sports news model of getting there first.

Sports Journalism - like all journalism - is constantly evolving and AI is a challenge, but it can’t beat authenticity and new stories, new voices.

I’m delighted to have you here as part of that journey.