Did you know Ireland second-row Donnacha Ryan has been studying geology?

The Munster stalwart overcame an injury-ravaged period in his career to seal a place in Joe Schmidt's Rugby World Cup squad and told Off The Ball's Dave McIntyre all about his geology interest.

"The first lecture said geology is the study of time and pressure and I had plenty of time and I was under serious pressure to get myself a job," he joked, before adding that he had an interest in furthering his knowledge on the commodites side of things.

"Basically I have a Commerce and Irish degree from UCC so I was maybe trying to gel the two together. It's been very, very enjoyable. I went in thinking 'how can I get a job out of this?' and now it's a question of I couldn't go to a beach without trying to understand the [subject area]," before joking, "I'm a right snore picking up quartz pieces of clay on the ground and saying 'look at this Paulie!'"

Ryan, who had not had much experience of Schmidt's methods due to injury spoke about the positive mental challenge of learning the culture.