The 23 years have passed like a speed train since Anderson coached Rainey Endowed to an Ulster Schools Senior Cup semi-final against eventual winners Grosvenor High School in 1983. In that time, he has worked for the IRFU for six years, for London Irish as director of rugby and as a high-octane, outspoken assistant coach to Williams at both Leinster and Scotland.

He has seen it all in his time as an inspirational leader of men who famously led Irish players right up to the noses of the All Blacks during the Haka back in 1989 and, most recently, as the man-behindthe-man in Scotland last year.

Now, Anderson is head coach to AIB League Division Two club Ballynahinch in Down. His career has come full circle in that he is also in place as part of the coaching staff at Sullivan Upper School in the Ulster Schools Senior Cup.

"I help the coach Mike Rodgers with the firsts and I coach the under-14s at Sullivan, " he says. The schools game has changed since his first days in it. "Rainey Endowed is a country school in Magherafelt where the kids were naturally fitter because of their lifestyle. There were a lot of farmers' sons. Kids are just more active in the country compared to a city school like Sullivan."

Surely, the advent of professionalism has changed the outlook of young men towards the sport. Brian O'Driscoll and Paul O'Connell are proof that, for the best, there is a financial future in the game. Ten years into pay-for-play, it is still the newest vocation. The chance to be a professional sportsman, without leaving for the soccer academies across the water, must channel the ambition of talented teenagers. Right? Wrong.

"There is a slight lack of real passion for the game. We have to work the desire into the boys. It wasn't like that more than 20 years ago, " says Anderson.

"The passion has diminished slightly. The real desire is not quite there. I think it has something to do with how easy a life the kids of today have compared to the way kids had to fight for things back in the early 1980s."

In addition, the support structure is not what it used to be. The gender division in the teaching profession is swinging heavily towards women and the ethos of voluntarism is ebbing out of the game.

"There are 75 to 80 teachers here at Sullivan Upper and only 25 or so of them are men.

The volunteer support system is almost a thing of the past now. The numbers are not there to support the kids."

It is not all about the numbers involved in coaching.

There has also been a tendency to move away from skills towards a greater emphasis on strength. The intention is to overpower rather than outmanoeuvre.

"The players are fitter and bigger. But the skills levels have not improved. I was surprised when I came here that the basic skills levels were not as good as I thought they would be. It depends on each individual school's attitude towards weights. There are schools that do weights three, four, five times a week. It does help to increase strength, but we don't concentrate too much on it here."

It seems that Anderson has met with a like-minded individual in head coach Mike Rodgers at the co-educational school, located four miles outside Belfast in Hollywood.

"I wanted to change the way we played the game. Willie has had a big impact. We want to bring back a big element of fun and participation. We want to bring that back to the boys allied to them achieving their goals, " agrees Rodgers.

"We are putting a lot of emphasis on skills. It won't happen overnight. It will take a few years. We know that. It will take a change of mindset.

We want to play a more exciting brand of rugby to give the boys a sense of freedom and greater enjoyment.

"Just because a boy plays at prop, it doesn't mean he can't have fast feet and can't look to beat a player rather than running over the top of him. We are not great believers in weights. That has to do with developing the boys too early, giving them too much expectation. It can lead to burn out."

"I knew what I wanted to do, what I wanted to change. I just needed someone to take it to the next level. That someone is Willie, " says Rodgers.

Many of the school's 650 boys, mainly drawn from Belfast, were not around when Willie Anderson last wore the green in 1990. At the start of the school year, some did not know who he was, much less recognise him. That has changed. So too has their attitude to the game.