HAS Rodrigo Pessoa managed the Irish team for the last time (in this current regime)? Pessoa’s contract expires at the end of season and the Brazilian may have plans to turn his attention back to his own career in the saddle.

His three-year reign has yielded some fantastic results – European gold in 2016, a Division 1 Nations Cup win at Hickstead in 2018, and finally, the job he came in to do – 2020 Olympic qualification. Some of the regrets for Pessoa might be that he never got the chance to lift the Aga Khan Trophy on home soil at the Dublin Horse Show, and the unexpected below par performance of his team at the 2019 European Championships in Rotterdam.