Simon Easterby is staying with Ireland for this World Cup cycle and has confirmed that he has not been contacted by Welsh rugby chiefs about their vacant head coach position. Easterby was linked to the job in the wake of Warren Gatland's departure after round two of the Six Nations. But he will continue as interim head coach of Ireland in Andy Farrell's continued absence for the summer tour of Romania and Portugal that, he promises, will include a big number of new faces. “I’m committed," said Easterby, speaking after Ireland's third place finish in the championship. "When you r name gets bandied around, that’s all it is, its just speculation. If I’d been contacted I’d tell you, but I haven’t. So, that’s the way it is at the moment. “I love what I do. I’m very fortunate and it (the Wales job) might be 15 minutes up the road but I just feel very fortunate that I get the experiences I get to do this while Faz is away. I get to work with great people and how important that is. I’m pretty happy where I am. "Obviously responsibility of certain areas of the game and then the bigger picture and all those other things, that’s part and parcel of being a head coach and I’ve loved it. "I’m not saying it hasn’t been challenging - because it has - but I have great people to work with and gresupport around the group, and the public and you guys (the media) haven’t been too bad either!” Peter O'Mahony, Cian Healy and Conor Murray retired from Test rugby in Rome on Saturday and, with a number of senior players set for Lions duty in Australia and several others rested, Easterby will lead a new-look squad in the summer. Jack Boyle made his first Ireland appearances in the Six Nations while Sam Prendergast, Jamie Osborne, Thomas Clarkson and Gus McCarthy made their championship debuts. "It's a chance to really expose as many players that we feel are still in the system but probably haven't had the opportunity at the senior level," he explained. "The A game (against England) was great because it gave those players an opportunity to come in and work with good coaches who were aligned to what we were doing as a senior group. “So it'll be about finding out about certain positions that we feel we need more depth in, but also keep continually trying to keep exposing certain players that are already in the system, that have already played part in the Six Nations. “The tough thing about international rugby is that you get limited time to gain caps and experience, hence why we probably picked someone like Jack Boyle on Saturday off the bench and Gus McCarthy as well - two guys who have done really well in the system. "You’re limited to picking them for senior games and we want to try and do that as much as we can, to expose and build depth where we can. The evolution of the team, how we keep pushing, trying to get better at things that we are not as good at, I think that's a continual cycle and we’ll certainly benefit from exposing players in this time. "I know when the main group will come back, which probably wont be now until November after players leave for the Lions or don’t go on tour, there will definitely be an element of wanting to hit the ground running in November when we’ve got to go to Chicago (to face New Zealand).” Dismissing fears that this Ireland side has already peaked, Easterby added that the challenge is to keep evolving the team and the game plan. "That's the challenge, that we are continually looking for those players to fill the void," he stated. "There’s players retiring every year almost, although not every year do you lose three guys who've got well over 100 caps. “That process has started and it's a continuation of working with them in the provinces, how well they go in the provincial game in the latter end of the season now, looking forward to URC quarters, semis, Europe as well. "The team is having to continually evolve. If you don't, then you end up getting caught and bypassed by other teams. So it's something that we will reflect on and look at the areas that we wanted to improve on or add to the group and then see if we've done that. "Certainly sometimes we felt like that was the case and other times during the championship we fell like we probably haven't quite mastered that yet." The Irish Mirror has a rugby WhatsApp group where you can get breaking new and top stories on Ireland's Six Nations campaign straight to your phone. Click here to join. You can leave our group at any time if you don't like it.