Where was BOD/ROG/D'arce et al last night???

Brian Capture

Yes, the English teams have support - but surely that support remains when they do not make the HEC in a given year? i..e people's allegiances remain.

The point I am trying to make is that not every club will qualify - but there's always something to aim for the next time.

Brian Capture

do you not find the concept of supporting a province as opposed to a club a little strange?

like it's not really 'local' - just a convenient blanket to suck in all supporters from the region?

daveirl

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RuggieBear

Brian Capture wrote:

do you not find the concept of supporting a province as opposed to a club a little strange?

like it's not really 'local' - just a convenient blanket to suck in all supporters from the region?

what's your local club? Seapoint is the only one i can think of near sallynoggin? How many seapoint games you been to? felix jones has huge potential

Brian Capture

International rugby is a different story.

It's the mixture of clubs and provinces that I don't get.

Brian Capture

RuggieBear wrote:

what's your local club? Seapoint is the only one i can think of near sallynoggin? How many seapoint games you been to? felix jones has huge potential

I went to school in St Marys and grew up in Ranelagh so I'd consider them my local club (and try and get to as many games of theirs that I can) even though I moved out of the area eight years ago.

RuggieBear

good club which had a decent set up last time i played them.

developed many a decent back (and Vincent Cunningham )

zAbbo

So whats the upshot of all this guff? disband the provinces, and going back to a club setup to try and compete with the likes of Sale, Perpignon, Toulouse, Leicester & Bath.(clubs you quoted)

Leicester for example have an excellent academy with top notch coaches knocking about (ex players like Neil Back and Richard Cockerill), Puma coach Alfredo will be coaching them this season, the best facilities money can buy, assistants to cover everything (specialist positions, video analysis etc.), they also have an extensive scouting network, as well as having the wallet to import Internationals like Seru Rabeni, Alex Tuilagi, Marcos Ayerza, Martin Castrogiovanni and Aaron Mauger.

provinces are a joke and give Ireland unfair advantage.

Yup we've a clear advantage over Leicester, I think it would be much more even if it was St Marys up against them :rolleyes:

Just what in the fcuk are you smoking ?

davyjose

dc69 wrote:

your obviously a clown,what do you think they have been doing for the last 3 months,tanning thmselves!

That's right - I'm a clown. Great argument by the Way. You really proved to me why they shouldn't play when they are fit and available. I would honestly suggest that if you are going to throw around casual insults, back it up with some facts!!!

padser

davyjose wrote:

That's right - I'm a clown. Great argument by the Way. You really proved to me why they shouldn't play when they are fit and available. I would honestly suggest that if you are going to throw around casual insults, back it up with some facts!!!

Ok you said that the provence system give ireland an unfair advantage. We put forward 4 provences, from 86,000 players (according to wiki). I can't find stats for how many players play in England but I would guess its certainly three times how many play in Ireland. So they spread there 'top' players out over 12 teams, we do it over 4 (or arguably 3). I don't think that's an unfair advantage.

Also the provences have not dominated the HC as would be expected if they had an unfair advantage.

damnyanks

UK Population = 60million
Irish population = 4 Million

we simply dont have the numbers to have large high quality leagues internally. It's a numbers and money game.

Just look at the eircome league or scotish league (or whatever its called now)

zAbbo

New Zealand = 4 Million

Chucky the tree

zabbo wrote:

New Zealand = 4 Million

New Zealands only other sport is cricket though. We have football, gaa and hurling which are all alot more popular then Rugby.

zAbbo

Chucky the tree wrote:

New Zealands only other sport is cricket though. We have football, gaa and hurling which are all alot more popular then Rugby.

which is why quoting a nations population is a bit of a moot point.

damnyanks

Was always under the impression new zealand had very few teams in the super 14 and that they operated on the whole provincial & professional teams. i.e something similar to ireland

damnyanks

Also,

The population and money aspect is not a moot point. It's the driving issue as to why certain leagues grow and come to what they are and others dont.

England and France have the most successful league set-up's in the world as far as number of teams and fanbase. Serious commercial money is being pumped into teams to ensure they always have competitive teams.

Even before the days of real professionalim wasnt keith wood being paid by h'quins in the uk to play rugby?

Diamondmaker

THis thread has gone way off the OP, even by the Mods !!

( Im cruising for a banning next time:)

I was discussing the OP question about this at the Leinster match.

The team had been "pencilled in" to the Ireland diary for a fixed time frame you would assume, to be extended if required.

We got knocked out earlier than the plans would have allowed for but the players still surely have to present themselves for further Ireland activities over the next whilke for analysis, medical and fittness checks etc , until the end of what ever was allocated to the Irish set up.

Being contracted by the IRFU Im sure they will get a break post RWC prior to rejoining the provinces as opposed to Geordan who is contracted by Leicester and is "lucky" to be released for international games and of course need to present himself for game time after his summer holiday.

RuggieBear

that makes sense

John_C

Realistically, how many internationals would have played for Leinster last Friday, had they been available? BOD would have played and it would have been a close call between Dempsey and Kearney. Any others?

Colm_OReilly

Surely all the players would be under international duty for the entire WC campaign, regardless of the country's performance? Just seems to make logistical/contract sense to me.

zAbbo

Drico and Big Mal are back for Leinster this Friday.

komodosp

How does playing with provinces give them an unfair advantage? If it's nothing to do with population, then what is it to do with?

marco_polo

Brian Capture wrote:

provinces are a joke and give Ireland unfair advantage.

clubs should enter Celtic League and Heineken Cup e.g. Blackrock, Wanderers, Terenure etc. Just like other countries do - like Sale, Perpignon, Toulouse, Leicester, Bath etc

Nonsence, the GP and T14 clubs have a massive advantage over any of the Celtic Nations regional teams.

komodosp wrote:

How does playing with provinces give them an unfair advantage? If it's nothing to do with population, then what is it to do with?

I would say comparing annual budgets would give a much fairer comparison, seeing as how we are talking about the pro game the overal number of players in a country is not really relevant.

To use one pertinant example the annual budget for Munster is in the region of 5-6 million per year at the absolute most. Toulouse has an annual budget in the region of 18-20 million euros per year. Most of the big French and English club would be on fairly similiar footing.

With that sort of a competitive advantage it is a disgrace we have only one HEC to our name.

dc69

zabbo wrote:

Drico and Big Mal are back for Leinster this Friday.

hopefully we may see an O'driscoll and Fitzgerald centre pairing!seeing as darce hasnt been named

Diamondmaker

dc69 wrote:

hopefully we may see an O'driscoll and Fitzgerald centre pairing!seeing as darce hasnt been named

Willw e see a hungry, craving action BOD on Fri or a letahrgic, depressed BOD after the RWC disaster?

What yis reckon?

Itll take a lot to get up for such a game and if he does it will be a good sign, if not you almost would understnd but its still not really good enough to coast until H Cup time no matter who he is.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Diamondmaker

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Thats true but often in the 1st few games of the season BOD can be very quiet, at least this time hopefully he will have a hunger to get some from of satisfaction out of the game of rugby that he has not achieved this summer.

John_C

marco_polo wrote:

With that sort of a competitive advantage it is a disgrace we have only one HEC to our name.

???

dc69

Diamondmaker wrote:

Willw e see a hungry, craving action BOD on Fri or a letahrgic, depressed BOD after the RWC disaster?

What yis reckon?

Itll take a lot to get up for such a game and if he does it will be a good sign, if not you almost would understnd but its still not really good enough to coast until H Cup time no matter who he is.

well reading his world cup diary on irfu.com,he says he went back to training earlier to try to get over the poor perfomance,as he was sick of just siting around.so im expecting a few tries off him tbh:)

zAbbo

Strangely it's Shaggy who's at 13, and no BOD

Leinster: R McCarron, L Fitzgerald, S Horgan (capt), C Warner, R Kearney, J Sexton, C Willis, S Wright, B Jackman, S Knoop, C Jowitt, D Toner, S Keogh, S Jennings, K McLaughlin.
Replacements: B Blaney, C Healy, M O'Kelly, K Gleeson, C Keane, F McFadden, F Carr.