Irish Rugby to-do list if we want to be in the mix in 2023

alanb92

glasso wrote: »

OP - you have seen the WC draw yes?

Your point being that we won’t beat one of SA, France or NZ? To use your language - you have seen the Ireland match on Sunday yes? A depleted Irish side under a questionable coaching ticket were v close to beating this so-called amazing French team.

We will be a lot better come 2023, I am sure of that. This season was always going to be a tough transition with a lot of the senior players on their last legs, and the younger lads still inexperienced. But we will improve. The last 2 u20 sides were the best we have had in many years - last year’s was possibly the best I’ve seen - albeit with a small sample pool of matches. A lot of these French youngsters that everyone is salivating over lost to the Irish u20’s two years ago.

Our coaching ticket will have to improve too, or there will be changes. Most likely the changes won’t be as dramatic as a new head coach ; but more so an upgrade on Catt and potentially Easterby. Having seen the impact POC has made in such a short space of time, similar changes on attack and defence coach could make a huge difference.

NZ and SA will always be extremely difficult.. but I feel with some of the players we will have going into 2023 (provided they get enough game time) we will have a great chance of doing so. As mentioned in other posts, physicality is one area we shouldn’t be trumped on this time. We also should have far greater depth than in previous years.

I assume you gave Ireland no chance of beating Australia in the group stage in 2011? Is your name Ewen McKenna btw?

UAEguy2020

dublin49 wrote: »

I think the policy of only playing home players actually works against us.especially in the specialist positions .In an alternate universe we could a few outhalves playing in the premership or for Scot/Welsh teams allowing more turnover in crucial positions yielding a wider choice.When Sexton went to France it opened things up for Madigan etc,we need more of that.

No because we have 4 teams, that’s plenty especially when 95%+ of the squad’s are Irish qualified.

LuckyLloyd

glasso wrote: »

OP - you have seen the WC draw yes?

Eventually an Irish team will have to win a tough knockout game in a World Cup. We’re zero from eight in World Cup knockout matches. Can’t hide behind the draw forever.

[Deleted User]

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Eventually an Irish team will have to win a tough knockout game in a World Cup. We’re zero from eight in World Cup knockout matches. Can’t hide behind the draw forever.

well that at least is true

a good or bad draw has never made any difference heretofore - same result regardless

GreeBo

Burnsicus wrote: »

Carty has 10 intl caps and will be pushing 31 come World Cup. Let’s say he gets another 10 caps before then (seeing how he’s currently out of favour). Do we want a 20-25 cap Carty leading us into a World Cup? Do we want him on the bench or in the squad? If he shows massive improvements in form and consistency then great! But in my opinion, we've seen what we're going to be getting for Carty. Those caps and experience are better going to the next crop.

But wouldnt that just write off 2023 then?

Podge_irl

GreeBo wrote: »

But wouldnt that just write off 2023 then?

Every team in 2023 will have players who we have never even heard of yet.

CowboyTed

I think it is our style of play that could be in question right now...

If you end up with a Harry Byrne, I suspect we would run the ball more as that plays more into his skill set...

TRC10

I support he policy of only selecting domestic based players if it's done correctly. The issue is, it's not done correctly. If you're going to copy the NZ model (which we do), then every player playing for one of the provinces must be an option for the national team. The IRFU shoot themselves in the foot by discouraging irish players from playing abroad but then allowing the provinces to sign average NIE players and keep average journeyman/old players. For example...

Why the hell was Ian Madigan brought back to Ulster, he's never going to be in contention for an Ireland spot and all hes doing is blocking the next young Ulster out half.

Why is JJ Hanrahan still at Munster. Jack Crowley is one of the most promising players on this Island, but hes 21 years old and has never started a game. That is pure insanity. I hope Ben Healy goes to Glasgow and becomes a great Scotland player just to expose how idiotic the IRFU's policy.

There are dozens more similar examples but we'd be here all night.

Lost Ormond

TRC10 wrote: »

I support he policy of only selecting domestic based players if it's done correctly. The issue is, it's not done correctly. If you're going to copy the NZ model (which we do), then every player playing for one of the provinces must be an option for the national team. The IRFU shoot themselves in the foot by discouraging irish players from playing abroad but then allowing the provinces to sign average NIE players and keep average journeyman/old players. For example...

Why the hell was Ian Madigan brought back to Ulster, he's never going to be in contention for an Ireland spot and all hes doing is blocking the next young Ulster out half.

Why is JJ Hanrahan still at Munster. Jack Crowley is one of the most promising players on this Island, but hes 21 years old and has never started a game. That is pure insanity. I hope Ben Healy goes to Glasgow and becomes a great Scotland player just to expose how idiotic the IRFU's policy.

There are dozens more similar examples but we'd be here all night.

You cant just go to the next young player because JJ/Madigan arent going to be in contention for international squads.
Ben Healy isnt going to Glasgow. When Duncan Weir signed that rumour ended.
Jack Crowley has lots of potential but we dont know if he's even a 10. He has suffered like others around his age by the complete lack of rugby beyond the pro game as he isnt possibly ready to go straight into the pro14 and hasnt anywhere beyond the training pitch to show if he is ready to step up

TRC10

Lost Ormond wrote: »

You cant just go to the next young player because JJ/Madigan arent going to be in contention for international squads.

That's exactly what you have to do if you use the model the IRFU are. What we're doing currently is counterintuitive, we say "you cant go abroad because you wont play for Ireland" but then we dont give them the opportunities to play their way into the national team because we play older average players ahead of them.

We need to have international standard out Halves at all 4 provinces. At the moment, there is only one at 1 province and he's 36 and has only gotten through 3 of the 9 games hes played this season without getting injured. Ulster need to get Lowry into 10. Harry Byrne will soon be Leinsters 10. Munster need to get Healy starting ahead of JJ. And Crowley needs to go to Connacht. Then they'll all have 2 years of first time provincial rugby under their belts and we'll have sufficient depth come 2023.

CowboyTed

TRC10 wrote: »

I support he policy of only selecting domestic based players if it's done correctly. The issue is, it's not done correctly. If you're going to copy the NZ model (which we do), then every player playing for one of the provinces must be an option for the national team. The IRFU shoot themselves in the foot by discouraging irish players from playing abroad but then allowing the provinces to sign average NIE players and keep average journeyman/old players. For example...

Why the hell was Ian Madigan brought back to Ulster, he's never going to be in contention for an Ireland spot and all hes doing is blocking the next young Ulster out half.

Why is JJ Hanrahan still at Munster. Jack Crowley is one of the most promising players on this Island, but hes 21 years old and has never started a game. That is pure insanity. I hope Ben Healy goes to Glasgow and becomes a great Scotland player just to expose how idiotic the IRFU's policy.

There are dozens more similar examples but we'd be here all night.

This is kind of infuriating in Connacht...

If things were a little different Jack Carty could be on international duty a lot... That is a lot of minutes up for grab....
Ciarán Frawley(or any player or any other position) in Leinster is simply not going to get the game time at 10 to progress... He could be finished a three year deal at Connacht with about three times the amount of minutes on the field, if he displaces Jack, so be it, better for Irish Rugby. If he doesn't he still has a pretty good career in front of him with the exposure and game time experience...
He has played in 33 games in 4 years...

The big think I saw in Beudan Barrett early career is that he was alway playing rugby. He even played in 4 ITM games after his first NZ cap...

Better management of resources at younger age, leverage 3 year deals to 19 year olds... Loans, we have the same owner of 4 teams and loans are rare...

TRC10

CowboyTed wrote: »

This is kind of infuriating in Connacht...

If things were a little different Jack Carty could be on international duty a lot... That is a lot of minutes up for grab....
Ciarán Frawley(or any player or any other position) in Leinster is simply not going to get the game time at 10 to progress... He could be finished a three year deal at Connacht with about three times the amount of minutes on the field, if he displaces Jack, so be it, better for Irish Rugby. If he doesn't he still has a pretty good career in front of him with the exposure and game time experience...
He has played in 33 games in 4 years...

The big think I saw in Beudan Barrett early career is that he was alway playing rugby. He even played in 4 ITM games after his first NZ cap...

Better management of resources at younger age, leverage 3 year deals to 19 year olds... Loans, we have the same owner of 4 teams and loans are rare...

Exactly, the IRFU are handicapping themselves by having 4 provinces but only using 3 of them.

Players that would benefit from a move to Connacht.

Josh Whycherly (21): behind kilcoyne and Cronin.

Michael Milne (21): Behind Healy, Byrne and Dooley

Dan Sheehan (22):Behind Cronin, Kelleher, and Tracy

Thomas Ahern (20): Behind Kleyn, Beirne, Whycherly and Holland

Scott Penney (21): behind VDF, Connors and Leavy

Jack Crowley (20): Behind Carbery, Hanrahan and Healy

Ciaran Frawley (23): Behind Henshaw

Purist98

New Zealand can be ruthless in super rugby selection because they don't play internationals during the super season so there's no overlap, the provinces need to keep players who won't play for Ireland so that they can still field a team, yes there are some examples where there's arguably too much depth in certain positions, but the alternative would be forcing teams to release those not in international contention, which would leave them unable to compete in the league without playing lads barely out of school

TRC10

Purist98 wrote: »

, yes there are some examples where there's arguably too much depth in certain positions, but the alternative would be forcing teams to release those not in international contention, which would leave them unable to compete in the league without playing lads barely out of school

That's exactly my point. If the IRFU aren't going to control the backlogs that result from encouraging players to stay in Ireland, then they should let players go abroad. But if they say you have to play in Ireland to play for Ireland, then they need to control the backlogs.

GreeBo

Podge_irl wrote: »

Every team in 2023 will have players who we have never even heard of yet.

Ok....but I'm not sure that answers my question....if we follow that posters advice we are going to end up with guys with fewer caps than Carty has leading the backline at a world cup.
i.e. writing off 2023 unless we happen to have another Sexton or O'Gara hiding in the wings.

Whats even more likely is that we have another Carbery-type who fails to live up to the expectation (in this case due to injury proneness)

GreeBo

TRC10 wrote: »

That's exactly what you have to do if you use the model the IRFU are. What we're doing currently is counterintuitive, we say "you cant go abroad because you wont play for Ireland" but then we dont give them the opportunities to play their way into the national team because we play older average players ahead of them.

We need to have international standard out Halves at all 4 provinces. At the moment, there is only one at 1 province and he's 36 and has only gotten through 3 of the 9 games hes played this season without getting injured. Ulster need to get Lowry into 10. Harry Byrne will soon be Leinsters 10. Munster need to get Healy starting ahead of JJ. And Crowley needs to go to Connacht. Then they'll all have 2 years of first time provincial rugby under their belts and we'll have sufficient depth come 2023.

Its chicken and egg though, they young guys wont get experience if they stay in Ireland as, unless they are freaks, they wont start in front of the incumbents.

IMO we should follow the soccer way, where youngers players go out on "loan" to other clubs/countries to gain that first team experience and then get brought back if/when they are good enough.
I dont see why that wouldnt work for rugby (though honestly I havent spent very long testing the theory!)

Podge_irl

GreeBo wrote: »

Ok....but I'm not sure that answers my question....if we follow that posters advice we are going to end up with guys with fewer caps than Carty has leading the backline at a world cup.
i.e. writing off 2023 unless we happen to have another Sexton or O'Gara hiding in the wings.

Whats even more likely is that we have another Carbery-type who fails to live up to the expectation (in this case due to injury proneness)

Well if we go into a world cup with Carty or Burns I think its somewhat written off anyway.

CowboyTed

Podge_irl wrote: »

Well if we go into a world cup with Carty or Burns I think its somewhat written off anyway.

I was posting on another thread...

Kieran Marmion in 2018 was picked to play against New Zealand because Murray was injured.

Aaron Smith was the major competitor with Murray for world best SH....

Marmion went out and played Smith off the park... New Zealand Hearld questioned his placement on the team...

Carty has shown the best outhalf performances in the last six months in this country and those were all top class... We he has a consistency issue but he isn't working from stable platform...

If Ireland move to a more running game Carty ggets a game more suited to him, other scum halves like Harry and Carberry would also be more favourable of that too.

Lost Ormond

GreeBo wrote: »

Its chicken and egg though, they young guys wont get experience if they stay in Ireland as, unless they are freaks, they wont start in front of the incumbents.

IMO we should follow the soccer way, where youngers players go out on "loan" to other clubs/countries to gain that first team experience and then get brought back if/when they are good enough.
I dont see why that wouldnt work for rugby (though honestly I havent spent very long testing the theory!)

It does happen in rugby. In England you regularly see young potential stars from premiership clubs/academies join championship or even national 1 clubs to get consistent first team rugby before returning to play premiership.
We dont do that and not sure we should. We dont have that system. An A pro14 league would help provide players with more games within a pro rugby environment

crossman47

Podge_irl wrote: »

Well if we go into a world cup with Carty or Burns I think its somewhat written off anyway.

I can't understand this preoccupation with the World Cup. We won't win it so its immaterial whether we go out in the quarter, semi or even pool stage. We should concentrate on the here and now which is a decent finish to this season and competing for next years championship.

Podge_irl

crossman47 wrote: »

I can't understand this preoccupation with the World Cup. We won't win it so its immaterial whether we go out in the quarter, semi or even pool stage. We should concentrate on the here and now which is a decent finish to this season and competing for next years championship.

I don't particularly care about the world cup which is why I'm fine with Sexton still starting. But if we want to focus on the world cup as per the thread I don't see any point in ditching all over X age people unless the replacements are actually pushing for the place. Because you can plan all you want this far out, but there will undoubtedly be uncapped players now which will ultimately be key players in the 2023 squad.

bayern

crossman47 wrote: »

I can't understand this preoccupation with the World Cup. We won't win it so its immaterial whether we go out in the quarter, semi or even pool stage. We should concentrate on the here and now which is a decent finish to this season and competing for next years championship.

preach, worry about the world cup in 2023.

GreeBo

Lost Ormond wrote: »

It does happen in rugby. In England you regularly see young potential stars from premiership clubs/academies join championship or even national 1 clubs to get consistent first team rugby before returning to play premiership.
We dont do that and not sure we should. We dont have that system. An A pro14 league would help provide players with more games within a pro rugby environment

Sorry I was specifically talking about in Ireland, my point was that we should be sending them off to get first team experience in the best league they can get it in.
If that happens to be out of Ireland for now, then so be it, but if it develops the players more than we can with our 4 province system surely that's a good thing?

I'd welcome an A Pro14, but I'm just not sure it would be self sustaining?

GreeBo

crossman47 wrote: »

I can't understand this preoccupation with the World Cup. We won't win it so its immaterial whether we go out in the quarter, semi or even pool stage. We should concentrate on the here and now which is a decent finish to this season and competing for next years championship.

Well its the pinnacle of the sport, the only place where the top teams play each other to see who is "best".

bayern wrote: »

preach, worry about the world cup in 2023./QUOTE]

If you always only focus on the here and now then it will be too late to worry about the world cup in 2023 because that will be the "here and now" and we will be (again) wondering where our depth in squad is.

Lost Ormond

GreeBo wrote: »

Sorry I was specifically talking about in Ireland, my point was that we should be sending them off to get first team experience in the best league they can get it in.
If that happens to be out of Ireland for now, then so be it, but if it develops the players more than we can with our 4 province system surely that's a good thing?

I'd welcome an A Pro14, but I'm just not sure it would be self sustaining?

How much of what provinces do is self sustaining without the income IRFU gives them from international rugby?
International rugby earns vast majority of income for IRFU yet provinces have most of the costs

You cant just think about costs

TRC10

crossman47 wrote: »

I can't understand this preoccupation with the World Cup. We won't win it so its immaterial whether we go out in the quarter, semi or even pool stage. We should concentrate on the here and now which is a decent finish to this season and competing for next years championship.

I'm glad not everyone is as unambitious as you. It's the pinnacle of the sport and we fancy ourselves as one of the top rugby nations and you're saying we shouldn't bother with it, what kind of logic is that?

You say we shouldn't build for world cups, we should focus on the here and now. Well at the moment were doing neither. We pick a team that was maybe good enough 3 years ago, but certainly isn't good enough now and wont be good enough in 2 years.

hahashake

1. Don't peak a year before
2. Have no injuries in key positions

CowboyTed

crossman47 wrote: »

I can't understand this preoccupation with the World Cup. We won't win it so its immaterial whether we go out in the quarter, semi or even pool stage. We should concentrate on the here and now which is a decent finish to this season and competing for next years championship.

The IRFU doesn't say it out loud but RWC is not close to there top priority...


Win the World Cup gets you €6.5m...


So how much Six Nations prize money will each of the competing teams win this weekend?

6th: £1m
5th: £1.5m
4th: 2m
3rd: £2.5m
2nd: £3.5m
Grand Slam: £6m
f no team manages to go throughout the tournament undefeated, the winner’s fund is decreased by £1m and every other team earns an extra £200,000.


Winning the RWC gets you about €6.5m and it decreases rapidilly...

Ireland would much prefer Grand Slam than a Semi in the RWC financially...

Each game is worth 500k stg...

crossman47

CowboyTed wrote: »

Ireland would much prefer Grand Slam than a Semi in the RWC financially...

Each game is worth 500k stg...

And its much more achievable.

Lost Ormond

CowboyTed wrote: »

The IRFU doesn't say it out loud but RWC is not close to there top priority...

Win the World Cup gets you €6.5m...

So how much Six Nations prize money will each of the competing teams win this weekend?

6th: £1m
5th: £1.5m
4th: 2m
3rd: £2.5m
2nd: £3.5m
Grand Slam: £6m
f no team manages to go throughout the tournament undefeated, the winner’s fund is decreased by £1m and every other team earns an extra £200,000.


Winning the RWC gets you about €6.5m and it decreases rapidilly...

Ireland would much prefer Grand Slam than a Semi in the RWC financially...

Each game is worth 500k stg...

Thats ultimately extremely short term thinking. Winning a world cup, even getting to a final, would gain so much more exposure for the sport and the bounce from that success to the clubs and kids playing, more adult players, more interest in tag. More joining clubs all is worth so much more long term. Winning a world cup gains a lot more than simply prize money thats worth multiples of what wins in 6 nations would do

https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/24994055

In the first full year after that World Cup win, an extra 5,500 kids between the ages of seven and 13 began to play rugby in England. The following year it climbed by another 9,000.

The Jonny Wilkinson Effect - 7-13 year-olds playing rugby in England
2003: 57,000
2004: 63,500
2005: 72,000
2006: 73,000
In the five years between 2003 and 2008, participation numbers in that age group would increase by a remarkable 78%. For 13-18 year olds, the pattern was repeated, albeit on a slightly smaller scale: numbers climbed 49% in the decade to 2008.