Where do Irish professional rugby players come from?

ersatz

Refusing to acknowledge competition between schools and clubs for good underage players is putting your head in the sand. Rugby needs to plan for its own future but taking the existing order as a natural state of affairs is naive. Schools have the upper hand when it comes to prestige, legacy, resources, recruitment and access to the professional pipeline. The Senior Cup is televised ffs, no one knows the name of the equivalent club competition except rugby anoraks but ppl who couldn’t distinguish between a ruck and a maul have heard of the senior cup.

you could look at it another way entirely which is that there are 100 units of rugby resources for underage players in the game in Ireland and 70 units goes to 15 schools while 30 go to 200 clubs ( literally pulling those numbers out of my ar*e). If I’m the rugby god interested in having another country who might win a World Cup I’m firing my rugby resource unit distribution manager and her whole team.

FrannoFan

One thing lost in this whole school v club thing (not discounting the finance, tradition etc etc) is who is Carrying out the coaching.

Coaching in schools is carried out by teachers. They are trained in education. It is their full time profession. It's very transferable skills. Imparting knowledge and skills in the classroom to imparting knowledge and skills on the field. The coaching carried out at club will mostly be involved parents who maybe turn out to be good at it or maybe not. No doubting effort or time spent but doing a Leinster coaching course for a weekend isn't going to give the same skills as a full time teacher.

The Leinster development officers are going to provide good standard of coaching for those who make regional sides but it's like trying to learn an extra subject outside of school with a grind compared to a student doing it in school. So just like a student some will still excel (and plenty of examples and increasing number. Frawley, conor O'Brien, osbourne etc) but it's unlikely to overtake the school number.

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119000360#Comment_119000360

Coaching in schools is carried out by teachers. They are trained in education. It is their full time profession.

Ehm that’s not the case with the top schools at all.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119000480#Comment_119000480

Not even just top schools.

I know some pretty mid level schools who have hired qualified coaching from first year onwards. Most of the time the arrangement is multi faceted with the same coaches doing roles for many teams

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119000540#Comment_119000540

The era of teachers being the main coaches is long gone. Mind you even when I was playing schools 40 years ago, the senior and junior team were coached by non teachers. That wasn’t a fee paying school either.

FrannoFan

Vanstone in blackrock is a teacher.

Greg McWilliams, kelvin leahy and Emmet McMahon where all teachers when coaching Michaels SCT to cup wins

Staunton in castleknock is a teacher.

There are externals hired in but you'll find teachers still involved with SCT squads. Also plenty of other coaching goes on outside of cup sides in first/second year etc and this idea schools have stacks of externals being paid to come in for every level just isn't accurate

errlloyd

As a good indication of this. In the early 2000s Tony Ward was a teacher and head coach in St Andrews - but apparently, he wanted to move to coaching only and St Andrews wouldn't at the time. So he moved to Gerards in a purely coaching role AFAIK.

About 5 years later St Andrews did change their policy and hired a dedicated coach - but they almost always had some non teaching in school role. Hallway monitoring etc. But a significant amount of the coaching work was still done by teachers.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118993873#Comment_118993873

This is exactly the point I was trying to make in the original post on this thread, and subsequently.

There has to be a way of replicating that model more widely.

I don't even think the actual people undertaking the coaching is that different; in rural parts of Ireland the guys doing the coaching in some of the schools are the same guys (or Development officers) who are coaching in clubs.

Maybe the level of coaching is a bit higher in schools on average, but I don't think it's the differentiator.

The biggest differentiator to me is the level of access they get to the players, the commitment and the buy-in from the players. That's what is very hard for clubs to replicate.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119021067#Comment_119021067

Exactly - A well run club team get 2-3 hrs of training a week plus a game if they are doing really well.

Schools can get many multiples of that.

Disparity between Clubs and Schools in the 14-18 year old range is volume of coaching/S&C rather than quality.

mfceiling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119003112#Comment_119003112

I was talking to 2 young lads who are in Blackrock college. Doris has been coming in 1 day a week for the past 3 years to help with coaching and Ringrose 1 day a week for the last year as well.

That's a huge help for these lads moving forward.

jmayo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118981529#Comment_118981529

Speaking of all things Doris, can anyone seriously claim that he would have risen as fast into the Irish team if he had remained in Ballina ?

He probably would have gotten into the Connacht setup and maybe eventually Irish team, but without doubt his time at Blackrock improved his chances immeasurably.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119022635#Comment_119022635

I think he would. He would have been playing in Ballina RFC and muirdachs or similar school for age grade rugby. As soon as he turned 18 even while eligible for 18.5s etc he would have been playing adult rugby for Ballina which would have been AIL/top level junior 1 rugby. The best talent will be found regardless of where you are especially now we have senior AIL clubs in far more areas of the country, we have the best identified players in provincial training squads from age of 16 as well

Tim Robbins

Can be deleted

Tim Robbins

The private rugby schools have amazing coaches but it just seems weird to me that in this day and age any team sport is still elitist. No issue with it being slightly skewed, e.g. say 20 percent of Leinster came from private schools, not 80 percent. If you took Rock and Michael's (who by far generate most players for Leinster) the split would be much closer

What I also find very strange is people who go to these schools and have no interest or knowledge of the sport but then pretend they do because they think it's important for their middle upper class identity that they can look like they fit into their desired social class.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119033899#Comment_119033899

except rugby isnt elitist. Numbers playing and clubs playing has increased. numbers are skewed because there is plenty who will be listed as coming from a fee paying rugby school even if they only attended 1/2 years there.

On your second paragraph. I dont think thats the case. many dont care deeply about the sport but i really dont see many just pretending to like the sport to fit in.

Tim Robbins

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119034285#Comment_119034285

Nothing by itself is elitist. However, Dublin GAA team around 10 percent come from private schools, those who play professional soccer its less. Then look at Leinster and its 80% from private schools. So, if you don't grow up where 80% of your circles are private school, or if your job isn't that way, or if your other hobbies aren't that way, it can look really odd in that it is a bubble of society rather than society.

Yeah more are playing Rugby. But if you look at their progress South Africa made in broadening the sport, Leinster haven't made as much.

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119035338#Comment_119035338

Only responding now as didnt see post...

You cant compare South Africa to Leinster. Totally different and uncomparable and Leinster have made extensive progress in broadening the sport. The numbers playing and coming through to play top level sport has grown. The sport looks at a considerably broader playing pool now than before.

You also cant compare GAA to Rugby in some ways as people play club and schools GAA together all the time. there is no panels to stop kids playing one or the other. its not the same.

shaungil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118980189#Comment_118980189

Currently in Leinster at the end of the under 16 season the regions filter into a squad of 40 odd for Leinster training programme. These then get the advanced extra training that you'd hope would be equivalent to a good schools system. They stay i this this for 2 to 3 years but generally there is little movement in and out from what I've seen. The schools system who are hot housing let's say 8 top schools with 30 players in a squad so 240 players.

I'd propose the 5 Leinster regions continue for 2 more years until under 18's with 40 odd players developing and bring players in and out where deemed appropriate to pick up late developers or lose players that potentially were chosen originally for a size or skill set that was due to earlier development.

This would then widen the pool of club players to 200 by the time you get to under 18's.

You can still run inter Regional comps as well as feed up to Leinster Youths etc.But obviously this would have to fit into the club calendar.

Lost Ormond

Thought gerrys article today would suit this thread.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/2022/06/21/gerry-thornley-the-strength-of-irish-rugby-is-a-minor-miracle-given-how-few-play-it/

TRC10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119231851#Comment_119231851

Disagree with a lot of that. The expectations on Leinster are based purely on the quality of players they have. So the idea that Leinster's loss at home to the Bulls and 1 Heineken Cup in 6 years under the current coaching ticket, should be seen as anything other than failure is a nonsense. To suggest that Leinster (a team stacked with Ireland regulars and Lions) shouldn't be criticised after losing at home to The Bulls (a team of journey men, a couple of former Boks who are nearly 40 and no current internationals) just because more people play rugby in South Africa, is ridiculous. Do New Zealand need to "reset their expectations" because more people play rugby in France and South Africa?

Now, one could argue that the fact that we produce such a high calibre of player given our relatively small playing pool and rugby not being a popular sport (and often looked upon with vitriol) in this country, other than in 3 or 4 hotspots , is a minor miracle. And I'd be inclined to agree with that.

But I hate this "oh we're just little old Ireland. How can we be expected to compete with the big boys?" attitude. We have the players.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119231943#Comment_119231943

I find it incredible that Thornley wrote that article with a straight face. Completely tone deaf, he must be trying to get on the good books of some IRFU suit with such a bloviating puff piece.

Leinster are among the best, if not thee best funded team in NH+SA rugby, and our other provinces aren't short of a few quid either. Genuinely a laughable article.

Former Former Former

Well, he nailed this bit

it also seems as if some Irish people are happier when Irish international teams are losing.

Gerry might be a boardsie after all.

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119231953#Comment_119231953

How do you know that? Do you know what Leinsters annual budget is?

Ardillaun

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119231943#Comment_119231943

NZ’s expectations are justified by their success over the decades. Population isn’t the only factor he mentioned.

TRC10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119232632#Comment_119232632

Exact same with Leinster.

Downlinz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119231851#Comment_119231851

I don't know what it is with boomers and downplaying the size and significance of our country but it must be up there as one of their favourite pastimes.

We have an island twice the land mass of Netherlands, Denmark or Switzerland and a population similar to Finland and Norway. We should consider ourselves a medium sized European country but Gerry would swear we were San Marino or Liechtenstein by describing us as a "relative dot on the globe".

RichieRich_89

Andy Farrell has a big job on his hands if that sort of béal bocht mindset is at all in evidence in any of the professional set ups!

Playing population is a questionable at best metric. How would having a lot of low level amateur players in their 20s and 30s actually help a national team be better? They might provide opposition for promising players coming through? Or they might help there to be a rugby culture in a country. That's about it.

What you really need is competitive U20s at international level, and a provincial/regional/franchise/club competition that's at a high enough level to bridge the gap to international level. England, as an example, tend to be strong at U20 level, but I would argue that the Premiership isn't quite good enough a standard to make the most of their resources. How many English players coming off the U20s would come into a set up as high quality as Leinster's? You'd thing England's depth at prop would be excellent, but it isn't really all that great.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118892828#Comment_118892828

Historically there were. Boarding schools like St Kierans in Kilkenny and Farranaferris (sp?) in Cork offered scholarships to promising young hurlers. De la Salle in Waterford? And Flannans in Ennis too. I'm sure there were many others of which I am unaware.

Ardillaun

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119236654#Comment_119236654

Population counts when comparing ourselves to England or France; we’re more in line with Wales and Scotland in that regard. Regarding other factors, the athletes of each nation tend to have inherent qualities that may not be perfectly suited to the sport in question, e.g. height in basketball.