Unpopular Rugby Opinions

There is no country in the world that is worse for talking up their players than Ireland. We tend to ignore the shortcomings of some players or change the narrative to ensure our pet players are coccooned from criticism. New and shiny toy is a massively prominent mentality within provincial fans.

Leinster/Ireland have a scrum problem. But you'll rarely if ever see if commented that Furlong was bested. After the England game, the finger was correctly pointed at the officiating but, in terms of Irish players, all the focus was on Healy/Sheehan when Furlong was the one whistled 4 times. It's not the first time and won't be the last. Furlong is currently in sacred cow territory and can do no wrong (he is a world class player, for the record).

Craig Casey is never going to be in the same bracket as Conor Murray was. His decision making and kicking is miles off. He played against 13 men away to Exeter and couldn't steer his team over the line. He played against an exhausted Toulouse team and lacked control, getting caught in possession on more than one occasion in ET and kicking it away aimlessly multiple times. If Murray had been on the field and not gassed, Munster would have won.

Leinster will have a post-Schmidt type period once Sexton retires. Similar to the exodus of BOD and Nacewa, there's going to be a significant drop in standards and they will fail to replicate the current performances regardless of talent coming through.

Billy Burns is, quite comfortably, the only outhalf in Ireland who can hold a candle to Sexton in terms of linking up with his back line and attacking the opposition.

I'll disagree as I believe the prevailing opinion in Ireland is that the GP is a poor league which is overblown by BT. And I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. All the leagues have their moment in the sun.

My unpopular opinion on it is that it was comfortably the best league last season in terms of entertainment but many Irish fans will utterly refuse to drop the chip on their shoulder and admit this. The final weeks were incredible.

Some years the GP is brilliant, some years it's crap. Same with URC (more often crap than not in recent years) and same with T14 (generally the most competitve overall consistently).

Too far.

Nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks Billy Burns is actually a good player

Probably true. Although when games are dead certs 95% of the time they don’t tend to be too interesting.

Mine would be that Irish fans are actually pretty rubbish. Very conservative and happy to sit and watch games quietly.

Team with no Salary Cap wins a competition where all other teams have a salary Cap

The biggest hindrance to Womens rugby is not disinterested unions but their own fanbase and the delusions of grandeur associated with it.

It is not sustainable to have fully professional teams at the moment and calls for it redirect the much needed focus away from grassroots funding for the womans game.

A top down approach is almost never a successful model in these circumstances.

Deluded fans with no understanding but an ability make noise in the right places is directing people away from the actual issues at hand.

Furthermore there are far too many people calling themselves "fans" of womens rugby and only rearing their head if there is an eye catching controversial headline that they can share on their Instagram stories or comment under on Facebook or forums. These fans are subsequently nowhere to be seen when there is actual success to share or encouragement to be gotten. They have all moved on to the next source of controversy to focus 5 seconds of their time on in a desperate need to appear like they have causes and values.

You've been in with the squad and coaches?