Nucifora is from Australia and Andy Farrell is from the North of England, yet the accusations of Leinster bias is thrown at them very regular.
Im sure once Humphries is in place he will get the same accusation or we wil be told he is overcompensating because he is from Ulster
Oz will be bankrupt and gone from international rugby without the Lions tour
Aus ran France and ireland close last year away from home when they had a decent coach. Eddie Jones has proved how valuable a decent coaching ticket is, put a coach in now and give them 2 years with the talent Aus have available to them and they will be competitive. Will they win? probably not but it will be no worse than the last tour
I’m not writing him off as a rugby player but the only spot i would want to compete less than 8 in munster is maybe LHP at leinster. Competition is fierce.
I hope he kills it somwhere.
Oh, well we'll see.
he’s year three and seems to be playing AIL rather than being near the munster 23. I think okeke might be gone after this year.
I was lucky enough to spend time with David Humphreys when he was DOR at Gloucester. He was a really interesting and thoughtful guy and clearly very bright. He even spoke about the Leinster schools "production line" said that no club in the world had access to the quantity of talent Leinster have. I think he is a great appointment. Avoids any accusations of Leinster bias most obvious Irish candidates would get.
As far as distributing players across provinces I don't think too many Leinster fans would have a problem with losing some players at two and three in their depth chart if it meant they were also allowed to bring in say two elite NIQs. I could be mistaken but didn't the 3 Barrett brothers play for different NZ franchises? It doesn't seem to have done the ABs much harm.
The HP Director job will never attract populist candidates. It will be interesting to see if there's a life after for Nucifora. Back to Oz ?
Yeah, I totally agree. Leinster enjoy an unparalleled junior academy system which no club could ever create, one that is highly funded and while the players are amateur the system they are in is professional for all intents and purposes. (we're talking about 15 odd schools with hundreds of players each) All of the coaches are paid, most are teachers but the schedules they enjoy incorporates the rugby calendar. They also enjoy the support of the Leinster system. Very difficult for club players to get to the level of schools players by the time they are 17 or 18 so they are at a massive disadvantage in Leinster, and without a doubt many are lost entirely to professionalism as a result.
As I said, the schools are pouring enormous resources into rugby and of course Leinster are involved, they'd be mad not to support what is essentially a production line of young talent they are getting for almost nothing. The decisive factor here is the schools legacy and the fact that they place the highest priority on rugby. I went to one of these at a time when there was no GAA or soccer team at the school, rugby was mandatory up to the age of 14. This was in the 1980s when Leinster was an old farts drinking club. The schools would be producing rugby players if the provincial system never happened.
Makes zero sense to me. Oz are lost at sea.
I can see Ahern getting capped. Very athletic lad. Our 2nd rows coming in a very good.
Andrew Osborne strikes ma as a player who is athletic but not a great rugby player at the moment. Of course, that can change. At Munster, Okeke is probably seen for his physical attributes. He looks a powerful lad. In saying that, Okeke came in with Kendellen, who is brilliant and likely to get even better. For me, it's difficult to see Okeke getting past Quinn and Kendellen. Who knows what will happen.
I mean... another way to look at this (if you want to be somewhat ruthless and purely focused on the national team)
You have one pathway that prioritizes skillset. You have one pathway that prioritizes athleticism.
Drawing from both for your national team, you probably cover a lot of bases?
Australia definitely need to lift their game otherwise it could be a humiliation for them. Wales, probably the weakest of the Home Nations, just put 40 points on them. You'd imagine they will improve and will obviously have home advantage, but at the moment it could be as uncompetitive as the 2005 series.
On the older edogbo, he’s only 20 now. If he was in the leinster system, this probably would be his first year. So, yea i think he shows enough in NTS/sub academy to get in. The younger Edogbo is actually behind his progress. His brother was already an academy player for a year by this point.
On Ahern, i’m probably too high on him. But i think if he stays fit, he’s an international pretty quickly and a starter. So, i wouldn’t agree he would lose time except for injuries necessarily.
3 of the guys on that list are still u20 so i wouldn’t necessarily give up on them. I’d also not necessarily read too much into playing a year up at u20s as that depends on you finishing school earlier than most of your peers.
Oh ya 100% Ahern makes the Leinster academy he just gets a lot less senior exposure once he graduates. I honestly don't think Edwin would have made Leinster, he was way off the pace skills wise pre academy its really a testament to him how far he has come in the last two years. I wonder if Munster upping the requirements to make the academy since covid, as has been mentioned many times, has had the effect of hurting the next potential Edogbo, who clearly benefited from being in the academy environment every week. All of the Munster guys who missed the academy in Autumn 22 went backwards with their respective Ireland age grades over the course of last season; Dan Sheehan, Jason Sheehan, Oji, Sean Edogbo and Costello. It will be interesting to see how the sub academy guys fare this season across the Ireland youth teams.
I think his argument was that Foxe should have been in over the back row they took. I honestly have no idea although i am very skeptical of paddy mccarthy THP, and that is one area of relative weakness for leinster.
However, there might be big time THPs coming next year they want to hold spots for.
I'd say Foxe wasn't included in the academy due to the next couple years having very good tightheads for Leinster. There's definitely a bias towards Blackrock and Michaels making the teams but at the same time it doesn't really matter unless we are missing the really talented players that will go pro. There does have to be a cut off point of the academy and I guess the potential upside of a player with abit more around the park(rightly or wrongly) is Leinsters no.1 priority.
I honestly don’t know if i agree with this tbh.
Ahern and Edogbo make any academy anywhere. They are absolute physical freaks. Leinster don’t really miss on those kinds of players imo. Not any more.
I think you do have a point but in the more edge cases. One example is ronan foxe who just made the munster academy. A poster on leinsterfans who seemed knowledgable said that he thought that his club background probably did hurt him. That kind of bias at the fringes where you are making close last calls on academy spots, underage squad spots and so on probably does exist.
I’d also say that bias probably exists alot in the backs. A ‘tidy’ winger probably stands out less just physically. And the skills difference from a private school to a club could be pretty big.
Edogbo’s brother is interesting. He doesn’t seem to be very good right now. I do see him in munster training pictures but i watched him in AIL and he was honestly pretty anonymous. However, his size and sheer athleticism makes him a very worthwhile bet imo. He probably wouldn’t make the leinster academy but he probably will munster.
What a joke this weeks Connacht & Ulster fixture is, no Irish Internationals
Do the IRFU think the fans are fools who will go to see a B team
All Inter Pro's should be full strength, rest players for the other games
Look at the premiership and Saracens team this weekend
D'Arcy is the prime example of the modern day pundit/journalist. I.E He just follow's the narrative rather than the facts and is best stayed well clear of.
Why even have a Lions tour? At this stage 'Tarf or Cork Con could give Oz a fright. Does Farrell want to do this?
It hasnt dropped more that the time of 2008 was end of an unprecedented level of success in terms of that one school. schools rugby overall in Munster hasnt declined. Its just theres lot more coming through from beyond the schools system in Munster and this is likely to grow even more over time as more clubs develop more through the munster u16/18s cup/plate/bowl competitions
The problem with that is that the Leinster "production line" is extremely narrow in terms of its demographic. Because Munster don't have a massive ready to go group of pro players coming out of their schools system they are forced to give athletically gifted prospects from non traditional backgrounds opportunities to develop that they wouldn't get in Leinster because their skillset is behind the schools players. Tom Ahern would be buried in Leinster squad, I'm not sure Hodnett would have made it out of the Leinster academy, I'm not sure Edogbo would have even made the Leinster academy. Baring injury all three will most likely end up capped for Ireland. Even guys who came through a traditional route are talented but had flaws in their game are largely given a second chance at Munster that they wouldn't get at Leinster; McSweeney, Okeke and McCarthy were all fringe 20's players but have elite size or atheticisim, they were given 3 year Munster academy deals but wouldn't be anywhere close to a Leinster academy. If one of those 3 make it you get a unique talent. That is better for Irish rugby than sending a 20 year old conditioned and trained to a pro level but maybe deemed athletically not up to it at Leinster, down to Munster to block the path of a McCarthy or Edogbo, who they may be much better than at that moment but have a far lower ceiling in terms of potential.
This idea that Leinster schools production line is some fluke that happened with no help from Leinster Rugby as an organisation is pretty laughable tbh. Leinster have put in a lot of work in that area.
He is in a constant state of thoughtless awareness
The Irish 'pundit' version of Jonny Wilkinson - A meandering jumble of words that amount to nothing. Poor D'Arcy cant even finish his spoken word sentences.
The charge he brought against Nucifora in 2020 (Nucifora laughed his Questions out of it) "Four more years could leave Irish rugby in a deeper hole than before he landed"
Nothing is perfect but Nucifora has certainly not left Irish rugby in a deeper hole.
Delighted with the appointment of David Humphreys. Was he contract duration announced?
D'Arcy has consistently spoken out against the nonsense that surrounds Nucifora, in fairness to him.
Also a draft is a terrible idea that would just lead to worse provinces and more players overseas. And I suspect you could have legal issues with Ulster.
You also don't have free reign of choice about what university to go to.
For me it should be straightforward enough. Extend to 27 or no Lions tour. If you are adamant about coaching the lions hand in your notice now to give us time to get a new coach before the 6N.
Would be the height of pointlessness to have him around for just one season.
Funnily enough, as we were having this conversation last night, Gordon D'Arcy was slating Nucifora on Twitter.
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