Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

We should implement an NBA draft system post school for which prospects go to which academy!

The provinces will never accept a draft system. They want to develop their own players and their own players want to play where they're from.

It's parochial, but it has worked for years.

OK so 13 central contracts next season, if JGP gets one;

Porter, Furlong, Sheehan, Ryan, Beirne, Henderson, VDF, Doris, JGP, Henshaw, Aki, Ringrose, Keenan.

You can look at that list and say that Leinster will have 10 of the 13 and that's outrageous.

But another way to look at the list is to say;

• Nine products of the Leinster academy
• Two project players
• One each from Connacht and Ulster - and the Ulster guy is very likely on his last year
• No Munster-produced players

The only Munster or Ulster-produced player in that list made his test debut in 2012. The Munster guys coming off their central deals made their test debuts in 2011 and 2012, following Keith Earls last year (test debut 2008). I'm pretty sure the only Ulster or Munster player to debut since 2012 and subsequently get a central deal was Stockdale? That's over a decade of tumbleweeds.

Even if we dished out a couple more, who'd get them? Probably Lowe and Hansen first up, i.e. two more SH imports. Maybe then you'd look at McCarthy and Crowley but it's way too early for them.

People can bleat about Leinster's financial advantages and throw out the usual shyte about private schools, but it is self-delusion of the highest order to pretend that the real root problem here is anything other than the utter inability of Munster and Ulster to produce top-level players.

Forcing top players to relocate is a short-term fix, and paying lesser players more and better players less is not a fix at all. This is a problem that has been years in the making and will take years to fix.

The Irish team is the lifeblood of the game here and - rightly or wrongly - the provinces' primary function is to supply players to it. That system has not changed in 20 years. What has changed is the ability of two of the main suppliers to keep up their side of the bargain.

Until the other provinces get their sh1t together in terms of player development, it's all just noise. If we're going to redistribute the money, then let's figure out a way to spend it in a way that will actually help, and not spunk it away on paying mediocre players more.

Good summation of the issues facing the other provinces.

Leinster absolutely have financial and geographical advantages. But they're carrying the other provinces wrt player development and progressing to the test side.

That's not the first time I've heard that idea floated. I think it was Ruaidhri O'Connor who suggested it the last time as well.

It's a terrible idea for any young Irish player to go there. It's a hyper physical league where you'll be dropped immediately if you start to struggle. It's an en especially bad idea for someone like Prendergast who needs more physical development.

I didn't think I needed to mark this as sarcasm. But do we have many Leinster schoolboys going to the other provinces academies? Because if the other provinces are not producing enough local talent they should definitely be scouting in Dublin schools.