Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Exactly, Clubs who do well financially are rewarded with a greater chunk of what they bring in. It wouldn't be right to give connacht and leinster the same money when leinster are getting 92k through the turnstiles over two weekends and the other has an average 5,500 showing up to watch them each week.

Why wouldn't it be right? It's, as you say "all IRFU money". It needs to maximise its potential.

I guarantee you, if giving Connacht the same money as Leinster produced better international players and results, it would happen. There's no "it wouldn't be right" about it. Ulster function under a number of problems that the other provinces don't face, and the IRFU don't worry about "what's right"; they leave us to get on with it.

I've said. Make the provinces contribute to "central" contracts. The central money saved is given to the smaller three academies.

@awec

In terms of Irish players, the likes of Deegan, Penny etc, the players who don't get near a Leinster first choice 23 but are still good players (i.e. the members of Leinster's 2nd 23), are told they can stay at Leinster if they want but they have to take salary cuts if they do so. If they move, salaries stay as they are. Any savings are diverted elsewhere.

With regards to this point, do you think people, and they are people like you and me, would be happy to continue playing under the IRFU banner if you tell them they’re getting a salary cut unless they move away from their friends, family and home? I would resent my employer if they did that to me.

Sounds like a great incentive to pack up the bags and retire or travel abroad and work for an employer who isn’t going to coerce you into moving somewhere you don’t particularly want to be. Or maybe you would accept the proposal, rock up, coast and take the money for a few years in response.

I'm not missing the point, at all.

No, Ulster won't be able to match the output of the Leinster academy any time soon - but no one said it should or could. Constantly saying "we can't match Leinster" sort of overlooks the fact that you're struggling to match Connacht. For a man who was so fixated on red herrings, you're throwing them around at a fair old pelt yourself. You have to, because your underlying position is so weak and flawed.

It's not about matching Leinster, it's about contributing something. When we're sending out a 23 in the Six Nations that features not a single Ulster player, something is deeply, deeply wrong. The only players who featured at all in this 6N were McCloskey (age 31) and Henderson (32) so I'm struggling to see things being much brighter this time next year. Munster at least have Crowley, Casey and Nash as young-ish guys who got a run out.

If you want to sit there and believe that this would all be OK if only Leinster don't sign Barrett, fair enough, you're probably on the same wavelength as the guys running Ulster for the last decade.

I'll repeat it - the contracts system has been in place for 20 years, it has not changed. What has changed is the relative abilities of different provinces to work under that system, and Ulster in particular have viciously resisted the efforts of IRFU to help/force them to do so. The party line seems to be that the Australian bloke is conspiring with the guy from Wigan to favour Leinster for reasons as yet unexplained. Fair enough.

So the question remains - if we give more money to Ulster, what will they do with it?

How much of Leinster schools money comes from Leinster Vs just from the fact they are extremely wealthy schools plus outside investors?

I wouldn't think Leinster Rugby are the ones funding warm weather training camps abroad in Leinster schools, or building massive indoor AstroTurf pitches - but I'm open to being proven very wrong (as I often am).

Admittedly, your point re: coaches is an area Munster could improve on. The standard of coaching in all of the Limerick schools are absolute dirt. Only the Cork schools seem to have their shtick together in that regard. However Munster are already operating at a loss this year so it's hard to see where that money could come from.

if we give more money to Ulster, what will they do with it?

Spend it on Aaron Cruden apparently. I don't see much outrage about this rumour for some reason.

The problem here is that, by definition, moving Leinster's third choice players to become first choice elsewhere cannot close the gap between the provinces.

All it will do is alienate the fan bases in those provinces because they won't see the provincial team as being representative of the province, just a franchise based in that province.