Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

This isn't about dragging Leinster back

Then goes on to list ways to drag Leinster back.

Bitterness is leading to such a crabs in a bucket mentality that you can't even see when you're doing it.

How can you possibly say telling players they have to take a paycut to stay at Leinster isn't 'dragging Leinster back'?

Rumours

Ed Byrne leaving (could be north bound)

Ruddock retiring

Ben Murphy leaving (connacht)

Alex Soroka leaving (connacht)

Deegan leaving (rumoured to be north bound)

Ngatai leaving

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Confirmed

Molony off to Bath

Jenkins off to Sharks

Alaalatoa off to Clermont

Paddy McCarthy to another province has also been rumoured. Looked excellent for the u20's last season. Incredibly dynamic for a loose head prop. But competition there is fierce. Not only Porter, Healy and Milne but also Jack Boyle who is only a few months older and maybe even more dynamic than McCarthy.

This.

People are tying themselves in knots to imagine scenarios where a player might be outperforming one on a central contract when we have perfect examples already.

Issue is that it doesn't suit their desired narrative, as it is the likes of Murray holding one for years when he isn't even deemed a guaranteed starter for his province while Leinster are paying for one of the best SHs in the world on a provincial deal. We then have the likes of giving one to Earls over Lowe

Obviously Barrett will be well compensated but I don't think Robertson is just making up stuff with quotes like the below. Clearly the decision involved more than just money.

“Jordie was very clear from the start around the fact that he wanted to use this sabbatical to improve his game,” said Robertson.

“We will help him achieve that while making sure he is looked after mentally and physically. After months of discussions and collaboration with Leinster, we feel they are the right club to do that. They have a proven track record of creating internationals and helping players achieve their goals".

I wonder if Robertson's relationship with Leinster from their working sessions when he was at the Crusaders and Goodman being a former coach with him helped get his blessing.

Bank of Ireland have signed on for 5 years as main sponsor

Something that hasn't been discussed on the previous few pages with regard to money is the share of revenue Leinster bring in.

Leinster's average attendance last year in the URC was 18,361, vs 13,720 for Munster, 13,477 for Ulster and 5,504 for Connacht.

Leinster also played more home knockout games (in both the URC and Europe) than any of the other teams, inflating ticket revenue significantly on top of that.

And Leinster presumably also have a similarly inflated share of merchandise, sponsorship etc revenue as the much better supported, more watched, more successful team with by far the largest fan base.

Leinster are most likely already financially subsidizing the other teams in terms of IRFU income % : IRFU spend % as a result.

Purely from a business management POV defunding your best performing business unit, that has the highest revenues and best history of results/success by a long shot, to fund other worse performing units, would be a terrible idea.

The IRFU are financially subsidizing ever single province. Can we all just accept that reality?

The difference is the IRFU is getting a good return on their investment from Leinster and the other provinces are various levels of money pits.

Many are calling for more and more resources being taken away from the performing entity and instead be thrown into the money pits - which are in part where they are due to incompetence of their leadership teams over the years.

In the business world it would be deemed utter madness.

The provinces can't outbid each other. That would certainly help Ulster though.