Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Because the very thing that’s driven the discussion is the central contract announcements this week, and Leinster announcing a 6 month NIQ signing.

Apparently these items are indications of some massive inbuilt irreversible structural advantage in Leinster’s favour.

The central contracts are purely a product of the quality of Leinster’s player production. That’s an area that wasn’t always anywhere close to as skewed as it now is.

People claim it’s purely driven by private schools, bigger population, weather population, big stadiums to move games to etc, but all of those things have largely always been a factor, and certainly were in the 2000’s when Munster were bulk supplier to Ireland.

There is an absolute refusal to acknowledge that Leinster prioritised and invested extensively in player development pathways well over 15 years ago and have been reaping the benefit of it ever since.

Ulster and Munster could have invested in just the same way, because god knows they’ve invested plenty in enriching various South African rugby players over the same timeframe.

Even this offseason - Ulster’s decision making is still utterly puzzling - we’re supposed to believe they couldn’t afford to retain Billy Burns if they wanted to, yet the best he could do was a one year deal at Munster, while somehow Ulster had the ability to go and sign another NIQ South African winger in Werner Kok.

I've thought about this before but never asked. So this is a question to everyone but relates to your comment.

Ulster players who are resident in Belfast (i guess all or most) are british tax residents. Therefore they aren't eligible for the athlete tax rebate that's available in the south?

I think its a pretty substantial amount that you are eligible as long as you paid taxes in the south and finish your career there. Unless the irfu figured a workaround around that, that is actually a decent difference. I think it can be as much as one whole year in a lump sum.

I was thinking about this recently.

I honestly would make exactly one change. Loosen up on NIQs. I don't want leinster to have to move players, i don't want to curtail their budget, none of that.

I would make one policy change with some stipulations. The policy change is that each province is allowed 5 NIQs in ANY position with the following stipulations

• No more than one per position
• A limited number of regular season games played (maybe 15) and unlimited playoffs
• You have to be able to afford it and prove that to the irfu

This is for all provinces. I have no problem with leinster getting even better.

My main reason for this is that i literally do not think its possible for ulster or munster to win a european cup without more NIQs. I think we need to do a better job developing our own talent (and imo that is happening but it takes time for it to come through) but i just don't think we will ever be able to produce the number of homegrown elite players 1-23 that is required for a european cup. Especially evenly over a whole team position by position.

In fact, i honestly think that its probable that it will also be hard for leinster to do so in the future. The last 10 years for leinster have been a mix of fantastic management, a golden generation of players and honestly generally good chance (except for imo in close games). Henshaw, Lowe and JGP are all elite imports (that you developed in the latter two cases) but that's probably not happening again. There's no guarantee that the insane production of 5-10 years ago will continue. I absolutely believe leinster will always produce a great volume of players but i firmly believe that there is some element of chance to producing a ton of elite guys at the same time in any sport. Or producing them and most of them staying healthy, and so on.

To add on to that, all but one of the european cups won by irish teams were won by teams with more than the current 3 NIQs.

There are other benefits. Instead of waiting for an irish player to fill a glaring weakness, you can do so immediately. This will then expose your best young players to deep playoff runs and add to their development.
You also get more freedom to really build a team to suit any style, which would be fun to me. You also get to experimemt a tad more on NIQs which i feel like only connacht really do now.

Also, i honestly don't think it holds anyone back as long as there is a game limit. I think a really deep squad with lots of competition is actually the best environment.

Anyway, that's what i want. I kind of doubt it would happen but i think it would solve some problems, and it wouldn't hurt leinster or ireland at all imo.

To encourage people to go to sporting events probably