Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

This isn't the case - Leinster win those games specifically because of the quality of guys like Deegan. You keep swapping out those quality depth guys for kids and you get found out at that level now.

For him to get international recognition he has to be better than the two guys ahead of him at Leinster. He's training with them every day, and if he isn't capable of beating them out then he isn't worth international selection anyway. It's that simple. Moving to Ulster and playing in "first choice 23s" won't change that unless he's actually actively improving as a player.

Yeah, I'd 100% say Munster are a much more attractive proposition for players to move to now than they would have been previously. They've a good and talented young core of players and a very highly regarded coaching ticket who have shown signs of clearly improving players and getting them to higher levels.

That isn't really the case at Ulster in recent years (blaming that on McFarland), but until there's someone new in-situ it's hard to say it'll change. A lot of Ulster players almost visibly regressed from c. 2021/22 to 23/24 - guys like James Hume, Michael Lowry, Robert Baloucoune and Nick Timoney (all of whom toured NZ with Ireland in 2022).

Do you genuinely believe Leinster Rugby spend €0 on schools rugby and underage development?

You can't play for ireland without being in ireland. That's normal. However that's the foundation of everything else.

The only avenue to gaining players when you can 'outbid' to my knowledge is offering senior deals to academy or pre academy players. That's it. You can't go to Jack Boyle and say 'come here and play loosehead and we'll pay you to be primary back up, plus some'.

Academy money is also so low that its an actual impediment to moving especially when other clubs in ireland can't offer you more. It seems to be straight senior deal or nothing. Most of the best unis are also in dublin, so if you are making 10k a year, why not go to university nearer home.

The normal pattern in sports is that good teams lose back ups to starting roles with more money elsewhere. That's not a factor in ireland.

Leinster do a very good job coaching but i cannot think of the last time someone went to a different academy in ireland that they wanted. Its essentially exclusive access.

It's not exclusive access though - and other provinces are free to approach Leinster's talent, as they very frequently do (multiple Leinster players in all three academies with a couple more rumoured this year). The players are absolutely free to make those choices.

You're overlooking two key components - (i) players want to play for the team they grow up supporting (this is a massive and significant driver) and (ii) Leinster have been by far the best coached, most stable and most attractive place for a high potential young player to go for the best part of a decade or more.

Academy money is low everywhere btw too.

Leinster do a very good job coaching but i cannot think of the last time someone went to a different academy in ireland that they wanted. Its essentially exclusive access.

The fact no one chose to go to another academy that you can think of does not equate to "exclusive access" or an "in built union protection" like you originally asserted. Not even remotely close.

Globally? Literally every country almost has a multitude of private schools and relatively large catchment areas around them.

There are something like 3,000 private schools in Australia, and only one professional rugby team in massive cities like Sydney (population 5.5m), Melbourne (5.2m), Brisbane (2.6m), with a similar enough dynamic in NZ (Auckland (1.4m) etc etc. )

There are a handful of professional rugby teams in the entire northern half of France (and only two top flight teams), and England has a multitude of some of the most expensive private schools in the world with facilities that would make Irish universities blush (never mind schools). South Africa has multiple expensive private schools with a huge rugby heritage and massive cities with only a handful of top level clubs also.

People act like Leinster is the only place in the world with private schools sometimes.

Clubs have the option to pay more if they want to here too - Connacht did this with Sam Illo - they offered him a full contract when his only offer in Leinster was an academy deal. It's a prime example of what you're claiming can't happen here. If the other provinces want to attempt to do this regularly they could.

This has effectively happened with recent guys like Sam Prendergast and Paddy McCarthy too who Leinster have had to progress to senior contracts earlier than anticipated because they had other teams sniffing around them.

The reality is - if some of these guys are being well advised, they'll recognise, especially if they're high calibre elite prospects that they're better served (over the past decade) staying in Leinster where there is a better culture, better coaching and a better environment with a strong track record of progressing and developing young players. You're absolutely fooling yourself if you think the latter isn't the case.

The IRFU pay the academy salaries and do so at a flat level across all four provinces. Allowing the provinces to outbid each other and top up those academy deals in no way is a positive development for Irish rugby.

It doesn't increase the pool of players available, it just drives up the overall costs and creates a wage inflation environment generally. Same principle on allowing the provinces to outbid each other for each other's senior players (though I'd be more supportive of this in a more limited fashion).

The other provinces all have the same equal ability to approach any player they like, and lay a plan before that player for how they see that player developing with them and progressing to senior rugby. There are good quality universities across all four provinces which provide essentially a broad spectrum of underlying academic courses etc. Accommodation etc is generally materially cheaper outside of Dublin. So they absolutely have the ability to convince these guys they'd be better served moving to them instead of Leinster, they are just consistently unsuccessful at doing so.

Newsflash: that's not anyone's definition of a monopoly or any kind of in built protection from the IRFU.