I was responding to you saying this:
I don't know if you read his recent interview but he put a LOT of credit on the EI tour for Munster winning the URC.
Crowley's team mate feels he improved due to the tour and Crowley was core to driving their URC win.
Munster fans should be thanking Dave.
Well you seem to have the tapes of the selection meetings so fill me in. I do believe though that if Sean O Brien took over at Leinster, i couldn't just substitute Cullen's selections as his…
No, that was not the argument.
In the interview he said it changed their selection policy. Is that what Daly is claiming as well? They absolutely should be thanking Dave. They took a ton of guys rowntree had no interest in selecting and opened his eyes.
Dude, it's your assertion that Rowntree had no opinion on the out-half pecking order, either as forwards coach or as head coach. You're the Munster fan so I'll defer to you on the mechanics of how that works.
What are you talking about? Why are you continuing to pretend you didn't post this statement?
I've said what i said very clearly.
You are now doing the dumb transparent thing where its hard to respond to what i said so you go in another direction. If SOB was the leinster coach next season, only an idiot would say 'well he gave cullen his opinion, so he would obviously select the same way'. You know this, I know this. Now deflect again. Or maybe do another ban bet you don't follow through on .
This site seems full of leinster fans who promise to leave and then don't.
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It is pretty clear the Irish selection and gameplan took a turn when Farrell took over so I wouldn't be using that as an argument really.
Munster have a completely new game plan under the current coaching ticket. A player who might well have been seen as the 1st choice under JvG and his coaching ticket could well end up lower down under the new coaching team based on skills for the new game plan.
Why is this even up for discussion.
Because i read the interview and he specifically said it changed their selection policy. Not that players improved.
I didn't, and I'm very glad Rowntree took things in a different direction because JvG was a disaster, but equally you wouldn't call Farrell a brand new coach in 2019.
I have no idea, its crazy.
There's also the fairly big factor of when Currie Cup teams are available to play.
I'd call him a brand new coach in terms of selection to be fair. Sub coaches have input, but not decision making power.
I think we were all worried post RWC 2019 a bit about Farrell just doing more of the same. He actually showed a massively increased propensity to cap players (despite the narrative sometimes) and obviously play a very different style.
Position coaches have to do their job in the framework they are given. I don't think it's mad to say that Rowntree would have a very different view on selection and he never had the chance to show that before the EI tour. All signs point to him picking Healy etc, but he was only just in the job - Farrell's first 6N wasn't great either.
I still think the EI helped Crowley and I don't know how anyone can argue otherwise. But I'd call them a brand new coaching staff in terms of selection.
Are you allowed to quote the irish times on here? Its a paywalled article? I sub digitally. I think the actual quote is pretty egregious. Like, i'm not exagerating. .
You can quote paragraphs and link the article, but that is it.
“What it enabled the provinces to do was to see their provincial players in a different light with different coaches. From that, it turned Munster’s season around. They started selecting players they weren’t selecting. It was a definite change; it isn’t the sole reason [they won the URC] but it was a big part of it. For the national coaches it was a way for them to be able to get a better understanding of the talent pool.” Come on, that's a bit much when they were in charge pre tour for two games, right? https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/2024/05/18/what-has-david-nucifora-ever-done-for-irish-rugby/
I was thinking that also being an issue but couldn't find any fixtures yet for 2024.
That isn't what you said in the post I quoted.
If you have issue with him saying he changed their selection policy then fine - though he is far closer to you and I to know the truth of how the Munster set-up planned for those players before the EI tour. Trying to argue about it is absolutely pointless as everyone is completely guessing.
However, the fact is that good old Dave can take some credit for Munster winning the URC, given that the credit is coming from inside the Munster camp for how his EI tour helped Crowley that season.
100%. I think what Farrell did for Crowley is not a million miles from what he did for JGP.
Like, there isn't really any debate that JGP is a much better player than the decent-but-limited Luke McGrath - but for a long time, that was not clear and certainly Leo Cullen either didn't see it or just couldn't get the best out of JGP. Once Farrell got him going, there wasn't any debate to be had and now he's probably the best non-French 9 in the world. Maybe JGP would have got there eventually but it was taking a while and by no means was it inevitable.
Likewise, not only did Farrell skip over the even-more-limited-Healy to pick Crowley, he did it again for the Six Nations when he promoted Crowley over the not-really-limited-but-deeply-flawed Carbery, who was still the first choice 10 at Munster. He absolutely saw something in Crowley that Munster did not, and it's easy to look back now and say, well, it was inevitable that Crowley would come through - it wasn't inevitable at all.
Again, I think Rowntree is brilliant and he's turned things around so well after the JvG clusterf**k, but it's the steadfast refusal to give Farrell and Ireland any credit that is galling to me.
You keep mentioning Daly’s quote but would you not say it’s extremely rare that a person involved in sport tells the full truth to the media?
Read the quote. He didn't take some credit, he took the lions share. For changing the selection habits of a coaching group that was in charge for two games. You can see that in a couple of different ways but remember they are essentially his employees. I doubt they would contradict him.
When Farrell got the head-coach gig in 2019 Cullen had been in place for, what, 4 seasons? JGP was ~27?
It’s really not the same as Rowntree being in place for what, 2 games?? When Crowley was 22?
And Crowley was a 22 year old.
Agree, though I'm pretty sure many here claimed comments from other Munster players in the media should be treated as gospel but we can park that.
Most sports people BS is more general platitudes, it is weird for one to drop a very specific fact in an interview that has no potential benefit to themselves.
Dropping in the middle of an interview a team mate's role during the EI Tour, what he took back from it, and how it helped him is incredibly specific.
A player bigging up a team mate isn’t weird in the slightest…
It is funny to me tho that for someone who so summarily dismissed Kleyn’s comments to the media is now happy to accept Daly’s comment.
Crowley was the same age when Ireland spotted his talent as he was when Munster were still trying to figure it out. And when Ben Healy is only six months older than Crowley, I'm not sure it's as much of an argument to say ah shure he was only young.
And even after those two games, when Crowley came back from the EI tour, he was pretty much benching or slotting into gaps for the next couple of months.
JGP was 28 making his test debut. It doesn't matter. The substantive point is that Farrell was able to see something in him that he had not demonstrated for Leinster on any sort of consistent basis, even at that age with a long pro career that up to that point would have been best described as 'journeyman-esque'.
Again, I understand Farrell is deeply unpopular here but I think he deserves a lot of credit for his ability to spot talent and get the most out of it, and Crowley is a great example of that.
He is basically out the door and there are plenty of ways to leak to the media.
Not only did he help Munster to the URC but he also has a giant set of balls if there is zero validity to his comment around selections and is gambling no one will call him out. He could have played it safe and said players improved but went a step further.
As I said, you and I know less than he does so we're completely guessing.
What does Munster figuring it out mean?
You’re conflating Munster, Van Graan and Rowntree here. That whole paragraph on JGP; literally none of that applies to Crowley. They were at entirely different points in their career when they got their Test debut. Add that Covid would clearly have had an impact on Crowley’s development. That absolutely matters. Fwiw, I literally previously remember arguing you on here when you dismissed Healy and Crowley for not taking Carbery’s spot during his 2 year injury absence with Munster.
Crowley, 19, wasn’t even in the academy and Healy, 20, was year one academy at the time Carbery’s 2-year injury stint started.
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