None of the players that went on that tour or the tour itself affected any of the provinces and how they finished up at the end of the season
Munster lost 5 of their first 7 matches last season and I 100% think the EI tour had a part to play in that. That they came back to win the tournament is testament to the province and coaching (and some luck) but it doesn't override the impact it had.
Playing the EI tour during a European window would in some ways make more sense, except they would never do it because of the slim possibility the provinces would need to rely on these players. But they don't care about the URC.
Is it a reasonable trade-off to weaken the provinces for a couple of URC games?
I think this is a fair question (no is my answer obviously) but I don't think it is fair to suggest they weren't weakened. Apart from anything else it creates massive disruption in the training and preparation.
I lament the loss of the full 6N A Championship, and in an ideal world that would be a better avenue but that's not something the IRFU can conjure up on their own. I think claiming it gives the next tier an opportunity is stretching to minimise the impact.
Ultimately this will always come down to squad selection. I dislike the concept but depending on who is selected the impact is variable.
Does anyone really think we'll have Snyman at the start of the URC after he inevitably plays in the RC?
It had nothing to do with the EI tour and Munster start to the season. They also won the league so it had zero affect on Munster season
In fact you could argue the time given to Crowley at 10 propelled him into the team post the EI tour
If you lads think the EI tour is such an insult to the league, you must have been mighty upset when the B&I cup ran for years.
Oh yeah nothing was ever mentioned about that.
Almost like it was a completely different concept for fringe players who were not making the provincial squads to get gametime as opposed to potential members of the 23 being taken away by the Irish coaching staff to play nonsense games in South Africa. It is a completely ridiculous comparison.
We were told last year (?) that the URC would not run during the international window, then the IRFU go ahead and plan an international match outside that window and an EI Tour to SA.
Why sign up to the agreement of URC games not clashing with International games and then go ahead and organise other games that clashes with the league.
yes it ran all season and wasn’t fridge players not making the squad, it was used for academy players and players in and around the squad to get minute instead of sitting on bench
like the EI tour
The only nonsense is the reaction of a few fans who come end of season still can’t admit it made no affect to their own provinces and improved Ireland squad
The Provincial coaches chose who played there based on players they didn't want in their first choice teams. It could not be less relevant to an EI tour which is a top down selection approach. It is meaningless and I don't know why you are trying to conflate them.
You are fighting against arguments I am not making and casting rather broad aspersions to do so.
They also won the league so it had zero affect on Munster season
This is a completely bizarre take and not at all how impact on a season can be measured. The fact that Munster won the league does not mean that them losing players at the start of the season affected them in no way whatsoever.
There's nonsense is this post too so it's not confined to any unique set of fans
The end of season is what counts, it didn’t affect any of the provinces
Saying it is bizarre is just because it doesn’t suit your narrative
The fact a number of players went on to represent Ireland in the World Cup was another huge bonus
Also when you consider the B&I cup ran for years yet we never had the same outcry I think we can all agree it’s just fans finding something to moan about for no reason
So thank you, you agree the coach’s picked players that wouldn’t be part of the URC teams/squads so it had no affect on the provinces or how they ended up at close of season
Finally got to it
For the B&I cup yes. Not a single player played in the B&I cup who would have been anywhere near the 23 or backups for a provincial fixture. They were picked because they weren't in the main team that week. That could not be less relevant to the EI tour which is a completely different setup. You are making zero sense.
You need to go back and look at the EI squad if you think those players wouldn’t have been involved in the URC. Frisch, Daly, Nash, Crowley, Ahern, Salanoa, Kendellen, Barron all would’ve been in Munster 23’s. Your argument isn’t based in reality.
Munster lost 5 of their first 7 matches last season and I 100% think the EI tour had a part to play in that.
I think that's debatable, at best.
This is the Munster XV that lost to Cardiff in the opening match in 2022, in which all the EI players were available;
Shane Daly; Calvin Nash, Chris Farrell, Malakai Fekitoa, Liam Coombes; Ben Healy, Paddy Patterson; Josh Wycherley, Niall Scannell, Keynan Knox; Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley; Jack O'Donoghue (C), Alex Kendellen, Jack O'Sullivan.
This is the XV that lined out against the Dragons, and lost. The Dragons' first home win in a year and a half, btw.
Mike Haley; Keith Earls, Dan Goggin, Malakai Fekitoa, Simon Zebo; Ben Healy, Craig Casey; Dave Kilcoyne, Niall Scannell, Stephen Archer, Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley, Jack O'Donoghue, Peter O'Mahony (capt), Jack O'Sullivan.
So that's two defeats from two, against terrible teams, and only one of which was in any way impacted by the EI tour. I would strongly disagree that either of those Munster teams is weak.
The remaining three defeats from the opening seven games were against other Irish teams who were also subject to the EI tour, and in each of those games we saw reasonably strong Munster XVs named.
TBH, I think Munster just had a bad start to the season, which is fair enough with the departure of JVG, but the EI tour was a nice scapegoat rather than a root cause IMO.
Not one player missed preseason because of the B&I tournament, not one player went on a tour to SA while participating in the B&I cup
Anyone trying to compare the two tournaments is stirring the pot looking for a reaction
They're light years apart in how they impact a club
The remaining three defeats from the opening seven games were against other Irish teams who were also subject to the EI tour,
As true as this may be, I think Munster were hit most given the players chosen. They could afford to lose Daly/Frisch/Nash/Crowley less than we could afford to lose Milne/McCarthy/Penny/Soroka.
It's obviously a hypothetical we can't completely answer and I partly agree that Munster simply started the season poorly. But that level of disruption simply cannot help.
I think nobody would be arguing that the tour is acceptable if it was done in the Euro window, so maybe we should start with that as a baseline for people who say "it didn't matter at all".
The end of the season doesn't exist in a bubble. The end of the season is influenced by what happens at the start of the season.
Games in September and October give you the same number of points as games in April and May.
Yeah, I’m not disputing the last tour was relatively disruptive to Munster and Ulster. I think the Munster squad has evolved though, and I just don’t see them as impacted this time around.
It just adds to the story of Munster winning the title against tremendous odds. I'd be more inclined to focus on the positive. That and the emergence of Crowley and Nash as internationals.
Ya, look, I've never suggested there aren't any positives. But plenty have suggested there are no negatives / it makes no difference.
I just don't think that stacks up.
Main issue for Munster at the beginning of the 2022 season was that they had just finished pre-season with a completely new coaching team, bringing in a completely different playing style, and then lost a glut of players right when it came to stress-testing it.
On this point, Munster will be a lot more steady in October and should not be impacted as badly as 2022.
It's Ulster that would be my primary concern. Could you really make the case that their (predominantly) younger players will be better off leaving Richie Murphy for three weeks? Debatable, imo.
More broadly, I'm not sure I'd call this the IRFU disrespecting the URC, necessarily. But they definitely seem to be under-appreciating the increasing competitiveness of the league. Might just be semantics there.
Home knock-out games in the URC are now emerging as viable revenue generators for provinces. On the flipside, away knockout games in South Africa could be massively costly, in terms of finances and silverware. Every point counts.
Leinster fortunes didn't change because of the EI, I think we can all agree that
Munster won the league
Ulster from recollection had a great start to season, I think a loss v Leinster in Ravenspan but that was hardly a shock, went on a great run and it was only after the Leinster loss the wheels came off at Christmas
Connacht had a bad start to season but that was based on no stadium and lots of away games, finishing off with qualification for Europe. Would it have been different without the EI Tour?
None of the teams for affected by the EI tour.
Munster were missing 20 players at one point during the EI tour. Nobody would be arguing that has no impact if it was from injuries alone.
Whether it directly impacts a province or not is almost irrelevant. It remains a fact that a group of players are being taken out of the provinces outside of an international window.
But no one can try and claim it didn't impact Munster, we had a new coaching ticket with a mixed preseason/early season because of it and Ulster's newish coaching ticket will have similar issues this coming season
Jack Kelly? KLEYN?
I think nobody would be arguing that the tour is acceptable if it was done in the Euro window
Well, it wouldn’t be a good idea because European games are harder to win than URC, and you only have four pool matches, so the relative impact of a loss is much bigger.
At the end of it all, it’s a value proposition. Whether it’s an acceptable trade off for second tier players to miss two or three URC games in order to maybe identify 3 or 4 test players is entirely a matter of perspective. Some people will always prioritise province over country, others won’t, neither of these is objectively wrong.
Personally, I think it’s a great idea and we saw it pay off almost immediately last time around, and the negative impact was overstated. Maybe we’ll find another couple of guys who can be fast tracked into the test side, or it could be just as valuable to rule a couple of guys out.
I think Kelly just got his timing wrong with Leinster. He was trying to break in and get minutes when there wasn't much gametime on offer. And yes, he struggled to perform when he did see some action. Then he went to play 7s. I think it would have been better if he sharpened his skills playing 7s while he was in the Academy and there wasn't much Leinster gametime on offer anyway, like Keenan and JOB did. They were able to hit the ground running when the door did open for them in terms of getting into the Leinster team. Kelly's got good pedigree as an age grade 15s player, and he's done very well with the 7s. Put those two things together and I think you're probably looking at an athletic player with a well-rounded skilset who could potentially do very well if he returned to 15s.
Kleyn pushing from the second row would help inexperienced tightheads like Barrett or Foxe survive in the scrum against grizzled Currie Cup veterans. I was thinking Ulster would need Wilson (who would be the obvious pick otherwise), Leinster would need Clarkson, and Connacht would need Aungier. But perhaps if Tom O'Toole is available to play URC Wilson can go without it affecting Ulster too much.
I would think the Ireland coaches would select a list of their preferred players of interest, then would circulate the list to the head coaches of the provinces and would be given an opportunity to respond before the list of players would be finalised.
For example, if Marty Moore and Tom O’Toole are both fit and available, and I believe there is a high potential tighthead in the academy or entering the academy, then Scott Wilson could be allowed go with the EI squad and miss 3 Ulster games.
Alternatively, if Marty Moore isn’t fit, and the academy options aren’t deemed to be ready to fill in, then Scott Wilson should stay with Ulster.
Once the list of players has been run through like that, and assuming there are gaps leftover, then they probably would have to move down the list to work out how to fill out positions in the squad.
It might be better to jump down to capable players that aren’t needed by the provinces rather than use the high potential players that might be needed by the provinces.
It’ll be interesting to see what players are selected.
Now Cheslin Kolbe trying to ratchet things up with bizarre statements;
“There’s been a lot of talk about Ireland deserving to win the World Cup, we’ll see in July.”
Really? Who has said that we deserved to win the World Cup?
Is it that hard to motivate themselves that they need all this crap? Are ticket sales slow?
https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/well-see-in-july-south-africas-cheslin-kolbe-wants-to-silence-claims-that-ireland-deserved-to-win-the-world-cup/a793618007.html
I am sure Rassie went out and found some nutjob who said it is passing and plastered it everywhere. He is obsessed.
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