Munster Team Talk Thread - Beirne After Reading

Why was this match not shown to a wider audience? There must have been many Munster supporters unable to access the streaming channel it was on. Did RTE/VM even PS offer any money to cover it?

That’s just Someone in PR doing their job. It’s all about the “brand” nowadays and how to milk every last cent. Rugby is further down the agenda and results show that more than Rowntree coaching…

you writing off Kieran ryan and Ryan foxe, Mark Donnelly, darry mc Sweeney, George hadden already without many of them barely getting on the pitch yet?

I think the problem is the transition to those guys.

I think one only one has a senior contract and the rest are all academy? We've John Ryan, Archer and Kilcoyne all 35-36 who we'll be transitioning away from. Loughman and Jager are solid. Salanoa is perenially injured and Josh Wycherley hasn't quite pushed on as much as we would've hoped.

A signing for 2 seasons or so could be really useful while those guys come thru.

In fairness to RTE, they had live sport broadcasts in Dublin, Derry and Tyrone this weekend so they were likely just maxed out.

As Munster themselves point out, there’s a “significant cost” to showing live games that has to be absorbed by someone, even if we assume that Munster didn’t want to be paid for the rights.

Virgin might have been interested as an appetiser for their AI coverage (I think they showed the last one?), but apparently not.

The only real problem here was the lack of a reliable stream on Access Munster.

I wonder if the game had been midweek would it have made a difference?

Munster have always been a majority schools team, at least in the pro era. 12 of the 15 home grown players named in the 22 at the HC final in 2006, played senior cup. 8 of those 12 went to private schools. The rough and tumble bunch of club rugby lads winning the HC is a myth, half the homegrown players were private school boys and the vast majority went to legacy rugby schools.

That is not true of Cork - more so in Limerick I think. In Cork if you were on your schools Junior or Senior team you never played club rugby at weekends.

Interesting, mind you, how many rugby secondary schools does Cork have by comparison to Limerick? Sounds like it was definitely more of a problem up North

Schools paneling was introduced in a smaller format in 1988.

It has had various formats based on dec-march, spent-march and then full season .

At least its now easier to get a player removed from a schools panel if their parents choose, and they can go back to play with their club.

The Munster schools cup teaches players to win rugby matches, doesn’t focus on developing players to play rugby.

We need to get to a place where all players go back to playing with their clubs after school as the dropout is only getting worse.

How long is Abrahams out for? Liam Coombes and Patrick Campbell are basically permanent hospital patients at this stage, need replacements for them next season. Would also like to see Kleyn shipped off for someone who doesn’t play non-Irish test rugby.

I think someone mentioned it previously but they'll really need to weigh up keeping Salanoa. Front row options for Ireland are worrying when you look at the age profile of the present encumbants.