Irish Rugby peaked in 2023 and is now in steady decline. A Very Barron decade ahead

I framed my comment by saying I disagree with the premise that NZ is out of step or out of line wrt imports, immigrants, or foreign born players. The responses show just how silly this topic gets because of a natural human impulse to get defensive when criticised. Irish rugby in the pro era (and I mean the provinces as much as Irl) has depended to some degree on imports and it’s been a very good thing both in terms of development and silverware. Similarly the entire history of NZ rugby is a history of immigrant players bolstering the team, whether actual immigrants in the early days or first generation Islanders later on.

the schools recruitment has big impacts beyond rugby and I’m not against it. In fact while it’s politically toxic it’s an idea to find ballers around the country and give them scholarships to rugby schools as part of a development model in Ireland.

The only issue for NZ, and I’m not sure it’s actually an issue, is the drain on domestic player resources for the islands which may impede their competitiveness.

About as many times as your constantly repeating drivel about Prendergast having an amazing 6 Nations 🤣

Both need time and work. Neither is a clear first choice and nothing wrong with us wusing either for differwnt games.

Just look up the posting history of that poster. I'm not saying it's a common belief I am saying it was constant from that specific poster.

Fair enough. I do get a bit defensive about it because I've been hearing this "poaching" BS for the near 2 decades I've lived here. And it really is just ignorance of the economic reality of the islands and the fact that thousands of them move to NZ and more recently Australia every year.

This has actually helped the PI national teams because their domestic comps are crap and selecting players playing in NZ and Australia has made them stronger.

I think it's a great idea for the big rugby schools to offer scholarships to big, athletic kids playing other sports. They might be good at rugby and even if they don't go pro, they'll get a good education for free. Those schools already give scholarships to rugby players from rural areas don't they?

A draft would destroy the identities of the Provinces.

They would be just franchises from then on.

Would I make as much effort to go to a game with players randomly selected from different pronvinces the answer for me is no.

Our world ranking has been number 1 at a time, and we have several wins over all the top rugby playing nations…nations that have a far deeper history than us, as well as greater time and resources for the game. It's not all about the WC. We lost to the likes a NZ and Australia at QF stage. Huge rugby powerhouses. Yes, we lost to Argentina as well, but Argentina for a time were a very good team.

The 6N. we have more wins in this tournament than all the others. France and England both far bigger rugby playing nations, and Wales' national sport is rugby. We have consistently performed very well against the best teams in the world.

If we get a favourable draw for the next world cup we could maybe get Scotland in the quarter-final, a bit less lucky we could get Australia or Argentina, and if we are really unlucky we could get England.
We would have to drop a lot in the rankings to fall outside the top 4, so hopefully we stay top 4 and get a lucky draw where we would avoid England and win and progress to our first semi-final. After that, anything would be possible.
Up to now we've had either poor performances or come up against better opposition, or just got pipped on the day. All we need is either a bit of luck with the draw or we get a difficult draw but put in a big performance against one of the top 5 teams, which is what nearly happened last time. The main thing we need to focus on is letting the older players retire before it's too late, and get the new guys up to speed.

Ok Dan Carter yeah without digging into the stats I'll agree he was phenomenal. The other two? Really they we're at Carter / Wilkinsons level at that age? I'll have to disagree on those.

Again my question was linked with being that age and pretty much the finished article. I wouldn't say its common at all. Took O'Gara and Sexton until their mid 20's to hit full stride.

Yeah my first thought was why is Paddy Jackson even entering the discussion? tbh. He was decent at best.