Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Funding the academies and altering the talent selection & development programs I suspect. Leinster has proven the academy system is world class if implemented correctly by adequate funding, staffing, and raw talent

What ones did he shirk?

I think you said in another post you'd put up some clips of him refusing to tackle or running up out of the line beyond play or something, any sign of those?

You could make every province more competitive if you gave the same number of central contracts to each province. Obviously there would be other issues like 14 doesn't divide equally by 4 so you would change to 12 or 16 resulting in 3 or 4 per province

There's the obvious issue that you'd be artificially weakening one province. Unless the IRFU decided to go for 44 central contracts (highly unlikely) this would inevitably result in some of the top Leinster players leaving to play for one of the other provinces. Leinster would effectively be down 7 or 8 of their current crop, or have to fund them like they do Snyman and Barrett.

The upshot is you would likely have a stronger national team and more equality among the provinces.

I never said it was a good strategy only that it would make every province more competitive.

And on reflection I should actually correct that to say it would make 3 of the other provinces more competitive

A stronger national team would be the result of a better mix of talent at the provinces which would help to improve the talent already on offer. A case of surrounding yourself by better players to become better yourself. The added talent at the other 3 provinces would eventually reap the rewards

I'd imagine there are plenty of Leinster players that would rather play for a French or English club than to play for another province and plenty of supporters that would have their stomachs turn at the thought of e.g. Keenan donning their provinces jersey so yes it would be a big risk on multiple fronts if the IRFU were to implement such an idea

But in response to the question "Is there a silver bullet to make the other provinces more competitive?" that's one way they could go about it

Sorry - was responding to @Red Silurian's first post.

How much would it cost to fund players attending one of the rugby boarding schools, 30 or 40K for 4 years? Newbridge, Clongowes, Blackrock, Rockwell, Kilkenny and one or two others. Most of these schools already produce players that feed into academies, it seems an obvious one to identify young talent from around the country and fund their education. <ost of these schools don't recruit afaik, or of they do it is with already notable players at 15-16 years old.

This needs to be about finding more and better players from the three provinces. Pumping more money into the same systems and diverting more Leinster players to these provinces aren’t solutions.

Hopefully there is a genuine plan to develop new pathways.

On an unrelated note, it’s interesting that a province will be picking up 40% of the cost of a contract with no input into the terms of that contract.

As I understand it, the new money and the pathways themselves will be administered by the IRFU themselves, to schools and clubs. The professional provincial bodies will not see the money.

So we'll see how simple it is to improve the situation without the mismanagement of the various provincial CEOs and boards and so on.

Well that sounds reasonable. Having three separate schemes means lots of duplication, lots of waste and lots of conflict of interests. Whatever this plan is, it’s better being centrally administered.

Yes the leaner format is good for all and ensures more game time for the guys on periphery or academy

What benefit would the IRFU kneecapping Leinster have?