Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

But when he did, he got abused. Pienaar?

I think Munster were refused signings because they simply weren't trusted IMO. Funnily enough there is some signs of progress in the last 5 years as a result. But it won't be for 10 more years before we know truly.

The irony is there was as much moaning about "dragging Leinster back / paying a tax" etc.

Presumably your in favour of the change?

The IRFU have tweaked the model and funding regularly over the last 20 years for many different things.

Player development is not down to the fact that Leinster had more central contracts. Central contracts is the result of something seeded long before then.

There is this weird narrative around the place on provinces and development. On the one hand Leinster are dastardly for improving themselves, but on the other the IRFU are responsible for Munster. Munster were built off a local identity, same with Ulster, yet that appears to stop when it doesn't suit. Interestingly when you take Leinster, there is also this weird narrative on schools as if they just dropped from the sky 15 years ago. But actually if you go back to the 2000s for a long while the newspaper narrative that schools rugby ("Cup rugby") was a hindrance. Now that has suddenly been flipped on its head - now it's Leinster's identity and is a positive.

Let's look at Munster and Ulster objectively.

For Munster, the "gap" in player production is the generation between Crowley / Ahern / Casey / Hodnett / Coombes to Zebo / O'Mahoney / Earls / Murray. It's the missing link, those in their late 20s to early 30s now - essentially those who left school from about 2010 to 2015. The quality dropped significantly. Incidentally this is literally the period when Munster should have been harvesting off the back of their success. But the signs were there for anyone who followed age grade rugby in the 2000s. Munster were dropping off quickly in terms of those making age grade.

Go back to the first game in the Aviva and the issues were obvious;

https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/rugby/arid-20126792.html

Now for Ulster, their issue was different. They HAD that generation of players who would now be in their late 20s to early 30s. But their issue really came down to the organisation imploding over the court case.

Both Munster and Ulster have had their organisational dysfunction AND some unluckiness along the way. BUT…

Nucifora actually did work to improve things. You want the IRFU to step in - they did. Nucifora pushed players to move around the provinces. And whilst there are convenient narratives now attached to certain players but Leinster lost a lot of excellent talent like Jordi Murphy, Jack McGrath, Andrew Conway, Joey Carbury…in additional to a lot more younger players and squad players who were given the move. Additionally - returnees like Beirne and Moore were pushed to other provinces (in the previous generation, Leinster benefited from Mike Ross and Ian Reddan doing the same). Both Ulster and Munster were augmented by Leinster talent and in the same period, were able to sign a better quality of NIQ than Leinster could.

Nucifora joined in 2014 so realistically you are looking at 2017/2018 before any tangible improvements should be seen in players coming into adulthood. I would say Munster were turning the corner by then and we see that now with the batch of players in their mid 20s in the squad. I would say Ulster is more of a failure for Nucifora, but again I would point to the court case. Nucifora did plenty to try and keep them competitive by moving players. You go over the last 10 years and in terms of additional resources being thrown at the other provinces, I don't think it is reasonable to say Munster or Ulster were deprived.

I think it's true that no one thought that having the CCs so heavily weighted to one province was ideal.

And if that's as mildly as the arguments were put forward, I'd have had no issue with it.

I don't think a change in funding model was necessarily required, but however they went about it clearly a change in development pathways in the other three provinces was very much needed.

But if a change in the development pathways was very much needed - and it's reasonable to assume that would require financing to close the gap - how do you finance it without a change in the funding model? It's a zero sum game.

It's a very welcome change, imo.

Look, it's entirely possible I'm spiky about this, but that's entirely in reaction to some of the blowback that appeared on here (and, well you've seen the continued misrepresentation for yourself). At a minimum, I can say my thoughts on this have remained consistent since this time last year, and I'm wholly glad the IRFU's thinking that a change was absolutely required, was similar.

Ah nice to see you comb through a post to find anything so you can dismiss it!

But the point was in the last decade of talent that helped a team. Don’t get me wrong- during that period Leinster also had the last few serviceable years of Cronin and also got Henshaw.

But you simply can’t deny that the other provinces have been given a huge redistribution of talent from Leinster.

Munster have had the guts of 30 “Leinster” players at various stages of their careers over the last decade being involved there.

The convenient narrative from elsewhere is that these are all cast offs or whatever, it’s nonsense.

Munster have also just taken delivery of two Leinster players who will be fine squad players for Munster just as they were for Leinster (injury and coaching permitting).

If you take Lee Barron, Leinster have been more or less providing the two Hookers to the Irish 23 for the last 3 years. This has given Barron exposure as Leinster have never been able to have a bigger squad than others despite having so many internationals. Indeed outside of Barron, an Academy hooker literally got capped for Ireland this year after the exposure he got from Leinster. There’s a cost to all of this.

And I have no issue with players moving either. Leinster have benefited from it in the past but now really given the population and them maximising their production, it makes sense to turn some of those players over. But when you are consistently getting 5 to 6 senior squad players from Leinster, how can you seriously be moaning?

Nucifora and Leinster private schools are a convenient scapegoat for the fact that Munster took their eye off the ball for years.

I think everyone will agree that it's not good for anyone to continue down the path of one province supplying such a heavy proportion of the national team and the CC system as it was previously set up would just deepen this hole. Leinster have benefited financially but equally ended up with an entire first team unavailable for most of the regular season. They had the resources to develop a much stronger 2nd and 3rd option in each position using the financial resources that the CC attracted. Regardless of the inability of other provinces to develop international standard players, the financial position would ultimately cause this problem to continue to deteriorate and is already leaking into support for the national team and potential interest by age grade players in taking rugby seriously in other provinces.

Hopefully the new system goes someway to helping to revitalise the pathways outside of Leinster in the longer term and feeds into growing a deeper playing pool and more successful Irish national team. It still leaves a question over whether the schools system and the financial support from parents in Leinster schools will outweigh any financial support that the IRFU can divert into the other three provinces as that's ultimately where the issue starts.

I'd agree with most of that in the main.

My point is, I think it'd be harsh to call those players "cast-offs" but I equally don't think their leaving had any adverse affects on Leinster.

Much like I don't expect the 40% when it's introduced to have any materially adverse affects on Leinster.

(Fwiw, I think it's a stretch to suggest Joey was the best young 10 in Europe at the time).

Funny way of stating what now? You aren’t reading my posts, you are either picking at a crumb of them or simply making things up.

The fact that Leinster have the lions share of central contracts now is not the reason why Munster failed to produce enough players from c. 2010 until about the last 5 or 6 years. David Nucifora is also not the reason why Munster failed to produce enough players, in fact his timing coincides with a pick up in played production again in Munster. And it’s his timing that began to see more Leinster talent going elsewhere.

The concern should be around the lack of top level players coming through in 3 out of 4 provinces.

I can tell you first hand, that is the main concern of all my Munster supporting family and friends. Munster fans, more than anyone, want to see Munster players in the Ireland team.

Money* into development pathways was always an obvious part of a solution. But where does that money come from? Again, the most obvious place to point to was where the most significant imbalance in the system lay. Central Contracts.

I mean, the 40% from the CC's is literally going straight to those player development pathways in Connacht, Ulster and Munster; it's impossible to separate one from the other.

It's exactly the point I made to FFF this time last year:

Me: Where do you think the change is needed?

FFF: Player development pathways, academy structures, schools/youth coaching & facilities. Pump as much money as we can into that and give oversight to the IRFU.

There is absolutely no solution here apart from helping the other three provinces produce more indigenous players. Everything else is a sticking plaster, and giving more money to other provinces to sign more NIQs or pay their existing guys more is actually counter-productive.

Me: I'd entirely agree with that as part of a solution. Now where does that money come from? It's a zero sum game.

*bearing in mind that some on here argued money wasn't the answer.

I think, broadly speaking, they weren't as significant a concern to Irish Rugby (or as controllable) as the distribution of Central Contracts.

@niallm77

Where was the concern in Munster back then? Plater x from South Africa buying into he Munster culture doesn't generate players for the national team.

You're clearly overlooking project players here which were part of the picture. (e.g. Stander, Marshall, Cloete, Bleyendaal, Knox,…. Kleyn? Lets not open that can of worms again). The point being there was a clear distinction between IQ and NIQ players.

If you want to see Munster representation on the national team, then there needs to be actual Munster representation in Munster.

There clearly is Munster representation in Munster. Are you trying to suggest there isn't??

Now, the over riding agenda, for want of a better word, is it's the IRFU favouring Leinster which Brought this about completely ignoring the piss poor management of Munster in the noughties when they were the dominant province in terms of CC and had 10-12 players in ireland match day 22s and were winning HCs and getting to SFs consistently.

I've never said the IRFU favoured Leinster. I've said the system, tho unintended, favoured Leinster.

I've also consistently acknowledged that Munster should've done better when they were the dominant province.

And also Munster were never as dominant as Leinster are now, where Leinster have 16,17 of the 23 in match day squads.

Something needed to change when the the distribution was heading to 10:3. Doubly so when the 3 players on CC's were of the age profile of (I think) Aki, Henderson and Beirne.

It's not an "agenda" to suggest as much.