Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

So you aren’t actually reading my posts then?

I literally say the opposite in my post.

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.

I'm not so sure tbh; you'd also be hard pushed to argue that Leinster were adversely affected because of it in the last decade, for example.

You aren’t so sure about what now? I’m not playing the poor mouth here, I am saying Munster have been given a share of that talent pool.

Are you telling me that being handed the best young 10 in Europe (at the time) wasn’t helpful?

Are you saying that Beirne being directed south when he came home was a bad thing?

Conway wasn’t a good international player?

Even someone like a Keatley, he left Leinster for more opportunity. Connacht nabbed him. You can argue he was a cast off but was he not a good squad player for Munster for years? There is nothing wrong with that.

IMO Munster need to be producing around 3 players on average a year (players capable of being regular senior squad members over a 3 year horizon, not just players getting a few caps). That gives them the bulk of your senior squad of 42-44 after you have natural attrition for retirements / transfers over career spans of 12-15 years. Filling in the gap will come from Leinster players, overseas players and other sources (project players / other provinces). In terms of the Leinster and overseas players they’ve gotten, I don’t think it’s fair to say they have been wanting in that regard. Where they have been wanting is in home produced players for at least half a decade.

Objectively I would say “Leinster” have probably produced 5 players a season directly for the last 15 or so years with another small number who went through academies elsewhere. Munster have probably produced something like 2.25. That’s the issue.

Where the rubber meets the road here is that project players are not going to be a big feature anymore. This puts pressure on all of the provinces, including Leinster. So unless Leinster can increase their output, there will be less that they can hand out themselves to other provinces. This is why the IRFU became stricter, they had to. But when we talk about a lot of these issues we don’t look back 15 years or forward 15 years to reflect on all of the dynamics at play.

Thankfully the project player thing is really 5 years gone at this stage (with Munster getting hit earlier on it with Stander retiring). Leinster though still have two of them as key players who will need to be replaced through their own stocks. So it’s still working its way through the system.

How can you say that it didn’t have adverse effects on Leinster?

Of the 23 that won in 2018, 3 of them were at different provinces by the start of the 2019/20 season.

People bring up the likes of Jack McGrath and him being injured as a wave away point when he went to Ulster. This is nonsense, Leinster were pissed when he signed for Ulster. Ulster were getting a B&I Lion when they signed him. He was still in and around the set up, just that he had been edged by Healy. He subsequently fell away due to the hip but he was very much in business when he signed him.

In terms of Leinster losing out, they have to manage losing these players. They have the talent to do so, so I’m not complaining. Just making the point that it happens.

This “negativity” around the country is being stoked by a few Munster social media accounts that went into a strop when the IRFU got strict. The same ones who didn’t give a monkeys about other provinces until they started getting told no for some sugar rushes.

Because Leinster have remained at the absolute pointy end of every competition they've been in, every season since then. I expect that to remain the case after the 40% comes in.

It's not "negativity" to have have had entirely legitimate concerns about the effects of the distribution of Central Contracts. The IRFU seem to have agreed there were legitimate concerns, with the introduction of these changes. (And I've no interest in dragging in arguments from other social media platforms onto here; I'd rather just discuss what's being discussed on here….)

And broadly speaking, these changes seem to have have been received positively.

Where are the concerns for Ulster not having the tax rebate? The FX volatility for Sterling? Cost of living differences around the country? The fact that Leinster have a smaller squad than Munster yet have less of them available week to week (you know there's cost of that?!).

Bingo.

There have been 12 new outhalfs capped in the last 15 seasons for Ireland.

Leinster had 8 of them come through their system. 1 is O/S. 3 from the other Provinces. So Leinster by themselves produced nearly 3 times as many as the others combined.

And yes you can't just pick one position but (1) outhalf is where your better footballers should end up, that you can't product them points to a problem and (2) it is reflected in other positions, maybe not to the same extent, but whereby Leinster are producing a plurality.

And that issue goes back 15-20 years, not to do with Central Contracts or David Nucifora.

And for as much as we have to acknowledge that population, schools (although as mentioned, they were criticised years ago) and finances, we also have to acknowledge that things like organisational dysfunction (CEOs, Head Coach and other attrition), poor investment (putting in money towards elite NIQs and stadiums ahead of training facilities, for example) and overall system design plays a role.

Yet there are scapegoats constantly brought out here. If I was in 2007 as a Leinster supporter and was giving out about the IRFU then I'd be justifiably laughed at.

Munster players will only get into the ireland team if Munster actually produce players good enough. The problem in the last 10/15/20 years is the endless succession of imports from South Africa mainly and at the time nobody in Munster seemed to see the longer term impact which Is if you aren't producing locally and are using signings to paper the cracks eventually it will create a massive problem.

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.

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

No players on CC means much reduced financial support from IRFU. 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.

The issue with Project players is that there is no certainty around how they will fare. Some were success, others weren’t, but when the go to plan is sign another south African, then that means local production isn’t a priority, and guess what, when that happens, and others are producing [Leinster] we end up where we are now. The system didn’t favour Leinster. Leinster favoured Leinster and because others favoured signing south africans, guess how that fared out …. It doesn’t matter if they are NIQ or Project players IMO. If the go to is to sign another Bok/Kiwi etc then there is no real desire to improve the local pathways.

Again, I never said Munster were as dominant as Leinster are now, but Munster were the dominant province in that time, 10-12 of the national 22s at the time compared to Leinsters 5-6. They were HC SF regulars, went to 4 finals, won in 06 and 08, backboned the Grand Slam teams in 09 after being the biggest suppliers to the national team in the entire decade. But all the while, behind the scenes, nothing was happening to cash in on that success in terms of player development. It was almost like the powers that be felt the conveyor belt was just going to keep producing. And when it didn’t …..

There is Munster representation in Munster, of course there is, but there is also a hell of a lot of non Munster developed players in the squad, off the top of my head about 35-40% of the squad are signings. When the volume of locally developed players is that low, the chances of getting Munster representation in the national team is far diminished. Beirne is an outlier of the current signings realistically.

sexton being called up to the lions and being made a full time assistant with Ireland is truly bizarre.

There is plenty of vastly more experienced coaches available but Farrell has decided to pick a mate.
Truly bizarre stuff.

Irish rugby is going downhill big time and I would not be surprised if the lions struggle, sexton is not coaching material. Too much arrogance and too little experience.

I’ve given you my answer. I don’t see what “Munster social media accounts” has got to do with it.

Are you really trying to argue that, say, Ulster not having the tax rebate is as significant or as controllable an issue for the IRFU as compared to the Central Contracts imbalance?

I don’t understand the hang up with Munster social media accounts.

It is worth €15k for every €100k a player is paid. That is a material number in any player budget.

As is differences in cost of living (believe it or not), particularly when we are talking about median wages of rugby players.

Fluctuations in FX can move the dial materially for the IRFU annually (maybe read their annual reports) and also the value of distributions.

The only reasons these weren't "issues" is because certain people don't have a self interest in promoting them but the IRFU manage them all the time and have to make "changes". They might not feel the need to put out a press release on it because there aren't certain very loud people always giving out.

”Fudge it”? Why would I? I think you’re missing my point here.

Someone can correct me on my dates but around 2014, people were going batsh1t that a young Munster out half was allowed to go to England. I think this was also approximately the time when people were adamant that Dave Foley was the next long-term Irish lock and that Duncan Casey would be throwing to him. I’m sure there were more but it’s ten years ago like.

I’m not having a go at these players but at the time, people were as utterly convinced of their test credentials as they are now about Coombes, Hodnett or Ahern. Time proved them wrong back then, and we won’t know for a couple of years yet what the real legacy of the Nucifora era is either.

The root cause of this is absolutely, unquestionably the failure of Munster and Ulster. But Nucifora, as their ultimate boss, cannot be absolved of any blame because the buck only stops with the most senior person.