Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Sorry, you're right about the boarding now being gone in Methody (it was still there around the time I was in school).

Midleton and Newtown are schools that play rugby - they're not entirely dissimilar in size to Clongowes (though granted both are mixed), but very comparable in size to Roscrea, so the statement "about the level of 3rds or 4ths in schools in Leinster" isn't relevant.

My comment "what advantage is that?" - wasn't denying the existence of any advantages, rather it was asking you to clarify which specific advantages you were claiming was a feature, hence why the next sentence was "The presence or existence of boarding schools?"

But, here we are again debating minutiae of wording rather than the actual substantive point.

The advantages bestowed by private schools is overblown at times - it's not an aspect exclusive to Leinster by any means. If you strip out the NIQs, IQ abroads or guys from Leinster in the wider Munster squad, you still have c. 19 guys who went to private schools within Munster.

The three most successful schools in the Munster Schools Senior Cup (PBC, CBC and Rockwell), who between them have won 80% of all Munster Schools Senior Cups, are all private, fee paying schools. PBC and CBC are substantial all-boys schools with relatively large enrolments in an Irish context. The fees for these schools are also substantial.

Leinster obviously have the larger quantum of private schools, but in recent years the production of players has still been relatively concentrated to a handful of select schools even there.

To answer in good faith, Sinn Fein had the education department for a few consecutive terms and changed the entire financial landscape for grammar schools up North. Either @jacothelad or @awec knows the nuts and bolts of it - I can't remember off-hand.

Although Ulster have been poorly managed and are to blame for a considerable amount of their own misfortune, the simple truth is that the province also works in a far tougher financial landscape - paying 20% of ticket prices to HMRC and not having the Irish government tax break as an incentive for players to stay.

So whatever about the Leinster schools system, the playing field is demonstrably not level. The only time people pretend it is, is when fans want to paint their province's advantages over others as entirely due to their own financial acumen or far-sighted management.

I definitely get those aspects around the VAT on tickets, tax incentives etc - and I do think Ulster are in a different situation financially to the other provinces at the moment, a lot of which has been for reasons outside of their control.

But, notwithstanding those issues, there has been a lot of mismanagement and poor decision making still over the past decade or more in Ulster Rugby.

Good point, I suppose.

But just because they theoretically have the power to do that doesn't necessarily mean acting on it is a good idea.

What if, instead of allocating Leinster schools players to the Provinces, they decided placing top prospects from everywhere at Leinster because it's the best environment was the way to go?

I think the status quo is pretty good. Only about 8 or 9 players make it into the Leinster Academy every year. There are good players left over who the other Provinces can target - Timoney and Cian Prendergast have made it to Test level, Ronan Foxe was the starting tighthead on an Ireland U20 team that made the JRWC Final, and Jack Murphy is looking like a very good acquisition for Ulster, as a few examples.

There's a phenomenom at Connacht where players often graduate from the Academy to the senior squad without having made their debut. More of the first team are available all the time because they're not playing for Ireland, compared to Leinster, so there are fewer gametime opportunities for players down the pecking order. Central control of distributing Leinster's talent wouldn't be some sort of panacea.

I literally didn't say it was the largest factor… yet again misquoting me….

I would posit that both are obviously a factor.

The most significant reason for the deviation in output in the last 15 years or so though is, in my view, much more attributable to excellent management of the off-field decisions by Leinster (mostly overseen by a visionary CEO in Mick Dawson) while simultaneously a period of poor management decisions were undertaken by Munster & Ulster.

But that can be true, and Leinster can have inherent advantages that the other provinces simply cannot replicate. Indeed, a large part of the excellent management you point to was Leinster capitalising on those advantages.

It seems to me that the only real option is to expand the intake into each of the academies, with more central funding if needed.

i.e. get more guys in and reduce the risk that a player with real potential slips through the net. The obvious downside being that more players will fail to make the grade and get ditched after year 1 but omelette, eggs etc.

Munster took in five new academy players this season. Maybe two of them will make it to the seniors, is it enough? I don't think so.

Leinster getting more sponsorship than other provinces is great for signing Rieko Ioane but it's utterly irrelevant for bringing through young talent if the academy remains capped at 6 or 7 per year.

Okay, simple question then, what, in your view is the primary reason for why there has been such a deviation in player production of elite, top-tier international rugby players by Leinster ahead of the other three provinces over the past 15 years or so?

Predominantly population - but also culturally. Rugby is the first sport for some relatively populous chunks of the city, and is the established sport in certain schools, where the quality and standard of facilities and coaching is excellent. Lots of kids grow up wanting to play the game and are in an environment where it's very easy to do so.

Success begets success to a certain extent too, so it's been helpful that the team have been consistently competitive at the highest levels for a long time, as that leads to a steady stream of big games to attend / watch on TV etc, which completes the circle of making the game desirable for kids to start playing.

Resources are definitely a big part of that - when I was 13-17 or so, there was a sheen of quasi professionalism to the level of rugby (in terms of facilities, treatment of players, gear and equipment etc) we were playing (in Blackrock) and aspired to play at a higher level, and that wasn't there to the same extent in soccer or the GAA.

And I'd agree with all of that, and don't think it's replicable - to the same scale - in other provinces.

I suggest we leave it there on a point of consensus, FTD.

The IRFU literally agreed with many of those posters that a change was needed with the Central Contract situation, for example.

Maybe the real wasted breath was in the arguments about "pulling Leinster back"…