Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

And, it's coming off the back of the first year of the new Nations Series (so we'll have 4 games in November), and into a RWC year, where it's reasonable to assume we'll see substantial resting of players again.

Even getting Joey in - it's likely very late this year into early next season before he's able to play as he's coming off an ACL injury.

It's impossible not to assume this is very much linked to the financial pressure from the Central Contracting change IMO.

How have they missed the likes of Cooney or Tector when they're still on the squad?

Cooney missed a good chunk of this season with injury. He had played in a good number of games before then, and came off the bench again last weekend.

He's 22 years old, and thus far in his career he's played for Leinster 12 times, 8 starts for 682 mins. He played in the centres for the Irish U20s in 22/23 with John Devine, and Hugh Cooney has over 2.3x the number of mins as him at this point in their careers.

We keep hearing this argument all too often about Leinster's young players not getting minutes but very rarely does it stand up to much scrutiny.

On the other hand we've had no NIQ second row signings in the last few years and we're had to give gametime to the likes of mccarthy, deeny, baird, mangan, and COT. That's been great for development AND figuring out how good the players actually are

Eh, we have? We've had RG Snyman for the past 2 seasons, and still managed to give good mins too all those players.

Equally - we've had Rabah at THP and still managed to develop Tom Clarkson and give decent mins to 20-year-old THPs like Sparrow and Smyth.

Assuming Dooley and Carbery are a done deal it would leave our squad size at 45. Not huge but not tiny.

Leinster have boasted in the past about playing 55 or so players over the course of a season which is no mean feat.

Next season that's still achievable with a squad size of 45.

I see decent game time opportunities for all of Sparrow*, Bishti, Smykovski, Ericson*, Coffey*, Brophy, Gabriel*, Fahy, Mangan*, Deegan, Moloney* and McLaughlin*

Will Dooley be a direct replacement for Cahir as 4th/5th choice Loosehead? Or is he coming in to facilitate Porter switching over to TH, taking some pressure off Usanov as 3rd choice LH?

The prop depth chart could look like this next season…

LH: 1.McCarthy 2.Boyle 3.Dooley

TH: 1.Porter 2.Furlong 3.Clarkson

Or

LH: 1.Porter 2.McCarthy 3.Boyle

TH: 1.Furlong 2.Clarkson 3.Smyth

Scenario 2 would mean a LOT of minutes for Niall Smyth next season, with Furlong likely to play very few games.

In that case, a replacement for Slimani is required. Furlong, with his age, miles on the clock and injury record, is probably going to become an “Ireland only” type player like Sexton or Sean O’Brien next season, only playing a handful of the very biggest games. Meaning Leinster will be relying heavily on 21 year old Niall Smyth for the bulk of the season, who also has struggled with injury.

Moving Porter back to TH makes some sense from a Leinster POV. He was a better scrummager there than he is at LH. They have 3 really good young LHs in MCarthy, Boyle and Usanov, plus an experienced squad player coming in, in Dooley. And as I mentioned, the depth at TH isn’t has strong, with one senior player leaving and another likely to play fewer and fewer games. Yes, there’s 2 promising young THs on the books in Smyth and Sparrow, but they’re a lot earlier in their development than McCarthy and Boyle and probably aren’t ready to be relied upon heavily. If Furlong get’s an injury, would Leinster be happy with Smyth or Sparrow benching in a massive European game? So for me, either Porter moves to TH or a Slimani replacement is signed.

I'd love a Slimani replacement, but doesn't seem to be forthcoming at this point. I think Clarkson will have pushed on to become clear first choice before too long (if not already - he would be for me right now), and I think the thinking is we'll sink a hell of a lot of minutes next season into Andrew Sparrow and Niall Smyth at THP. The hope is at least one of them (and maybe both) show themselves capable of getting to the next level.

I feel like we're possibly heading for a bit of a transition season for Leinster next year - where we'll have a similar dynamic at 9. JGP turns 35 on his next birthday, and we're losing Luke, so we're probably looking at Fintan Gunne and Cormac Foley playing big minutes next season too.

If Furlong get’s an injury, would Leinster be happy with Smyth or Sparrow benching in a massive European game?

This has already happened arguably - we had Sparrow on the bench for the La Rochelle game back in Jan.

I cannot see any scenario where the Irish management team would allow us to convert Andrew Porter back to THP in a RWC season, it's not going to happen.

Yeah, I'm the same, at a different stage in the cycle I can see it, but right now it won't happen, and even if they'd been considering it, Jack Boyle's injury would likely have given them pause.

Also worth flagging - we haven't used Rabah as much at all this year. He's sitting on just over 400 mins now (at this point last season he was on 852 mins). He was injured for a bit of it, but moreso Clarkson has emerged as the best of our THPs.

It likely wouldn't be pretty if we went into next season with an expectation that between them Smyth/Sparrow play c. 600 mins next season, but the long term rewards might make it worthwhile.

The need is probably greater at TH medium term but those concerns have been alleviated by the strides Clarkson has made.

I think Smyth and Sparrow are both capable pros who will only get better with game time. We put a huge amount of minutes into TC before he started coming good. I think these lads will be similar.

He's been hard done by for years to some extent - he and Jack Conan have been nailed on members of the Irish 23 for the best part of 5 years and never got a central contract.

I'm not touting for him to get one now, but the pressure on renewing him (and likely others too this season) has to be correlated to the change in the central contracting model.

Can’t see why James Lowe couldn’t be a vital player on the wing and potentially later on in the centre à la Isa Nacewa who was still going strong at 35 in that role.

They've shown no interest in playing him at centre at any point up to now. I really doubt they'll do it at this stage.

I don't think it would be the end of the world if he moves on. It will make way for younger players.

Difference is Nacewa played every position in the backline, apart from scrum half, right from the start of his career. He was always a utility back.

Sure Lowe has all the right physical attributes and skills to be a 12 but its probably too late for him to move. A couple of years ago it might have been an option.