Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

It's a change to a model that was working so terribly it saw Ireland reach a position of being ranked #1 in the world, multiple Grand Slam winners, and perennial contenders, who expect to win every time we take the field.

It punishes Leinster for actually producing international quality rugby players to play for Ireland.

And what about the fact that all this money that is now being paid for centrally contracted players is being ring fenced to support any province not called Leinster. Sounds like a tax to me.

Well done for ignoring the point,

It's a tax on competence.

We've had a central contract model since 1998. The reasons and rationale for implementing this was logical - to allow the IRFU to negotiate directly with players of deemed the most importance to the system, and ensure they would be retained within the Irish system. It's effectively the quid pro quo for the extensive player welfare / minute management the IRFU engage in.

Changing the model mid-stream at a time when it results in a disproportionate leap in Leinster's cost base is a tax. It's something Leinster are being asked to stump up, and told it's going towards the greater good. because notably none of the proceeds from it will go to benefit Leinster.

The system we had was working incredibly well. As I stated above, we had probably had our most successful decade, so the rationale for shifting the model and effectively punishing the team who was succeeding in developing players worthy of a central contract looks absolutely absurd to me.

We still have a central contract model. You just don't like the most recent change to it, because it impacts Leinster. Even tho it's being done for the benefit of Ireland in the long-term.

If we get a coherent plan as to how this will improve the player production at the other three provinces and thereby improve Ireland, I will be all for it. How this will be achieved has never been explained.

As of now, all we've heard is that the money will be "will be ringfenced into funding pathway initiatives" which could mean absolutely anything, but to date has meant absolutely nothing.

I haven't suggest we should distribute them equally.

But nor do I think we should distrubute the full value of them irregardless of the potential long-term impact to both the provinces and Ireland.

There is absolutely zero evidence it will lead to the benefit of Ireland in the long-term. Zero to this point.

There is just as strong an argument, if not stronger, that the outcome of this process will be to drag Leinster back to the mean (by causing Leinster to be unable to retain more of its squad players), which will make Leinster less competitive and a poorer environment to push players on, will see more experienced Irish players leaving to play overseas as budgets get squeezed further, and that this money (of which we still have absolutely zero clarity or information around how it will be spent) will be pissed away frivolously.

We've heard David Humphreys will have oversight over this - but he's not exactly a guy who had a stellar track record of administering this kind of programme.

We hear all the time the most important thing is the national team - it is inarguable the system was working incredibly well at that level. In the decade or so prior to this change being announced, Ireland had won 5 Six Nations Championships, including 2 Grand Slams. We were ranked the #1 side in the world for a period of c. 68 weeks.

Munster & Ulster were basket cases for the bulk of the same period, largely down to absolute incompetence and ineptitude from coaches & administrators within those two provinces, not because Leinster were all of a sudden producing a lot more Irish internationals.

Even the turnaround in Ulster's performances & fortune over the past couple of years speaks to this - a widespread clearout of deadwood and journeymen, largely replaced by young, quality players from Ulster who are developing well. This season ended poorly, but there can be huge optimism for the future there now. That change and optimism is purely down to a change in mindset and selection criteria.

The exact same is true in Connacht - a new coach, a focus on improving players, promoting young players and giving them opportunities, and the fans are probably more optimistic out there now than at any time in their history.

Both provinces now look on the cusp of producing multiple internationals and potential central contract players in time, and at that didn't require a change to the underlying model to bring it about.

The system was working well for 1 club.

it was working well for Ireland, which is the point of it.

the supporters of the club that the system suited absolutely perfectly will scream the loudest when the system is adapted

Slightly hypocritical, given it was the screaming of Ulster and Munster fans that brought about these changes. We all advocate for our own provinces, and Leinster fans are no different to anyone else in that regard, so it's no more "tone deaf" of us to complain about this change than for you to blame the CC system for the utter failure of Ulster to produce any players going back years and years.

We hear all the time the most important thing is the national team - it is inarguable the system was working incredibly well at that level

I mean, you more than anyone bemoaned the imbalance in representation in the Ireland team. Yet now you're arguing it was "working incredibly well"?

You can't have it both ways.

It didn't need to be arrived at though.

This is all done through the prism of moaning fans from the other provinces casting envious glances at Leinster; but in reality, Leinster isn't who you've been competing with for most of the last 15 years. Ulster & Munster have underperformed versus teams who have less resources than them from outside of Ireland too over the same period, and both clubs are guilty of spending a lot of money on NIQs over a long period of time with very little to show for it.

Ultimately, this is designed to be a long-term solution to the problem of the imbalance of representation on the Ireland squad

Because the imbalance of representation on the Ireland squad was predominantly driven by incompetence and terrible decision making on the part of Munster & Ulster largely over that same period; not because Leinster produced players worthy of selection.

Munster, even this past season, are still not investing minutes and time in developing young players the way the other three provinces are, and for years and years now have allocated (by a mile) the lowest proportion of minutes to young players. That right there is exactly why Munster aren't producing enough players. It's not anything else other than that - they're doing a bad job at coaching up players, at improving them, and giving them opportunities.

We're already seeing a turnaround in the numbers of players pushing for Irish consideration in Ulster & Connacht because of the appointment of coaches focused on the development of young players - that change doesn't require a change to the central contract model.

You know 100% I mean when I'm saying that that I'm referring to the results achieved by the national team. That part is inarguable - we had our most successful period in our history in the decade or so preceding this change.

The imbalance in representation wasn't down to the central contract model - it was driven by the fact that one province was doing what it was expected to do and the other provinces weren't.

Please explain though how Leinster producing more players worthy of a central contract, and then earning a central contract, actually increases the likelihood of continuing to produce more players worthy of a central contract?

If anything - you'd think it would be harder for young players to break through at Leinster given the concentration of central contracts, as young players coming through in Leinster are competing against these elite players for minutes surely?!

Of course it needed to be arrived it. A 10:1 distrubition of fully paid CC's - which is what we were facing into - was never going to be tenable

You keep saying that - but you haven't demonstrated why that scenario is any more or less likely to be the case going forward because of the changes that have now been proposed.

If Munster continue picking 37-year-olds to play 45% of the minutes in a key position of weakness, then they're still not going to produce international quality props. If players spend 3-4 years in the Munster academy and see 0 minutes of game time in that period - they aren't going to develop into international quality players.

Leinster are just as likely to continue producing the quality of players they've been producing going forward. This change to the CC model doesn't change that - it just punishes Leinster right now by materially changing the model mid-stream, so the balance is felt on the current squad and its competitiveness.

The other point here is, if you plug the Leinster schools pipeline into the other academy's, do we see the same distribution of Leinster over-representation in the Ireland squad? Of course not.

Leinster only take 6-7 players every year out of the Leinster schools pipeline. Lots of them go elsewhere, and all of the provinces are free to attempt to sign any player they like coming out of school (as many do).

Do you think if all of the current CC contract holders had gone into the Ulster or Munster sub-academies instead of Leinster, that all of them would have turned out to be the players they have?

I don't think so over a lot of the period we're talking about here.

The difference is one of mindset - Ulster, for example, took the pain of dispensing with a lot of experienced pros to get younger, and will hope to reap the benefits of that in the years to come. Munster seem absolutely unwilling to make similar sacrifices - i.e. I'd be 90% certain that if Billy Bohan had joined Munster's Academy when he left school rather than Connacht's, he'd have spent the year playing AIL and not have featured for Munster, versus the 600+ minutes he'll pick up this season for Connacht.

Based this on the last 2 games Ireland played v France where we were under the pump and Joe did some very stupid things. Looks like he has learned now though how to play on the line but not over it.