Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

back to Leinster and their coconsistent failure in the late stages in Europe every season:.

Leinster failing , and Leinster's clear coaching failures are not good for Irish Rugby. None of the other Irish Provinces' failings at competitions, or, in bringing thru talent, &/or, in consistently good coaching, selection & preparation are good for Ireland either btw e.g. Munster's floundering & decline for 15 years has been at a loss for Munster, but also Ireland e.g. where are young players of the calibre of Murray & O'Mahony for instance? Ahern looked like one of those guys, but has the environment at Munster really encouraged his further development?! No. Imho. It has failed him.

He suffered from injuries but he has done so as a young player with a coach from Leicester who over trained players in physical contact & had a woeful injury profile amongst all his players over the term he was at Munster. That was a provincial & national issue also, as is the Cork- Limerick divide tbh, but i digress.....

Back to Leinster, Cullen & Nienabar must go. Cullen cos he just can't win, & when he should have won last season, his selection vs Northampton was simply deluded. I.e. picking a crocked Cian Healy to start rather than bench (???), and, not picking Barrett to start when they had ponied up all that cash for a proven NZ gallactico & instead opted not to start him in their biggest knock out match of the year 😳 🙄😅.

Nienabar at Leinster has been a failed venture sadly. He was brought in to try to add a cynical, hard SA edge to Leinster's play, he's done that tbf, e.g. much of Leinster's defensive rucking now is very much living on the edge, which gives their defence valuable time, but his coaching has also apparently neglected the ball skills, handling & running skills that made previous Leinster teams great. The lack of development of Leinster's midfield, the failure to source & develop an accomplished 10 who can handle the white heat of Euro semis & finals have all cost Leinster dearly imho. Even the departure of Frawley, looks very much the case of losing the better midfield player (10, 12 & 13) imho. Frawley is better than any of the 3 starters for Leinster in midfield imho & streets ahead of SP also.

Leinster with a fresh new coaching set up will be back contending & winning 🙌 handily enough, imho. These other coaches must go.

P.s. if only Munster's woes were so easy to solve.... sadly not.....

It's good to see the Leinster forum has got over their Champions Cup loss so quickly and everyone has got back to the most important topic of how Leinster and Munster manage their resources. The truth is Leinster have some structural advantages which they have cultivated well over the last number of years. Munster production line has been poorly managed historically but signs are it has improved recently. My view on the Leinster loss and a lesser extent the Ulster loss is they looked a lot like Ireland's loss to France. This team and the Ireland / Leinster team are slightly past their peak, add in a few injuries and that is enough to ship a hiding against a better team, especially away from home.

I would absolutely not argue that the CCs were of no advantage of Leinster, all of the CCs are a huge advantage to which province gets them. That's obvious.

But, that was our model regardless of which players held the CCs. We don't change the full model just because the way things have evolved at a particular point in time is more beneficial to one province.

I firmly believe the reason they have evolved in the direction they have though has way more to do with incompetence and decisions being made within the other provinces, than just accepting the constant poor mouth comments about population and private schools.

I'm not saying for a second it isn't obviously a factor, but it isn't what has led to the current disparity.

I'll be frank - Leinster don't care about the perceptions of the fans of other provinces about this either.

This is the reality: there was a model whereby if you produced players of a sufficient quality, and those players earned central contracts, you got the benefit of their contract shifting to the IRFU cost base and away from the provincial one, and this served to mitigate the loss of access to those players, the risk of injury on international duty and the additional miles on those players every season.

All of the provinces understood that was the model, Leinster just did a significantly better job than the others at actually producing players for the national team.

Now, that model is being changed, the net effect of which is a material additional cost onto Leinster. Frame that however you want, but whatever way you want to, Leinster are effectively suffering for doing too good a job at something that all the provinces understood was the mission.

You keep saying "there was a model / all the provinces understood the model" as if it could / should never be changed.

It's not some sacred creed or doctrine that cannot be challenged, here.

It's, ultimately, a policy that was subject to change.

Yes, if you're talking in terms of trophies. I was more talking generally about there were a good few years where France and England didn't have their house in order internationally. They weren't vintage French or English sides, or NZ or Australia, in that time.

But that's not our fault, just wondering (purely hypothetically) if we had those players again at their peak today would we do as well against a better England or France.

As for the system... if the production line is as good as being claimed then we (Ireland) and they (Leinster) shouldn't have a worry I guess.

Time will tell, everything is cyclical. You could fast forward five years and Munster could have an animal pack of the currently young players at their peak allowing us to compete and Leinster's backs could be still trying to readjust from the loss of JGP, Lowe, Henshaw, Ringrose, Keenan.

There had been virtually no material change to the model since its inception, and the changes in 2024 by any definition constitutes a major reform of that model.

The point you seem unwilling to accept is that the primary culprits for why the other provinces don't have as many central contracts as Leinster do right now is those provinces themselves (and decisions they've taken), rather than Leinster, the IRFU or private schools etc.

We halfed the number of central contracts from when it was first introduced. I'd suggest that's pretty material, and certainly doesn't seem like a policy thou shalt not change.

Also, far from unwilling to accept Munster are the primary culprits of their own downfall. Indeed, it's a point I've conceded to you countless times on here at this point.

My point about the change to the CC model was never about the cause and always about ramifications, unless a change was made.

But the point you seem unwilling to accept is that things have improved a lot particularly with regards development at Munster over the last 7-8 years. If you're positing a CC distribution of the following:

• Leinster - 4 (Sheehan, Doris, McCarthy, Clarkson)
• Munster - 2/3* - (Crowley, Edogbo, Casey)
• Ulster - 3/4* - (Ward, McNabney, Postlethwaite, Doak)
• Connacht - 2 (Bohan, Hurley Langton)

Yet also suggesting "I suspect if you looked over the past decade the trend would be the same." i.e.  the poorest track record (by far) of actually giving opportunities to young players …

… that doesn't seem to stack up to me. Nor do the stats seem to bear that out.

For example, no comment on the stats I posted from 2023?

Leinster can't win anything, even with 10 central contracts. What difference does it make if they lose some of them anyway.

Yes, let's have leinster have a stacked squad of 35 players so they can just go and lose the only 2 or 3 games that mean anything every year regardless.

If their URC win last year means nothing then what's the point of having a league at all?

The URC is a Farmer's League, which would be even worse if the SA teams weren't involved.

So, for example, would guys like Stephen Archer or Johnny Sexton etc have been included in those numbers?

2016

ah jeez, 1 URC win in 5 years is a paltry return for a province with the resources of Leinster, and with the previous CC model for a side that is so subsidised by the IRFU e.g. Munster have achieved just a many titles in the same juncture with far lower resources & much less subvention for their players through the CC system. In truth Leinster have been laggards & have badly underperformed relative to their resources in terms of URC titles (which they should win every other year imho) & European Cups (which they should win at least 1 year in every 3 imho).

1 URC in 5 years. Cullen's (& Nienabar's ) Leinster have underperformed badly imho.