Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Leinster have lost players they'd have rather kept, but for budget restriction

Every team loses players they'd have rather kept, but for budget restrictions.

That's what a budget is.

Many were desperate for him to lose his place the second he put on the Irish jersey for the first time.

They'll be delighted, all because they can't see beyond their own nose.

Sad for Lowe but its a good decision. Spending big bucks for him to barely play next year or at least block some younger players makes no sense.

I'm sorry to see Lowe go. I think he's still an asset to Ireland (and Leinster) even if not still first choice.

(Fwiw I'd have Hansen ahead and we saw the benefits of having the pace of both TOB and Baloucoune on the field together during the 6 Nations, even if not in their native positions. And Stockdale could come back into contention too).

But a comment like this is a bit rich.

For years we've heard about the imbalance in the national team, the other provinces need to start pulling their weight, Ireland first and foremost, and how central contracts are just an accounting mechanism and no advantage to Leinster etc. etc. etc.

But as soon as a mechanism is put in place to help those provinces over the long-term and invest in development - and ultimately to avoid the scenario of Leinster having ~€5m vs the provinces ~€500k of players not on their wage bill - it's no longer Ireland first and foremost, because it's at the expense of Leinster.

Once again- Leinster fans having a view that we don’t want to see our own team ripped apart to placate the moaning of the other provinces (who are at least 90% to blame for their own issues first and foremost) all around some vague and completely ill-defined notion of improving the other provinces long term is obviously something Leinster fans are entitled to feel aggrieved about.

Leinster were the ones who actually did what we were supposed to do - consistently prioritised the development of young players and produced international quality rugby players - and the notion we were the ones being done the favour here is fanciful. The success of the national team has been on the back of Leinster for the past 13 or 14 years.

Leinster had a much more unstructured and off loading game than Ireland did under Joe. For whatever reason he had Ireland play a much more structured and lo risk style.

12 is a position of relative strength at Connacht.

Aki, Forde, Devine and Gavin are all good / promising 12's. Plus a few guys who can step in Ralsyon, Gilbert, Jennings. Another couple in the academy. While Frawley is as good if not better than them its far more likely that as an Niq Ioane will not be renewed next year and we will have only Sean Naughton as a 10.

Other provinces producing one centrally contracted player to Leinster’s 10 suggests the issue is with the other provinces not being able to produce players of the requisite quality.

I understand both sides, lowe is a good player and will be able to get a very good contract elsewhere.

Leinster can't offer him what hes worth and have his priority be entirely focused on peaking for a wc.

Thanks for the great memories James, best of luck.

Spot on. Leinster now serious being hampered to benefit other provinces. While that could be applauded if it works out, we won’t know that for a few years yet.

It was laughable in the last few weeks to be reading on one day that another few front rowers were moving on and then the next day we see news of a medical joker being needed to bolster the props. I hoped the irony wasn’t lost in Leinster HQ. I appreciate that we had several props out injured at the time, and it’s for now not next season. But that surely must emphasise to the IRFU that squad isn’t bottomless either.

That's the crux of the issue really. Leinster are the only province up have done their job.

I'm very dubious to the proposition that more money to the other provinces will actually produce better players.

You keep saying “paid for” which insinuates Leinster are being allowed to go out and sign this incredible squad; when the reality is 85% plus of the squad are developed by Leinster (in addition to sizeable chunks of some other provincial squads too), and these players earned those central contracts on merit.

We’ve changed the system because the other teams were doing such a bad job at producing players, let’s make the team who’ve done it well worse. That makes sense.

This focus on the new Central Contracting arrangement is a complete false flag. Leinster could easily pony up for Lowe if they wanted to.

Reiko and Slimani are both off the books, but Leinster have mismanaged this spectacularly by putting the money into some very questionable places. They're bringing in Carbery, an injury warped 30+ cap international home from France on probably twice the money that Frawley, arguably just as good and versatile a player, is on. Instead of keeping a great AIL diamond (Cahir) who stepped up to the plate and would stay at Leinster on a peanut salary, they've brought in Dooley, an experienced veteran again on a higher pay scale.

And that's before we get onto RG. A high salary SA international with a dubious injury record and questionable impact in blue, will now be getting paid handsomely to watch rugby from the sidelines for most of next year.

Leinster chose to make these decisions at the expense of losing a guy like Lowe. So be it.

What people should be focusing on is this new standard of negotiation from the IRFU. It's been mentioned previously in this thread about the likes of Murray, O'Mahoney, etc being short changed - but it's probably for good reason. People on this forum were livid at the likes of Henderson, Earls, etc being kept on central deals long past their peak years.

Even Furlong more recently is another example of this - a guy who's body is shutting down and we'll probably see only a handful of times between now and the end of RWC 2027 - is one of the highest laid players in the country.

The IRFU are cutting their losses on older players. They're offering to keep them on until after RWC (see Akis extension), but beyond that, they're of no benefit to keep on central deals. And to be honest, they're probably right. What benefit would Ireland get from Lowe bring kept on for another year at 36 years old? Especially with a deteriorating injury profile.

This saga doesn't illustrate a problem with the new CC set up - it illustrates the IRFUs new forward looking negotiation stance.

Curious what insights you have to the figures? As they really don't match up to what I've heard at all