Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Murray Kinsella reporting Lowe is off to Suntory Sungoliath on a two year deal, seems like that's that

Massive cock up all around. Lowe is still Leinster's most dangerous back and could have played a big role in the World Cup too.

I still think there's no guarantee that the extra money going to player development pathways at other provinces will actually see an improvement in developing academy prospects. They've been so poor at it for so long.

There's no way either Leinster or the IRFU could come up with anything near that level. As you say......even at 50%.

It's just business.

Wish Lowe nothing but the best.

I don't disagree that you have to hand it to Leo and Leinster, basically being at the top table consistently for the guts of 20 years is an incredible achievement for any club, and Im not sure there is a comparison in world rugby, maybe Toulouse but very few others. But you can also recognise that Leinster schools bestow an incredible advantage to Leinster over the other provinces. True, Leinster have refined an extremely successful alignment between school prospects, the academy, the province, the coaching, training camps, etc., but they have a bounty of players year after year to do it with. You can also look at the job other provinces have done in supporting their own schools and clubs so as to develop players, and it compares unfavourably to Leinster honestly. Still though, they get a lot of players falling into their lap.

On the question of player performances in the biggest games, they're getting to finals which says a lot. But I've always felt like Leinster miss some of those big back row/2nf row stars that had in their pops, Hynes, torn, etc. Not just on the field but also around the team, absolute animals who would die for a win. BOD was like that too, and Leo was as a player. There aren't many in the current crop who are total bastards.

They were soundly beaten this year, but I don't believe they choked. They didn't choke against La Rochelle or Toulouse. They were just beaten.

Ok they’re not chokers. They just always get beaten. So maybe they’re just not very good?

This is my issue with Leinster fans wanting to have it both ways. They want the players to all be “generational” superstars. But then have no questions asked of them when they consistently fall short.

Bordeaux peaked for the champions cup and were mid-table in their league. They couldn't do it on both fronts. If leinster won the champions cup and didn't make the URC knock outs, I think your criticism would be at the same level, but the focus would have changed.

Leinster doesn't tend to have peaks and troughs. They're very good and they've been very good consistently for the guts of 20 years, but a team who is excellent can beat them. Bordeaux were excellent in the final and got on top of leinster.

I would love if leinster had peaked and won those games. But as a larger package of work over years, I love following them winning most games. The finals have been disappointing but I enjoy supporting them in finals all the same.

I doubt you'd actually have more respect for them if they followed Saracens trajectory of winning champions cups and then falling way down the ranks ever since. As with most things in life, you can't have your cake and eat it too. I deal with the disappointments as a leinster fan, why can't you deal with it?

Your point re Sarries is correct but remember that team cheated to gain entry into the Champions Cup.

Not sure where to start with this. The fact that Leinster don't play in the World Cup seems like an obvious one.

The underlying assertion here is that any teams Leinster have beaten are, by definition, rubbish, and any team that Leinster haven't played would obviously hammer us.

You're sh1tting all over Leinster for getting to the CC final via a "handy draw" as though it was drawn out of a hat, but ignoring the fact that Montpelier got the same handy route to the final in the second-tier competition, huffed and puffed to beat Connacht, fell over the line against Dragons before beating a seriously depleted Ulster. But yeah, they'd have hammered us.

so far off being that of a serious European contender. 

Literally got to the final, with another final coming up next week. By this definition, there can only be one "serious" contender every year.

What the point is of posts like this is beyond me. So little insight, just pure rage.

Re. choking. They didn't choke against La Rochelle in croker but there was a feeling of inevitably once they began out muscling us. But there was no one on the team that could change the narrative. But this year's final was a complete physical an d mental choke. Watching it I felt after 15 minutes they were done.

Exactly this. The suggestions often come up that the difference isn’t money… as Michael’s and Blackrock are pointed to as the outliers?

Occam’s Razor…

Genuinely - can you please elaborate how the "socio-economic advantages" and the money being pumped in makes these schools so much better than other schools at producing pro-calibre rugby players?

What do you think the money is being spent on?

And, why isn't it all of the wealthy schools in Dublin then?

I wonder what would happen if you broaden the search a bit. Look at all the sources of players in the four provinces and see where they came from. A lot of the players in the other provinces came from leinster schools.

Then try filtering for quality (i acknowledge its a finger in the air metric). But then you ll capture all the players who came through leinster schools playing in Munster and connachy and a few in Ulster (Munster tends to produce its own players).

Leinster tends to get the pick of the players because that's where they're already based and they're already on the radar.

Roscrea for example has produced the Wycherleys, Izuchukwu, Milne and Cahir. Not a bad return for Irish rugby without being extraordinary.

You need pathways producing good players from all angles. I saw an article on the leinster website yesterday about Páidí Farrell being one of 4/11 new academy players who came from clubs rather than schools. That's great that clubs are producing high quality players and it's great that leinster is signing them. It sounds like a good, well run system