Labelling a guy by reference to the only non-rugby role he has held in the last twenty years is a frankly hilarious level of bitterness.
Indeed
Its not that long ago the irfu considered disbanding the provence for financial reasons.
Cant wait to SHL get a crack in the Irish jersey if ge keeps going the way he is
fair point, but lets be honest.
Bolton, SHL and Jansen are not 'products' of Connacht… they are all foreign recruits.
This whole conversation is about provinces producing test level players. None of these 3 have come through any player pathway from the province. Finlay is a "product" as he actually did attend the connacht academy.
Connachts production line is doing extremely well pro rata compared with Ulster and Munster and the general playing numbers in the province. Darragh Murray, Hugh Gavin and Cian Prendergast are all in or around the national squad.
but at the end of the day the truth is that Leinster simply produces more test level players than all teh other provinces combined.
Take the number of new caps for ireland since the 2019 RWC, which would cover the majority of the current pro playing population. Taking out the imported players (including Jager)…..
Leinster produced 26 of the 47 players
Ulster produced 7
Munster produced 9
Connacht produced 5
Barrett and Ioane are not "vanity projects". Was the other NIQ signing that Leinster had before them also as "vanity signing"?
Barrett for instance admitted he came to Leinster for less than he could have earned overseas. Leinster also created the model that he came over so they didn't have to pay for preseason etc. Which other provinces have now copied. Barrett also helped the club to a number of home games in Europe and in URC knock out which saw big crowds in the door.
Ioane the same, the biggest issue Leinster have is that one season full time in the Aviva was great, now they need to get back to the RDS. It was interesting to see 15k supporters at the game at weekend, Glasgow got 18k yet Rugbypod made a comment about nobody been in the Aviva. If you put 15k into the RDS the place would looked packed. Similar with other games when they raved about attendance in other stadium in Europe, Leinster had similar attendance it just looked sparse because it was in Aviva
Also they got signed when the IRFU and Humphreys came out and said his plan as not to take Leinster down but bring the other provinces up. Then done the exact opposite and have cut their budget to pieces. If that was his plan all along he should have been upfront.
From what everyone has reported the issue with lowe is that the IRFU would not put money towards his contract and expected Leinster to provide his full wages when in reality he will play very little for them next season. So I expect this was a standoff because if Leinster had to pay the full wages they would need to dump another player to cover it. So they end up with another player down and a highly paid player is isn't available for most of the season. Why is that?
Anyone know If the Ireland squad going to be announced next week Or after URC final?
v Australia 4th July, v Japan 11th July, v NZ 18th July.
Aus squad will be end of next week. Slipper coming back!
https://www.nine.com.au/sport/rugby/wallabies-news-2026-james-slipper-retirement-backflip-act-brumbies-contract-20260610-p605n2.html
NZ announce on 22nd June.
Next Wednesday 17th I heard mentioned yesterday.
Why is it necessary?
You've made the point countless times that you feel the situation that had emerged was untenable, but what is being done here doesn't do anything to change that anytime soon, and will definitively not change anything unless there is a material change in attitudes at the other provinces around developing young players.
We've seen that shift at Connacht and Ulster this past season at Connacht and past two seasons with Ulster - the change that was needed there was a coaching shift, it has exactly nothing to do with adding a massive chunk of cost onto Leinster's cost base.
FWIW - I am still opposed to the shift; the CCs were always a good counter-balance to make up for the fact that you had significantly reduced access and injury wear & tear on the players involved.
No, you're right and tbf I have called out on numerous occasions I don't lump Connacht into the mix here in terms of this; Connacht more than pulls its weight for a long term in terms of player development. I've been including them as they're one of the three beneficiaries of this "funding", but I'm not critical of Connacht for their actions around this.
If Farrell was so desperate to keep Lowe, I’m sure he’d have made that clear to the blazers and they could have found €100k somewhere to subsidise Lowe’s contract. They can find it to buy houses in Ballsbridge.
I get the sense Farrell was happy to move on. He’s 34 and we have younger wingers who’ve proven recently they can do just as good a job if not better
The irony of this from Ulster of all provinces is pretty rich - it's hard to imagine any province spending so much cash on high profile NIQs and general journeymen over the past 15 years or so; a huge amount of which was embarked upon by Humphreys.
All of:
say hello!
I still don't understand what was preventing improvement in the other Provinces under the legacy system, that required this change in order to improve player development.
how the f is this Farrells fault?
Farrell specifically came out after the 6 nations and said that Lowe was firmly in his plans for the RWC
all the above only exists in your head, alongside all the rest of your continui amnis miseriae.
oh, and on your point of the "blazers" finding the money… they would have received 100K + a % of profit for every player provided to the Lions, so in effect Lowe would have paid that 100k himself.
but hey, you do you boo.
We seem to have a bit of a misunderstanding about what central contracts are. They are given to the top players in Ireland to make sure they stay in Ireland but also because they rarely play for the province
Leinster having more than others doesn't affect the development of players in that province. That is totally seperate budget.
So even if all of the four provinces had the same number of central contracts over the last 15 years, would it have meant that Munster would have produced more players for Ireland? I think we all know the answer is no
Would Munster have spent the money on NIQ. I think we know the answer is yes. Proof was when they got external money and went out and splashed it all on two NIQ's. Great investment in the future of Irish rugby that was
How does Munster spending money on NIQ help the IRFU or Ireland?
In terms of a strategy, well what is the strategy from the IRFU? the current one is working, Ireland have never been so competitive, they have won multiple 6 nations and the U20 level has been excellent bar one bad year which was down to Humphreys. Gone is the days of Ireland been the whipping boys and hoping not to end up with wooden spoon or the U20 getting overpowered by the English and French. That was not that long ago/
So this strategy you talk about, what is it? what is it based on? what are the projections from the IRFU in terms of quantity of players been produced in other provinces?
Ahh Charles Piutau, now that is what you call a "vanity projects"
What an unbelievable waste of funds
I think Milasinovich was IQ.
On a different note, I wonder if Leinster will have to make more Lowe-style decisions next time centrally contracted players who don't play much for them come up for renewal - Furlong in 2027 is the obvious one.
Evidently the IRFU didn't want Lowe enough for it to bother them, but at some stage in the near future it's possible there'll be a player the Union want to hold on to but Leinster don't see value in paying 200k odd (40% of 500k) for if they don't get to select them enough.
They are given to the top players in Ireland to make sure they stay in Ireland but also because they rarely play for the province
That’s nonsense. Their game time is managed but so are PONI. Saying they hardly ever play for their province is just wrong.
The thing is as well that is absurd that James Lowe wasn’t on a central contract in any event. In the 6 years since he made his Irish debut, only three players total played more minutes or started more 6 Nations games for Ireland: Tadhg Beirne, Caelan Doris and Josh van der Flier.
It’s clear as day it’s a clear outlier the fact he didn’t get a CC; and the reality is he didn’t get one specifically because he was a Leinster player and they were managing the sensitivities of the other provinces around this. A neat comparable is Mack Hansen, a guy who has made 12 Six Nations starts (from a possible 25) over the past few years, but was added to a CC.
If Lowe had been playing for Ulster, Munster or Connacht he’d had gotten a central deal 3 years ago.
That's shocking if true. Not only is it a poor way to treat an employee, it will significantly degrade the appeal of option deals to any players who are offered one in future.
It was also interesting that it was pointed out when he was playing for Leinster and not even qualified for Ireland, he was still been taken into the Irish squad session in preparation for when he would be available
Except the English and French have moved to the same model to fund players at clubs so they play less minutes. Like the central contracts
It still doesn't change that if you put 5 central contracts into Munster, it would not have produced anymore Irish international players over the last 15 years.
Central contract have nothing to do with the development budgets given to the provinces.
Mind your back there, moving goalposts can be risky
I didn't move any goal posts
You quoted one line of my post which included that point
Next time read the entire post, not one line and get all huffy
Huffy? I quoted something posted by you that is simply untrue. You failed to back that up and you think I'm huffy?
As I said, read the post, not one line of a long post
Leave you at it
They may have viewed the age profile of Hansen over Lowe if its a direct shoot out between them.
I'm not disagreeing entirely with your point but is it possible the irfu felt the lesser flight risk of the 2 was Lowe what with Leinster being at the business end each year in both comps.
Lowe was clearly settled her with family etc.
Hansen would be deemed as a higher flight risk if Aus came calling.
I think Farrell maybe getting off lightly on this one tbh.
If both club & country wanted him them surely some middle ground could have been found to keep him for the RWC at least.
Hansen doesn't play on the same wing as Lowe so not sure why they would compare the two of them. Not sure why people would point at Farrell, he isn't responsible for contracts with players
That's Humphreys and James Tracey has confirmed they offered Lowe a contract and then pulled it away from him, Farrell had already confirmed to the media he wanted him to stay
Comparable in terms of being offered a CC is what I ment in ref to Ftd saying Lowe wasnt offered one in order to keep the other 3 provinces quiet
I read the post hence I saw that you posted something that is untrue.
Farrell had POM as his captain and the IRFU didn't want him on a CC. We know as players get older that their value to the IRFU demishes and the contracts usually reflect that.
Recently in a URC game 13 of the 18 were Connacht academy players. Lots of them have huge potential.
You can talk about history but right now we are producing and with Lancaster at the helm it's going to get even better. He's giving.tnese you players games at a young age. I mentioned a few but there's a bunch of you players in Connacht with serious talent. How many of them make the Ireland setup remains to be seen but I'd expect at least 5 academy players to be there soon. That's Bohan, Murray, Prendergast, Gavin and West. We have to wait and see what happens with Sean Naughton, Barrett, McCarthy and Powers. There's a lad not even in the academy yet called Leo Anic who might well be a superstar.
Because Leinster having €5m vs €500k each for the other provinces, paid outside of provincial budgets, was too significant an imbalance / advantage. And would have enabled Leinster to pay 3rd tier guys big money way down their depth chart who weren’t in the Ireland picture. Which is money that may have been able to have been better spent elsewhere in the ecosphere without materially impacting Leinster. Now, you could reasonably argue that last bit is open to debate.
But I could equally retort that you think Leinster are still one of the 2-3 best teams in Europe. That’s at a time when the “up to 30%” was brought in, right?
And, bearing in mind, Ireland’s success, and Leinster’s consistency over the last decade was all at a time when the CC picture was nowhere near the 10:3 ratio. Not even close. So why is it now deemed necessary? Also you keep saying things like “short term / doesn’t do anything to change that any time soon”. Does it really have to be spelled out to you that a change to help the - checks notes - player development pathways isn’t designed to be a short-term fix??
