General Rugby Discussion II

awec

molloyjh wrote: »

Of course it does. Look at this season for example. English teams have struggled and there have been statements from players in the league saying that they are playing too much. Leinster and Ireland have beaten all before them and looked very fresh at the end of what was a really long season. That would not have happened but for player welfare.

There are no stats available because the player welfare system as it currently stands isn't in place long enough to tell the long term impacts of it. But listening to the players and looking at seasons like this one it seems fairly clear to me that it has positive impacts on the performance of teams who put the level of effort into player welfare.

Are you really trying to claim that using medical and sports science evidence to reduce a players game time, and therefore the natural wear and tear on their bodies as well as the volume of big collisions that the are subject to, doesn't have a beneficial impact? Really? I mean, it would seem common sense to me that less game time plus less collisions plus a reduction in the potential for injury would lead to positive results, but then I'm no doctor.

So what went wrong last season?

prawnsambo

awec wrote: »

Does it?

Haven't we looked at this before and found that Irish players have not got longer careers, nor do they have more appearances than English or French guys?

What stats do you have to back this assertion up?

Not using stats, but BOD was on the radio recently talking about the fact that he's so far had no issues with injury post retirement and mentioned the player welfare scheme as being helpful in that regard. Think it was on Off the Ball and around the time of the BMW PGA where he was playing in the Pro-Am with Padraig Harrington.

But we're seeing a massive run of injuries in the England camp currently. Whether that's caused by too much game time or EJ's training methods, concerns are being raised in the media and comparisons are being made with Ireland.

irishbucsfan

awec wrote: »

So what went wrong last season?

Well obviously what we are saying is that the only thing that matters is the player welfare programme. Nothing else matters at all.

So if Leinster don't win every single season then it's definitely a disaster.

It's not a nuanced issue where you're better off looking at clear examples of the team being successful off the back of their superior conditioning, drawing comments from opposing chairmen. it has to work every single season or else we should scrap the entire thing.

irishbucsfan

prawnsambo wrote: »

Not using stats, but BOD was on the radio recently talking about the fact that he's so far had no issues with injury post retirement and mentioned the player welfare scheme as being helpful in that regard. Think it was on Off the Ball and around the time of the BMW PGA where he was playing in the Pro-Am with Padraig Harrington.

But we're seeing a massive run of injuries in the England camp currently. Whether that's caused by too much game time or EJ's training methods, concerns are being raised in the media and comparisons are being made with Ireland.

Sports science is taking off at a rate of knots across the entire world of sports and a huge amount of it is focused on doing exactly what the IRFU have been doing with the player welfare programme. Kitman, which spawned out of it in many ways, have clients all across the world now. The amount of investment into it is massive now from huge sporting organisations. There's no doubt it's absolutely key in building long term success.

awec

prawnsambo wrote: »

Not using stats, but BOD was on the radio recently talking about the fact that he's so far had no issues with injury post retirement and mentioned the player welfare scheme as being helpful in that regard. Think it was on Off the Ball and around the time of the BMW PGA where he was playing in the Pro-Am with Padraig Harrington.

But we're seeing a massive run of injuries in the England camp currently. Whether that's caused by too much game time or EJ's training methods, concerns are being raised in the media and comparisons are being made with Ireland.

How would he know though? BOD never experienced anything other than the player welfare scheme. It's a hard thing to quantify, but if it were being effective then you would have to imagine that on average, Irish players have longer careers. This isn't the case if I remember right. It also depends on how you measure it I guess, is it better to play 500 games in 10 years or 300 games in 15 years?



Look at O'Connell as an alternative example. Had to cancel his last contract and retire due to injury. The welfare scheme didn't really extend his career.

Podge_irl

You don't think it is beneficial that the IRFU can coordinate so that when their own teams are playing each other both teams are resting players? You don't think it is a help to Leinster that a)their players get rested and b)it is coordinated so that they are facing equally weakened teams at the time?

prawnsambo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Sports science is taking off at a rate of knots across the entire world of sports and a huge amount of it is focused on doing exactly what the IRFU have been doing with the player welfare programme. Kitman, which spawned out of it in many ways, have clients all across the world now. The amount of investment into it is massive now from huge sporting organisations. There's no doubt it's absolutely key in building long term success.

Yeah. I was talking to a friend who knows people in Kitman and the stuff they can predict now is almost magical. The example he gave me was of a premier league team being told that X can play 20 minutes at 80% or Y can only do 60 minutes at full tilt. That's dumbing it down a lot, but I've seen tweets from Kevin McLaughlin showing how they've analysed injuries and identified the cause from traning.

PTH2009

all or nothing- new zealand all blacks

now live on Amazon prime

might try and sign up for a free trial, looks very good

irishbucsfan

Podge_irl wrote: »

You don't think it is beneficial that the IRFU can coordinate so that when their own teams are playing each other both teams are resting players? You don't think it is a help to Leinster that a)their players get rested and b)it is coordinated so that they are facing equally weakened teams at the time?

It is definitely beneficial. In fact I have argued for more randomisation in the scheduling of the Pro 14 to stop exactly this. But the Welsh regions benefit from the scheduling with their Judgement Day stuff. That's a choice they make.

Resting players over christmas is something done by private clubs as well. Including in the Pro 14. It's just a suitable time to do it. Scarlets rotated their lads as well (although mostly the Welsh players I see... interestingly).

Leinster also do not coordinate when their players are rested with other sides. That is just not absolutely not true. Just as Racing decided to rest their team the week before the Champions Cup final, teams rest their players at the most advantageous time possible.

Giving a first team player a rest on Stephens day has extremely obvious off-field benefits that I'm sure we don't need to point out.

prawnsambo

awec wrote: »

How would he know though? BOD never experienced anything other than the player welfare scheme. It's a hard thing to quantify, but if it were being effective then you would have to imagine that on average, Irish players have longer careers. This isn't the case if I remember right. It also depends on how you measure it I guess, is it better to play 500 games in 10 years or 300 games in 15 years?

Look at O'Connell as an alternative example. Had to cancel his last contract and retire due to injury. The welfare scheme didn't really extend his career.

POC's injury was a serious one which wouldn't have been helped by any kind of player welfare scheme. Pretty much the same as what happened to JOD. Without that, he'd have quite possibly got another couple of seasons rugby with Toulon. DOC has played almost to the eve of his 40th birthday and so has Stringer. BOD played till he was 35. That's a fair age for a centre. D'Arcy was the same. But as molloyjh says, we're too early in the data curve to extrapolate anything beyond anecdotal evidence at this stage.

errlloyd

awec wrote: »

How would he know though? BOD never experienced anything other than the player welfare scheme. It's a hard thing to quantify, but if it were being effective then you would have to imagine that on average, Irish players have longer careers. This isn't the case if I remember right. It also depends on how you measure it I guess, is it better to play 500 games in 10 years or 300 games in 15 years?

Weirdly when I was looking for that picture of ISA in the Green Jersey I scanned through some pictures of that preseason friendly against the Reds. Looked like a full strength Leinster team, in a pre season game?

irishbucsfan

errlloyd wrote: »

Weirdly when I was looking for that picture of ISA in the Green Jersey I scanned through some pictures of that preseason friendly against the Reds. Looked like a full strength Leinster team, in a pre season game?

It was a special game against Queensland Reds as part of a charity thing. A lot of the lads wanted to play them because they rarely see those sides. And they were wearing that one-off green jersey for some ecological cause that I forget now, and everyone wanted one.

My memory of the game is that every single person even remotely associated with Leinster rugby played in it. And also you have to remember that this was mid-Cheika era. No academy to chuck in to that game, the academy back then was nothing like it is today!

It was nowhere near full tilt though, iirc. Only lads really playing hard were the young'uns like SOB and McFadden(?) who wanted to get some first team rugby.

EDIT: I found the team on rte, it wasn't as many players involved as I remember, but pretty sure there weren't many others around!

Former Former

awec wrote: »

Look at O'Connell as an alternative example. Had to cancel his last contract and retire due to injury. The welfare scheme didn't really extend his career.

He got an horrendous freak injury, a week shy of his 36th birthday and he was playing some great rugby up to that point. It's not like he was forced to retire early to due to wear and tear.

prawnsambo

Former Former wrote: »

He got an horrendous freak injury, a week shy of his 36th birthday and he was playing some great rugby up to that point. It's not like he was forced to retire early to due to wear and tear.

Yeah. The fact that Toulon had signed him for a two year contract shows the kind of form he was in. And kept him on until it was obvious that he wasn't going to recover from it.

molloyjh

awec wrote: »

Look at O'Connell as an alternative example. Had to cancel his last contract and retire due to injury. The welfare scheme didn't really extend his career.

Are you actually being serious now? Surely you're just taking the piss? Aren't you? :eek:

Santy2015

Does anyone know when and if there will be any presell tickets for the Guinness Series? I see they upped the prices for the all blacks match

Burkie1203

https://twitter.com/BBCSportWales/status/1002560459428462593?s=19

Buer

Ouch. That's the Scarlets essentially losing their 3 best forwards for the first half of next season and two of them permanently. Possibly Ken Owens would be in the same bracket but I'd say Beirne, Barclay and Shingler were more important to how the Scarlets play.

MJohnston

All this discussion about IRFU and player welfare, etc. Great, but nobody has given any reasoning for why the German team were the ones to be kicked out over Stade.

MJohnston

MJohnston wrote: »

All this discussion about IRFU and player welfare, etc. Great, but nobody has given any reasoning for why the German team were the ones to be kicked out over Stade.

The rule is in place so that privately owned teams can't coordinate their efforts to unfairly assist one or either. So if one of the teams specifically targets one team in their pool and then gives cricket scores to the other two you would say they are playing for a specific result which isn't their qualification but is of benefit to their 'other' team.

Because of the way the IRFU is set up it's seen as less of a concern. Would Munster throw a game for Leinster's benefit? I think not.

There is an equivalence on some levels and it's a fair observation to point it out - but it's not going to change any time soon.

MJohnston

Deleted User wrote: »

The rule is in place so that privately owned teams can't coordinate their efforts to unfairly assist one or either. So if one of the teams specifically targets one team in their pool and then gives cricket scores to the other two you would say they are playing for a specific result which isn't their qualification but is of benefit to their 'other' team.

Because of the way the IRFU is set up it's seen as less of a concern. Would Munster throw a game for Leinster's benefit? I think not.

There is an equivalence on some levels and it's a fair observation to point it out - but it's not going to change any time soon.

I think you ought to read my post again.

MJohnston

MJohnston wrote: »

I think you ought to read my post again.

Ah right, my bad.

I've no idea!

Squidgy Black

No idea, but I'd imagine it was to do with money.

Stade will always guarantee a higher financial value to World Rugby than German team.

irishbucsfan

MJohnston wrote: »

All this discussion about IRFU and player welfare, etc. Great, but nobody has given any reasoning for why the German team were the ones to be kicked out over Stade.

Because LNR are stakeholders and thus Heidelberg were the last to qualify. They'll be replaced with Enisei or whoever else.

Heidelberg (or rather their owner) have their own issues to sort out in Germany anyway.

siochain

What channels are showing the autumn internationals?

siochain

What channels are showing the autumn internationals?

wp_rathead

siochain wrote: »

What channels are showing the autumn internationals?

Sky Sports Main Event on Saturday for Oz v Ireland

icdg

siochain wrote: »

What channels are showing the autumn internationals?

Autumn Intenationals? Ireland are on RTE and Sky, England on Sky, Wales are on the BBC and I’m not sure if Scotland rights have been sold (but last year they were on BBC and BT).

As for the more pressing Summer Internationals, Australia v Ireland, South Africa v England, and NZ v France are all on Sky, Wales’ are on Channel 4, Scotland - well my sources are saying both BBC and Channel 4, which I find odd.

Peter-Steph du Teoit of test 1 intercept try against Ireland fame is captaining the springbok's tonight. Kick off at 10:00

Tigerandahalf

SA v Wales live on C4 now.