Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

The talent wasn't what it is now and a few players got ruined by injury.

You know all this already.

The intake is small partly because we have so many young players in the senior squad. As an example, Crowley would have been only in the second year of the academy were he not promoted early. If you look back 4-5 years ago, Munster had 20 odd players in the academy. It was too many for the depth of talent available and the majority of the players didn't make it.

That situation is very difficult. I don't know the religion of the Ulster players. I assume the majority are protestant?

Do catholic schools have rugby as a sport? Are there clubs in catholic areas? Are there mixed schools?

But, there are 9 counties to pick from. I know that there have been some lads from Donegal in the academy. G.A.A is a tough sport to compete with in general. That's throughout the island. I wouldn't hazard a guess as to how to overcome these problems

Maybe have rugby camps in non traditional rugby areas, or at catholic schools? The IRFU should be involved in this. They should promote rugby along with the Ulster branch in these areas. The younger a lad is starting out, the better.

But, it's probably tough to implement these type of ideas without passing others off. If it was my decision, I would mandate that some of the squad visit and engage these low interest areas. I guess that some of the Leinster men at Ulster would be catholic, perhaps using these lads to promote the sport would be ideal.

There's a lot of fine athletes in G A.A, maybe some could be lured over to rugby. I see that some Leinster prospects recently left to play Aussie football! But, the IRFU should be investing more to attract rugby players. I suppose the more lads that come up from Leinster the better the opportunity to appeal to these areas.

I would think that Ulster will pry 1 or 2 players from Leinster at the end of the season. Promote these lads with their team mates to tour the clubs and schools?

That's what I think! I could be completely off course and talking out of my ring!

Behind three (not two) home-grown scrum-halves: Murray, Casey, Cronin, and Ethan Coughlan also just joined the academy.

Munster also took on Angus Lloyd, Alan Hart and Nicholas Murphy to keep their careers ticking over and gave them a chance to develop to squad regulars and move on again.

At the moment all of the 11 listed Munster academy players (1Hk, 1TP, 2Lk, 3BR, 2SH, 1W, 1Fb) are quality players that have the potential to be senior players and can even play for the seniors now if called up as they are all physically capable.

There’ have been a few Munster players winning caps for the Irish U20’s in recent years too so there is talent trickling through, just not the same flow as from Leinster, and luck plays a part with injuries, with so few prospects injuries can scupper the talent succession planning. Notably Johnny Holland and Brian Scott both left gaps when they retired from freak injuries in their mid-20’s, hence recruiting the likes of Carbery and Knox/Salanoa.

I’m optimistic though that with Munster focusing resources at UL and using the National Talent squad to help spot and develop players in various positions that there will be enough coming through for another few years that there may be a few good enough to reach the Irish squad at some stage.

If injuries crop up it will offer opportunities to players from elsewhere and Munster seem to be doing well to integrate external talent when they need it.

Plus only signing the two World Cup champions to try to bring us to the next level is understandable, plus Jenkins on a 1 year deal to replace CJ after his shock early retirement is also understandable.

With changes to the project player length of time to become Irish qualified we’ll probably see less signings like CJ, Kleyn, Cloete, Knox, Salanoa , and more signings like Declan Moore (Australian produced young talented hooker but Irish Qualified) and we will likely see the odd recruitment within the IRFU as well as repatriating established Irish talent from abroad such as Chris Farrell, Tadhg Beirne and of course our very own Simon Zebo.

Players like Arnold and Wootton through the exiles program also, more recently Haley and Gallagher at full-back which seems to be a problem position to fill, we’ve had Felix Jones and Andrew Conway as potential long-term recruits from Leinster to fill that position over the years, perhaps more needs to be done there and Wren in the academy might make the grade for a development contract next season hopefully, or Jake Flannery might rotate there a bit more.

But all in all, bearing in mind it’s the Irish team thread, in response to criticism that Munster aren’t doing enough to produce players for the Irish squad, I think enough is being done to give players a pathway, while keeping Munster competitive domestically and in Europe. I think we’re heading in the right direction anyway, and even a few talented players are finding their way to French academies too so who knows if they might repatriate in years to come and boost our talent pool.

It will be interesting to see what happens when De Allende, Snyman and Jenkins’ contracts all expire at the end of this season, we might see more faith being shown in the academy prospects to push through at lock and maybe there will be an opportunity for a centre to move to Munster from within the provinces, such as Ciarán Frawley being behind Henshaw and whoever is coming behind McCloskey and Aki, to get regular starts at 12, or Scannell or Goggin might push through themselves.

Ffs an international vs Japan today and yet this thread is just pages and pages of munster vs leinster shite and I do mean shite this thread is a waste of time

I’ve no beef at all with foreign signings but I would say that if all things were going to plan (which they never will) then there would be no need for overseas signings, the goal should be 4 provinces rammed with talented Irish players. Again I understand that is unlikely to ever come to fruition and the provinces should supplement as needed. Although I don’t necessarily think it should be just top players coming in. I’m happy to see people like Michael Bent come in and make lasting impressions whilst never being the star.

That would be a valid argument if there was local talent there. You can choose to ignore the facts but Dublin is rugby Central in Ireland. The sheer number of schools and clubs gives Leinster a massive advantage. We will always produce more talent than the rest of country.

Absolutely although I don’t think anyone is actually denied it’s more a case of perceptions to be broke down. In Dublin it’s often perceived as a posh game but if you actually play there you realise that’s not quite fair especially in the clubs. In the North it’s seen as Protestant and I think a bit middle class. That’s up to the branches to change the perceptions.

Yeah we’re close to that situation in Leinster to be fair, but unrealistic the other 3 provinces will ever get to that level, at least not for the foreseeable decade anyway.

I don’t really see the point in a Bent like signing for Leinster going forward though, only top class players should be signed for Leinster in my view, as Leinster have more than enough talent on stream to fill out the squad adequately.

Match thread here

100%. The idea that Ulster branch can just try a bit harder and they'll manage to overcome thirty years of sectarianism, bitterness, killing and political division is ludicrous, is patently nonsense. We have many more players on the fringes of the set-up from Letterkenny than we do from Catholic grammar schools in Belfast.

I get frustrated when people simply compare population numbers between Leinster and Ulster. Unless you've never heard of the Troubles, you're deliberately being disingenuous not talking about it.

And as an aside, there are no "Protestant" schools. There's Catholic schools and state schools, where Protestants, Muslims, Hindus etc go. And, thankfully now, integrated schools