Take one player from each province

From the perspective of assessing the quality of the young talent at the four provinces, I looked at the below of picking a team from players aged 25 and under across the four provinces. Some really quality teams:

I feel like in Connacht & Munster's case that is a team that could actually take the field for them this season.

Showing the kind of arbitrariness of taking 25 as a cutoff, I also looked at the players aged 26 across the four teams, to see who just misses out:

It's predominantly Leinster, as the bulk of guys from that elite Academy intake in 2016/17 are just turned 26. That intake must go down as Leinster's best ever Academy class (James Ryan, Andrew Porter, Will Connors, Max Deegan, Hugo Keenan, Jimmy O'Brien, Jordan Larmour all in there, alongside the unfortunately retired Conor O'Brien and two elite 7s players in Terry Kennedy and Jack Kelly).

It's subjective. I would argue Baird & McCarthy are ahead of Ahern and Edogbo obviously; both are full internationals at this point and Baird in particular has played a lot of European rugby and has racked up 8 Ireland caps.

Scott Penny is indisputably ahead of John Hodnett imo at this point in both of their careers, and I rate Hodnett very highly. But Penny has played more games (41 versus 27), scored an incredible amount of tries (23) and been called into the Ireland squad this November, alongside being the Pro14 Young Player of the Year in 2021 and being named in the Team of the Season.

Harry Byrne v Jack Crowley is an interesting debate. Byrne is a year older, but has played a lot more rugby (despite his well documented injury problems). It's not that long ago that he was the great white hope for the future at 10, and if he can remain healthy then by no means is it settled that he's out of the reckoning.

That leaves Craig Casey - indisputably the best established of all 10 players, who looks a bonafide star player and a guy who will pick up 50 caps+, and Jamie Osborne. I'm sky high on Osborne - think he has all the physical tools he'll need for a player so young, and will have a big couple of weeks coming up hopefully playing against Ulster this weekend and then European games after that.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I would be high on him as a player. He has a great doggedness about him that's needed in packs today, and seems to have good ability over the ball on the deck. He looks a powerful unit when scrummaging and especially on defensive mauls.

But we haven't seen much of him as a carrier yet, and he is not credited with a single line out win all season in his 6 appearances. So if you're carrying a non-jumping lock, they pretty much have to be a massively dominating Skelton-like presence because you're losing a jumper out of your pack.

This is nonsense, and is perfectly illustrative of the kind of hypocrisy of your analysis.

If the two groups of players we were comparing were at different points in their careers, like one set of 5 were well established internationals at the peak of their careers and the others were Academy players, it wouldn't be acceptable to compare their actual achievements.

But we're not.

We're comparing here two sets of players who are of the same vintage, 23 years old and under.

You're dismissing the facts around the actual achievements of the Leinster group because it doesn't suit your narrative, and basing it all on your beliefs / projections as to what kind of players they might become.

I'm saying, judge them on what they've done so far, first and foremost, because that's not speculative and is much more objective.

https://www.unitedrugby.com/clubs/munster/edwin-edogbo - I was basing it on this, but i think from comparing it, that it seems the line outs won stat is based on hooker's throwing in, so it would only indicate he hasn't stolen one.

I can't recall him winning many, but you could be right that he has won some.

It doesn't change the point that at 6ft 5 and 122kgs, he's not exactly ideal lineout jumping material.

I'm saying, your belief is solely based on YOUR opinion. You're dismissing actual facts and achievements, and have just conjured up a narrative on your views about their "skillsets".

My views about why I rate the Leinster group just as highly, is based on the player's actual achievements at this point.

So I'm more dismissive of your view on this because it's just conjecture, and seems highly skewed by recency bias in the case of Crowley & Edogbo.