Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread XII (The Byrne Supremacy)

starkid · 12-01-2023 11:19am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097118#Comment_120097118

while i agree with your original premise, the merits of a truly competitive leage etc you are way overhyping the Premiership. is that you Craig 'If you're going to sell rugby, why not sell the greatest domestic league in the world? That's the Gallagher Premiership " Doyle?

Bristols squad? full of absolute journeymen.

Its the nature of having 13 plus teams. You get way more squad fillers.

I do agree though Irish teams or fans have no right to get uppity on any of this. Sexton plays **** all URC games and its a bit of a joke. However this season its really started to change, which is great. the days of weakened URC is over. i think the IRFU have realised you can't sell turd. They realise rugby is under marketed and undersold. Look at the netflix talk etc. The next step will be working out the inbalance of the weak south african teams away, and strong home. i don't think thats great. however their prescence in the league has completely torn up the old format of star players playing 5 or 6 games.

Munster and Ulster would 100 per cent be in the top few teams in the premiership. it is not a very competitive league. it contains players that wouldn't even be playing semi pro here. Again thats the nature of having a larger base. I mean there was talk of Nucofora and the fifth province etc. The original plan had AIL teams in Europe. it might have stretched things but suddenly we'd have needed extra bodies.

like its logical, a top 14 team and in some way the Premiership teams truly compete in two competitions. and these are intense rivalries and sets of fans and pressures. the URC will most likely never match that due to its cross border nature. but the standard of rugby and skills is on par, and possivbly even better in the URC. the smaller net in Ireland at least, squeezes out the poorer player. in England he gets in easier. the championship is AIL level, i have heard this from Peter Smyth and people like Hammond in the Irish set up. thats the reality. so the premiership can't be a quantam leap ahead.

arsebiscuits1 · 12-01-2023 11:20am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097602#Comment_120097602

Barely more than a stipend really.

But it does go a bit further when they're getting fed 5 days a week and probably getting housing subsidised (if not through Leinster then through their club)

Looking at this current crop of academy too the guys who are fit have played a lot of AIL. Now I'm quite skeptical as to the figures these guys get for match fees.... but over the course of a season it's definitely enough to make a difference to a young 21/22 year old

stephen_n · 12-01-2023 11:23am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097121#Comment_120097121

Are you deliberately ignoring the fact that the GP winner is the same club for 3 of those 4? Apart from a couple of years when Exeter were going well. No GP club has performed in Europe for more than 10 years. Munster would regularly be more competitive than any GP clubs apart from Saracens.

12-01-2023 11:27am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097549#Comment_120097549

Yeah, I'd read that piece before, and tried to play around with those numbers.

I'd be very surprised if the actual wage bill for Leinster's players (including centrally contracted players) was over €8.5m - €9m pa.

It's obviously a big number still, but it's not a bad number to me considering Leinster have been bulk supplier to Ireland for 10 years +, have had good success over that period, have produced around 91% of the current squad themselves.

The salary cap for the French Top 14 is dropping to €10m from 2024, having been as high as €11.3m in very recent years.

How Leinster (and all the Irish provinces) spend their money versus how the French and English clubs spend their money is very different.

crisco10 · 12-01-2023 11:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097479#Comment_120097479

Great post, so you looked at the highest cost scenario with €14m as a "target", i.e. top down. In return, I'll try bottoms up:

A) Academy players seem to be widely reported to be on something like €10 to 20k. Call it €15k, => 15 x 19 = 285k

B) The Internationals: Furlong (500k) , Porter (300k), Ryan (400k), Jenkins (250k), Sexton (600k), JGP (300k), Henshaw (400k), Ringrose (400k), Lowe (400k), Conan (400k), Doris (250k), JVDF (400k), Ngatai (250k), Ala’alatoa (200k) & Keenan (200k). => 5.25M

C) The uncapped players: McElroy (60k) , Moloney (60k) , Foley (60k), Milne (80k), Clarkson (60k), Abdaladze (60k), Deeny (60k), Ryan (Charlie) (60k), McCarthy (Joe) (80k), Turner (60k), Osborne (80k), O’Brien (Tommy) (80k) => 720k

D) The in-betweeners: Ed Byrne (100k), Kelleher (200k), Sheehan (150k), Baird (100k), Molony (120k), Healy (200k), Connors (150k), Deegan (100k), Penny (80k), Ruddock (150k), L McGrath (150k), R Byrne (175k), H Byrne (80k), Frawley (100k), Kearney (120k), Larmour (200k), N McCarthy (80k), Tracy (80k), J O’Brien (80k) => 2.415M

A + B + C + D = 8.67M

And then if you took our 2 Marquees off (Sexton & Furlong), that drops to €7.57M which is £6.6M at today's exchange rate..

Obviously a lot of conjecture, but certainly as an order of magnitude exercise, I'd be happy to say that Leinster's salary bill is somewhere in region of 7 to 9 million euro. And while I think Leinster would struggle with current squad to meet a £5M cap, they wouldn't be a million miles off.

Finally, the salary cap number of £6.6M doesn't account for any "home-player" allowances, which would only bring the number down, given that ~40 players between B, C & D are graduates of Leinster Academy.

EDIT: I had a look at the salary cap rules over lunch, and the cap gets increased £50k per homegrown (i.e. has only every played for your club) player up to a max of £600k. Then it also increases by £40k per member of England Squad, up to £400k. There are other minor allowances for injured players, and players missing club games because of internationals, but they didn't look to ad up to a whole lot.

I think safe to say, Leinster would have 12 homegrown players, and 10 players in the Irish squad, so that would mean they would have an effective salary cap of £6M (+ 2 Marquee Players). This isn't actually that far off their current salary bill.

12-01-2023 11:33am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097613#Comment_120097613

Sexton is trotted out too often in these examples too around how little he plays - which completely ignores the very special and unprecedented circumstances surrounding him (turning 38 this year).

Outside of him, and other guys who've been injured, Leinster's biggest name players have played a lot of minutes this year.

Garry Ringrose (#3 most minutes in the squad @ 699 mins), Dan Sheehan (#5, 660 mins), World Player of the Year JVDF (#8, 558 mins), Andrew Porter (#13, 519 mins), James Ryan (#14, 480 mins) etc etc.

Maybe it was true in the past that Leinster could coast the league without needing to play frontliners all that often, but it's not this season.

starkid · 12-01-2023 11:34am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097673#Comment_120097673

and they don't even pay the IRFU salaries.

there is disadvantages and advantages to a central system. just like there is for having a sugar daddy bankroll your club.

pickarooney · 12-01-2023 11:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097618#Comment_120097618

Ah well there you go, if we add in good costs the salary, including potatoes, is easily north of 14 million. I daresay the front row alone accounts for the shortfall.

12-01-2023 11:39am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097673#Comment_120097673

Yep, I tried to do it this way too, and that's where I came to the estimate of between €8.5m - €9m in the post #12635 above.

There is obviously room for some of those numbers to be a little bit higher, but I can't see any construct that gets you close to €14m (a number I've seen attributed to Bernard Jackman in the past). Wouldn't be the first time Jackman was talking through his hoop.

crisco10 · 12-01-2023 11:41am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097701#Comment_120097701

Absolutely. I think for a salary cap discussion, you need to account for the centrally contracted players salaries (but not international appearance fees technically) into account. The reality is that those guys aren't playing for Leinster for free.

There are also some quirks too, like JVDF being on a provincial contract, despite being World POTY.

phily2002 · 12-01-2023 11:43am

In fairness the URC was a pretty crap league but the addition of the SA teams has made it way better. The fact Munster are in a fight to qualify for the Champions Cup shows how competitive it is.

It still has its issues and no relegation I think is the main one. I'd love to see extra teams added and a 2 division league. It would boost rugby in 2nd tier country's if they had teams in it.

The Premiership is a great league as well. The salary cap works domestically but it gives them(the bigger clubs) a disadvantage come europe.

All 3 leagues have advantages and disadvantages. The top 14 is exciting but you don't see many big scalps away from home.

Each league has brilliant matches and terrible matches. Overall the top teams in each league are pretty balanced. Look at the odds for the Champion Cup, each league has potential winners. There's many issues but for the most part it works, even when you look at how complicated the Champions cup groups are!

starkid · 12-01-2023 12:05pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097718#Comment_120097718

yeah the latter is fantasically stupid imo. and a major flaw in our system. if he's on less money than other lads it just compounds it. can't be the best for morale. only works cause the lads are decent skins. in most other sports it wouldn't.

on the flipside the sugar daddy system over pays the players and gives out stupid contracts. here we probably only get a certain amount of that. I.e Murray etc

The provincial system has great advantages. there is no point arguing otherwise. if say the region areas were the teams in England it would be similar vibes.

12-01-2023 12:39pm

Early team prediction for Saturday:

15-9,1-8: Keenan, Larmour, Ringrose, Osborne, Lowe, R Byrne, JGP, Porter, Kelleher, Ala'alatoa, Ryan, J McCarthy, Baird, Van der Flier, Doris.

Reps: Sheehan, Milne, Healy, Molony, Conan, N McCarthy, H Byrne, J O'Brien.

Couple of calls I wouldn't be surprised to see slightly different, but that should be the bones of it. Hard to know what way the sub props will be.

sydthebeat · 12-01-2023 1:01pm

are we expecting teams named today at 12?

pickarooney · 12-01-2023 1:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097800#Comment_120097800

I don't think any backrows since POM have been given one but I'm not sure they're automatically higher than provincial ones. They have a certain budget to allocate to ease the burden of the provincial budgets and it's just a case of whoever is performing well at the time of their renewal if there's a slot available.

I'd say a lot of the nonsense about Leinster salaries are from people who know nothing about how these players come through the system. If you want to attract a top international player to your team you have to pay over the odds. If that player is already on your books, what's your incentive to pay them more? What leverage does the player have?

Other provinces are forbidden to offer more

UK, Italian and South African clubs don't really have the money. Ditto Aus/NZ.

French clubs have a limited number of non-JIFF slots and have to pay a player enough to relocate (often with family) and abandon his international ambitions.

Japanese clubs? Maybe in the near future but as it stands it's not the most attractive option.

Serbian · 12-01-2023 1:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098031#Comment_120098031

No, it's usually on the Friday for a Saturday / Sunday game. Only do Thursday team announcements if we're playing on the Friday.

Dubinusa · 12-01-2023 2:43pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120097718#Comment_120097718

That's mad! VDF not centrally contracted? Wtf. He's 29 now, so he probably won't get his central contract.

Dubinusa · 12-01-2023 2:47pm

If Ross Molony is only on 120k, that's shyte. These lads put their health on the line every week. Rugby is really crap at promoting the sport. I doubt Messi would get out of bed for 120k.

Interested Observer · 12-01-2023 2:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098467#Comment_120098467

If that's what he's on then tbh he should leave, go over to England and double his salary.

Quin_Dub · 12-01-2023 2:55pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098448#Comment_120098448

Think there are only about 10 central contracts and I don't think it necessarily means that they are the largest contracts , just that they are paid for by the IRFU directly and not via the Provinces.

Lost Ormond · 12-01-2023 2:55pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098467#Comment_120098467

That's a terrible and useless comparison

Compare the two sports. Incomparable in terms of support, financially and in terns of number of people who attend games and watch on TV.

You also are comparing a player widely regarded as one of the best to play the sport wotcha guy who isn't a first choice for country, by a bit, nevermind anything else globally.

Serbian · 12-01-2023 3:08pm

I'm sure it was a joke, but for comparison, Messi would earn €120,000 in just over a day (he earns around €750k a week, almost twice my weekly salary).

TRC10 · 12-01-2023 3:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098448#Comment_120098448

Just because a player isn't on a central contract, doesn't mean he's being paid less than his market value. In VDF's case I'd be fairly certain he's well paid. He only signed his latest deal in February last year and Leinster have enough of their wage bill covered by the IRFU that they can afford to pay him what he's worth. James Lowe is another one who isn't on a central contract, but you can be certain he's well paid.

AdamD · 12-01-2023 4:22pm

At this point the central contracts are just divvied out amongst the provinces as additional funding

crisco10 · 12-01-2023 4:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098526#Comment_120098526

While Ross is a great Leinster player, the honest truth is that he is only that a Leinster player (i.e. not capped). This would impact his marketability abroad.

Not sure an English club would fork out £200k for him (that's about 4% of the their total salary cap).

My overall sense with rugby salaries is that they are really not as high as one would think, and people assume that they are rolling in cash like soccer players. The reality is they are not.

Through my family, I've come to know 2 irish internationals, one soccer, one rugby. Both with less than 10 caps (i.e. both very much bit part, and delighted to get to pull on the green a few times in lansdowne road). The soccer player earned about €750k a year, the rugby player €90k. That's almost an order of magnitude in the difference.

ulsteru20s · 12-01-2023 4:40pm

I don't know if this is a taboo subject but i was just looking at those proposed salaries before.

How much of Leinster’s ability to hold on to squad depth is familial wealth?

I’m assuming that the irfu to some extent sets it up that the guy third in the depth chart at one province is on a lower salary band to the guy second at another province. That’s a generalization but you get what i mean.

There are other factors of course. Leinster is where you want to be to play for Ireland but not everyone can play for ireland. I get it in university. I dont get it in the mid to late twenties.

So, is that a factor, or am i off track? In other words, rugby salaries are so small generally that its not worth moving if you come from money… and its better to network in dublin for post rugby reasons.

Quin_Dub · 12-01-2023 5:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099046#Comment_120099046

Don't know about later on , but certainly for an Academy prospect absent a University scholarship covering accommodation , the ability to survive on the Academy contract without it being supplemented by family is next to nil. And not everyones family can do that.

Put it this way - If I was an Academy player and my family home wasn't local to the Training Centre (Dublin, Limerick ,Galway , Belfast) I would absolutely need my parents to pay my rent etc.

tftsteph · 12-01-2023 5:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099148#Comment_120099148

if your in the academy you will have the get free accommodation.

stephen_n · 12-01-2023 5:06pm

https://www.skysports.com/amp/rugby-union/news/12321/12634710/premiership-rugby-salary-cap-report-published-for-2020-21-season

The average salary of a fly-half in the Premiership is £175,679 with centre (£167,779) and lock (£158,617) making up the top three best-paid positions. On average, scrum-halves (£117,912) and hookers (£113,115) earn the least.

So Moloney would probably be on 120k to maybe 140k.

redlough · 12-01-2023 5:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099046#Comment_120099046

One thing Gatland said about Ireland players is they are educated and ask a lot of questions.

I have no idea why someone would then think these players are stupid enough to not know what they could/should be earning and how best to achieve that.

Family wealth? 😂

Looking at the last few comments you would swear that rugby players are stupid and don't know their earning capacity.

P.S. Plenty of people have moved to the UK to get a wage of 20-30k because they can't get a job here

Why would anyone want to compare rugby with soccer? its two sports with a completely different viewer numbers. A soccer player car earn X because the club is making Y. Same for a rugby player. The problem as we have seen in England is the clubs decides to pay the players more than the clubs is making and they end up in the mess they are in. Rugby needs to stop trying to compare itself to soccer and concentrate on how it can grow the audience so the IRFU earns more and the players earn more

The 42 podcast had a good chat recently on how the French teams work and earn money and they are way ahead of Ireland and everyone, thats not even talking about TV money

Leinster Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread XII (The Byrne Supremacy)

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