Provincial Squads - Categorising Players

Munster -

World Class - 1/45 (2%) - Tadhg Beirne

Elite International - 2/45 (4%) - Peter O'Mahony, RG Snyman

Proven International / European Cup level - 3/45 (7%) - Gavin Coombes, Conor Murray, Andrew Conway

Top URC Level Player - 6/45 (13%) - Dave Kilcoyne, Jean Kleyn, John Hodnett, Craig Casey, Antoine Frisch, Calvin Nash

Past His Best - 3/45 (7%) - Malakai Fekitoa, Keith Earls, Simon Zebo

Squad Player - 11/45 (24%) - Jeremy Loughman, Diarmuid Barron, Niall Scannell, Fineen Wycherley, Jack O'Donoghue, Joey Carbery, Rory Scannell, Shane Daly, Mike Haley, Liam Coombes, Roman Salanoa

High Potential Youngster - 7/45 (16%) - Keynan Knox, Thomas Ahern, Edwin Edogbo, Alex Kendellen, Paddy Patterson, Jack Crowley, Ben Healy

Unknown Prospect - 6/45 (7%) - Paddy Kelly, Eoin O'Connor, Jack Daly, Josh Wycherley, Scott Buckley, Jack O'Sullivan

Substandard (6/45) - 13% - Stephen Archer, Liam O'Connor, Chris Moore, Neil Cronin, Oli Morris, Dan Goggin

Once again - subjective exercise. I think at his best you could argue for Snyman to be world class, but missing so much time I think he's best placed where he is. I've also probably been charitable to Conway with his classification, given how much time he's missed.

A lot of high potential youngsters to get excited about that should form the backbone of the next 5 years for Munster - maybe some Munster fans would argue I'm being overly harsh on Josh Wycherley, Scott Buckley and Jack O'Sullivan by not including them in the high potential group, but I don't see any of the three as potential future internationals at this point.

Connacht -

World Class - 0/45 (0%) -

Elite International - 0/45 (0%) -

Proven International / European Cup level - 3/45 (7%) - Finlay Bealham, Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen

Top URC Level Player - 7/45 (16%) - Conor Oliver, Cian Prendergast, Caolin Blade, Kieran Marmion, Jack Carty, Tom Farrell, John Porch

Past His Best - 1/45 (2%) - Tiernan O'Halloran

Squad Player - 13/45 (29%) - Jack Aungier, Denis Buckley, Peter Dooley, Dave Heffernan, Oisin Dowling, Gavin Thornbury, Paul Boyle, Jarrad Butler, Shamus Hurley Langton, Josh Murphy, Tom Daly, Adam Byrne, Alex Wootton

High Potential Youngster - 7/45 (16%) - Dylan Tierney Martin, Niall Murray, Darragh Murray, Cathal Forde, David Hawkshaw, Shane Jennings, Diarmuid Kilgallen

Unknown Prospect - 8/45 (18%) - Jordan Duggan, Sam Illo, Ciaran Booth, Oisin McCormack, Colm Reilly, Shayne Bolton, Byron Ralston, Oran McNulty

Substandard (6/45) - 13% - Matthew Burke, Dominic Robertson McCoy, Shane Delahunt, Grant Stewart, Sean Masterson, Conor Fitzgerald.

Final time - subjective exercise. Lack of top tier talent, but a high concentration of good URC players and squad players.

The real impact will come from whether or not the grouping of unknown prospects show enough to be better than they have looked so far.

My largest bugbear would be the disparity between Proven international/ European Level and Top URC Level player. I think the gap between these is quite large so players that could be considered middle top of them are getting seeded lower.

Definite agreement on this - it's the portion of the list I struggled most with. Most of the guys you named actually I originally had a tier higher, and then reassessed.

On TOB - I'm sky high on him and his potential - and tbf he's young enough that I could have just left him in the high potential youngster category. But to me he's just missed too much time to have him any higher right now.

I'm going to revisit this classification at the end of the season, and, I'm also going to consider doing it for the Leinster squad over the last couple of years to compare the relative quality across different teams.

😂😂

Yeah, that's definitely a fair call out. If I was to redo I would recut the categories and reorder some of them (switch squad player with High Potential Young player etc). I really struggled to rank those guys in the past their best category.

I think what seems to be causing the most issues is the names I've put on the tiers. If i was to redo, I would just number the tiers.

It's all highly subjective, but I don't think Tom O'Toole is unfairly ranked in the fourth tier. Prior to the 6N he likely would have been in the 6th tier. He's a young player with obvious potential to keep getting better.

If you just think of it as numerical tiers, as a way to compare the four provincial squads, this is how they stack up:

To me, this is the relatively interesting analysis.

Equally, when I go back through the last 8 seasons or so for Leinster, you can see the squad development in action IMO. A very high amount of guys classified as High Potential in c. 2019-2020 converted into Tier 3 players or better. I think it would also support a view that the team in 2015/16 was objectively poorer, containing 8 players I would deem Tier 9 or substandard, and 0 Tier 1 players at that time.

Who are the three 12s in world rugby who are better than Robbie Henshaw?

I think the best 12s in the game today are Gael Fickou and Robbie Henshaw, and after that it's debatable. For me, Henshaw is a better player than De Allende, Danty etc.

There is no way JGP and James Ryan (at their best) are any lower than where they are - James Ryan was the best second row in the 6 Nations this year (and IMO should have been player of the championship).

If I was ranking global scrum halves I'd have Dupont on a tier by himself, then Aaron Smith. After that it's a steep fall off to the next guys which is a tier that to me includes JGP, Faf du Klerk, TJ Parenara and not a lot else. It's a position where there aren't many elite players by comparison to times past.

On France, Ramos, Penaud, Fickou, Danty, Dupont, Baille. Olivon and Flament would be world class. Forgot Marchand. They all are superb players. Still, we beat them!

I wouldn't necessarily agree on all those names - Ramos and Flament had great championships but weren't even sure of their places in the French side coming in to tournament.

What I would say is, for all the players you mentioned (except Dupont & Penaud) we have a player almost as good, as good, or better in some cases.

Ramos - Keenan is better

Fickou - Ringrose is broadly at the same level

Danty - I think Henshaw is better

Baille - Porter is broadly at the same level

Ollivon - JVDF is better

Flament - Ryan & Beirne are both better

Most would have ranked Aldritt as one of their best players too coming into this, he started poorly but finished very strongly but equally, Doris at his best is at least his equal IMO.

It's not that hard to see why we're where we are and why we're viewed as genuine contenders. Dupont is the difference maker for them - he's that bit of stardust that no one else has right now. Without him - we'd beat them in a RWC QF and we might even with him.