Munster Team Talk Thread - Beirne After Reading

Do you really think Munster are as close to European Cup success as that?

The competition is orders of magnitude more difficult to win now than when Leinster won their first one.

The aspiration here must surely be to get back to the very top table, not to just indulge fans in the short term with expensive signings when ultimately the team overall isn’t built to succeed.

We keep hearing how Leinster’s advantages are money, but here a number of Munster fans are consistently proposing just spending money now on a handful of players for a short period of time.

How many elite player development officers could Munster have employed instead of the money they’ve paid RG Snyman and Damian de Allende?

Yeah, I’m not disparaging those players at all. They’re obviously world class (DDA, Snyman) and hopefully Snyman in particular will have had a big influence longer term on the likes of Edogbo, Ahern etc.

I’ve just genuinely spent a fair bit of time thinking over the past week or two on player development pathways etc because of the comments from McFarland / Wigglesworth / Jackman, and trying to see what’s behind it.

I don’t think it’s just demographics - it’s just not a case of more numbers into the machine means more quality players out the other side. Not to create the level of disparity we’ve seen in the past 10 years or so.

I genuinely believe right now if you took 100 random 12-year old rugby players from Munster, the same from Ulster, Connacht and then Leinster, there wouldn’t be anything really between them in terms of quality. You’d have a few obviously athletically superior kids in there, quite a few average to poor players, and a lot of guys in the middle. Across all four groups.

But, crucially, I think if you revisited the same set of 100 players at this point in time at the age of say 18, you would see what we largely see in underage selections in recent years, a far higher proportion of pro-ready prospects in the Leinster group.

It wasn’t always that way. The schools system has always been around and always been the bulk feeder to Leinster, but the difference in quality in players coming from the schools versus elsewhere in the country wasn’t always so stark.

So what is the difference? Investment. Investment in coaching, facilities, nutrition, gym facilities etc.

If that’s what it is, that problem is solvable. It’s not that easy to find a target for how to make that investment, but pumping money into community development officers etc is surely a start (also I’m not oblivious to the fact that there is already a significant amount of these in Munster rugby).

I’ve made the point before on the case of St Michael’s College in Dublin. A virtual non-entity in rugby terms prior to winning their first senior cup in 2007. Prior to that you’d count on the fingers of one hand the number of Irish internationals they’d produced.

And yet, in the past decade, they’ve produced Dan Leavy, Luke McGrath, James Ryan, Ryan Baird, Ross Byrne, Harry Byrne, Ronan Kelleher, etc. What happened? What changed?

Even closer to home, you see the benefits of what Regis Sonnes was able to do in West Cork, and the pipeline of quality players who came through there.

Genuinely think there’s something in this.

Yeah. People seem to forget it’s not just Leinster that has private schools.

Take St Michael’s then - it has roughly 650 students or thereabouts and annual fees of around €6k. Doesn’t offer boarding.

Are you saying there are no comparable schools in Munster?

What about PBC? It has more students at c. 720, broadly similar fees (€4.5k), equally non-boarding. It has a better rugby heritage than Michaels.

Yet in the past 10 years Michaels has produced 10 players who’ve been capped by Ireland (who’ve obtained 140 caps between them).

Munster collectively have only produced 16 players over the same timeframe, for a cumulative 92 caps. PBC have produced 3 players, for a cumulative 25 caps.

Are you seriously telling me there is a dramatic disparity in the socio economic background of the students of these two schools?

If John McKee keeps developing he'll be far too good to be 3rd choice at Leinster, could be an option

Blackrock have produced even more over the same period - 10 internationals as well, who've earned a cumulative 244 caps. It's a bigger school, at closer to 1,100 students, but equally it's producing professional rugby players at a simply remarkable rate.

Those two schools alone have produced more Irish internationals in the past 10 years - 20 players (384 caps) than Munster (16 players - 92 caps), Ulster (15 players - 137 caps) and Connacht (12 players - 169 caps).

It's clearly not just numbers when you look at this. Of the players produced as well, of the 20 Blackrock/Michaels internationals only 6 earned less than 5 caps, with the median number of caps 19. There are 8 players in there who've earned over 25 caps (James Ryan, Hugo Keenan, Caelan Doris, Andrew Conway, Garry Ringrose, Joey Carbery, Ian Madigan, Jordi Murphy).

From the other three provinces combined, of the 43 internationals who've earned 398 caps, the median number of caps is 3. 25 of the 43 earned less than 5 caps, and only 5 earned over 25 caps (Robbie Henshaw, Kieran Marmion, Finlay Bealham, Paddy Jackson, Jacob Stockdale).

It's clear as day what's happening in those schools is on a different level to what is happening anywhere else in the country, arguably in Europe, but so far no one has put forward a good reason for why it isn't replicable.

Yeah, nice little joke, but you might have noticed I haven't said anywhere that there shouldn't be any overseas recruitment. I just queried originally a post claiming Munster needed funding for 3 'high standard' NIQs at 10, 2 and 3, in addition to Snyman and Nankivell.

Bringing in good quality overseas players is valuable to bring in outside perspective, and to help pass on good traits / habits. I'm not saying at all that Munster shouldn't sign any NIQ players, but arguably the level of spend they've allocated towards it in recent years could have been better spent.

Belvedere and Terenure have similar student numbers (and rugby heritage) as Blackrock, yet in recent times have fallen well shy in terms of player production.

Even in Munster, CBC is a sizable school of over 900 boys, with a strong rugby heritage as well. These are all fee paying schools, that have wealthy cohorts attending them and as part of their alumni network.

Glenstal and Clongowes are directly comparable - both are smaller schools, that charge nearly €20k a year in fees. Clongowes has churned out internationals (Dan Sheehan, Will Connors, Tadhg Beirne, Dave Kearney in the past 10 years), Glenstal's solitary international rugby player over that time period is Ben Healy. So what's the excuse reason there then? Surely there's plenty of affluence in the Glenstal alumni network that they could be digging deeper if they chose to?

But also, for what it's worth; I was making a bigger point than a comment claiming I'm just listing "reams of players produced by Michaels and Blackrock", and it's unfair to suggest otherwise.

Shame it seems to be a game too early for Edogbo - would have thought he was a significant power upgrade over Wycherley.