Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

The original point was around players who have left Leinster and gone on to be successful. This mostly refers to players who have gone to Munster as Connacht and Ulster tend to get the dregs. In that context, the points around Conway are convoluted or misunderstood. Some people are talking about Conway liking / not liking Munster or whether he regrets his decision. Who knows, and frankly it's irrelevant. By any objective measure, it's hard to argue it was a good move for him. I'm sure he loves popping into Cork city for brunch on a Tuesday, but he's achieved nothing on the pitch in Thomond Park.

There was another comment being surprised that Conway's move has become controversial. It probably is to this day one of the most controversial moves in Irish rugby, up there with Carbery. He moved, in contract, to another province, having broken the first team (playing in almost every single league game, and starting every game in the lead up the Amlin Cup win). There was uproar at the time. There is some hindsight being 20:20 beyond that, he would have been a nailed on starter for Leinster from that point forward, but we don't know how much he could have predicted that at the time. Instead, he went to Munster and it wasn't until 2015/2016 where he got to the level of game time he was getting at Leinster.

It's also worth noting that he was one of the best underage international players we ever produced — he had 14 tries in the 16 under 20s games that he played. He was earmarked to be a top full international with bags of potential. He should have been a centurion, and he has missed out at times due to injury, but it looks like he'll have to make do with the couple of dozen caps he has now.

To bring it back to the original point — it's easy to argue he would have had a much better career if he stayed at Leinster and it's hard to point at anything he gained from making the move. He may not have wanted that for a myriad of reasons, but he would undoubtedly have added numerous medals to the trophy cabinet and been capped earlier and more often for Ireland.

he would have been a nailed on starter for Leinster from that point forward

He might have become a nailed on starter. He certainly was nothing of the sort when he left and he took a long time to reach that level in Munster.

Lol. He fled the scene before getting ye old heave hi.

I don't know, fff. In my opinion, he's vastly better that DK or Ferg.

Bizarre, I literally quoted what you wrote so if it's a straw man you introduced it!

Anyhow, someone should have that conversation with Conway about him having no reason to leave Leinster. From your POV did he just prefer the idea of living in Limerick given that there was no rugby reason for the move?

Andrew Conway - 30 caps

Dave Kearney - 19 caps

Fergus McFadden - 34 caps

I'd put them all in the same class tbh. Think they're all good players who primarily picked up caps when the really top level guys were not available.

Correct. think the point still holds though.

Would he have gotten ahead of DK or Ferg. I believe he would have. It's all moot now.

Conway's "achieved nothing on the pitch in Thomond Park" is right up there as one of the most bizarre takes I've ever read on here, fair play

Forgot about him.

Who's expectations? Every year there's at least 1 player coming through with huge hype and expectations. Conway is not the most hyped youngster in Leinster's history. There's players with hype that Conway had a better career. Hype means nothing. Some players just are at a level that we've never expected and the really hyped up players don't reach out lofty perceptions of where they should be.

i disagree. Conway was absolutely one of the most hyped players coming into Leinster setup of the last 20 years. I don’t think that can be disputed. After that is a different matter