Development Pathways

You said:

Leinster can sell guys on being way down depth charts because you can make the ireland squad more reliably like that at leinster.

Which implies Leinster players are getting picked for Ireland undeservedly, or just because they're Leinster players. This patently isn't the case, and if it was, it's highly unlikely Ireland would be the #1 team in the world at present and Grand Slam champions.

Leinster don't lose players like Flannery because they at the very least get minutes into them and give them an opportunity. Jake Flannery left Munster at 22 having played 4 times for them. Leinster have 7 Academy players this season alone who have played more for Leinster than that.

Do Munster not have good players or they don’t develop them?

We have no idea how good guys like Tony Butler, Ethan Coughlan, Jack Oliver etc are, because of the scarcity of opportunities they get. We'll have even fewer if NIQ players are added into the mix in front of them, at the very time when they should be getting trusted to step up and take more minutes.

They are not as good at developing players. It's improved in recent times without question, but they still find themselves where the last 20 cap Irish international they produced is the 31 year old Niall Scannell.

I think you'll find I didn't.

The post you're quoting was from me at 2:18pm:

Whereas, you'd already posted this at 2:13pm, which is the first mention of recruiting to cover this absence.

Munster's academy production issues aren't due to what they're doing now - which is good. Its from what they did 3-8 years ago. They almost had an entire generation of non-production after Murray/POM/Earls

Yeah, I think this is a fair comment on balance.

I looked at the stats comparing the two academies over the past 10 seasons (would do similar for Ulster or Connacht if they had the data clearly located somewhere), and while Leinster are far more productive overall, there is evidence that Munster have been more productive and giving more opportunities in recent seasons.

If you exclude this year's intake (2022/23) for both teams, then Munster have had 71 players in their academy from 2012/13-2021/22, and Leinster have had 75 over the same period. 29 of those 71 are still with Munster, and 41 of Leinster's intake are still with Leinster.

Leinster's academy graduates played 2,737 times for Leinster, versus 1,397 for Munster's players. Leinster's academy garnered 501 Irish caps versus 23 for Munster.

12 of Leinster's 75 players never played a senior game for Leinster (and some interesting names in there: Gavin Thornbury, Billy Dardis, Harrison Brewer) + some unfortunate injury retirements (Charlie Ryan, Mark Hernan).

26 of Munster's 71 players never played a senior game for Munster.

39 of Munster's 71 played 5 or fewer games, 19 of Munster's players played 20 or more games.

24 of Leinster's 75 played 5 or fewer games, 38 of Leinster's 75 played 20 games or more.

2 Munster players made over 100 appearances, 9 Leinster players made over 100 appearances.

8 Munster players were internationally capped. 24 Leinster players were capped internationally.

Comparing class by class every season, every single year the Leinster group garnered more Leinster caps than their equivalent class did Munster caps.

The international caps are higher for Leinster in every year bar 2013/14 (3 for Munster to 1 for Leinster) and 2020/21 (3 for Munster to 1 for Leinster), and the median number of club appearances is higher for Leinster in every year except 2020/21.

Munster have only 2 years where the median number of caps by their academy players is in double digits - (52 caps is the median for the class of 2016/17 which contained Gavin Coombes, Shane Daly, Calvin Nash, Fineen Wycherley) and (34 is the median for the class of 2020/21 (Crowley, Buckley, Kendellen). Munster have 4 years where the median number of caps is zero. The average median (if that makes sense) number of caps in any given academy class for Munster is 9.6 (skewed highly by the class of 2016/17).

Leinster by contrast have only 2 years where the median number of caps is in single digits - 2015/16 (5 cap median) and 2021/22 (3 caps median). Just like Munster's most productive ever class was 2016/17, so was Leinster's. That group gained 548 total caps (72 median) plus 182 international caps (this was Connors, Deegan, Keenan, J O'Brien, Porter, Ryan, Larmour). The average median (once again, hope this makes sense) number of caps in any given academy class for Leinster is 30.

The overall median number of caps for Munster over the period is 3, whereas for Leinster it is 20.

EDIT: For the sake of completeness, I excluded this year's class because you wouldn't expect these guys to have international caps etc yet, but had I included them, it would have been a continuation of the same trend - Leinster have awarded 19 caps to their current Year 1 class, versus 4 for Munster).

If you look at the last three intakes (so including class of 2022/23), Munster's 17 players have played for Munster 133 times, versus Leinster's 23 players who've played for Leinster 164 times, so some indication of a greater willingness to back youth in recent times. Contrast this with the period 2012-15 where 22 Munster players across three intakes earned 551 caps, while the 22 Leinster recruits earned 1,358 caps.

A lot of numbers in that, and denser than I'd hoped, but hopefully makes sense.

I've no interest in going round and round on this with you.

You're asking "who was calling for NIQ signings" and I highlight a number of fans calling for it. Clearly I was referring to fans on Boards here, as opposed to Graham Rowntree out calling for the signings ffs.

You keep highlighting this point around Leinster having "low leverage" minutes, but Leinster intersperse their young players into their squads all through the year, not just in garbage time games at the end. At any point this season Leinster would have given substantially more minutes to academy players than peers.

The production line in Leinster is unquestionably better than the other three Irish provinces, and has been for 10 years + now, but in addition to that, I think the coaching and development has been considerably better in Leinster too.

There are countless examples of players who have visibly improved to a significant degree after they join the Leinster system - look at guys like Josh van der Flier, Hugo Keenan or Dan Sheehan - all relatively unheralded underage prospects who absolutely nobody would have seen as being amongst the very best players on the planet within a couple of years.

To take your viewpoint on this as factual would reduce the role of Head Coach / Director of Rugby down to nothing more than simply identifying the best players, picking them and setting out the tactics. There's a lot more to it than that.