Development Pathways

You're fixating on these two players, and the reasons why aren't clear to me.

Just on a straight side by side comparison, it's an entirely fair statement to say Leinster have worked to get more appearances and minutes into Charlie Tector than Munster have with Tony Butler (who I originally compared him to) and Ethan Coughlan. This is also despite the fact that Leinster have a multitude of options in the position, including a guy even younger than Tector who they've also gotten minutes into (2 x 80 min performances).

You cannot claim a scenario where a guy who has been in match squads 8 times this season (playing 7 times) isn't getting more opportunities to develop than a guy who hasn't made a single match squad all season (Butler) or a guy who has played twice.

Focusing on the score when Leinster put the player is a complete nonsense. Leinster win most of their games by high margins. Most of Leinster's replacements used in URC games come in in scenarios where the game is effectively decided already.

Yeah, except I specifically said in my post, I don't object to just the notion of recruiting NIQs, and would support the notion of signing a high quality NIQ front rower.

The NIQ signings I think are pointless are the guys who aren't quality upgrades. In this scenario, it makes more sense to just back the academy players to see you through the pinch period.

Would you mind listing the players you're counting in both of these scenarios as well, please?

Yeah, except that's not true.

Even allowing for Keenan who is an unusual example of a particularly late developer, and who spent the bulk of his academy time away with the 7s, all three players got substantial minutes for Leinster while still in the academy.

Josh van der Flier played 6 games (starting 2) for 264 minutes while an academy player, Dan Sheehan played 10 games (starting 3) for 371 minutes while still in the academy. Even Keenan played 5 games (starting 3) while in the academy, for 215 minutes.

Further correction to these stats - the Munster stats are including the friendly game played against SA A, but the Leinster stats are not including the Chile fixture they played this season.

Excluding both non-competitive games, the correct numbers are the following:

Munster: 62 games - 5,691 minutes, 13 players promoted

Leinster - 72 games - 5,653 minutes, 13 players promoted.

So this statement which sounds very strong:

So in the last 3 seasons Munster have promoted more players, who have more starts, more subs appearances and more minutes this season, and comparable average mins vs Leinster.

is actually:

Munster have promoted the same amount of players, who have less starts, and marginally more minutes this season.

And, as stated elsewhere, it kind of ignores the fact that Leinster have given 66 caps to 17 different current Academy players this season, totaling 2,501 minutes (same number for Munster's current academy is 8 players capped, 30 caps, 1,029 minutes).