Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Stephen Keogh, Brian O'Meara & Trevor Hogan all spring to mind as well.

Obviously Joey Carbery, Kieran Lewis, James Blaney, Felix Jones, Liam Toland, Mark McDermott, Andrew Conway, Collie O'Shea, Paddy Patterson, Rowan Osborne, Ben Murphy (loan - never played for Munster) and Jeremy Loughman have gone the other direction.

Guys like John Fogarty, Eoin Reddan, Mike Ross, Jordan Coghlan, Sean Cronin, Steve Crosbie, Danny Riordan, Ian Nagle, Ian Keatley and Tadhg Beirnehave played for both, both with someone else in between.

There are probably a few others I'm not thinking of.

This is it.

Ryan, McCarthy (on the form he showed Sunday in La Rochelle) and a healthy (massive caveat obviously) Snyman is probably the best lock trio in European rugby.

It's a gamble - but the net cost is probably not outrageous, given they were probably paying €250k a year to Jason Jenkins who has been ineffective at the highest levels.

No, they published the 2023 Accounts at the end of November.

In those accounts it is noted the following:

"Loans to branches increased significantly due to the conversion of a part of Munster's operational debt into a long-term loan..."

Under the cash flow for the financial year ending 31/07/2023, you can see an advance to Munster Rugby of €4,192,252, and in the notes to the accounts, specifically Note 8, you can see that year over year under the Other Loans section, the amount outstanding from Munster Rugby increased from €6.56m at the end of FY22 to €10.7m at the end of FY23.

The reference to operational debt differentiates it from the historic debts Munster still owe the IRFU from the Thomond redevelopment, and point to Munster Rugby running operational deficits for at least 1 year.

Munster are the only branch with this type of structure or who have debts outstanding to the IRFU.

EDIT: Link to the accounts:

I think he likely is on relatively big money.

Not as much as he was on at Munster (especially under his first contract obviously), but still good money regardless. It seems there was a competitive market for him, and he was credibly linked with Bath and Stormers for example, and surely could have made big money in Japan again if he wanted to.

He might have taken a slight discount to play with Nienaber, stay in Ireland and to join a team who are perennial European contenders, but nothing dramatic IMO.

There is nothing to support this.

Claiming Joe McCarthy's performance on Sunday shows he's "more of a liability than he is an asset" is an absurd take when you consider he played 75 mins as a tight head lock opposite Will Skelton, in an Atlantic storm, away from home in a hostile stadium, in a massive away win for Leinster.

It was about as promising a performance from a young Irish lock as I can remember. He's still just 22 years old. He plays with an edge, and tbh Leinster need that edge. Some penalty concessions are the price you pay for that, and I believe he'll cut out the sillier ones over time.