Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

That's one, relatively disingenuous way, to portray Penny's minutes.

The remaining 61% of his minutes came against other Irish provinces (23% overall, including 160 mins against Munster), in Europe (11% of overall minutes), and against sides like Stormers (80 mins) & Glasgow (80 mins). He also played in the URC QF.

He's also played in 8 of 9 possible URC games this season (starting 5 of those) and has captained the team on multiple occasions.

I don't think anyone said you were being disingenuous for just having a different opinion - I said the way you portrayed Penny's minutes to be was a bit a selective and disingenuous, and @Quin_Dub said it was a bit disingenuous to claim Deegan and Frawley for example weren't important to Leinster just based on European minutes alone.

European minutes especially haven't been the most important barometer for Leinster in the last couple of seasons, when Leinster have relatively routinely faced teams sending over their B squads.

Absolutely no good would come from allowing the provinces to compete financially with each other for players.

It would just lead to overall wage inflation across the entire player base.

The current set up is the one that has us, a country with less than 200 professional rugby players, in a realistic situation where there was widespread anger and frustration at our failure to win the last Rugby World Cup.

The current set up is the one that had us the #1 ranked team in the world for over 12 months, and has delivered plenty of success in recent years internationally and domestically.

The current set up has our club sides still thriving and growing, while our nearest neighbours across the water are on their knees because of the shambles they’ve made of their financial situation.

Whatever slight benefits there are to allowing the provinces to compete financially for each other’s players (and I’m not convinced there are any) are massively outweighed by the material downsides to it.

There is a relatively small and finite pool of money that pays all for all rugby here in Ireland effectively - allowing the provinces to compete like this financially will drive wages higher and just mean there’s less money left in the pool to pay for underage development and all the other things that are ultimately funded from the same pot.

Any scenario where the provinces can outbid one another for players will lead to wage inflation - that’s basically an economic certainty.

It would lead to more players moving obviously - but you’re not putting forward any real argument for why that improves things for Ireland.

All four Irish provinces are performing well by any international comparison - they’re competitive, all have good attendances and growing fan bases. It’s also sustainable growth that isn’t reliant on stretching themselves to the brink on expensive overseas signings.

If you start playing it out - how it works when Ulster, for example, are permitted to outbid Leinster for Max Deegan, then it’s obvious what happens when other Leinster or Ulster back rowers are at contract renewal stage. It would just be the IRFU bidding against themselves ultimately to the detriment of the Irish game overall.