Munster Team Talk Thread - New season title pending....

If POM goes then best of luck to him. I think all Irish players when the central contract finishes and if a higher pay offer comes in from elsewhere will of course look. Munster might feel POM is important but maybe Ireland dont as much, as people have mentioned, lots of back row competition. If POM gets offered 400-500k a year for a year or two in france at the end of his career, vs maybe 250k to stay at Munster then I think we know the answer there, and Munster cant afford to pay players 400-500k towards the end of the career, with an injury profile (and I know look at RG before anyone mentions it)..Murray will be next up to leave, same with the likes of Killer aswell...

Of course he was head and shoulders above everyone, because nobody else was given a chance and those chickens came home to roost when the mgt felt nobody was capable of 5 mins against Nz even though sexton was completely out on his feet

a lot of supporters from Leinster posting on here and after all these years , feeling finally vindicated that POM isn't worth an irish shirt.

the narrative:

Heaslip = "exceptional, one of a kind" sexton =" head and shoulders above anything else around"

POM = " i always knew he wasn't good enough and even if he was hes too old now " "baird/prendergast/deegan/penny, etc etc are better than him"

just to remind you, POM was one of Irelands best players at the 2023 world cup, which was only three months ago.

PoM was offered a 1 year deal on a reduced salary, if he thinks he can offer his same standard for another 2 years then he's dead right to look for a bigger salary.

Personally I think next season he should have a reduced role anyway with a view to the future.

Dillane would be an excellent signing in fairness, and would go someway to filling the RG hole in the squad.

TBH I think its commendable that the IRFU don't cap players that they don't intend to use. Whatever about looking at young players on a tour to the US or the like, why limit a players option going forward if you more then likely won't be picking them? It wouldn't have been fair on Healy or Kleyn who both had international aspirations and motivation to go on and play for the countries they did.

Just because the likes of NZ do it doesn't make it a good thing

Is it a lot of supporters from Leinster or really just a couple? It seems to be mainly one poster really and maybe one or two others saying something relevant.

We shouldn't be capping players for the sake of tying them to a country. Healy wasn't good enough to play for Ireland and hence wasn't capped. He might be good enough in future but he wasnt at the time. I don't blame the IRFU for that.

Kleyn was good enough and apparently was close enough to the squad. But he wasnt capped and moved on.

I don't believe for a second if these happened to Leinster there wouldnt be Leinster supporters complaining. Carberry moved for pretty much teh same reasons as Healy (to be first choice 10) and Leinster supporters still complain about that 6 years later. Look at the complaining about Milne reportedly moving to Munster.

Its not a victim culture to complain about losing players. Especially when the reason you lose the players appears to be out of your control.

The one thing I don't understand in all this is the two NIQ player rule. Since they are all IRFU employees for me then rule should apply across all 4 teams and not per team. If the goal is to produce players for Ireland then it makes no difference if Snyman is at Munster or Leinster. Ryan/ McCarthy starting for Leinster and Kleyn/Snyman for Munster is not OK but Ryan/ Snyman for Leinster and Kleyn/ McCarthy for Munster is grand. All it does is create a terrible optic that you favour one team, not allowing Munster resign a player but allowing him to move to Leinster is terrible optics.

My hunch is that we're seeing a stand-off between the private backers at Munster and the IRFU.

Backers who would unhesitatingly support a contract for a stalwart like POM, but at the same time, backers who are no fools. They know that there are no hard rules with IRFU CCs and if ever there's ever a case to NOT base one purely on projected future minutes in the national side, it'd be for a guy like POM.

The IT article, the LaR rumours, it's all just part of the game.

I'm confident both parties will find a compromise. POM has put far too much time and effort into that garden to ever leave it for extended periods of the year. The RWC must have nearly killed him.

Because Healy didn't deserve to be there. He would take the place of someone who did deserve to be there. There is a potential to cause upset within the squad.

its not a moral No-no. caps should be given to the best players that are available. Healy shouldn't be getting a cap ahead of another more deserving player just because he has a Scottish grandmother.

Yeah heard a few rumblings about that a few weeks ago.

That A-P guy on Twitter seems to rate him pretty highly.