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

They don't close doors, the Irish players can still play for Ireland or for another country if they qualify.

A capture cap closes a whole path for a player's career and could ruin it.

I understand why fans are calling for it but it is pure selfishness.

Here's an Irishman, played for Italy and you can see what the their win yesterday means to him.

I felt his joy.

I think it's safe to assume, whichever camp offered him a place he'd take.

Unfortunately for Munster, France seems to have got there first.

From the IT

Good! Enjoy it!

Will be 2 this time next week. Also the fact we are angry about our side not getting a grand slam kind of says it all about where we are as a rugby team compared to under Joe.

They probably do but the fact is the reason he was probably called up is because they want to get a good look at him themselves as they cant rely on French coaches to watch him week in week out.

And what if he isnt up to it, it's another opportunity to give Depoortere more experience down the drain for someone who'll likely be no more than a squad option.

Nah that's just our own inferiority complex kicking in. Just because France want to drop their high standards in order to call up one of our filler players doesnt mean we should do likewise.

Well look who has arrived. How long before the ban this time.

You can't have it both ways - if he's a permanent crock then the game time is there for the Irish lads anyway. Like Leinster, we would like RGS to be available for the business end of the season and use the IQ lads to get us there.

Its just very frustrating for Munster. We're refused permission to sign NIQ players, then we go and scour the earth for IQ players to fit with the team we're trying to build, we find them, in Haley and Frisch, and even though they are clearly good enough for international level, and Ireland are weak in those positions, they get consistently overlooked for international duty in favour of unproven utility Leinster players and players like Larmour who has consistently shown himself to be sub standard but continues to be in ahead of better players from other provinces..

Jean Kleyn being overlooked for Ireland has cost Ireland 2 2nd rows, 1 in Kleyn himself, the other in Ross Moloney who has been exiled to England when his space got taken by RGS moving next season

Haley, who is by far our best backup 15 to Keenan (the only specialist 15 who has any minutes for Ireland) could be lost to Ireland because he's been overlooked for so long

Frisch is an extremely dynamic high ceiling player who has shown more than enough to earn an international cap and has been overlooked

Alex Kendellen is English qualified, he is a very important player for Munster who could potentially be lost to England before he gets any kind of opportunity for Ireland

Farrell brings the smallest squads to international camps of any other tier 1 country, and we think we can just call up players at the last minute if they are needed, instead of planning ahead, actually developing a deep pool of players who can be rotated in and out for injuries and to cover tours and future planning. It's already directly hit Munster more than once, and his reluctance to move on from his trusted stalwarts in high stakes games has cost is a RWC semi final (yes I'm still pissed off that Crowley wasn't used in the RWC semi final when Sexton was absolutely exhausted)

If 20 wins from 22 games and back 2 back 6N champs isnt a great team then Idk what is. So bringing through Crowley, McCarthy, Baird, Nash along with continuing to give players like Sheehan, Doris, Kelleher, etc game time is not planning for the future? Also it's not an ageing team, most of the players are in their prime or younger. The line out set piece that was 100% and 25/25 in the first 2 games is the worst line out in tier one rugby? They had no issue matching up with the French/SA pack over the last 12 months.

I'm not surprised this is such an il informed post because I look at you're profile and "shocker" hasn't posted on a rugby forum since May 2023...noticing a pattern here.

We lost RGS because we already had an NIQ second row after Ireland lost Jean Kleyn to South Africa

I'm thinking should Frisch go ahead and play for France we should still be able to keep him as our other centres, Shane Daly, Seán O Brien and Rory Scannell are all Irish qualified with Alex Nankivell potentially eligible on residency rules in a few years

So to be very technical about it Frisch shouldn't need to leave Munster on the NIQ rule in my mind

I would not exactly be surprised if this was anything other than the French trying to essentially get around the incredibly restrictive (and stupid) call up rules that have been agreed with the LNR.

The French are known for sneaky tactics in the past. I recall the national team complaining about substandard hospitality received in the 6N leading up to the world cup host voting process.

But what exactly are these call up rules that you speak of?

So we didn't **** up in 2014 or 2015 when we lost a match?

It's a strange setup alright, I presume the idea is to give players who play for the weaker T14 sides international exposure therefore improving the skill levels at those teams and making them more competitive?