Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Money is a factor but only because there isn't another league where they can earn similar. IRFU doesn't only have to worry about high paying jobs like the NFL would, but also other leagues.

Agree with your other point. The average length of an NFL player career is 3.3 years, less than the length of their cost controlled contracts coming out of the draft.

Irish rugby doesn't have the playing population to churn through players like that if they aren't immediately showing progress. Having an annual draft means provinces are enticed to go after the shiny new young player each year, knowing that you get another shot the following year no matter how poorly your development program is.

To be fair, I am literally parroting exactly what you have said. You are speaking out of both sides of your mouth.

Is there a big enough player pool and finances in Ireland to have three teams at the level Leinster are at? Definitely not.

So the choice is to dilute Leinster so that we have four teams at a Scottish club level. Or we continue to let Leinster develop world class talent for Ireland and themselves and hope that the other provences change their structures to be more competitive.

Sorry that facts hurt your feelings and you choose to attack the poster rather than the post. We'll see if the mods give you the soft treatment you usually get from them.

There is clear evidence of how Munster made a complete mess of their academy system for a decade and only after they made significant changes that their system they also started producing the far higher quality we're seeing now. You must believe that is pure coincidence.

I dealt with that in my last response to you and instead of responding to it you've just repeated it at another poster:

As for the outlook of going 10:3, we aren't even seeing some huge shift in spending due to it - we may never will. Leinster are losing Molony, Jenkins, Ngatai, Alalaatoa (plus other squad players) and so far they are bringing in Snyman and 6 months of Barrett. I'd argue those wouldnt be far off netting from a cost perspective, if not Leinster will be paying less (though it could change with a TH signing).

Leinster are sacrificing quantity for quality in their transactions thus far. It isn't like they taking the potential two extra central contracts and bringing in 2 extra players at a similar cost.

I haven't been reading all the thread, so maybe you've said this already, but how do you get to where you want to be? The best, most important players will be paid the most, no?

Surely Nash would have received extra for his international caps already. The more arguments I hear the more I think nothing should be changed and central contracts are working perfectly.

Munster for a period did have a poor academy structure but were always behind leinster anyway at age grade and wereonly ahead of leinster from players who cane through clubs scene(adults) in early years of pro rugby and leinster wete miles behind.

Munster started to change their whole approach around developing players through youths and schools interpro teams around 2012/2013 and it just takes time for that to show at pro level. Their systems are now very good but thats 10 years in the making.

Biggest issue for munster hasnt been the last 10 or ao years but the years before thatas systems ans structures are totally different and improved.

Agree with most of that.

I probably could have been clearer in my post, when I said 'a decade' I wasn't specifically talking about the last one, as I've repeatedly given Munster credit for improving things over the last few years. It will take some time, as you noted, which is why I don't buy into the 'cant see how they'll get closer to parity without intervention' narrative that some have started pushing this week.

I provided the below detail on the differences in the capital investment side of things on the previous thread when @theVersatile specifically @'d me requesting what I was talking about when it came to a the contrast in focus between Munster vs Leinster. After spending time to write it I didn't hear a peep back from @theVersatile, despite them posting further on this topic.

Leinster used private investor money to build and staff both their main UCD training facilities for their main team and academy and sub-academy (opened 2011) and their Donnybrook Center of Excellence, which is specifically for pathway players (opened 2019). There are also 5 more of those centers planned around the province.

Leinster were planning to heavily invest in their facilities even before they won their first EC - a two year turnaround to move into a high performance space for their team and academy.

Over ten years after Munster's first EC win and their team and academy still wasn't even consistently training in the same county. Instead of facilities and coaching they dumped their money into big name signings, internal politics, and a white elephant stadium.

Sweet retort brother.

So what? It's not like it's undeserved. You would swear that Leinster win Europe every year. Leinster have massively underachieved, imo. Despite the CC's and advantages etc. Winning nothing is not achieving! Or is it?