Would you agree that "Golden age" of Irish rugby is over?

Wonder would he have written this if Leinster/Munster won the URC yesterday?

No question that we need to strengthen in a few areas.

We need better back up to Porter at LHP , back row is interesting, on the face of it we have a lot of talent, but there is a rebuild on the horizon at 6 and possibly even 7 and below the surface not as much proven test experience as you'd think.

Scrum Half is a problem, but only because JGP is so good that there is always going to be a drop off to the next guy. This will be a huge two tests for Casey.

Crowley is comfortably out on his own at 10, hopefully Prendergast (or whoever) can emerge to give him competition.

We're generally fine at centre, although Osborne becoming a test quality centre would be timely given the age profile of Aki, McCloskey and to a lesser extent Henshaw.

Our first choice back three is well established, but beneath that there are real issues IMO and this is an area we need to develop one or two players.

I'd love a real game breaking back though.

Those are the issues, we can debate the candidates to step up, but it's a big 12 months for Ireland between SA, the Emerging Ireland Tour, the Autumn Internationals and next summers tour when the Lions are in Australia. The squad and team may look quite different come November 2025. Given all that I wonder if Andy's appointment (hugely deserved as it is) as Lions coach next year may be badly timed in some respects for Ireland.

I havent read this due to the paywall but I listened to the 9 minutes YouTube clip on the 42 where he talks about these issues and it all just seems very reactionary, I really wont if Leinster/Munster hadn't got knocked out last week would he be saying any of this?

Reasons in favour of the golden age being over:

• Project players have played a huge role in the success of Irish rugby over the past 10 years and it's a recruitment device we can no longer rely on.
• The gulf in squad depth between ourselves and South Africa, New Zealand and France is growing. It appears to be IRFU to concentrate caps on fewer players with fewer central contracts rather than build depth and as such we've seen the likes of Frisch, Kleyn and Ben Healy ignored by the system and leave. A lot of eggs in very few baskets
• Budgets for Munster, Ulster and Connacht have been cut this year. Squad sizes are reducing and quality of players being signed are worse than those leaving.
• The financial gap between the provinces and Top 14 is growing rapidly to a point where a player exodus feels inevitably on the horizon.
• We used to have 3 teams consistently in the quarter finals in Europe, now it's usually only 1.
• We're still hugely reliant on a handful of private schools for most of our elite players. Rugby has failed to spread across demographics in the country.

Reasons to think the next years can be as good or better:

• Our under 20's performances have been consistently excellent and better than at any point in history.
• The IRFU manage the sports financials prudently in a time when so many other unions appear to be heading towards collapse.
• We now have a better league than ever both for competitiveness and revenue.
• Leinster at least are still able to attract some of the best coaches and players.

Overall it's a mixture of signs though I feel Ireland and Leinster have a group of ageing players there that'll need transitioning away from in the next 3 years which may affect results from both but they'll both be serious teams and win silverware for long term, just probably not quite as good as recent levels.

The picture for Munster, Ulster and Connacht is much more bleak.

I was referring more about this season than the last few seasons tbh. I just found it interesting how this was only brought up by Jackman this week but not the week before when it was looking like we'd have an all Irish URC final.

I suspect if Ireland win the series in SA we'll move from a doomsday thread like this to "Have Ireland peaked too soon" like the clip of our fingers.