Leinster and scrumhalf development

[hugonaut]

Quality try by Oisin Devitt in this years cup:

https://youtu.be/Q53SQ6h-8oA?t=4725

That's a wonderful try - lot of good stuff in there from one player.

[Serb]

If the IRFU see fit to strong-arm Leinster players into leaving for other provinces where those other provinces have failed to develop young players of the required standard (and where Leinster also have a senior international also on their roster) why didn't they push Casey into joining Leinster when Leinster expressed an interest? Double standards that only seem to go against Leinster..

This is not a double standard. Munster need Casey more than Leinster.

Let’s cut this nonsense and be realistic about the player movement here. We’ve lost maybe two players that would have had a good career at Leinster, Conway and Carbery. Even at that, Conway is possibly a stretch, but I think he would have done well and actually been a better player if he stayed with us.

Carbery is the most egregious loss because he was still under contract and was being groomed as a long term replacement for Rob Kearney.

The IRFU disagreed on the position he was being asked to play, but also wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2015 World Cup where our back up 10 was only half baked (ironic looking back now). They could also see the wealth of quality 10s that Leinster already possessed in Sexton, R. Byrne, Frawley and H. Byrne. Munster, or Ulster for that matter, couldn’t field a single decent 10.

Now apply the same thinking to Craig Casey and tell me how this is a double standard?

It makes a lot of sense to spread that talent across the board. We lost Carbery and we’ll lose at least one of R. Byrne, C. Frawley and H. Byrne in the next couple of years too.

The idea isn’t to take a provinces best players and prospects and just hand them to another one. They take players, good players but not the best players, knowing that the province being stripped has the resources to plug the gap. It’s an unfortunate truth that Leinster is the only province that has met that criteria in recent times.

It’s not even about the origin of the players and the dilution of the team culture that people batter Munster for, that’s just professional sport (imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

It feels bad because we’re being forced to strengthen our recent bitter rivals (e.g. would we have cared as much if Carbery was forced to play for London Irish?).

Another factor is that Ulster and Connacht don’t have the same sense of entitlement, that they deserve to be good, when the reality for Munster is that they had a purple patch in the 2000s where they were genuinely the best team in Europe, but for the majority of their history, they’ve been at best the third best team in Ireland.

[mildlyinterested]

Quality try by Oisin Devitt in this years cup:

https://youtu.be/Q53SQ6h-8oA?t=4725

That's a wonderful try - lot of good stuff in there from one player.

Yeah a lot to like about him as a player. Probably Clongowes best player, him or Dowling their 7. Only a 5th year too.

[Dave Cahill]

(imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

If your Dublin based company was set up in the first place to employ Dublin people and traded heavily on the basis that it was a Dublin based company that employed Dublin people by the grace of god, then I wouldn't find people giving them sh!t for not hiring people from Dublin all that hard to imagine.

[neiliog93]

If the IRFU see fit to strong-arm Leinster players into leaving for other provinces where those other provinces have failed to develop young players of the required standard (and where Leinster also have a senior international also on their roster) why didn't they push Casey into joining Leinster when Leinster expressed an interest? Double standards that only seem to go against Leinster..

This is not a double standard. Munster need Casey more than Leinster.

Let’s cut this nonsense and be realistic about the player movement here. We’ve lost maybe two players that would have had a good career at Leinster, Conway and Carbery. Even at that, Conway is possibly a stretch, but I think he would have done well and actually been a better player if he stayed with us.

Carbery is the most egregious loss because he was still under contract and was being groomed as a long term replacement for Rob Kearney.

The IRFU disagreed on the position he was being asked to play, but also wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2015 World Cup where our back up 10 was only half baked (ironic looking back now). They could also see the wealth of quality 10s that Leinster already possessed in Sexton, R. Byrne, Frawley and H. Byrne. Munster, or Ulster for that matter, couldn’t field a single decent 10.

Now apply the same thinking to Craig Casey and tell me how this is a double standard?

It makes a lot of sense to spread that talent across the board. We lost Carbery and we’ll lose at least one of R. Byrne, C. Frawley and H. Byrne in the next couple of years too.

The idea isn’t to take a provinces best players and prospects and just hand them to another one. They take players, good players but not the best players, knowing that the province being stripped has the resources to plug the gap. It’s an unfortunate truth that Leinster is the only province that has met that criteria in recent times.

It’s not even about the origin of the players and the dilution of the team culture that people batter Munster for, that’s just professional sport (imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

It feels bad because we’re being forced to strengthen our recent bitter rivals (e.g. would we have cared as much if Carbery was forced to play for London Irish?).

Another factor is that Ulster and Connacht don’t have the same sense of entitlement, that they deserve to be good, when the reality for Munster is that they had a purple patch in the 2000s where they were genuinely the best team in Europe, but for the majority of their history, they’ve been at best the third best team in Ireland.

The argument for moving promising young players between provinces is that they need gametime to develop into options for the Irish team. The main thing blocking young players from regular game time (especially at Heineken Cup level) is the presence of tarting Irish international players in their position at their province. Hence, Carbery was sent to Munster (the move has worked out poorly but there was a rationale there).

The same logic applies to Craig Casey moving to Leinster, who is firmly behind Conor Murray at Munster, who is widely recognised as a world-class scrum-half. Leinster have failed to develop a top class scrum-half for many years, and Casey looks to have extremely high potential but is stuck behind Murray. Leinster expressed an interest but the IRFU didn't push it through in the way they do with Leinster players moving to other provinces.

Further, I would also argue the Salanoa transfer is absurd - the IRFU bullying a kid into going from fourth place at one province for another. I think he would have had a good career at Leinster - Healy is a couple of years from retirement and I can see Porter shifting back across to loosehead, with Furlong and Salanoa the matchday XXIII tightheads.

[mildlyinterested]

If a player doesn't want to move then he doesn't have to move. Casey didn't want to move and IRFU have little incentive to try and move him to leinster, who they already think have too much talent.

[ronk]

(imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

If your Dublin based company was set up in the first place to employ Dublin people and traded heavily on the basis that it was a Dublin based company that employed Dublin people by the grace of god, then I wouldn't find people giving them sh!t for not hiring people from Dublin all that hard to imagine.

And catering to customers who identify themselves as Dubliners.

[mildlyinterested]

Cooney on time at Leinster and improving with Connacht

“Joe was incredible for me, capping me 16 times (for Leinster) by the age of 21,” Cooney says. “Then Matt (O’Connor, Schmidt’s replacement at Leinster) came in and I was essentially sent on loan (to Connacht). That gave me a chip on my shoulder. It was the driving force within me because I didn’t want to become that player whose career drifted away.”

Yet it looked as if he had. “If people were looking for my name on team-sheets, well they never really found it, did they?”

So this is when his career – and life – turns around. He keeps getting injured, needing three operations to sort out a shoulder problem. At one stage, he briefly fears he may even have to retire.

Instead he gets a lucky break. A few simple stretches on his shoulder loosens it up. Suddenly, he’s feeling free again. Suddenly, he’s handed the responsibility of being a kicker. He was 24. At Lansdowne – his AIL club – he wasn’t trusted with the tee.

But here he was, in the Pro14, asked to take the kicks for Connacht. “I didn’t miss my first 16 kicks, largely because I was kind of thinking, ‘look, no one is going to expect me to get these’. So I turned that thought into a positive.

“I came to the realisation that I had to understand that it is my life, my career and that I could shape the future of it. I worked as hard as I ever did back then. It probably wasn’t seen by everyone at first.

https://www.the42.ie/joe-schmidt-john-c ... 0-May2020/

[LeinsterLeader]

(imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

If your Dublin based company was set up in the first place to employ Dublin people and traded heavily on the basis that it was a Dublin based company that employed Dublin people by the grace of god, then I wouldn't find people giving them sh!t for not hiring people from Dublin all that hard to imagine.

I've come to this late .......who is this company and how can I give them my money?

[LeinsterLeader]

Cooney on time at Leinster and improving with Connacht

“Joe was incredible for me, capping me 16 times (for Leinster) by the age of 21,” Cooney says. “Then Matt (O’Connor, Schmidt’s replacement at Leinster) came in and I was essentially sent on loan (to Connacht). That gave me a chip on my shoulder. It was the driving force within me because I didn’t want to become that player whose career drifted away.”

Yet it looked as if he had. “If people were looking for my name on team-sheets, well they never really found it, did they?”

So this is when his career – and life – turns around. He keeps getting injured, needing three operations to sort out a shoulder problem. At one stage, he briefly fears he may even have to retire.

Instead he gets a lucky break. A few simple stretches on his shoulder loosens it up. Suddenly, he’s feeling free again. Suddenly, he’s handed the responsibility of being a kicker. He was 24. At Lansdowne – his AIL club – he wasn’t trusted with the tee.

But here he was, in the Pro14, asked to take the kicks for Connacht. “I didn’t miss my first 16 kicks, largely because I was kind of thinking, ‘look, no one is going to expect me to get these’. So I turned that thought into a positive.

“I came to the realisation that I had to understand that it is my life, my career and that I could shape the future of it. I worked as hard as I ever did back then. It probably wasn’t seen by everyone at first.

https://www.the42.ie/joe-schmidt-john-c ... 0-May2020/

I always liked John as a player but there is two ways to look at it I think. On the one hand Leinster made a mistake in letting him go but on the other, if he'd stayed it might never have lit the fire under him to improve. It might have been the kick up the hole he needed. We'll never know I suppose!

[mildlyinterested]

We will never know.. but I think the majority of his improvement came naturally with game time and maturity... granted with MOC here his opportunity to get game time was severely limited. Will always be a case of what if.

[joooooe]

(imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

If your Dublin based company was set up in the first place to employ Dublin people and traded heavily on the basis that it was a Dublin based company that employed Dublin people by the grace of god, then I wouldn't find people giving them sh!t for not hiring people from Dublin all that hard to imagine.

Said company also has a bizarre habit of singing a song about the topography of a townland in another county.

The analogy is ridiculous. With the exception of Steve Ballmer I can't see hoards of people turning up to cheer on a company at work.

"Did you see the new shirt the shelf-stackers are wearing in Tesco? I'm picking up one of those as soon as it hits the shops."

"Lads, I presume you saw the interim financials from Grant Thornton? We are celebrating tonight like there's no tomorrow!"

"The masses gathered on O'Connell Street today to watch live as those fans of Arthur Cox who were unfortunate not to be able to travel to the live contract signing in London gathered to cheer on as the head of Mergers and Acquisitions put pen to paper on the merger documents for these US pharma giants. In a press conference after the deal was struck she had this to say..."

Going off topic here, but sport is different to every other business and within elite-level Irish sport it is undeniable that locality and a sense of common belonging is what makes it so enjoyable. "Your club chooses you, not the other way around", "[insert name of county] by grace of God," etc.

The further you dilute that the greater the danger that you lose part of who you are, what you are and why you are.

[OTT]

I never liked ArthurCox they always thought they were better then other companies and they were always stealing pens.

[wixfjord]

If the IRFU see fit to strong-arm Leinster players into leaving for other provinces where those other provinces have failed to develop young players of the required standard (and where Leinster also have a senior international also on their roster) why didn't they push Casey into joining Leinster when Leinster expressed an interest? Double standards that only seem to go against Leinster..

This is not a double standard. Munster need Casey more than Leinster.

Let’s cut this nonsense and be realistic about the player movement here. We’ve lost maybe two players that would have had a good career at Leinster, Conway and Carbery. Even at that, Conway is possibly a stretch, but I think he would have done well and actually been a better player if he stayed with us.

Carbery is the most egregious loss because he was still under contract and was being groomed as a long term replacement for Rob Kearney.

The IRFU disagreed on the position he was being asked to play, but also wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2015 World Cup where our back up 10 was only half baked (ironic looking back now). They could also see the wealth of quality 10s that Leinster already possessed in Sexton, R. Byrne, Frawley and H. Byrne. Munster, or Ulster for that matter, couldn’t field a single decent 10.

Now apply the same thinking to Craig Casey and tell me how this is a double standard?

It makes a lot of sense to spread that talent across the board. We lost Carbery and we’ll lose at least one of R. Byrne, C. Frawley and H. Byrne in the next couple of years too.

The idea isn’t to take a provinces best players and prospects and just hand them to another one. They take players, good players but not the best players, knowing that the province being stripped has the resources to plug the gap. It’s an unfortunate truth that Leinster is the only province that has met that criteria in recent times.

It’s not even about the origin of the players and the dilution of the team culture that people batter Munster for, that’s just professional sport (imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

It feels bad because we’re being forced to strengthen our recent bitter rivals (e.g. would we have cared as much if Carbery was forced to play for London Irish?).

Another factor is that Ulster and Connacht don’t have the same sense of entitlement, that they deserve to be good, when the reality for Munster is that they had a purple patch in the 2000s where they were genuinely the best team in Europe, but for the majority of their history, they’ve been at best the third best team in Ireland.

That's a brilliant, brilliant post. Takes all the tribal hot air out of the discussion and cuts to the point.
Pretty much agree with all of it except the company analogy!

[blockhead]

If the IRFU see fit to strong-arm Leinster players into leaving for other provinces where those other provinces have failed to develop young players of the required standard (and where Leinster also have a senior international also on their roster) why didn't they push Casey into joining Leinster when Leinster expressed an interest? Double standards that only seem to go against Leinster..

This is not a double standard. Munster need Casey more than Leinster.

Let’s cut this nonsense and be realistic about the player movement here. We’ve lost maybe two players that would have had a good career at Leinster, Conway and Carbery. Even at that, Conway is possibly a stretch, but I think he would have done well and actually been a better player if he stayed with us.

Carbery is the most egregious loss because he was still under contract and was being groomed as a long term replacement for Rob Kearney.

The IRFU disagreed on the position he was being asked to play, but also wanted to avoid a repeat of the 2015 World Cup where our back up 10 was only half baked (ironic looking back now). They could also see the wealth of quality 10s that Leinster already possessed in Sexton, R. Byrne, Frawley and H. Byrne. Munster, or Ulster for that matter, couldn’t field a single decent 10.

Now apply the same thinking to Craig Casey and tell me how this is a double standard?

It makes a lot of sense to spread that talent across the board. We lost Carbery and we’ll lose at least one of R. Byrne, C. Frawley and H. Byrne in the next couple of years too.

The idea isn’t to take a provinces best players and prospects and just hand them to another one. They take players, good players but not the best players, knowing that the province being stripped has the resources to plug the gap. It’s an unfortunate truth that Leinster is the only province that has met that criteria in recent times.

It’s not even about the origin of the players and the dilution of the team culture that people batter Munster for, that’s just professional sport (imagine if someone gave your Dublin based company sh!t because they hired someone from Limerick?).

It feels bad because we’re being forced to strengthen our recent bitter rivals (e.g. would we have cared as much if Carbery was forced to play for London Irish?).

Another factor is that Ulster and Connacht don’t have the same sense of entitlement, that they deserve to be good, when the reality for Munster is that they had a purple patch in the 2000s where they were genuinely the best team in Europe, but for the majority of their history, they’ve been at best the third best team in Ireland.

Agree with the last paragraph. However when McCarthy went we were forced to go into the AIL for cover. Now, as it turned out he played well, especially down in Mordor last Xmas.

[Up Wexford]

Great stuff Serb, got me thinking about the player transfers in a new light for sure. Great point on Casey too.

While the may not be great, Leinster rugby did have a development path for these players, so maybe that is a non-partisan reason to argue against ad hoc transfers?

And no one will ever be able to convince me that the Carberry move was the right one since minute one! Sexton served under Felipe, TJ Reid was a sub on the great four in a row Kilkenny teams, sure everyones favourite superstar du jour Micheal Jordan only really got his start because the Bulls sucked, is he starting as a rookie ahead of Lebron now or Clyde Drexler at the time? Its part of sport and poor ol' Joey got swept up in the hype

[mildlyinterested]

Fair enough

re-watched Michaels Newbridge, Gunne was excellent especially considering he might have been the youngest player on the field. Hopefully he continues to improve.

[Purist98]

Fair enough

re-watched Michaels Newbridge, Gunne was excellent especially considering he might have been the youngest player on the field. Hopefully he continues to improve.

Think he might be older than McErlean but I get your point, he made one huge tackle on Kiely at one point that showed he clearly doesn't shy away from the physical aspect of the game.

[neiliog93]

Just to clarify, I have no issue with some players moving from Leinster to other provinces, especially if they're not getting game time and are behind an international player. I don't like the IRFU pushing a junior player to become a reserve for another province while our reserve (Salanoa), and I don't like that they don't apply the overall on a position-by-position basis (if they did that, Casey would've been pushed into coming to us as a scrum-half).

[mildlyinterested]

Fair enough

re-watched Michaels Newbridge, Gunne was excellent especially considering he might have been the youngest player on the field. Hopefully he continues to improve.

Think he might be older than McErlean but I get your point, he made one huge tackle on Kiely at one point that showed he clearly doesn't shy away from the physical aspect of the game.

the physical aspect of the game, has to be a given if he is going to be a pro, much more interested in his skills and decision making especially at his size.

I want the 9 to be the most skillful player on the team.