A whiff of Cordite

[dropkick]

Listening to the English based podcasts over the last few days, a theme is emerging.
They're all pretty downcast with no semi involvement for 2 successive seasons for Premiership clubs.
They all seem to think this it will get worse with next years reduction to 1 marquee player.
They predict that Premiership teams might start to prioritise the Premiership and field weakened teams.
And this is the best bit....
The solution they have all kinda come around to is for everyone else to get in line with them, salary wise.
The French need to get in line with them, the Irish need to get in line with the South Africans because "thats not fair".

I can see some sabre rattling not too far down the road, a European wide salary cap maybe, call it "financial fair play", Nigels style.

The Top 14 is leaving the premiership in it's dust. The premiership is a closed shop that very few want to invest in. The Top 14 on the other hand is open with a fair promotion relegation system so you have those second division clubs getting invested in by wealthy people. The premiership has closed itself off to that. Think of all the money english rugby has been missing out on.


I think the league is in trouble. As I said it looks bad when their top sides are beaten easily in europe. The URC is arguably as good as the premiership is now and it's on the rise with the SA sides joining which is shaking things up. The WRU is under pressure to provide more money to the regions which should mean they will improve too.


The South Africans are a further threat to English teams.


I suspect it won't be long until a B&I league is mentioned. Welsh dreams might yet come true.

One obvious risk is that the URL will prove that SA teams playing in a NH league works and that the Premiership and SA clubs will cut a deal somewhere in the future.
Or possibly other SA franchises will seek to join the Premiership.

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest and with Rassie in charge he will have no problem doing it although there would be a hell of a fallout between the unions. One thing that will not be happening is an anglo Welsh league.

[hugonaut]

Listening to the English based podcasts over the last few days, a theme is emerging.
They're all pretty downcast with no semi involvement for 2 successive seasons for Premiership clubs.
They all seem to think this it will get worse with next years reduction to 1 marquee player.
They predict that Premiership teams might start to prioritise the Premiership and field weakened teams.
And this is the best bit....
The solution they have all kinda come around to is for everyone else to get in line with them, salary wise.
The French need to get in line with them, the Irish need to get in line with the South Africans because "thats not fair".

I can see some sabre rattling not too far down the road, a European wide salary cap maybe, call it "financial fair play", Nigels style.

It's not a sabre, it's a cardboard sword made out of a cornflake packet and tinfoil.

There is absolutely zero chance of a European salary cap. It's rare that I would say anything with certainty regarding pro rugby, but I am 100% certain of that. Different currencies and different legislation in multiple countries would make it completely unenforceable. Different organisational methods amongst the different nations or unions involved would make it so complicated as to be unworkable.

[ronk]

Exeter's loss to Munster is a good example of why the English teams are all off this weekend.

They're used to playing different breakdown interpretations and they struggled to deal with a team that was as competitive there as Munster.

But the lopsided draw is also relevant. There's 9 stars in 1 game and none in the other. Both teams put out teams with 2 stars. The other side had Sale and Montpellier. The teams with 3 stars weren't even in the competition.

[paddyor]

Listening to the English based podcasts over the last few days, a theme is emerging.
They're all pretty downcast with no semi involvement for 2 successive seasons for Premiership clubs.
They all seem to think this it will get worse with next years reduction to 1 marquee player.
They predict that Premiership teams might start to prioritise the Premiership and field weakened teams.
And this is the best bit....
The solution they have all kinda come around to is for everyone else to get in line with them, salary wise.
The French need to get in line with them, the Irish need to get in line with the South Africans because "thats not fair".

I can see some sabre rattling not too far down the road, a European wide salary cap maybe, call it "financial fair play", Nigels style.

It's not just that. The switch to 13, and maybe 14 down the line, will mean further diffusion of talent. I suspect that the salary cap cut is partially to mitigate against bidding wars over bang average players. In the long run, it might very well leave them better off if they're more focused in developing academy talent instead of "showcasing the big names". That seemed to be some of the view on the eggchasers podcast who seemed a bit jealous of Munster showcasing, Casey, Kendellan and Ahern at the weekend gone. With all that said, I still think the lower half of the GP will be very weak.

They've been prioritzing the GP for years now. Outside of 2-3 teams they've sent out tackle shy pea hearts in a lot of games.

[ronk]

The salary cap in American Football has all sorts of restrictions. Things like rookie contracts with an optional year. Franchise players, compensatory picks.

Even soccer has something I think with compensation when young players were developed by a club but leave under free agency.

[Dave Cahill]

Even soccer has something I think with compensation when young players were developed by a club but leave under free agency.

It does, the FIFA Solidarity and Compensation Payments scheme

[mildlyinterested]

no podcast from joe.ie this week, i wonder would the same have happened if Munster won.

[suisse]

The OTB content this week has been, even by their standards, rubbish. I'm not gonna get into the whole 'Munster bias' thing but how often do you need to ask the same questions to different people? It feels like the same interviews over and over again. Alan Quinlan, Liam Toland, Gerry Thornley, Fiona Hayes, Keith Wood and Matt Williams have been giving their thoughts to the same talking points. It is incredibly boring. Then RoG is on today. I find RoG a very intriguing person but the RoG interviews are like something you'd hear on IrelandAM. The Morning Snooze with Ronan O'Gara. Some of the questions were so lame. "Did you like handling the pressure the older you got? I loved it, yeh." Great!

A few weeks ago Thornley was on talking Joe Molloy about how parochial the URC coverage is. They both agreed that the time has come to discuss, in more detail, the league on the whole and not just the Irish teams (and by that I mean Munster and Leinster). There has been no coverage of Last 16 or QF games not involving Irish teams. I think they talk about Munster so often because they're bored. They're bored of having only 2 teams to review. But they won't branch out when Europe rolls around.

As for Fiona Hayes. Another "ah howiya" contributor on OTB. Their rugby coverage (and RTE) almost always features a female contributor on the men's game. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing. But female contributors are much more prevalent in rugby. I wonder why that is. Do these stations ever employ a female former Irish international to talk about the PL or Champions League? I've never seen it happen. And very few female Gaelic footballers discussing the men's championship. For whatever reason rugby is different.

[suisse]

The OTB content this week has been, even by their standards, rubbish. I'm not gonna get into the whole 'Munster bias' thing but how often do you need to ask the same questions to different people? It feels like the same interviews over and over again. Alan Quinlan, Liam Toland, Gerry Thornley, Fiona Hayes, Keith Wood and Matt Williams have been giving their thoughts to the same talking points. It is incredibly boring. Then RoG is on today. I find RoG a very intriguing person but the RoG interviews are like something you'd hear on IrelandAM. The Morning Snooze with Ronan O'Gara. Some of the questions were so lame. "Did you like handling the pressure the older you got? I loved it, yeh." Great!

A few weeks ago Thornley was on talking Joe Molloy about how parochial the URC coverage is. They both agreed that the time has come to discuss, in more detail, the league on the whole and not just the Irish teams (and by that I mean Munster and Leinster). There has been no coverage of Last 16 or QF games not involving Irish teams. I think they talk about Munster so often because they're bored. They're bored of having only 2 teams to review. But they won't branch out when Europe rolls around.

As for Fiona Hayes. Another "ah howiya" contributor on OTB. Their rugby coverage (and RTE) almost always features a female contributor on the men's game. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing. But female contributors are much more prevalent in rugby. I wonder why that is. Do these stations ever employ a female former Irish international to talk about the PL or Champions League? I've never seen it happen. And very few female Gaelic footballers discussing the men's championship. For whatever reason rugby is different.

[joooooe]

The OTB content this week has been, even by their standards, rubbish. I'm not gonna get into the whole 'Munster bias' thing but how often do you need to ask the same questions to different people? It feels like the same interviews over and over again. Alan Quinlan, Liam Toland, Gerry Thornley, Fiona Hayes, Keith Wood and Matt Williams have been giving their thoughts to the same talking points. It is incredibly boring. Then RoG is on today. I find RoG a very intriguing person but the RoG interviews are like something you'd hear on IrelandAM. The Morning Snooze with Ronan O'Gara. Some of the questions were so lame. "Did you like handling the pressure the older you got? I loved it, yeh." Great!

A few weeks ago Thornley was on talking Joe Molloy about how parochial the URC coverage is. They both agreed that the time has come to discuss, in more detail, the league on the whole and not just the Irish teams (and by that I mean Munster and Leinster). There has been no coverage of Last 16 or QF games not involving Irish teams. I think they talk about Munster so often because they're bored. They're bored of having only 2 teams to review. But they won't branch out when Europe rolls around.

As for Fiona Hayes. Another "ah howiya" contributor on OTB. Their rugby coverage (and RTE) almost always features a female contributor on the men's game. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing. But female contributors are much more prevalent in rugby. I wonder why that is. Do these stations ever employ a female former Irish international to talk about the PL or Champions League? I've never seen it happen. And very few female Gaelic footballers discussing the men's championship. For whatever reason rugby is different.

RTE regularly has female pundits for men's soccer. Same with BBC and ITV. As for OTB, since the Second Captains lads left Newstalk almost a decade ago, OTB has been a tough listen. It's easier to tune out.

[curates_egg]

For me, OTB has two strong points:
(1) I can get it on my internet radio in the kitchen, and listen after the kids are gone to bed.
(2) They occasionally have really insightful/interesting guests from random sports (although much less since the pandemic).

Their rugby coverage is really poor. Beyond the Munster focus, and the recycling of pundits, is the fundamental flaw that the hosts don't really seem to care about rugby. Their questions rarely probe or rarely touch on the relevant issues and, particularly with Gilroy and Molloy, their questions are opinions.

FWIW, I actually think ROG can be a good a pundit, but he is dull as dishwater on OTB because of the hosts and the repetitive nature of their subjects.
The first time they got him on to talk about his coaching was interesting. But now it is every time he is on.

[riocard911]

I agree, Suisse, with the one corollary, that I thought Matt Williams elucidated well his opinion, why Munster could and should have beaten Toulouse, yet failed to do so.

[fourthirtythree]

Listening to the English based podcasts over the last few days, a theme is emerging.
They're all pretty downcast with no semi involvement for 2 successive seasons for Premiership clubs.
They all seem to think this it will get worse with next years reduction to 1 marquee player.
They predict that Premiership teams might start to prioritise the Premiership and field weakened teams.
And this is the best bit....
The solution they have all kinda come around to is for everyone else to get in line with them, salary wise.
The French need to get in line with them, the Irish need to get in line with the South Africans because "thats not fair".

I can see some sabre rattling not too far down the road, a European wide salary cap maybe, call it "financial fair play", Nigels style.

Firstly it's utterly impossible across Europe - they'd have a better chance if they stayed in the EU!!!
Secondly, okay fair enough, I think it's utterly unfair that they get to buy in anyone they like. They should be forced to have no more than four players in the squad that didn't come from the local academy. The unfairness showed up at the end of the match on Saturday when they brought on Nadolo and we brought on a rookie straight out of the academy. Not fair!

Though to be fair when they sent Nadolo on they had one plan "give the ball to the big lad. Score many tries". It was utterly clueless and might work against a bottom of the Premier"ship" thing but won't against a well coached team. Was a bit of a rookie coach vibe to be honest.

Anyway, Irish rugby could not survive if we were forced to follow the English system, France would lose interest, I guess it would suit the English, but not anyone else. They can't do our system, well they could really but they don't want to for... reasons.

As for resting players, If we were playing Bristol last week we probably would have. As JGP said he would have preferred to be playing and the team would have but they could not take that risk of going to SA and having a quarantine hit. The guff from the English is Schrodinger's advantage. If we win it's because we rest our players in a weak league, if we lose it's because we don't have enough tough games. And relegation.

Pick one and stick please. Otherwise it's toddler logic. The trip to SA was badly timed and we would have preferred to be more competitive there but we did what we needed with the kids and have earned the right to do what we want by qualifying. Leicester have a higher win percentage than us, we just have a pack behind us that are all scrapping against each other and it's too tight to call.

[Ruckedtobits]

Demented Mole #64 is a decent listen with a discussion on each of the Q/F games. They seem to favour LAR to emerge victorious at the end.

[joooooe]

The day before Leinster play a Heineken Cup semi final and the lead article in the Sports section of The Irish Times is about...Munster. Jesus wept.

[nc6000]

The day before Leinster play a Heineken Cup semi final and the lead article in the Sports section of The Irish Times is about...Munster. Jesus wept.

I have it open in front of me. The lead rugby article is an interview with Ronan Kelleher, beside that there's a piece on the USA hosting the RWC in 2031 and another article on the November tests. The piece on Munster is on the next page.

[joooooe]

The day before Leinster play a Heineken Cup semi final and the lead article in the Sports section of The Irish Times is about...Munster. Jesus wept.

I have it open in front of me. The lead rugby article is an interview with Ronan Kelleher, beside that there's a piece on the USA hosting the RWC in 2031 and another article on the November tests. The piece on Munster is on the next page.

Online

[Theleinsterlad]

The day before Leinster play a Heineken Cup semi final and the lead article in the Sports section of The Irish Times is about...Munster. Jesus wept.

I have it open in front of me. The lead rugby article is an interview with Ronan Kelleher, beside that there's a piece on the USA hosting the RWC in 2031 and another article on the November tests. The piece on Munster is on the next page.

Online

Does that not follow your cookie reading habits?

[SoupyNorman]

Ye should be more annoyed about Johnny Watterson only putting Leinster down as winning the competition three times since 2008.

[blockhead]

Garry Doyle talking out of both side on his anus on the42.
The usual thing about resting players when Leicester couldn't and a how rested players are more likey to play well (athough he didn't explain how much it affects skills and tactics).
But then he mentions how most of the Leinster team played in the Six Nations and how this helped out players "a practice that not only prevents ring-rust but also exposes their players to competitive action at a higher level".
It dosen't wear us out then Garry?

The harder league argument has one almighty hole in it.
The English teams should be very competitive in the Autumn after both leagues have just played 5/6 games and Leinster boys have been "exposed to competitive action at a higher level" in the November Series games right?
But in reality, we hockey them then too.

Jog on mate!