Leinster Academy 2021-22

[wixfjord]

Also, you could just as easily commend Leinster for picking Deeney who is a high upside second row from a non-traditional playing background!

You're making it out as if Izuchukwu is some massive loss and a far better player than what we currently have in the academy, where we've nowhere near enough of a sample size to indicate that.

I don't think it's a 'mistake' for Leinster to choose a player and then see a player that's no chosen go on to be a good player, it's merely a function of the system we operate in (and a positive one at that).

Izuchukwu will get more caps for ireland, injury allowing, than all of the locks in the leinster academy at the moment: Charlie Ryan, Brian Deeny & Joe McCarthy. So of course it was a mistake not offering him a place in the leinster academy.

Anyway we are not going to agree so time to move on.

Big call there, with not much to back it up so far!

If you think yourself that much smarter than the Leinster brains trust then fair enough!

[mildlyinterested]

Also, you could just as easily commend Leinster for picking Deeney who is a high upside second row from a non-traditional playing background!

You're making it out as if Izuchukwu is some massive loss and a far better player than what we currently have in the academy, where we've nowhere near enough of a sample size to indicate that.

I don't think it's a 'mistake' for Leinster to choose a player and then see a player that's no chosen go on to be a good player, it's merely a function of the system we operate in (and a positive one at that).

Izuchukwu will get more caps for ireland, injury allowing, than all of the locks in the leinster academy at the moment: Charlie Ryan, Brian Deeny & Joe McCarthy. So of course it was a mistake not offering him a place in the leinster academy.

Anyway we are not going to agree so time to move on.

Big call there, with not much to back it up so far!

If you think yourself that much smarter than the Leinster brains trust then fair enough!

ah the ole the coaches can do no wrong logic. classic.

i've never claimed to be smarter than anyone, just that they've made mistakes in the past and often been the same type of mistake.

[wixfjord]

Izuchukwu will get more caps for ireland, injury allowing, than all of the locks in the leinster academy at the moment: Charlie Ryan, Brian Deeny & Joe McCarthy. So of course it was a mistake not offering him a place in the leinster academy.

Anyway we are not going to agree so time to move on.

Big call there, with not much to back it up so far!

If you think yourself that much smarter than the Leinster brains trust then fair enough!

ah the ole the coaches can do no wrong logic. classic.

i've never claimed to be smarter than anyone in Leinster, just that they've made mistakes.

Not saying coaches can do no wrong at all.

You've just made a massively subjective claim there about a player who has barely played pro level and indeed barely played second row based on very little.

You're talking about 'mistakes'. At the moment they're just subjective decisions that you believe to be wrong and have no context about why they were made.

[mildlyinterested]

Of course it's subjective it's my opinion, but we shall see how it plays out..

[wixfjord]

Like do you not think you're massively overrating and hyping up Izuchukwu just a smidge?

He's a fine athlete, but with very little top level rugby, very little second row experience (10-15 games?) and has recently done his ACL.

He's quoted as saying when he came into Ulster in March 2020:

“I didn’t really know how to jump in a lineout properly. It was a huge struggle at the start. I’ve been doing hours of study every night, walking through it, I always have my notebook out writing down what certain calls mean.

“Even apart from that, it’s the maul sets. I had never really been in a maul properly before coming out of school. You’re in the deep end.”

I know you love the next big thing at youth level, but I just think it's a bit OTT to be calling this a 'mistake' and speaking about Irish caps at this stage.

[mildlyinterested]

For a player with so little experience at the position his progress last season is even more remarkable, so no I don't think massively overrating him.

I'm not claiming he will be a future lion or something, just stating that he will have a better career than the locks preferred to him currently in the leinster academy. I hope i'm wrong as a leinster fan but I guess we will have to wait and see.

[OneLungDavy]

Izuchukwu looks better than any Leinster academy lock right now. All we can do is speculate about the future. He has tools you can't coach, I don't think it's hyperbolic to say he could get caps.

[mildlyinterested]

Moving on, This is how i'd rate the academy players heading into the season, most difficult to project the back three at the moment I think.. none of the 5 are outstanding athletes by pro rugby standards.

Prop
Jack Boyle(18/St. Michaels/UCD) - 9
Temi Lasisi(19/Enniscorthy RFC/Lansdowne) - 8
Marcus Hanan(21/Clane RFC/Old Belvedere) - 7

Hooker
John McKee(21/Campbell/Old Belvedere) - 7
Lee Barron(20/St. Michaels/DUFC) - 7

Lock
Brian Deeny(21/Wexford RFC/Clontarf) - 8
Charlie Ryan(22/Blackrock/UCD) - 7
Joe McCarthy(20/Blackrock/DUFC) - 7

Backrow
Alex Soroka(20/Belvedere/Clontarf) - 9
Martin Moloney(21/Athy RFC/Old Belvedere) - 7
Sean O'Brien(21/Blackrock/UCD) - 7
Mark Hernan(21/St. Michaels/Lansdowne) -7

Scrumhalf
Cormac Foley(21/St. Gerards/Lansdowne) - 7
Ben Murphy(20/Pres Bray/Old Wesley) - 7

Centre
Jamie Osborne(19/Naas RFC/Naas) - 9
Liam Turner(22/Blackrock/DUFC) - 7

Back Three
Andrew Smith(21/St. Michaels/Clontarf) - 7
Niall Comerford(21/Blackrock/UCD) - 7
Max O'Reilly(21/St. Gerards/DUFC) - 7
Rob Russell(22/St. Michaels/DUFC) - 7
Chris Cosgrave(20/St. Michaels/UCD) - 7

7 - potential to be Leinster squad player
8 - potential to be 1st choice for Leinster
9 - potential to be 1st choice for Ireland

[ChrisUppy]

The Oracle has spoken.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I think when you look at Leinster's decisions on who to back and who to let go over the years, a vast majority of the calls have been bang on. You can only go on the data and context available at the time of making a decision too.

To me there's too much 'hindsight bias' involved in a lot of this discussion. You place your bets and back them.

Clearly some guys (Beirne is the best example, but there are numerous others) matured into really good players, but I don't think many of those decisions were seen as surprising at the time.

When yopu've the biggest pick of players in the country and a limited number of academy spots, and have to pick guys who aren't yet mature physically you'll always make some errors.

Plus we've won trophies, were in a European final two years ago, held onto the majority of players we wanted to keep (indicating a well balanced squad), and had four forwards on the Lions tour. I'm all in favour of bringing big beefy forwards through the academy and think we could do with one really, but in reality we'd probably have another HC in the bag if we'd booted the ball out just before HT in Newcastle, or if Garry had passed shortly after the restart. My point being that we're still hugely competitive and there are gains to be made elsewhere too. Plus we might improve in the physicality stakes if Porter moves to LH, Baird develops as hoped, and JR is injury free and gets a run of games.

I think we've taken some punts before anyway haven't we? Salanoa was certainly a bit of a project because of his physical attributes despite being very raw, I'm sure we were all on board with that one at the time.

[the spoofer]

Also, you could just as easily commend Leinster for picking Deeney who is a high upside second row from a non-traditional playing background!

You're making it out as if Izuchukwu is some massive loss and a far better player than what we currently have in the academy, where we've nowhere near enough of a sample size to indicate that.

I don't think it's a 'mistake' for Leinster to choose a player and then see a player that's no chosen go on to be a good player, it's merely a function of the system we operate in (and a positive one at that).

Izuchukwu will get more caps for ireland, injury allowing, than all of the locks in the leinster academy at the moment: Charlie Ryan, Brian Deeny & Joe McCarthy. So of course it was a mistake not offering him a place in the leinster academy.

Anyway we are not going to agree so time to move on.

You are basing that off a tiny sample size. He's played very little senior rugby and will miss a full year of development. The same could have been said of Adam Byrne but he has yet to fulfil the potential many of us thought he had. I always thought that Peter Dooley was a future Lions player but that is not the case as of yet!

[Oddshapedballs]

On the topic of youth talent does anyone know much about the leinster u18 schoolboy team that are due to play their Ulster counterparts this weekend?

[mildlyinterested]

On the topic of youth talent does anyone know much about the leinster u18 schoolboy team that are due to play their Ulster counterparts this weekend?

team should be announced on friday.

Other than that info is limited outside of the extended squad that was selected.

Sam Berman(Centre), David Colbert(Outhalf), Louis McGauran(Lock-Blindside) and Rueben Moloney(Fullback) all trained with the squad last summer as u17's.

[hugonaut]

I think when you look at Leinster's decisions on who to back and who to let go over the years, a vast majority of the calls have been bang on. You can only go on the data and context available at the time of making a decision too.

To me there's too much 'hindsight bias' involved in a lot of this discussion. You place your bets and back them.

Clearly some guys (Beirne is the best example, but there are numerous others) matured into really good players, but I don't think many of those decisions were seen as surprising at the time.

When yopu've the biggest pick of players in the country and a limited number of academy spots, and have to pick guys who aren't yet mature physically you'll always make some errors.

Given the talent pool available to leinster, they should have much better athletes in the academy, but they don't as they often don't take risks on raw, high upside athletes like Izuchukwu, but rather source a large amount of players from two rugby schools who produce academy level players straight out of school with the academy acting like a finishing school.

They knew when they passed on Izuchukwu that he had rare size and athleticism for the position in Ireland, they didn't back themselves to improve areas of forward play that he needed a lot of work on, quickly they were made look foolish when last season Izuchukwu dominated the 2nd rows leinster had chosen ahead of him in an A game. It's not the first mistake and it won't be the last but you'd have hoped they'd learn and stop making the same mistakes over and over.

I agree with both of you [he said, wobbling on the fence]. I think for the most part they do a good job with academy selection, and there are certainly guys who I didn't really think were great prospects at academy level who have turned out to be genuinely excellent international players – Josh van der Flier and Hugo Keenan are the ones I have in mind. I didn't see it with either of them when they were youngsters, but there you go. Others did, and were right.

But I think Mildly makes a good point about taking punts on a few more unpolished guys with raw potential – size, speed, strength etc. We had this discussion on the board a few times, and I think that there's merit to what he is saying. In fairness to those selecting academy entrants, I would consider Lasisi to be a good punt. It would have been easy to take Boyle [who is an absolute certainty] and say that one loosehead is enough for any year, but they've got Lasisi into the mix too because he's so obviously a unit.

There's a short story at the beginning of the Michael Lewis book Moneyball. It goes something like this: two coaches are told that they've got to choose one guy from two prospects. One of the prospects runs the 40 in 4.4 with immaculate form, and the other runs it in 4.5 with terrible form. The first coach goes with the 4.4 guy, saying he's pro ready. The second goes with the 4.5 guy, saying imagine how quick he'll be when I coach him how to run properly.

Leinster have plans to build three additional Centres of Excellence [at Carlow IT, Dundalk IT and Kings Hospital/M50 - source: https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/ ... -1.3808598 ]. That will go a long way to reaching a wider playing population.

[hugonaut]

There are a couple of other issues that I have heard about in the past with different young players in the academy/sub-academy.

Firstly, nobody gets paid for going to the sub-academy. It's a tough routine with early starts etc. but the biggest deal for a lot of players is transport and accommodation. Accommodation costs are absolutely scandalous in Dublin – an average of €1800k/month. Secondly, car insurance costs for lads in their late teens or very early twenties are similarly eye-watering. So living in Dublin costs a fortune, and if you don't already live in Dublin, driving to Dublin costs a fortune.

Say a lad comes from Carlow or Mullingar or Wexford and studies in DCU or Maynooth or Trinity or wherever and gets invited to join the Leinster sub-Academy – he has to get from wherever he's living to Donnybrook for 7am weight sessions. He doesn't have a car, so he relies on public transport or cycling ... all weathers. That is a huge pain in the hole. He's probably working twice as hard as some of the lads from Dublin who are living at home with their parents and may have the use of a car [or may even have been bought a car]. I'm not criticising anybody here, just making the point that people's circumstances are different, even people who might have a lot of similarities in many ways.

You want the sub-academy reach to be big. You don't want lads to drop out of contention for circumstantial reasons. It'd be amazing to have these additional centres of excellence with 10-12 people in sub academies in each of them and it's good to see Leinster have those plans.

[ronk]

The academy intake was mostly 2 year U20s. A player for capped for Leinster and didn't make the academy. It's absurdly competitive. Academy success relies on being able to give guys chances. So even if the places are there for intake we'd just need to make hard choices later.

We took a few punts. Salanoa is an obvious example but you can also see guys like Charlie Ryan. Good strong player, captained the U20s. Very much in the shadow of Baird. Will be a slow burner if he comes through and injuries will have slowed him further. We took a punt on the opposite of Izuchukwu in this case, but also hedged our bets with Deeny.

A big confounding variable for talent spotting is when players mature temperamentally and really improve their application, especially if it comes out of nowhere. The stories around Izuchukwu in the media are that he's been working exceptionally hard on his game and has become a very driven young man. Scouts see the opposite and are probably a bit more skeptical. Especially with the roundabout route he took through 7s and with a positional change. Given his age it's entirely possible that he would have been picked up after doing the sub-academy/AIL route. He didn't want to wait and fair play to him, he went to Scotland and ended up playing 7s. When do we ever get first choice of an IQ player recruited by the IRFU.

[mildlyinterested]

I think when you look at Leinster's decisions on who to back and who to let go over the years, a vast majority of the calls have been bang on. You can only go on the data and context available at the time of making a decision too.

To me there's too much 'hindsight bias' involved in a lot of this discussion. You place your bets and back them.

Clearly some guys (Beirne is the best example, but there are numerous others) matured into really good players, but I don't think many of those decisions were seen as surprising at the time.

When yopu've the biggest pick of players in the country and a limited number of academy spots, and have to pick guys who aren't yet mature physically you'll always make some errors.

Given the talent pool available to leinster, they should have much better athletes in the academy, but they don't as they often don't take risks on raw, high upside athletes like Izuchukwu, but rather source a large amount of players from two rugby schools who produce academy level players straight out of school with the academy acting like a finishing school.

They knew when they passed on Izuchukwu that he had rare size and athleticism for the position in Ireland, they didn't back themselves to improve areas of forward play that he needed a lot of work on, quickly they were made look foolish when last season Izuchukwu dominated the 2nd rows leinster had chosen ahead of him in an A game. It's not the first mistake and it won't be the last but you'd have hoped they'd learn and stop making the same mistakes over and over.

I agree with both of who [he said, wobbling on the fence]. I think for the most part they do a good job with academy selection, and there are certainly guys who I didn't really think were great prospects at academy level who have turned out to be genuinely excellent international players – Josh van der Flier and Hugo Keenan are the ones I have in mind. I didn't see it with either of them when they were youngsters, but there you go. Others did, and were right.

But I think Mildly makes a good point about taking punts on a few more unpolished guys with raw potential – size, speed, strength etc. We had this discussion on the board a few times, and I think that there's merit to what he is saying. In fairness to those selecting academy entrants, I would consider Lasisi to be a good punt. It would have been easy to take Boyle [who is an absolute certainty] and say that one loosehead is enough for any year, but they've got Lasisi into the mix too because he's so obviously a unit.

There's a short story at the beginning of the Michael Lewis book Moneyball. It goes something like this: two coaches are told that they've got to choose one guy from two prospects. One of the prospects runs the 40 in 4.4 with immaculate form, and the other runs it in 4.5 with terrible form. The first coach goes with the 4.4 guy, saying he's pro ready. The second goes with the 4.5 guy, saying imagine how quick he'll be when I coach him how to run properly.

Leinster have plans to build three additional Centres of Excellence [at Carlow IT, Dundalk IT and Kings Hospital/M50 - source: https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/ ... -1.3808598 ]. That will go a long way to reaching a wider playing population.

Lasisi had to get in the hard way, he was let go by the sub-academy and was fortunate enough to get called into the extended irish u20 squad due to injury issues and he earned his contract with performances for that team. It's good that leinster recognized their earlier mistake and offered him an academy contract but it's not great that he was let go from the sub-academy, I believe Illo may have been released too but not 100% sure on that right now.

[mildlyinterested]

There are a couple of other issues that I have heard about in the past with different young players in the academy/sub-academy.

Firstly, nobody gets paid for going to the sub-academy. It's a tough routine with early starts etc. but the biggest deal for a lot of players is transport and accommodation. Accommodation costs are absolutely scandalous in Dublin – an average of €1800k/month. Secondly, car insurance costs for lads in their late teens or very early twenties are similarly eye-watering. So living in Dublin costs a fortune, and if you don't already live in Dublin, driving to Dublin costs a fortune.

Say a lad comes from Carlow or Mullingar or Wexford and studies in DCU or Maynooth or Trinity or wherever and gets invited to join the Leinster sub-Academy – he has to get from wherever he's living to Donnybrook for 7am weight sessions. He doesn't have a car, so he relies on public transport or cycling ... all weathers. That is a huge pain in the hole. He's probably working twice as hard as some of the lads from Dublin who are living at home with their parents and may have the use of a car [or may even have been bought a car]. I'm not criticising anybody here, just making the point that people's circumstances are different, even people who might have a lot of similarities in many ways.

You want the sub-academy reach to be big. You don't want lads to drop out of contention for circumstantial reasons. It'd be amazing to have these additional centres of excellence with 10-12 people in sub academies in each of them and it's good to see Leinster have those plans.

this issue for non dublin living players is a big one but many players of the top sub-academy players get subsidized accommodation in the city, depending on their club/college situation. But asking players from outside of south dublin to train for free in the sub-academy for a year is certainly becoming more of an issue.

AFAIK the additional centres around the province will be used by the shane horgan teams and older club based players(u18/u19) still in school as training centres, the sub-academy will still be based in dublin and this issue will remain.

[mildlyinterested]

The academy intake was mostly 2 year U20s. A player for capped for Leinster and didn't make the academy. It's absurdly competitive. Academy success relies on being able to give guys chances. So even if the places are there for intake we'd just need to make hard choices later.

We took a few punts. Salanoa is an obvious example but you can also see guys like Charlie Ryan. Good strong player, captained the U20s. Very much in the shadow of Baird. Will be a slow burner if he comes through and injuries will have slowed him further. We took a punt on the opposite of Izuchukwu in this case, but also hedged our bets with Deeny.

A big confounding variable for talent spotting is when players mature temperamentally and really improve their application, especially if it comes out of nowhere. The stories around Izuchukwu in the media are that he's been working exceptionally hard on his game and has become a very driven young man. Scouts see the opposite and are probably a bit more skeptical. Especially with the roundabout route he took through 7s and with a positional change. Given his age it's entirely possible that he would have been picked up after doing the sub-academy/AIL route. He didn't want to wait and fair play to him, he went to Scotland and ended up playing 7s. When do we ever get first choice of an IQ player recruited by the IRFU.

Was it?

Jack Boyle has played 1 year(2021), he will play again next season, injury allowing.
Lee Barron didnt even play u20 rugby due to injury but again he had only 1 year in the sub-academy.
Mark Hernan played 1 year of u20's(2020), but did two years in the sub-academy
Ben Murphy would have played two years at u20(2020-2021) but for injury(neither year was he the 1st choice 9) and only got 3 caps off the bench for a total of 20 mins as an u20.
Rob Russell played 1 year of u20's(2019), but has been heavily involved with the A side and sub-academy for the past two seasons.
Chris Cosgrave played 1 year of u20's(2021).

Charlie Ryan was not a punt, he was irish u20 captain and did 2 seasons in the sub-academy. Now they may have taken a punt on him becoming a better athlete with more pro training but he isn't comparable to Izuchukwu apart from their height.

You are misunderstanding Izuchukwu's route to pro rugby, after Roscrea he moved to Scotland and started playing lock as he was huge, he played centre at Roscrea, he was spotted by an irish scout and recruited to move back to Ireland during his u19 season to play 7's. He trained with Leinster u20's the summer of 2019 and was involved with the leinster sub-academy before being let go. He managed to stay involved with the irish u20's squad and Kieran Campbell spotted him and offered him an Ulster academy place. Leinster had every chance to get Izuchukwu on board but passed.

[wixfjord]

But I think Mildly makes a good point about taking punts on a few more unpolished guys with raw potential – size, speed, strength etc. We had this discussion on the board a few times, and I think that there's merit to what he is saying.

There's definitely merit, but in order to do that, you have to not select someone else who may have a better pedigree, more polished and be a safer bet. And we'd have huge complaints if that happened too.

So it's an impossible situation.

It strikes me that if any player slips through the Leinster net and turns out to be a test level there'll be complaints about 'mistakes'. I think that's a very simple reading of the situation.

In fact that's what the system is designed to.

I don't consider Beirne a 'mistake' for example. If you had the context that Leinster had when he left you would've made the same decision.

You can't get 100% of decisions about guys who are 19/20/21 right, it's just not possible.