Leinster Squad 21-22

[mildlyinterested]

Sheehan makes sense. A lot better than anyone they have on the books really. I’m not worried about Sheehan, think he’ll stay and battle it out with Kelleher.

Frawley is a weird one. He’s probably featuring more than he ever did now for Leinster. I wonder where he sees himself positionally. I’m guessing Munster are thinking of him as a 12, or maybe even 15? He could have a future at 10 for us.

IRFU will be putting pressure on both to move i'd say.

[wixfjord]

Targeting those would make sense from a Munster POV and to IRFU too.

Sheehan is an obvious one.

Frawley would go straight in as a DDA replacement and a starter for Munster. He won't be that with Henshaw in front of him at Leinster.

[mildlyinterested]

not the first time leinster will have to convince players to stay in spite of IRFU's interference, so nothing new there.

[Keith]

Targeting those would make sense from a Munster POV and to IRFU too.

Sheehan is an obvious one.

Frawley would go straight in as a DDA replacement and a starter for Munster. He won't be that with Henshaw in front of him at Leinster.

That would be a big risk for Munster. Frawley's injury record isn't great to say the least.

[wixfjord]

Targeting those would make sense from a Munster POV and to IRFU too.

Sheehan is an obvious one.

Frawley would go straight in as a DDA replacement and a starter for Munster. He won't be that with Henshaw in front of him at Leinster.

That would be a big risk for Munster. Frawley's injury record isn't great to say the least.

Not at all. Frawley is a huge talent and a great signing for Munster to slot in at 12.

Trying to grab a young IQ guy with loads of potential who can also play in multiple roles is a no brainer.

It's not a 'risk' for Leinster to keep Frawley.

Personally I think he'd be mad to go, but I could definitely see why Munster, IRFU and indeed Ciaran himself would be interested.

[deco]

Sad that there's so little outrage on a Leinster forum at the potential loss of such strength and depth from our squad. Losing these too would significantly impact our capability to win silverware.

[ronk]

Sad that there's so little outrage on a Leinster forum at the potential loss of such strength and depth from our squad. Losing these too would significantly impact our capability to win silverware.

It’s discussed on another thread and many times before. If it grows likely then things will change.

Henshaw has played 59 games in 5 1/2 seasons. And he likes playing 13 so they can play together sometimes. The fact that he made an Ireland squad is a reason to stay, not a reason to leave.

[mildlyinterested]

Sad that there's so little outrage on a Leinster forum at the potential loss of such strength and depth from our squad. Losing these too would significantly impact our capability to win silverware.

most people dont think it will happen.. its a yearly thing now, coaches know how to retain players, if someone wishes to leave what ye gonna do.

[elephantman]

Sad that there's so little outrage on a Leinster forum at the potential loss of such strength and depth from our squad. Losing these too would significantly impact our capability to win silverware.

It’s only rumours at the moment and Murray K only referred to it on the podcast in a very odd way.

Munster or any other Irish province would not be doing their job if they didn’t sound out Sheehan to see what his intentions are. Personally, I think Sheehan will stay and back himself to become number one at Leinster.

Frawley to Munster doesn’t make sense in my opinion unless Frawley sees himself as a centre long term. I think Frawley may well be the best 10 at Leinster behind Sexton. Harry Byrne may prove me wrong. Time will tell but I don’t think Frawley has given up on playing 10.

On a side note, it’s nice that Munster aren’t trying to sign Leinster players mid contract.

[FLIP]

Going to Munster is a career damager for any Leinster player, as shown by every player who's moved there.

Munster are desperate to improve but are unwilling to do the work they need and so will beg borrow and steal from their betters.

Why isn't there more outrage? We've said it all before.

[desperado]

https://www.the42.ie/dom-morris-munster ... 7-Jan2022/

hardly be going after CF too?

[mildlyinterested]

https://www.the42.ie/dom-morris-munster ... 7-Jan2022/

hardly be going after CF too?

Yep apparently so.

[hugonaut]

I'm not particularly concerned with these rumours. Munster isn't an attractive destination for Leinster players at the moment for a bunch of reasons.

They are at a low ebb on the pitch and have just turned in two garbage performances which have been widely criticised. When an All World player like de Allende doesn't have a platform from which he can play anything like his best rugby, it's not a persuasive advertisement for anybody else.

Their head coach and senior coach are leaving [and probably their defense coach too] and nobody knows who will be in charge next year. It's a team that has no direction, which isn't an attractive proposition.

Farrell's selection policy has shown that there's no special international benefit to playing with Munster – he'll happily pick 12 Leinster players in a starting XV. He'll happily pick guys for his bench on the basis of their ability [Healy over Kilcoyne, Sheehan over Scannell, Baird over Kleyn/Wycherly for example] rather than because they play frequently for a team where there's not a particularly high level of competition for places.

The last couple of Leinster players who went to Munster had [or are having] a tough time down there. Carbery has been incredibly unlucky with injuries [just 24 starts since September 2018] and Nick McCarthy was sidelined once a young homegrown player came on the scene. I'm not saying that Munster have managed Carbery badly, it's just a fact that he hasn't been able to do much down there. There's no precedent for a guy launching a test career for Munster having stalled at Leinster [Tadhg Beirne was picked for Ireland on the back of his Scarlets performances, playing for the national side before he had played for Munster].

It's clear that McFarland is building something in Ulster and Friend is building something in Connacht. Obviously nothing is getting built in Munster: they're actually taking things apart. There's an assumption that Munster are at the bottom of a trough and when they get a new coach they'll immediately get better. That isn't necessarily the case.

[mildlyinterested]

I'm not particularly concerned with these rumours. Munster isn't an attractive destination for Leinster players at the moment for a bunch of reasons.

They are at a low ebb on the pitch and have just turned in two garbage performances which have been widely criticised. When an All World player like de Allende doesn't have a platform from which he can play anything like his best rugby, it's not a persuasive advertisement for anybody else.

Their head coach and senior coach are leaving [and probably their defense coach too] and nobody knows who will be in charge next year. It's a team that has no direction, which isn't an attractive proposition.

Farrell's selection policy has shown that there's no special international benefit to playing with Munster – he'll happily pick 12 Leinster players in a starting XV. He'll happily pick guys for his bench on the basis of their ability [Healy over Kilcoyne, Sheehan over Scannell, Baird over Kleyn/Wycherly for example] rather than because they play frequently for a team where there's not a particularly high level of competition for places.

The last couple of Leinster players who went to Munster had [or are having] a tough time down there. Carbery has been incredibly unlucky with injuries [just 24 starts since September 2018] and Nick McCarthy was sidelined once a young homegrown player came on the scene. I'm not saying that Munster have managed Carbery badly, it's just a fact that he hasn't been able to do much down there. There's no precedent for a guy launching a test career for Munster having stalled at Leinster [Tadhg Beirne was picked for Ireland on the back of his Scarlets performances, playing for the national side before he had played for Munster].

It's clear that McFarland is building something in Ulster and Friend is building something in Connacht. Obviously nothing is getting built in Munster: they're actually taking things apart. There's an assumption that Munster are at the bottom of a trough and when they get a new coach they'll immediately get better. That isn't necessarily the case.

if they hire McNamara it will become more attractive to many young leinster players. but tend to agree with all of that.

Still I wont be over confident, Leo et al. have a big job on their hands retaining players with IRFU interference.

[ronk]

Paul Krugman talks about cockroach ideas. No matter how many times you refute them they keep coming back again and again.

We're talking about a concept that has varied between destroying careers and merely setting them back (never better than that) and it's instinctively accepted as a fact that it's a good and beneficial idea that's in the players interest.

It works in theory but not in practice. The reason is simple, the recruitment policy isn't aligned to the goals that people think of in relation to provincial movement.

And knowledgeable people still get taken in.

[ronk]

Carbery's injuries get a lot of attention. As an aside I think there's a pattern more than just luck.

He had a run of fitness and his form was so poor that he was on the cusp of being dropped. The bulk of fans had noticed. I said before the AIs that a leap in form from him would be evidence of an issue with JvG and I think that holds. Carbery was quickly better but not back to where he was.

It was about 4 years that Leinster managed without signing a joker before losing Salanoa broke our plans. We try not to make signings for the sake of signings. Young players see that and it means something to them.

[fourthirtythree]

When Beirne (as noted above was selected because of his Scarlet's form) and Conway are your big success stories for Leinster players going South...

Don't forget that Conway was a forty plus capped, European Cup playing, medal winning, final playing, underage superstar who left us at 21 and then went into the doldrums for years at Munster who had three players who were going to be picked ahead of him every single time...

Sure he had the ability to get a few international caps over the last ten years, but to suggest Munster has been successful for him rather than Munster couldn't quite ignore and stifle his quality completely is a misstatement.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

One thing that worries me is the lack of games both from Covid and the URC. Someone like Frawley knows he’s not going to start the European games coming up so how long will he be idle for? Not such a big deal in normal times when he’d have played over Christmas, but very much a big deal if games are still going to be cancelled next season and he knows he’d be starting for Munster when games do go ahead.

Even allowing for the mess at Munster I think you take it on a case by case basis. Even if Frawley stays, you could make a good argument for loads of Leinster players needed to leave. There are players that I’ve actually forgotten about at times, someone like Max O’Reilly looked like he was developing rapidly and hasn’t been seen in ages. Even if there’s an injury or something, when would someone like him get a look in?

[fourthirtythree]

Don't know. It's a worry and while we can take a thinning out this year and next maybe, where are the young players going to get game time to come through? How are guys like Max O'Reilly going to develop?

[ronk]

Someone like Frawley got enough quality gametime that he made the Ireland squad in November ahead of more experienced capped players who haven't been getting gametime in Munster.

The last 2 seasons have been badly truncated, it's still hard to get a real feel for how it will settle. I'm not sure what the solution is yet.

Guys like Max O'Reilly got a lot of gametime earlier than originally planned and it's been a bad year for lots of reasons. The fact that he wasn't promoted from the academy in the summer shows that Leo thought he still needs time.