Leinster Squad 22-23

[naraic]

Nick McCarthy has been called up to a USA training squad

https://eagles.rugby/news/usa-mens-eagl ... ed-2023511

Good for him. Only 4 scrumhalves in the training squad and only of them is an established international. That is the Saracens third choice scrumhalf.

The other 2 have 2 or 3 caps.

I think he has every chance of featuring in their European tour.

MLR money isn't great but add in international money and appearance fees and the rumors that he is going to MLR may make sense.

[ronk]

I couldn't name an Irish Leinster player in the last 15 years who declared for a different country while on a contract here.

Now 2 in the same season. Hope it works out for him. Kinda feel we owe USA for poaching Salanoa.

[mildlyinterested]

Murray reporting Nick McCarthy expected to move to US next season: https://www.the42.ie/nick-mccarthy-usa-6066055-May2023/

[cormac]

Eight players confirmed to be leaving Leinster;

Johnny Sexton
Dave Kearney
Nick McCarthy
Tadhg McElroy
Sean O’Brien
Marcus Hanan
Andrew Smith
Max O’Reilly

[Blue Man]

Nothing surprising there.
McElroy is limited as a ball player but offers greater physicality than Barron, on that basis, I wonder if he might have been kept on for a year. They obviously like Gus McCarthy as a prospect if McElroy is being let go.

[naraic]

The only surprise to me was Max O'Reilly being let go.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think he is good enough. However I half expected him to get a contract for a year as a filler player.

We only have 6 senior back 3s with 2 in the academy (plus whatever year 1s but they won't make an impact this year). That's quiet a thin group (especially since 3 of our back 3s are likely for the world cup squad).

I guess Osbourne or Frawley will spend a lot of time at 15 next season.

[leinsterforever]

The only surprise to me was Max O'Reilly being let go.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think he is good enough. However I half expected him to get a contract for a year as a filler player.

We only have 6 senior back 3s with 2 in the academy (plus whatever year 1s but they won't make an impact this year). That's quiet a thin group (especially since 3 of our back 3s are likely for the world cup squad).

I guess Osbourne or Frawley will spend a lot of time at 15 next season.

I'd be thinking Frawley at fullback.

First XXIII: 9. JGP, 10. R. Byrne, 11. Lowe, 12. Henshaw, 13. Ringrose, 14. JOB, 15. Keenan; 21. McGrath, 22. H. Byrne, 23. Ngatai

Second XXIII: 9. Foley, 10. Prendergast, 11. Larmour, 12. Osborne, 13. Turner, 14. TOB, 15. Frawley; 21. Murphy, 22. Tector, 23. Russell

Third XXIII: 9. Gunne, 10. ?, 11. A. Osborne, 12. Brownlee, 13. Cooney, 14. Arenzana-King, 15. Cosgrave; 21. ?, 22. ?, 23. McErlean

Hopefully enough of them will play to a high enough standard for there to be genuine debate about who should be picked. Osborne versus Ngatai, for example.

[paddyor]

5 out of the senior squad including retirements and only 3 promotions from the academy. Though I suppose sexton barely played and Charlie Ryan never even got a senior cap so it’s 3 and 3. Not much change out of those retiring. So it’s as you were for the coming season. Or coupd there be signing post RWC?

[Serb]

That confirms Healy will play on for another season. If we were to bring in a signing, where would it be?

A short term loosehead could potentially be an option with Healy’s age profile and the lack of any real options behind Porter right now. Milne obviously is the next man up, but that’s a big drop right now.

Can’t see anywhere else in the pack being an option. Similarly for the backs, I just can’t see any position where we’d realistically make a signing.

Back three is the weakest area, but our first choice back three is excellent. Lowe’s injury profile is a concern maybe, and we could definitely get an upgrade on Jimmy O’Brien, but from an IRFU perspective I can see why they wouldn’t want to approve any signings in that area.

[ronk]

That confirms Healy will play on for another season. If we were to bring in a signing, where would it be?

A short term loosehead could potentially be an option with Healy’s age profile and the lack of any real options behind Porter right now. Milne obviously is the next man up, but that’s a big drop right now.

Can’t see anywhere else in the pack being an option. Similarly for the backs, I just can’t see any position where we’d realistically make a signing.

Back three is the weakest area, but our first choice back three is excellent. Lowe’s injury profile is a concern maybe, and we could definitely get an upgrade on Jimmy O’Brien, but from an IRFU perspective I can see why they wouldn’t want to approve any signings in that area.

Healy's not guaranteed until he has a contract, and even then he can retire anytime he wants.

We won't be allowed sign a loosehead. We have Byrne and Milne for during the RWC. Healy is 2nd choice for Ireland. Other provinces aren't providing enough options so we have to develop.

The only cards we'd have would be signing someone to limit Porter's minutes, or to move him back to tighthead. Or a player like Brennan.

If we count Frawley and Osbourne (maybe by pushing Turner to wing) then we have 8 senior back 3 players. Add Russell and it looks easier. Cosgrave got 5 games this season and is ready for more. King looks further behind but it could click for him anytime.

Kearney will be missed, but Tommy O'Brien back is useful too.

It seems that Leo thinks that it's better to use McErlean or Andrew Osbourne if necessary or make a joker signing rather than carry a senior squad member for break-glass purposes. Or maybe Max O'Reilly doesn't want to spend a year of his life that way.

The one player we could sign is a lock. Very unlikely though. An elite lock would only be pushing Molony out of the starting team and Jenkins could bench for the big games when we need power.

Losing the final again would have had to have lit a fire under Nucifora for it to happen and I don't see it.

[CiaranIrl]

On paper the backline looks absolutely fine,but it's the reality of their injury profile that makes next season concerning. It's simply naive to expect Frawley, Harry Byrne, Larmour, Tommy O'Brien, Lowe, Osbourne etc to be fit when we need them. There were times we had a 6-2 split this year just because we didn't have a number 23 available of the right standard, and that's only going to get worse if we don't bring someone through or sign someone.

[Observingprop123]

On paper the backline looks absolutely fine,but it's the reality of their injury profile that makes next season concerning. It's simply naive to expect Frawley, Harry Byrne, Larmour, Tommy O'Brien, Lowe, Osbourne etc to be fit when we need them. There were times we had a 6-2 split this year just because we didn't have a number 23 available of the right standard, and that's only going to get worse if we don't bring someone through or sign someone.

Hasn't Osborne only had one long term injury this year? Played every game the first half of the season aswell.

Always thought O'Reilly wasn't quite at the Leinster standard skills wise. Think the first game of the season against Zebre kind of put the nail in the coffin as our outside defence was horrific against a poor side which we almost lost to.

Andrew Osborne looks physically ready to play minutes next season and possibly taking O'Reilly's role from this season over. McErlean probably needs to bulk up abit before he gets minutes, but from what the Michaels coach says about him it sounds like he is an absloute superstar of a person and player.

When it comes to Locks, I'm Hoping Joe McCarthy gets some serious gametime next season in big games, his performances against Munster and the Sharks show he has very good mobility and power for a man his size and gets around the pitch well. At his age James Ryan had only played 3 games of Senior rugby aswell, needs the fast track next season IMO.

[propertymad]

Relying on young fellas like mcerlean to plug holes is unfair ..... no year 1 academy players should be thrown in the deep end

Mcerlean and prendergast are super talented but should be managed correctly

We absolutely DO need to sign some players if we want to beat LaR and others next year

I don't see why Leinster shouldn't target players like Retallick and Fischeti post World Cup ..... especially as Jenkins and Al'alatoa have proven that they aren't the droids we're looking for at Heineken cup level

[CiaranIrl]

Hasn't Osborne only had one long term injury this year? Played every game the first half of the season aswell.

Yeah, but he had a knee ligament injury this year, and if you're going to employ moneyball style data to that, then there is a much higher risk now that we'll see him missing games through injury in the future. But I'm not singling him out - our backs generally seem to have a much worse injury profile than our forwards. An awful lot of them have had long periods out of the team.

We just need to be realistic about how much time we will get from the group of players that cover particular positions. We have a few players (Frawley, Harry Byrne, Henshaw, Lowe, Larmour for example) that average about 600-800 minutes a season, so counting on them to be available is just bad planning. Obviously they have seasons where that isn't true - Frawley last year for example, but the averages over time for a group of them are probably very predictable. Then we have players like Ringrose, Ross Byrne, Luke McGrath that average something like 1000-1200 minutes a season.

I wonder sometimes if we could do a bit better in predicting how many players in various positions we are likely to have available. We shouldn't have games where we go 6-2 on the bench for non tactical reasons. As a cohort, we can predict how big our squad needs to be. It seems to me that we need additional backline cover.

[ronk]

I thought Max O’Reilly would come good. It didn't work out for him. For whatever reason he fell behind and while he was brought on the SA tour, he wasn't used. i.e. his time was up.

I'm not a fan of having players in the squad just riding pine if we don't believe they have a future. Unless it's unavoidable. He played 2 games, 1 was the season opener when he was still getting chances. Bringing him back would be just going through the motions, if we want to call him in an emergency we need to give him precious gametime to keep him warm. There's a safety through having big squads, and the price paid for that isn't as visible, but it's still here.

Other players will get that development time and they need it. The relentless pressure to win every game to set up a perfect finish was exhausting, even as a fan (though I loved winning every week).

The shorter regular season needs a leaner squad, there's room for a few quality players like Ngatai, and less room at the edges of the squad.

That's exactly what we are seeing this year: earlier decisions on cutting academy players rather than taking a punt on dev deals.

Do we really need 3 players who'll probably only be needed for the game where the squad meets up before the 6N, and then only if there are injuries? We can lose the odd game if we need to.

[ronk]

9 players leaving and 8 joining the academy isn't a significant reduction anyway.

3 academy players promoted and 3 leaving shows that there's a small movement towards the academy being a larger proportion of the squad but that may not be a pattern. We did win a U20 Slam.

[leinsterforever]

Hasn't Osborne only had one long term injury this year? Played every game the first half of the season aswell.

Yeah, but he had a knee ligament injury this year, and if you're going to employ moneyball style data to that, then there is a much higher risk now that we'll see him missing games through injury in the future. But I'm not singling him out - our backs generally seem to have a much worse injury profile than our forwards. An awful lot of them have had long periods out of the team.

We just need to be realistic about how much time we will get from the group of players that cover particular positions. We have a few players (Frawley, Harry Byrne, Henshaw, Lowe, Larmour for example) that average about 600-800 minutes a season, so counting on them to be available is just bad planning. Obviously they have seasons where that isn't true - Frawley last year for example, but the averages over time for a group of them are probably very predictable. Then we have players like Ringrose, Ross Byrne, Luke McGrath that average something like 1000-1200 minutes a season.

I wonder sometimes if we could do a bit better in predicting how many players in various positions we are likely to have available. We shouldn't have games where we go 6-2 on the bench for non tactical reasons. As a cohort, we can predict how big our squad needs to be. It seems to me that we need additional backline cover.

Do you think it's possible the people whose jobs depend on them getting this right could have done these calculations and come to different conclusions than you?

With fewer games during international windows there's less gametime available for players down the depth chart compared with before. 18 regular season games in the league isn't actually very many. In the Pro12 it was 22, and in the Pro14 it was 19.

Maybe getting in an injury joker if injuries do become a problem is seen as a better bet than carrying an extra squad member who might see hardly any gametime.

[CiaranIrl]

Hasn't Osborne only had one long term injury this year? Played every game the first half of the season aswell.

Yeah, but he had a knee ligament injury this year, and if you're going to employ moneyball style data to that, then there is a much higher risk now that we'll see him missing games through injury in the future. But I'm not singling him out - our backs generally seem to have a much worse injury profile than our forwards. An awful lot of them have had long periods out of the team.

We just need to be realistic about how much time we will get from the group of players that cover particular positions. We have a few players (Frawley, Harry Byrne, Henshaw, Lowe, Larmour for example) that average about 600-800 minutes a season, so counting on them to be available is just bad planning. Obviously they have seasons where that isn't true - Frawley last year for example, but the averages over time for a group of them are probably very predictable. Then we have players like Ringrose, Ross Byrne, Luke McGrath that average something like 1000-1200 minutes a season.

I wonder sometimes if we could do a bit better in predicting how many players in various positions we are likely to have available. We shouldn't have games where we go 6-2 on the bench for non tactical reasons. As a cohort, we can predict how big our squad needs to be. It seems to me that we need additional backline cover.

Do you think it's possible the people whose jobs depend on them getting this right could have done these calculations and come to different conclusions than you?

With fewer games during international windows there's less gametime available for players down the depth chart compared with before. 18 regular season games in the league isn't actually very many. In the Pro12 it was 22, and in the Pro14 it was 19.

Maybe getting in an injury joker if injuries do become a problem is seen as a better bet than carrying an extra squad member who might see hardly any gametime.

No need for the snarky tone. Last time I checked, this was a forum. 99% of of posts could be answered with your first paragraph, including all.of yours.

[Observingprop123]

I don't think we need backline depth, I think we need another back 3 player who is at an international level who can push Jimmy O'Brien into a depth slot. Might be harsh but if I'm being 100% cut throat that would be my opinon. That could be Frawley or Osborne disrupting the centre partnership or something else.

[Flash Gordon]

I don't think we need backline depth, I think we need another back 3 player who is at an international level who can push Jimmy O'Brien into a depth slot. Might be harsh but if I'm being 100% cut throat that would be my opinon. That could be Frawley or Osborne disrupting the centre partnership or something else.

Charlie Ngatai plays fullback. I understand the use of Frawley across the line because he has the talent to do that but really concerned that's he's not being given a good run at a single position. Seen good players hurt by that.

Backline is in good shape, the big question mark is 10. Ross is in the hotseat and might even become first choice 10 for Ireland but is he the level you need to control a title game at the top level of Ireland or Leinster? Not seen that yet.