Wasps getting excuses in early

[OTT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxeZ-itj_ho

Listen how Shaun Edwards approaches the question, then how the rest resort to the same oul cr@p, then Shaun again at the end.

Ben Kay thinks the English (and French) teams would prefer to win their domestic competition but Leinster would prefer to win in Europe which is why they peak at different times. Bath, Goucester, Wasps and Leicester are trying to win the league

The two best English teams are Saracens and Exeter and they can compete in both competitions, Saracens having won Europe twice in the last three seasons, Leinster obviously did the double last year.

I don't believe him but if Ben thinks that the English see the European Cup as a secondary competition why do they get so upset and confused when they lose the games they never really wanted to win.

If you look at Bath, Wasps and Tigers they lose a lot of domestic games, why would people think they would go and be favourite to win games against better teams in Europe? It is a strange superiority complex, one minute they are worried about domestic relegation (the other excuse) and the next they are shocked that the best teams in Europe beat them.

[Flash Gordon]

The reality is that the English model is fundamentally broken. Despite all the hype and talk, it's an economic disaster and almost no clubs break even (think Exeter and Saints are the only ones that make money). So there is no economic model for expanding squads or to ensure the long term future of the league. This is exactly the same in Ireland, we would never be able to compete on a European level on budgets. As a consequence we invest in our academies and that has been our competitive edge.

London Irish invested significantly in their academy and to be fair it was pretty productive. However, once a player broke into the first team he was picked up on bigger wages by the likes of Wasps, Sarries, Bath etc. Consequently the quality of the players coming through is lower.

I would also add that because of the physical way they play the game and the lack of mobility/size of the players they are easy to play against - the style of play we pursue is also a lot more attractive to watch.

So they have a model that can't make money, showcases an inferior product, doesn't bring through talent, isn't competitive and also doesn't benefit England. Rather than address the root causes of that their answer is to attempt to drag everyone down to their level.

You see this arrogant and frankly stupid analysis and the view expressed in the video link above about it being more important to win an inferior competition like the Premiership and you really get an insight into the psyche of the nation at the moment unfortunately.

[curates_egg]

This is exactly the same in Ireland, Irish provinces would never be able to compete on a European level on budgets. As a consequence Leinster invests in our academy, and that has given us and the other pilfering provinces a competitive edge.

Fixed that for you.

[Peg Leg]

This is exactly the same in Ireland, Irish provinces would never be able to compete on a European level on budgets. As a consequence Leinster invests in our academy, and that has given us and the other pilfering provinces a competitive edge.

Fixed that for you.

Yeah, you left out "Has all nationally important squad wages paid by the IRFU", we would ONLY have academy players if this was not the case.

[blockhead]

Funny conversation on the Eggchasers podcast last night. How would Leinster do in the Prem, and could they cope with the salary cap. They then started trying to tot up the Leinster wage bill, very funny. About 1/2 way through the podcast.

[Logorrhea]

Funny conversation on the Eggchasers podcast last night. How would Leinster do in the Prem, and could they cope with the salary cap. They then started trying to tot up the Leinster wage bill, very funny. About 1/2 way through the podcast.

You mean funny as in hilariously misinformed as they usually are when it comes to Irish rugby?

[mildlyinterested]

Funny conversation on the Eggchasers podcast last night. How would Leinster do in the Prem, and could they cope with the salary cap. They then started trying to tot up the Leinster wage bill, very funny. About 1/2 way through the podcast.

You mean funny as in hilariously misinformed as they usually are when it comes to Irish rugby?

[blockhead]

Funny conversation on the Eggchasers podcast last night. How would Leinster do in the Prem, and could they cope with the salary cap. They then started trying to tot up the Leinster wage bill, very funny. About 1/2 way through the podcast.

You mean funny as in hilariously misinformed as they usually are when it comes to Irish rugby?

To be fair, they give a lot of their podcast time to Pro14, and they obviously watch a lot of it. They would know a lot more about the players in the irish Provinces than some of our own pundits.

[blaker]

I’ve zero sympathy for English clubs, this argument, or any other nonsense they come up with HOWEVER

for how long will they, and the French, be arsed with getting whipped about by PRO14 before they just sack it off entirely? Like, if you assume they won’t see the wood for the trees and get their own house in order - how easy would it be for them to walk away from the Heino? Frees up game windows for welfare, lowers squad pressure, focuses on their bread and butter, weakens the “union” clubs etc etc. Argument against, solely as i see it, is the loss of wedge they’d suffer but how much are we talking? TV sand gates/match day, minus whatever it costs to pay the couple of extra bodies needed to cover workload related injuries/depth.

I dunno - the Heino is different to what it was in the start - those late nineties to late 00s seasons. I could see the English and French just saying fockit

[paddyor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxeZ-itj_ho

Listen how Shaun Edwards approaches the question, then how the rest resort to the same oul cr@p, then Shaun again at the end.

Kay would have a point if their league form was significantly better than their Euro form. It's not. It's peaks and troughs. We're at our peak now. Looking across the squad there aren't any weaknesses that can really be improved within the current system. Tigers, Quins and Saints are rebuilding(lloks like Wasps is about to clearout now as well) and if they were better teams like Newcastle wouldn't be qualifying.

[Flash Gordon]

I’ve zero sympathy for English clubs, this argument, or any other nonsense they come up with HOWEVER

for how long will they, and the French, be arsed with getting whipped about by PRO14 before they just sack it off entirely? Like, if you assume they won’t see the wood for the trees and get their own house in order - how easy would it be for them to walk away from the Heino? Frees up game windows for welfare, lowers squad pressure, focuses on their bread and butter, weakens the “union” clubs etc etc. Argument against, solely as i see it, is the loss of wedge they’d suffer but how much are we talking? TV sand gates/match day, minus whatever it costs to pay the couple of extra bodies needed to cover workload related injuries/depth.

I dunno - the Heino is different to what it was in the start - those late nineties to late 00s seasons. I could see the English and French just saying fockit

Think that fear is very well founded and very real and is one of the prime drivers behind the expansion of the Pro 14. When Irish team were successfull in the 2000's that might have been the time to discuss a European league. For English Clubs they'd be playing to a market of 100's millions vs the limited reach they have currently. Unfortunately, I just don't see the mindset there to look at the bigger picture and opportunity. You could even see these clowns scuppering the 6 Nations.

[Oldschool]

The PRL is putting the cart (PRL) before the horse (ENGLAND).
The England international team is the big draw and financial powerhouse of English rugby.
A successful England will attract more casual observers into PRL league games whereas a successful PRL team will do didly squat for England's coffers.
Scuttling the HEC won't change that.
However, this has been muted before, the PRL could try to form a B and I league with some kind of smaller super league playoff between the top four teams from the new league and the TOP14.
Either way whether they like it not they need something more than the PRL to survive and haven't figured out what that something might be.
Nor will they until they take their heads out of the sand.

[Peg Leg]

Whatever about the RFU joining a B and I league with new franchises. The I/W/SFU's will not work with the PRL

[Ruckedtobits]

Whatever about the RFU joining a B and I league with new franchises. The I/W/SFU's will not work with the PRL

The SRU will work with anybody if the money is right!

[paddyor]

Whatever about the RFU joining a B and I league with new franchises. The I/W/SFU's will not work with the PRL

The Welsh? Are you kidding me? It's moo anyway because PRL won't bring anyone on board unless they bring their own cash. The Welsh have around 25k regular match going fans and no one outside the original clubs following is all that interested in them.

[Columbo]

It’s an interesting debate – on finances / “budgets” there is usually more smoke than light, particularly on social media (actually Welsh rugby twitter is worse than anywhere for serious quantities of BS around budgets). More than there has to be – we know what the IRFU spends on players, because they tell us in their accounts, page 80 of the 2017/18 accounts, player & management costs €37m. Remember that the IRFU is the 4 provinces plus Ireland, so this includes all contracted players in all 4 provinces as well as central contracts. This also contains costs of 5 coaching tickets and support staff, so some guesswork is required – let’s say for the sake of argument 80% of these costs are player costs, that gives €7.4m per Irish province. GBP EUR of 1.14, that equals £6.5m – obviously there is a skew in favour of Leinster & Munster as providers of most internationals (who tend to be more expensive, but also who get direct additional payments). I could believe something like £8.5m - £7m - £6m - £4.5m split between the provinces.

We know what the salary cap in England is £7m – this excludes 2 marquee players, and there are further credits for up to £600k for player development. So my guess is the likes of Sarries and Wasps will be paying £8.5m-£9m in total.

And in France the salary cap is €11.3m – about £10m.

So I think, purely financially, it’s fair to say that the Irish sides that provide most internationals have player budgets that are comparable to the big English sides, but considerably lower than most French Top 14 sides. The biggest problem for the “budget determinists” out there is the performance of the French sides year on year - yes a French side has featured in every final back to 2012, but if budgets were all-important, the QFs would routinely feature 6 French sides and a couple of English sides, which is obviously very far from what happens in reality.

I think the bottom line is that there are a couple of ways to be very good at rugby, as a club. You can either spend a lot of money on established international players and hope they all gel, or you can focus on young player development pathways and high quality coaching - a much slower burn. In fairness there is a budgetary threshold under which level high levels of player turnover will make continuity very difficult, and in all likelihood more than offset efforts under the latter model – and it also depends on having a fairly large number of young guys playing the game to a high standard, within the catchment area of the club, as well.

But if you take the view that on the whole the IRFU have pursued the latter model (by necessity) and have done so successfully, then I think some of the arguments don’t add up. When Dai Young complains that when Leinster replace injured internationals with other internationals, implicit is the idea that Leinster have gone out and “signed” them – when in fact they have developed them! (You see this on rugby twitter as well “Leinster have the money to go out and sign world class players like Ryan and Ringrose and…”) Likewise the resting players argument – Leinster and Munster can rest players and still win in the league because the players coming in are also very good, why? Because the system on average produces better players. If Leinster were in the AP, does anyone imagine that their second string couldn’t cope with the likes of Worcester and Newcastle?

I think it’s hard for English sides to come out and say that the reason they mostly lose against Irish sides because they have basically developed better squads over time and are better-coached – it’s easier to blame funding / relegation / some other external factor..

(None of this is to say that this will remain the case for ever – things move quickly, we may look back in a few years and realise that the IRFU was in an unsustainable sweet spot, that goes on to be blown out of the water by whatever comes next..)

[Laighin Break]

It’s an interesting debate – on finances / “budgets” there is usually more smoke than light, particularly on social media (actually Welsh rugby twitter is worse than anywhere for serious quantities of BS around budgets). More than there has to be – we know what the IRFU spends on players, because they tell us in their accounts, page 80 of the 2017/18 accounts, player & management costs €37m. Remember that the IRFU is the 4 provinces plus Ireland, so this includes all contracted players in all 4 provinces as well as central contracts. This also contains costs of 5 coaching tickets and support staff, so some guesswork is required – let’s say for the sake of argument 80% of these costs are player costs, that gives €7.4m per Irish province. GBP EUR of 1.14, that equals £6.5m – obviously there is a skew in favour of Leinster & Munster as providers of most internationals (who tend to be more expensive, but also who get direct additional payments). I could believe something like £8.5m - £7m - £6m - £4.5m split between the provinces.

We know what the salary cap in England is £7m – this excludes 2 marquee players, and there are further credits for up to £600k for player development. So my guess is the likes of Sarries and Wasps will be paying £8.5m-£9m in total.

And in France the salary cap is €11.3m – about £10m.

So I think, purely financially, it’s fair to say that the Irish sides that provide most internationals have player budgets that are comparable to the big English sides, but considerably lower than most French Top 14 sides. The biggest problem for the “budget determinists” out there is the performance of the French sides year on year - yes a French side has featured in every final back to 2012, but if budgets were all-important, the QFs would routinely feature 6 French sides and a couple of English sides, which is obviously very far from what happens in reality.

I think the bottom line is that there are a couple of ways to be very good at rugby, as a club. You can either spend a lot of money on established international players and hope they all gel, or you can focus on young player development pathways and high quality coaching - a much slower burn. In fairness there is a budgetary threshold under which level high levels of player turnover will make continuity very difficult, and in all likelihood more than offset efforts under the latter model – and it also depends on having a fairly large number of young guys playing the game to a high standard, within the catchment area of the club, as well.

But if you take the view that on the whole the IRFU have pursued the latter model (by necessity) and have done so successfully, then I think some of the arguments don’t add up. When Dai Young complains that when Leinster replace injured internationals with other internationals, implicit is the idea that Leinster have gone out and “signed” them – when in fact they have developed them! (You see this on rugby twitter as well “Leinster have the money to go out and sign world class players like Ryan and Ringrose and…”) Likewise the resting players argument – Leinster and Munster can rest players and still win in the league because the players coming in are also very good, why? Because the system on average produces better players. If Leinster were in the AP, does anyone imagine that their second string couldn’t cope with the likes of Worcester and Newcastle?

I think it’s hard for English sides to come out and say that the reason they mostly lose against Irish sides because they have basically developed better squads over time and are better-coached – it’s easier to blame funding / relegation / some other external factor..

(None of this is to say that this will remain the case for ever – things move quickly, we may look back in a few years and realise that the IRFU was in an unsustainable sweet spot, that goes on to be blown out of the water by whatever comes next..)

The whole replacing internationals with other internationals is also a bit of a red herring. The reason we have so many internationals in Leinster is because there are only 4 teams to choose from, whereas England have 12.
You don't see them saying the same about Scottish or Italian teams, which I would assume also have way more internationals than most English sides.

[wixfjord]

By the same token, I think the ‘if Leinster were in the GP’ argument is a bit of a red herring too.

We’re not representative of the Pro14 really. We’re a step apart from the majority of other teams in the league and from the other three Irish sides too.

You could also argue that it’s partly because we’re not in the premiership that we can develop those players. We definitely do better from our youth resources, but we can also afford to give them more chances in games that mean proportionally less.

Good post from Colombo though.

[paddyor]

Most French sides don't spend up to the Cap, they're limited to how much income they generate(it could be specific to match+TV+sponsorship) but I can't remember. I think there's only about 5 that actually do.

Also a few of the English sides don't spend up to the cap. Defo Sale and Newcastle(who've indicated they'll be squandering spending the CVC money that way. Don't think Worcester do either if you look at their squad.

[Oldschool]

By the same token, I think the ‘if Leinster were in the GP’ argument is a bit of a red herring too.

We’re not representative of the Pro14 really. We’re a step apart from the majority of other teams in the league and from the other three Irish sides too.

You could also argue that it’s partly because we’re not in the premiership that we can develop those players. We definitely do better from our youth resources, but we can also afford to give them more chances in games that mean proportionally less.

Good post from Colombo though.

Good post from Colombo.
To expand perhaps on your comment about Leinster not being representative and mindful of Colombo's remark about a "sweet spot".
That's the nail firmly hit on the head.
The reason for the sweet spot is, in simplistic terms, the quality of coaching in Leinster.
Joe followed by MOC followed by LeoCaster demonstrates this very clearly.
Your sweet spot is only as good as your coach.