Pro 14 - General Thread

[Ruckedtobits]

The article by ROG is emotional and ROG-centric. The factual value of the Pro14 is gauged from the national team win ratio compared with the decade of 2000 -10.

The level of coaching and player development of Irish players in all four Provinces has accelerated over the past decade and has never been at a higher level than now across almost every position.

The Top14 is a cultural icon in a country where rugby is a national sport, albeit the relevance is far greater in the South. The structure of Top14 and ProD2 is not perfect but it has produced movement up and down which has ensured that no Club can assume permanence.

But relegation and promotion have not been the cause of either improved standards or more competitive national teams for French rugby. To argue otherwise flies in the face of the facts.

[Peg Leg]

Something needs to happen in our league. This is boring as f%~k?

[Oldschool]

Something needs to happen in our league. This is boring as f%~k.

Yeah it's a bit like Liverpool in soccer or Dublin in GAA or Bolt in the 100m or NZ in rugby, you'd wonder what is the point. I was almost dreading the second half against Connacht yesterday evening and there was no George Clancy around to show a bit of consideration for the fans and try to make the game a bit more of a contest and more entertaining as a result.
The problem is that if you get the right group of coaches together at the one club then the opposition suffer.
The IRFU need to do something about this but I'm not sure what tbh.
It's ruining the Pro14.
They've tried player transfers but that only works if the coaching ticket at the other clubs is up to it.
A comparison between Ulster and Munster makes the point very tellingly.
TBH my post started out as a p!ss take but in actual fact the league does have a real problem.
Quite a few of the other teams are at a very good standard, performances in the HEC back this up.
The Pro14 isn't the only league with this problem.
American football address the problem to an extent with their draft system.
Leinster stuffing teams week in week out isn't, long term, good for the health of the Pro14.
Take Leinster out of the league and the league looks very competitive, where's Matt O'Connor when you need him.

[ronk]

Something needs to happen in our league. This is boring as f%~k.

Ive seen enough bad days and rememver the feeling. I will enjoy the good days for a lot longer if they keep coming. This run will be short enough.

[hugonaut]

Something needs to happen in our league. This is boring as f%~k.

Ive seen enough bad days and rememver the feeling. I will enjoy the good days for a lot longer if they keep coming. This run will be short enough.

Absolutely. I'd rather see Leinster win every game at a canter than get edged out in some barn-burners.

There's f*ck all we can do about how other teams perform other than give them a beating when they turn up in the RDS. Long may it last!

[Oldschool]

TBH you'd have to feel sorry for the Saracen's fans having to watch their team putting up over 60 points on Worcester yesterday.
The PRL is another league throwing up skewed results.
It's enough to make one

[blockhead]

Something needs to happen in our league. This is boring as f%~k.

Ive seen enough bad days and rememver the feeling. I will enjoy the good days for a lot longer if they keep coming. This run will be short enough.

Absolutely. I'd rather see Leinster win every game at a canter than get edged out in some barn-burners.

There's f*ck all we can do about how other teams perform other than give them a beating when they turn up in the RDS. Long may it last!

Barca in La Liga, Real Madrid in Champs League, Bayern in Bundesliga, All Blacks, Saracens in English prem. They all dominate, or have dominated in the past, their respective competitions. Great teams that earned global respect for their great acheivements.
Oh but not in little oul Ireland, cant be havin that now, someone might think you are arrogant, might want to take you down a peg-leg or two.
Pro14 has had 4 different winners in the last 5 years, the glorious, wunderours english prem has had 2, with Sarries winning 4 titles (by breaking the rules)
For those of you who feel guilty about winning. Become a Dragons fan for a season, or worse become a liggind!

[johng]

I had a conversation with my wife yesterday in which she was peg leg and I was hugo.

Kinky eh?

[leinsterforever]

Leinster victims of their own success if you have people with the viewpoint that their dominance is bad.

Lancaster's training methods are peculiarly suited to the demands placed on Leinster's squad. It seems his methods prepare the wider squad better than Schmidt's approach did, and that's why the seconds can go out and blow teams away. Could all change with a different coach. Enjoy it while it lasts!

[paddyor]

It wasn't a good game. We'd the bonus wrapped up at 20 mins and finished the half ahead of the clock on 40-0. We seemed to settle on mostly playing defense for the rest of the game. Not what you want at all from and interpro(unless it's Munster). Found myself wondering did we get more out of the 0-3 win away to Zebre than this one. Maybe? A carbon copy of that team that narrowly won in Zebre went over to Glasgow and got a win against a vastly more favoured Glasgow side. We didn't relent against Connacht, a lot of lads out there tryinh to grab a starting birth. Which is great to see, even if it didn't lend itself to a good contest.

Previous results from the same fixture

Show Spoiler:

54 - 7 Connacht Rugby
8 Nov 2019,
Connacht Rugby 11 - 42 Leinster
22 Dec 2018,
Leinster 33 - 29 Connacht Rugby
29 Sep 2018,
Connacht Rugby 3 - 20 Leinster
28 Apr 2018,
Connacht Rugby 47 - 10 Leinster
1 Jan 2018,
Leinster 21 - 18 Connacht Rugby
15 Apr 2017, PRO12
Connacht Rugby 24 - 37 Leinster
29 Oct 2016, PRO12
Leinster 24 - 13 Connacht Rugby
28 May 2016, PRO12
Connacht Rugby 20 - 10 Leinster
26 Mar 2016, PRO12
Connacht Rugby 7 - 6 Leinster
1 Jan 2016, PRO12
Leinster 13 - 0 Connacht Rugby
19 Dec 2014, PRO12
Leinster 21 - 11 Connacht Rugby
19 Sep 2014, PRO12
Connacht Rugby 10 - 9 Leinster
4 Jan 2014, RaboDirect PRO12
Connacht Rugby 8 - 16 Leinster
26 Oct 2013, RaboDirect PRO12
Leinster 16 - 13 Connacht Rugby
29 Dec 2012, RaboDirect PRO12
Leinster 17 - 0 Connacht Rugby
28 Sep 2012, RaboDirect PRO12
Connacht Rugby 34 - 6 Leinster

I remember a few of those games, they were not what anyone could call great specatacles. There was one at the start of MOCs reign in the RDS and it pissed rain with Madigan I think at 10 and we were awful in so much that we did. I'd take last night over that every day of the week.

[Peg Leg]

Something needs to happen in our league. This is boring as f%~k.

Ive seen enough bad days and rememver the feeling. I will enjoy the good days for a lot longer if they keep coming. This run will be short enough.

As have I, whilst our dominance is a source of some of the predictability, I am more concerned with the product and it's viability for the other 13 teams and their fans if the league is a foregone conclusion. Not sure how to remedy the situation that sees competitor leagues write it off as international squad bootcamp with the unions hand being too heavily involved to allow for a naturally competitive league or now as opposition teams frequently seem to send the b-squad to the slaughter. The former is also the reason they don't show as much of an interest at HEC level.

I'm also not a fan of the conference's.

Perhaps CVC's involvement will be a good thing.

[Twist]

I had a conversation with my wife yesterday in which she was peg leg and I was hugo.

Kinky eh?

Potentially. Tell us more.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Just saw this stat, incredible effort. I wouldn't bet against Josh and Will Connors outdoing it in this decade.

Of players to make 100+ tackles in the @PRO14Official in the 2010s Jonny Gray recorded the best tackle success rate (99%), missing just 13 of 1006 attempted tackles, including 170 tackles without a single miss in 2019.

[blockhead]

Not exactly the right thread for this and it is from last october but some good numbers in this rugbpass article.

Analysis: How European clubs are managing wage inflation, increased revenue and squad growth
By Alex Shaw
Analysis: How European clubs are managing wage inflation, increased revenue and squad growth
As the face of European club and international rugby changes amid significant investment from private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, the finances and structure of rugby in the northern hemisphere have never been more intriguing.

With the Gallagher Premiership beginning this weekend and the Guinness PRO14 moving into its fourth round later this mongth, Esportif Intelligence have released their annual ‘European Rugby by Numbers’ review focusing on the financial strength and squad management of the clubs in both competitions.

RugbyPass have delved into the report and found some of the highlights that make for very interesting reading as the 2019/20 European club season gets fully underway.

In terms of average attendance, the Premiership’s 14,000 average outstripped the PRO14’s 9,200 last season, although those figures were much closer when comparing the top four sides in each competition with the PRO14’s 12,900 much closer to the Premiership’s 13,5000. The report notes that this is due to the three Irish provinces being in the top four of the PRO14, while attendances at the four Welsh regions diminished in 2018/19.

More of a divide was noted in the estimated primary broadcast deals of the two competitions, where the Premiership’s annual £40million deal with BT Sport significantly outstripped that the PRO14’s yearly £20m-25m – excluding South African contribution – deal with Premier Sports.

Both leagues remain considerably behind the Top 14, however, with the French league’s deal worth £65m last season and set to rise to £88m for the current season albeit that is shared with the Pro D2. These figures do not include secondary broadcast deals the competitions have in place, such as the Premiership’s deal in China.

The differences in attendance figures and broadcast deals are reflected in the value of players in the competition, with the Premiership averaging a figure of £150,500 per player and the PRO14 at a mark of £126,500 per player. As a result, there has been a knock-on effect on the financial positions of those clubs.

Overall revenues in the Premiership were up by five per cent in 2018 to a total of £205m, although they still recorded operating losses of £36m across the league. By comparison, Top 14 revenue sat at around £300m and there were combined operating losses of £27m. Due to the array of different ownership and funding models in the PRO14, the report stated it was more difficult to compare their figures.

The report also looked at the coaching and management of the sides in the Premiership and the PRO14, with the former averaging 5.5 senior coaches per club while the latter averaged 4.6 senior coaches. Again, where that disparity changes somewhat is when taking into account just the top four clubs where the Premiership’s average of 5.5 remains steady, but the PRO14’s mark goes up to 5.3 senior coaches per club.

On to the playing squads and Esportif Intelligence found that PRO14 squads remained largely the same size between 2017/18 and 2018/19 while Premiership squads had increased on average from 41 senior players to 43 and from 13 academy players to 16. The number of players used in the season was also up, from 47 to 49. Leinster recorded the most players used across the two leagues with 57, followed by Munster with 54 and Bristol Bears with 53.

On average, Premiership clubs had three more academy players than the PRO14 teams last season, had an additional player signing senior terms from their academy and recruited 11 new players, rather than seven in the PRO14. The PRO14 sides did average a higher retention of players, though, with 32 compared to the Premiership’s 29.

Domestic player figures were high in the PRO14 with around 70 per cent of players on senior contracts being eligible for the nation they were playing in, a figure that jumped to 74 per cent in the top four side of the competition. In the Premiership, the number fell to 57 per cent.

Average Premiership spend on senior playing squad rose from £6.1m to £6.4m last season, while a mark of £5m in the PRO14 stayed steady from 2017/18 to 2018/19. In both competitions, the starting XV accounted for roughly 60 per cent of that total senior squad spend. The rise of £300k in squad spend in the Premiership represents a significant slowing in wage inflation following the jump from £5.2m (2016/17) to £6.1m (2017/18) when the Premiership increased its salary cap.

One factor consistent across both competitions is that the clubs within the top four more heavily rewarded their domestic players financially. In terms of starting XV spend, the Premiership clubs average 49 per cent on domestic players and 51 per cent on foreign players.

That jumps to a 57 per cent and 43 cent split in favour of domestic players at the clubs in the top four. In the PRO14, an average of 69 per cent to domestic players and 31 per cebnt to foreign players becomes 75 per cent and 25 per cent respectively at the top four teams.

These numbers provide an insight into the financial and squad management processes behind the clubs in the top tier of home nations rugby. With the impact of CVC’s investment in both competitions yet to be fully felt, these figures could provide an important baseline moving forward.

[Peg Leg]

Not the right thread for this either but squidge is guest co host on blood & mud podcast this week.

[Morf]

Not the right thread for this either but squidge is guest co host on blood & mud podcast this week.

I've had my fill of Squidge.

Less analysis and more him laughing before he can get his jokes and references out.

His 'not hipster' team of the RWC was the most hipster selection possible.

[blockhead]

Just a note:
Pro14 attendances up 5% compared to this stage last year.

[paddyor]

Not sure where to put this but apparently SRU head honcho Dodson is on Delaney wages apparently. 450k+ basic with a bonus to double that. For offloading Hogg on Exeter?

[blockhead]

Irish Regulaters have approved the CVC deal. Worth about E40m to the IRFU.
What will they spend it on?

[Ruckedtobits]

Irish Regulaters have approved the CVC deal. Worth about E40m to the IRFU.
What will they spend it on?

What Regulators? Central Bank? Sports Council?

The group that haven't been asked to approve it are the "owners" of Irish Rugby, the four Provinces.

If the IRFU Committee have approved a deal that none of the Provincial Executive Committees have been given sight of, it is governance of a very low standard.

The transaction very likely includes Executive remuneration guarantees such as that published today about the Scottish RFU Chief Executive whose remuneration doubled to Stg£900,000. Revised Executive Remuneration contracts are usually a good way to get any corporate transaction through layers of non-executive Committees.

Executives taking barrow loads of money out of National Sporting bodies where >95% of the activity is administered by amateurs is NOT my definition of good governance.