You may be right, but any credit for Dillane not attaching to Ultan or Connacht belongs to Tralee and Corinthians, not the brave and the faithful.

salmson wrote: TOH played schools for Leinster vs. Connacht. My point was more that if we're going to count the likes of Dillane - whose home province ignored him because he was a club not schools player - as produced elsewhere, we may as go the whole hog.

I thought he was Munster Underage too. My bad about him, then

Half of our squad are double agent

TOH played schools for Leinster vs. Connacht. Masterson captained Leinster clubs. My point was more that if we're going to count the likes of Dillane - whose home province ignored him because he was a club not schools player - as produced elsewhere, we may as go the whole hog.

Buckley is from Roscommon, played for Creggs and Buccs before going to school in Blackrock. Never represented Leinster from what I can find.

Bealham played for Ireland as an Exile, spent a year up in Ulster (I assume in the sub academy but not sure) then joined our sub and then full academy.

O'Halloran played for Connacht all the way up, spent his Leaving Cert cycle in Roscrea but never played for any province other than us. SOB did the exact same.

Masterson was in the Leinster sub academy.

Ronaldson and Niyi played Club rugby in Dublin but they've never wear the Leinster Jersey did they?

Healy, Boyle, Leavy, Robb did, underage... Delahunt too I guess you're right.. Don't know about Buckley/Bealham/TOH/SOB/Masterson

You're missing Buckley, SOB, Bealham, Ronaldson, Masterson, Delahunt, TOH and Niyi, but it's probably not fair to include them - or Dillane, Boyle, Healy, Leavy, and Rob - as none of them were ever offered so much as an academy place elsewhere.

The likes of Thornbury and Farrell are rolled and stamped blues, but I regard anyone who came through our academy as home grown and doing otherwise is just talking ourselves down.

We can say there's not enough moves between the provinces for main squad players (Jordi Murphy, Roux, J.Cooney, Conway)

But we can't say the same for ex-U20/Academy players, who mainly wore blue jersey at one point of their young careers.

Our other-province-raised-Connacht-team next season

1) McCabe (Munster)
2) Jonny Murphy (Ulster)
3) Carey (Ulster)
4) Dillane (Munster)
5) Thornbury (Leinster)
6) Copeland (Leinster)
7) Connors (Leinster)
8 ) Boyle (Leinster)
9) C.McKeon (Leinster)
10) C.Fitzgerald (Munster)
11) M.Healy and A.Leavy (Leinster)
12) Robb (Leinster)
13) Farrel (Leinster)
14) R.Scholes (Ulster)
15) C.Kelleher (Leinster)

RoadRunnerR1 wrote:

Shelflife wrote: No that’s all I heard, not sure if Niq or not. Just that they were starting material.

www.the42.ie/leinster-nacewa-tomane-mogg...ign-4021967-May2018/

"The42 understands that Joe Tomane and Jesse Mogg are both available on reasonable salary terms, while the fact that they are not involved in international rugby makes them more attractive to clubs."

Probably unlikely we'd be able to compete for either players signature but with a sizeable Australian contingent and an Australian coach allegedly one of the favourites to take over at the Sportsground you'd never know.

Players will take a pay cut to join Leinster because they're the best team in Europe, and have a world class squad, facilities, and coaching staff.

Tomane has been linked with Leinster. Either wouldn't be a bad addition at all.

Shelflife wrote: No that’s all I heard, not sure if Niq or not. Just that they were starting material.

www.the42.ie/leinster-nacewa-tomane-mogg...ign-4021967-May2018/

"The42 understands that Joe Tomane and Jesse Mogg are both available on reasonable salary terms, while the fact that they are not involved in international rugby makes them more attractive to clubs."

Probably unlikely we'd be able to compete for either players signature but with a sizeable Australian contingent and an Australian coach allegedly one of the favourites to take over at the Sportsground you'd never know.

Mark Mostyn wrote:

connachta wrote:

Mark Mostyn wrote: We definitely need a loose head as you say, think we could do with a tight head as well. O’Donnell is fairly small and could benefit from focusing on one position exclusively at this stage of his career. We’re a lot less experienced at lock than I would like but at least we’ve buckets of potential there.

One more prop is the maximum we will have. Ambi-prop or pure LH is the question, depends on how/where you rate O'Donnell.

For lock I'm not that worry, Roux/Dillane aren't old but very ewperienced in the end (caps).
Thornbury will be the real deal next season, I feel it.

Those 3 could share 70 or 80% of overall gametime (depends on Irish calls).
The other 4 are cover/injury crisis players, I guess 1 out of 4 will be able to step up when needed!
And if not, you still have Copeland experience.

When I talk about experience in the 2nd row I'm talking about wily operators who add grit and nous and who young lads can learn from. All the guys you mentioned trade mainly on athleticism. Agree on Thornbury and if one of Claffey/Makwhatever/Gallagher can kick on we'll be in very good shape.

I agree totally that we've been crying out for a tough grizzled experienced Lock, the kind of guy you generally mainly find in the SH. You only have to look at the impact that guys like Brad Torn, Nathan Hines and now Scott Fardy have had at Leinster. I believe Thornbury is the real deal and will rival James Ryan in the next couple of years injury permitting but he's young and may need more time to get there. Ultan might be the guy but I'd like to see him getting some opportunities in the backrow next season. I think with his athleticism, ball carrying and tackle breaking ability, he'd make a top class No.8 but maybe a stint at 6 first. My only reservation would be a possible weakness in his breakdown jackal work due to his height but it hasn't stopped Tadhg Beirne becoming a top class operator. Would also make him an even more desirable choice for Ireland Selection. Don't know what Mark Flanagan's situation is at Saracens but I always thought he could do a good job for us at lock but with Maksymiw's signing, I can't see anymore signings at lock.

connachta wrote:

Mark Mostyn wrote: We definitely need a loose head as you say, think we could do with a tight head as well. O’Donnell is fairly small and could benefit from focusing on one position exclusively at this stage of his career. We’re a lot less experienced at lock than I would like but at least we’ve buckets of potential there.

One more prop is the maximum we will have. Ambi-prop or pure LH is the question, depends on how/where you rate O'Donnell.

For lock I'm not that worry, Roux/Dillane aren't old but very ewperienced in the end (caps).
Thornbury will be the real deal next season, I feel it.

Those 3 could share 70 or 80% of overall gametime (depends on Irish calls).
The other 4 are cover/injury crisis players, I guess 1 out of 4 will be able to step up when needed!
And if not, you still have Copeland experience.

When I talk about experience in the 2nd row I'm talking about wily operators who add grit and nous and who young lads can learn from. All the guys you mentioned trade mainly on athleticism. Agree on Thornbury and if one of Claffey/Makwhatever/Gallagher can kick on we'll be in very good shape.

www.rugby.com.au/news/2018/05/17/super-r...ns-team-announcement

And if you wanna taste him as 12, here's the last week Club Rugby game

Just decent during 80 min, absolutely brilliant in extra-time (if you're in a hurry, watch 70 secs at 1:44:44)

Joey Conway LH prop enlisted in our Academy from Munster.
21 y-o in October.

Mark Mostyn wrote: We definitely need a loose head as you say, think we could do with a tight head as well. O’Donnell is fairly small and could benefit from focusing on one position exclusively at this stage of his career. We’re a lot less experienced at lock than I would like but at least we’ve buckets of potential there.

One more prop is the maximum we will have. Ambi-prop or pure LH is the question, depends on how/where you rate O'Donnell.

For lock I'm not that worry, Roux/Dillane aren't old but very ewperienced in the end (caps).
Thornbury will be the real deal next season, I feel it.

Those 3 could share 70 or 80% of overall gametime (depends on Irish calls).
The other 4 are cover/injury crisis players, I guess 1 out of 4 will be able to step up when needed!
And if not, you still have Copeland experience.