I know you are not writing him off but I think you are missing something on O'Donnell. To me he looks to have almost everything and will put on more muscle in the coming years too.

He is an excellent scrummager and has fantastic work rate in the loose not to mention in defence too. For a 20 year old (just turned 20 in may) he is looking an outstanding prospect with that natural strength that the likes of Rory best is known for.

Tbf there are not many th's starting at pro12 level at 19 years old like he did for connacht this season.

not sure yet about O'Donnell, he was good in a poor u20's forward pack in 2015, this year he looked average enough in a better u20 pack, the other Connacht lad that played this year Carey I think was his name looked a better unit. not sure what point i'm trying to make but anyway when Buckley arrived you could see he was a very decent rugby player but just lacked the weight required, when he added the extra kg's required he quickly made the position his.

Probably Pat is still in touch with an ex N-Z province Academy boy, who is now 2nd choice in a senior squad and will come on reasonable money (a bit like McCartney, who is a success!)

I agree 100% connachta, if we had one more international class th we could work it as finlay can cover lh too but you can't be going in relying on these kids.

This shows the madness of letting moore slip through the leinster net and out of the Irish provincial system. I really don't think their would be any restrictions re NIQ on us getting a th in but can we do it without blowing much more of our budget than whitey was on?

No, Guys, just NO
You can't face ChampionsCup teams with 25 y.o Bealham and a 22 y.o academy Saba, adding just a 20 y.o puppy prop O'Donnel. Good enough = old enough is a principle with limits, especially for TH props. Even Finlay isn't a finished article yet

Darragh wrote: You'd have to think we need at least two of those five coming through next season.

The fact that there has been relatively little heard of bar perhaps Conan O'Donnell , doesn't sound too positive to me.

I saw Saba with Conan and two others outside Murrayfield, I think they are the four that the team collectively paid to bring over. I know that's no indication of preparedness but it would suggest that he is considered in reasonably high regard as an academy prospect (there are a lot of hypotheticals in that line of thought of course).

In the case of a NIQ TH recruit, we probably won't be allowed our N-Z lock.
Nagle Sheriff O'Shea Flannagan (not wisely) have gone elswhere
Remain Jerry Sexton
AND I realised just right now, Lewis Stevenson!!
on a short term deal with Exeter too, could be a hell a valuable experienced player, one year younger than Aly!

I think EvoGeo has the right thinking in regards to Connacht getting an exemption for NIQ props especially if it's true that White needs to retire. Connacht could really be up against come the Nov internationals and 6 nations should Belham and Buckley be called into the national squad. There are not enough IQ props around with experience. How many props do you want in your gameday 23 either in their first or second year of Pro12 rugby? It starts to become a safety issue.

You'd have to think we need at least two of those five coming through next season.

The fact that there has been relatively little heard of bar perhaps Conan O'Donnell , doesn't sound too positive to me.

Not sure I trust those figures- I'm 5'9 and taller than Conan O'Donnell, who I think has a chance of making a top drawer loose head.

as the prop situation is up for discussion does anyone see any of our academy props progressing in the coming season. I thought O'Donnell acquitted himself really well this year when called upon. List of academy props below.

Name Birth Year Height Weight
Jamie Dever 1993 3 6ft 1” 111KG
Conor Kyne 1995 1 6ft 1” 117KG
Saba Menuargia 1994 3 6ft 2” 122KG
Conan O’Donnel1996 1 5ft 10” 115KG
Jacob Walshe 1994 3 5ft 11” 114KG

So that was another bailout on top of the stadium repayments...imagine the roaring if that was us?!?

www.balls.ie/rugby/david-nucifora-confir...late-connacht/332142

It was in a Sunday Times interview last month, not in as much detail.

Not sure if this belongs in here but more buget = bigger squad, so here's as good as any;
From the examiners ( www.irishexaminer.com/sport/rugby/munste...sses-19m-403005.html )

Whilst explaining their (HUGE) financial loses for this year Munster treasurer said this:

Last year we had the Wolfhounds game, which generated about €100,000 and (Pro12) knockout income of €225,000 from the semi-final and final last year, which we didn’t have this year.

Not sure exactly how that figure breaks down but we had a much bigger attendance in the final and won the final, unlike Munster, so surely we should be looking at a similar bump to our coffers

Edit: actually there's some more bits in there that confirm a few things we could only presume on in the past:

So while there are fewer Munster men on national contracts, forcing the province to pick up the tab on players previously funded centrally, the rising player costs, up €620,000 on 2014-15 to €4.48m, had been covered by €1.1m in additional IRFU grant income.

So central contracts are fully covered by the IRFU (reading slightly between the lines) and Munster got some additional money from the IRFU....don't remember seeing a story about the provinces having their budgets increased last year but I could very easily have missed that.

Ideally we'd love a full 15 of connacht born and bred players but:

1) we don't have the population Base or the rugby culture in the population for this to happen.

2) the cost associated with developing props are massive and if we had to develop all of our own then they would eat up (literally and figuratively) a disproportionate amount of our budget. Look at the money wasted on ah you, buckley (old one), as well as the front rows that developed and we're poached by others after all the hard work and monetary expense we went to like cronin, jackman, hagan etc etc.

This is one area where I am quite happy to have the exemption until or unless we have the same budgetary support as the other guys at least.

It is all well and good wishing for a utopian world but we have to be pragmatic and be careful what we wish for.

EvoGeo wrote: We are an exception due to our low budget.

I wouldn't mind if the exemptions we've been granted in the past were tightened up a bit and we were encouraged to develop more of our own players.

If the Connacht coaching team could turn Rodney into a capped international, I'd like to see what they could do with the raw material listed above. Look at the progress Finlay has made in the last 12 months.

And props are expensive.