ummm, wrote:

salmson wrote: they wait til the season has started to sign another foreigner, and the IRFU has tended to go, oh well, I suppose it's alright - witness Nathan White, or Terblanche (Ulster now have 3 NIQ fullbacks).

Little inaccuracies. Ulster have 1 NIQ fullback.

My bad - I was counting the Danieli, D'arcy (who have started at fullback this year) and Terblanche. I thought D'arcy was waiting for qualification on residency grounds, but obviously I was mistaken.

RogueXV wrote: One question I have is will there be a distinction made between players that can become Irish qualified through residency and those that can never become eligible? This actually would affect Connacht more if they were included in this regulation than the other 3 since they are more concerned with bringing in proven international talent. Will there be such a thing as a project players?

I think they're doing away with the idea of project players, but only in name. No player like Nacewa will sign for the provinces any more, they know they'll get one contract and won't be offered a second one. So who's left to recruit? NIQs who don't have international caps that, if you give them a 3 year contract, will become IQ as soon as their contract finishes and can then be offered a new one. This in effect will increase the number of project players without looking like official policy.

salmson wrote: they wait til the season has started to sign another foreigner, and the IRFU has tended to go, oh well, I suppose it's alright - witness Nathan White, or Terblanche (Ulster now have 3 NIQ fullbacks).

This is how rumours start. Little inaccuracies. Ulster have 1 NIQ fullback.

Not sure if you're counting Danielli or D'Arcy as a fullback. D'Arcy is Irish qualified and Danielli is a winger.

Payne is out for the season, Terreblanche is a direct replacement. Out of all their squad choices for the season, when looking at the FB position they will have only 1 NIQ player on their list to choose from, unless they're playing a winger out of position.

One question I have is will there be a distinction made between players that can become Irish qualified through residency and those that can never become eligible? This actually would affect Connacht more if they were included in this regulation than the other 3 since they are more concerned with bringing in proven international talent. Will there be such a thing as a project players?

We don't get the flat 3 million Salmson. We get 60% of the flat fee that is given to the other provinces, excluding central contracts and all that malarkey so when you throw them in we're off on a bad footing

We don't tend to produce props so we have to look elsehwere to sign them. Plenty of AIl lads and fringe players from other provinces have turned us down over the years. The Hagan situation doesn't help either, when that went so pear shaped and left a sour taste, why should get in a raft of young players to see them leave again? In fairness though, when it comes to NIQ's, we've seen Fa'afili, Vainikolo and now Ah You out in the cold, and homegrown and young talent preferred. Can Ulster say the same ie. Terblanche, Leinster:Nathan White, Munster: Chambers

We have an obvious problem now because with this new system being brought in, the less NIQ's you have, the less you'll be affected, and the more Irish talent in your ranks the more you steer clear of the awkward situations regarding signing an NIQ in a particular position which another province wants to do as well.

Munster will be falling over themselves to sign Wilko a year after next when his contract is up, mark my words. They'll also be very keen on snapping up Griffin and McSharry when their contracts are up. They've shag all young lads coming through, see the Irish 20s this year and a couple of previous years. Ditto O Halloran.

Rossie, let's take these one at a time:

rossie wrote: salmson,

why didnt irfu leave hagen and cronin at connacht

There are only 21 - down from round 30 a few years ago - players who are contracted to the IRFU directly, over whom the union have direct control.

After that, the IRFU provide 3 million a year to each province and they add whatever thay have to it (last years Leinster accounts had the wage bill at 7.5 million) and they sign whomever they want within the guidelines. And if the provinces don't like the guidelines, they wait til the season has started to sign another foreigner, and the IRFU has tended to go, oh well, I suppose it's alright - witness Nathan White, or Terblanche (Ulster now have 3 NIQ fullbacks).

Even if the union took a more active role, stopped this nonsense of sneaking round the foreign players quota (oh, btw, guess who has the most foreign players on the books? yup, you've guessed it), and implemented, say, today's new guidelines, how do you propose they could keep players who wanted to leave at Connacht? Gun to the head, ruffies, forged signatures?

rossie wrote:
if they want more frontrowers playing top level rugby or alternatively send them to ulster or munster. they allowed munster and ulster sign foriegn ths while putting irelands 2nd choice th in ail and b+i cup.

The 8 props whos started for the provinces in the HC last weekend comprised of:

1 Irish-born international
1 Ireland capped Australian
1 uncapped Irishman
1 Irish qualified but uncapped South African
3 SA internationals
1 NZ international

All the provinces are guilty when it comes to hiring foreign props. Connacht are the most guilty.

Maybe Hagan is pissed that Leinster wooed him when Stan Wright declared he was leaving, obviously viewed him as a stopgap, then got another SH prop soon as they could, but hey, they didn't give him the game time he deserved the first time round, why did he think it would be different this time?

Hagan's and Carr's situations should hopefully prove instructive to McSharry, Kearney, and others if and when they should think the grass is greener...

rossie wrote:
that didnt have the best interest of irish rugby at heart. same argument can be made for keatley and carr.

Again these players did not want to stay. Well Carr did, in the end, but we'd already signed a replacement by the time he'd realised where his best interests lay.

Bluntly, I think Keatley has made a great career move. O'Gara at best has 18 months left in him. Keatley, who's flying, will then be first choice at one of the 6 best teams in Europe.

rossie wrote:
this is ill thought out and implies that connachts position could be under threat again very shortly.

Th IRFU aren't going to go the way of Scotland. There is only one professional sport in Ireland, and due to the unique status of the GAA, will only ever be one professional sport in Ireland. Why would they voluntarily withdraw from a monopoly position?

The IRFU are looking for comments on twitter.

#irfusuccession

salmson,

why didnt irfu leave hagen and cronin at connacht if they want more frontrowers playing top level rugby or alternatively send them to ulster or munster. they allowed munster and ulster sign foriegn ths while putting irelands 2nd choice th in ail and b+i cup.
that didnt have the best interest of irish rugby at heart. same argument can be made for keatley and carr.

this is ill thought out and implies that connachts position could be under threat again very shortly.

salmson wrote:

ummm, wrote: There is no chance even fourth choice fringe players ... will ever be allowed to leave in the first place.

So Leinster will hand out 60 contracts next year? Kearney and before him Cronin didn't turn down their provinces to come here? And Hagan, Carr, and Keatley hadn't been exiled to the AIL?

Don't be so paranoid.

This makes perfect sense. There were less than 15 foreign starters bewteen the big 3 last weekend, but 4 of the 6 props were NIQ.

The number of NIQs allowed for each province from next is 4 + 1 development; so this just insures a better spread across position, it does not change the numbers of IQ and NIQ players. The only major market effect is that Irish props just got more expensive. I don't see an overlong queue for our props, and even if someone comes knocking in 2013 (all of our NIQs will be out of contract by then) we have carte blanche to replace them with foreign players if good Irish ones aren't available.

Munster were looking everywhere for an inside centre recently.

If we were up against them for McSharry who do think would have won?

And if one of the provinces has a need for a Griffen, McKeown, O'Halloran and they can't look to foreigners? Will we be able to match offers?.

My point exactly ummm.

Its set up in favour of leinster in particular as they have the schools set up in place in dublin and therefore will have the pick of upcoming talent into the future as they already have. I think they have upwards on twenty schools playing grade a rugby compared to 7 in munster and 5 in connacht.

Munster and now connacht have been picking up players leinster didnt want for their acadamies and turning them into decent players or alternatively picking up their acadamy players who were surplua to supplement their squads. This will be very difficult to do now, especially for connacht as leinster wont let them go as easily and will probably make their acadamy bigger as well.

Munster have never produced players in bulk but up to now have always produced one or two eevery time they need them. This year pete o mahoney and zebo for example. That would be normal considering the small pool of schools players they have to pick from for their acadamy.

Connachts acadamy is new but you will find in time that they(acadamy staff)will do well to produce a similar volume regularly.

i dont know anything about ulsters situation so i cant comment.

all in all i think this announcement if enforced will lead to one super power in club rugby and an international team similar in quality to what it is now.

ummm, wrote: There is no chance even fourth choice fringe players ... will ever be allowed to leave in the first place.

So Leinster will hand out 60 contracts next year? Kearney and before him Cronin didn't turn down their provinces to come here? And Hagan, Carr, and Keatley hadn't been exiled to the AIL?

Don't be so paranoid.

This makes perfect sense. There were less than 15 foreign starters bewteen the big 3 last weekend, but 4 of the 6 props were NIQ.

The number of NIQs allowed for each province from next is 4 + 1 development; so this just insures a better spread across position, it does not change the numbers of IQ and NIQ players. The only major market effect is that Irish props just got more expensive. I don't see an overlong queue for our props, and even if someone comes knocking in 2013 (all of our NIQs will be out of contract by then) we have carte blanche to replace them with foreign players if good Irish ones aren't available.

We are screwed.

There is no chance even fourth choice fringe players, like Cronin, Carr, Keatley and Hagan we're before we gave them the game time to develop into players the other provinces wanted back, will ever be allowed to leave in the first place.

The IRFU are idiots. They are reducing the chance of up and coming players getting game time, not improving it.

rossie wrote: its a nonsense really.

whats the bet that it will be scrapped 1st time leinster need a player.

I'm no blues fan but this is surely just an anti-leinster rant. Are they to be punished for bringing through more young players than the rest of the provinces?

This works to our favour. We're the only province with free rein as to which foreign players we sign.

As to suggestions our young players will disappear in 2013, well we just signed 2 of them to 2014.

This is (according to the press release) driven by the Irish team management.

And Munster are in trouble, full stop, as they're not producing as many young players as they used to. Have a look at the first U20 team of the season. 1 Munster player.

from what i understand of it imf munster are in trouble as botha is out of contract first so will have to be replaced by irish qual th. its a nonsense really.

whats the bet that it will be scrapped 1st time leinster need a player.

"* The Connacht professional side is external to this process as it has recently commenced a new programme of structural and performance development agreed with the IRFU."

From the IRFU website: www.irishrugby.ie/news/25137.php

I don't understand how they intend to implement this in terms of which team receives priority?

Take the present scenario with Munster's Botha and Ulster's Afoa, how would they work out who is allowed to play their NIE on any given week?

Or is the ruling stating that come 2013 Munster and Ulster will need some kind of lottery system to see who gets to keep their NIE in the tighthead position?