Firstly this whole penney thing is a storm in a teacup. He was asked his opinion at the end of a press conference and he gave it. His opinion that was most likely formed through the frustration of having to work within the niq guidelines while no suitable iq players were available. He has only been here 2 years so his opinion is based on that experience. When people get over the " how dare he" mentality there is merit to the core part of his arguement. If the role of the provinces is to develop and feed players into the national teams why are we letting eoin griffin go to LI and replacing him with bundee aki or muliana,' why is jack o connell and niall annett going to england when brett wilkinson retired and mccartney is coming to connacht etc. They are valid point of view from the viewpoint of a coach. There is a flaw in our system. Of course players are loyal to their province but the system encourages this loyalty. Would butler leave munster for connacht for 20k pa more than he gets at home? Would griffin have joined munster instead of LI if they could have matched their offer? We dont know because its not allowed. While this remains there is little incentive to go west. Butler was recently motm in a bonus pt win at the sportsground playing in a weakened team. He has never lost to connacht afaik. Jack mc grath, ruddock and jordi murphy all were capped while subbing for leinster. Marmion didnt get a look in while player of season for connacht. Why move west?
The thing that caught my eye most is that muliana is being paid 300k pa. This is on top of connacht paying 40k pa more than munster or leinster offered to aki. As debated here there are some considerable holes in the playing and coaching staff for next season. These are only good investments if those holes are satisfactorily filled. If they are not then you would have to question whether mulianas signing is in the best interests of connacht exciting or not.

Jerry Flannery explicitly stated in the recent past that there are a lot of lads who are happy just to accumulate kit and wear it around town, so its definitely a phenomenon even though you imagine the first team (and even A's) don't encourage it of guys lower down.

There are pluses and minuses to moving and in the end its individual. Cronin, Reddan, Cullen, Jennings, Copeland, Geordan Murphy, those are all guys who found success after leaving their province.

Carr, Hagan, Conway are all cautionary tales to an extent.

Someone like Keatley is probably in between, at last he's starting to be properly recognised but even now isn't considered the front runner by much. His reputation has been somewhat tarnished by his moves to the extent that he is playing much better than madigan and has been for a while now but still hasn't clearly put his head in front as 22 for Ireland.

We can't view it as loyalty when Robbie chooses to stay at Connacht but weak mindedness when a guy at Leinster chooses to stay with his home province.

I get your point but Robbie is a pinned down starter who is pushing for a starting place in the Irish XV not a 4th choice somewhere who is stagnating. Think there is a mentality at Munster to stay and not move while the last few season in Leinster (probably because of their high profile) fringe players are moving on. A lot of Ulster players go to Rotherham and Aurillac also because of connections there.

Like I said before if your 4th choice in your position and your not in the academy you need to move. It's great if it's Connacht but somewhere were you will be playing first team rugby or have a better shot at first team rugby.

A lot of the arguments put forward here for players moving to Connacht from other provinces are very similar to the arguments put forward by other provinces' fans for elite players moving away from Connacht, i.e. challenge themselves, show ambition, play at a higher level, etc., etc.

Ultimately different players have different motivations. Some want to play at the highest level they can, some want money, some want to play for their home team.
We can't view it as loyalty when Robbie chooses to stay at Connacht but weak mindedness when a guy at Leinster chooses to stay with his home province.

For me the question is, for the betterment of Irish rugby and the players' careers, what sort of advice are they getting from the IRFU and their provinces? Did Penney and his staff ever sit down with a player and say "hey, you're 4th choice here but at Connacht you'd be fighting for a backup spot getting a lot more game time, let's see if we can get you in there"? Or are they happy enough to have them around to fill up the A team and play the occasional Rabo league game when injury or international call ups dictate?

Some of these young players are smart enough and brave enough to see the situation for what it is and decide to move somewhere else to challenge themselves, others are content with their present status happy to be getting paid to play rugby for their home province no matter the level and others legitimately back themselves, perhaps naively so, to break into the first team. There probably should be more guidance for a lot of them for their own good and the good of Irish rugby.

Ya Daragh,
Its all well and fine saying that you play for Leinster Munster or Ulster but surely some players benefit from gametime and challenging themselves.
Yes playing opposition week in week out against Bod or Poc will be nice but players need to play.
A change of scenery can always help a player. Look at Nick Williams now compared to Nick Williams that played for Munster.
Niall Morris left Leinster and has done well in Leicester ditto another young back in Gloucester.

True, We havent had the coaching staff in place that we should have. One or two coaching staff positions need to be filled. Better coaching and gametime and then your set.

Yes, Some players left the other provinces B teams and didnt make the Connacht first team. But at least they tried their best and werent left as 6th lock for Munster. They backed themselves.

At the same time I understand why Hagan and Carr left to see if they could better themselves.
We need to make the environment and coaching setup good enough that they dont want to leave.

I always think of Cronin and Keatley. If they had stayed put, you can only imagine they'd have gotten VERY little time, would not have progressed the way that they did, and would not be at the level they're at now. Plenty more examples of this, of course.

the thing with the other three provinces for me is that even squad players there would prefer to say 'i play for leinster, or munster or ulster' more than come to Connacht and get game time.

to me that shows in some cases and not all, how weak their minds are.

you can't say all because particularly in Leinster jack mcgrath, murphy etc have all got capped while not being first choice players.

but there are certainly some players, perhaps more so in munster, where they like to tell people who they play for...

bit sad isnt it really.

With JHW out for six months we're decidedly light on hooking services, not just for Saturday but for the start of next season. Tom Mc doesn't land til November and Sean H is still recovering and there is no guarantee he will be right for September.
A lot of pressure on Heffernan there ...

Well, Isnt it great to see Penney getting his knickers in a twist. Im happy with the few signings that we have made. We just need a 10 and a big meaty player in the pack.
Ive high hopes that in a few years our own Sean O'Brien will be that ginger monster.

Anyway back to Penney, I'd say Foley is laughing his hole off at him. He may have been thinking what he said but he didnt have to get it published.
Munster have had Botha resigned against the rules and they have hardly produced a centre in 10 years.
Casey, Mafi, De Villiers, and the rest.

Im hoping that Mils can provide the squad with much needed experience and class. His always been a player to put his body on the line and show up. Parks for all his experience didnt lead the team when it was needed most. Defensively he was poor.
You would expect that Mils would be able to add a good bit on the coaching side.

I hope that we can get Clarke back fit and well. If not we look like we have 5 backrowers on the pitch. Having Jake and Willie fit would really help us.
Sadly McKeon hasnt improved with all the gametime he has been getting while George looks old and slow.

As for Penneys comments on us playing Irish players before getting in overseas lads. He didnt really understand the situation. We havent had the cash to buy in the few players needed.

Its no good young lads heading to Connacht if they arent surrounded by good coaches and good experienced players. We need maybe two more signings.
All the big three have had players sitting on their asses doing nothing.
Fair play to those that move it shows great Balls. Let them get out there and see if they can make it.
Nagle should have left Munster a few years ago if he had any ambition. Dominic Ryan has suffered with a few injuries but is a class player who would benefit from gametime. He seems to be behind some great players in Leinster.

For those that missed Off The Ball

Gerry feels the opposition to the signing from other quarters is unfair.

"It's a real marquee signing for Connacht and they don't get too many of them. Would there be an outcry against Munster for signing an ex-All Black. They've signed plenty and there's never been a problem there. This is the first one Connacht have ever signed and they're getting attacked from all quarters," he said, who also talked about accusations of an "institutional racism" against Connacht in Irish rugby.

Agree, Ger.

Have to say Gervais has been giving the other three(Well the other two, Ulster have said nowt thus far) pretty short shrift over this. Not saying he's our champion now but he is prepared to hear put case & back it if he agrees.

Darragh507 wrote: My feeling is all is fair in love and war.

having clarke and lam here is helping us.

ireland needs 4 strong provinces, i dont care what anyone says.

just the sour grapes from the other three is hilarious, but we also can't moan either going forward as seems irfu, schmit and i would imagine nucifora are going to be backing us.

so weve got to make other irish players want to come here.

completely agree, interesting take on this from Thornley and Woods on off the ball tonight, their attitude was that the other proviences attitude is how dare Connacht

My feeling is all is fair in love and war.

having clarke and lam here is helping us.

ireland needs 4 strong provinces, i dont care what anyone says.

just the sour grapes from the other three is hilarious, but we also can't moan either going forward as seems irfu, schmit and i would imagine nucifora are going to be backing us.

so weve got to make other irish players want to come here.

salmson wrote:

menacethedenis wrote: I don't know whether to laugh out loud or be annoyed by this

www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/rob-penne...-advantage-1.1785576

I actually feel a little sorry for Penney. Ulster and Leinster each have more than a dozen foreign born players in their squads; he's had to make do - and delivered more in Europe with - half that number. And who could blame him for being paranoid when his thanks was a politburo heave by Comrade Foleyev?

Being paranoid he might also think that if one of the Big 3 got over taken by Connacht (yeah, in our dreams, mate) it would be the one with an oversized debt loaded stadium that almost never fills because it's located smack bang in the middle of the city that suffered most from Ireland's worst recession in a century.

I can understand his pissed-off-ed-ness even if it's not factually based, but since he's only here a wet week he wouldn't understand the historic underinvestment in Connacht, or that we used have only 2 front line provinces until Ulster were lifted up by the Pienaar-Muller-Payne investment, and that doing the same for Connacht is good for the national team.

The only part of this I'd criticise him for is his laughable statement that there are players in the other provinces or England we should be signing. The likes of Paddy Butler and Billy Holland would rather be 3rd choice 8 and 5th choice lock for Munster than come to Connacht. Leinster's response to Connacht's interest in Jack Conan was to give him a full contract. So I guess what Penney's really saying here is we should fill out our squad with Championship players and know our f*****g place.

Should Leinster have allowed Connacht to poach a player they have invested heavily in?
Leinster have worked with Conan and helped him become the player he has over the last 5 years since he was involved with Leinster under-17.
Of course Leinster were going to move to keep Conan. Just like Connacht would try to do similar if Leinster tried to take a player from their academy. Conan was then offered a choice between Connacht and Leinster and he chose to remain at Leinster.

Justin Melck played for Germany, so no, not elegible and 31 y.o