British and Irish Cup 13/14

[profitius]

Because Connacht have to think long term. If they can give game time to a slightly better Leinster player who'll leave at the end of the season or one of their own who they could get 8 or 9 years out of which is of more benefit to the province? They don't need to worry about relegation, so the short term fix isn't all that important to them.

What about the journeymen and old players in their squad in the past few seasons? What good are they in the long term. If the squad was all under 27 and highly talented, you'd have a point. However that's not the case.

 

[profitius]

People seemed to forget Connacht want to be a serious competitive team. Taking loanees basically just shows them to be a feeder team who will never be settled enough to build a team good enough to challenge.

So they'd rather be less competitive by playing inferior players? They have to get the balance right between short and long term. For instance Muliania is probably only signed for a year.

And some of the loanees would also stay there long term.

 

[Thingimubob]

Frustrating semi final for Ponty from what i heard, 22 - 22 all against Leinster, Leinster go through on tries scored. They really need to sort out a universal way to end drawn knock out games, just seems like an even worse way to end a game than even the penalties of the Cardiff - Leicester semi from a few years back...

 

[Peat]

I don't think loans are a bad idea for Connacht. Plenty of teams issue one year contracts from time to to time in the right circs. I think that there are very few instances where it makes sense for both Connacht and loanee. Connacht have too much talent to make offers of serious gametime to unproven youngsters that they don't get to keep and proven youngsters usually have better options. Unproven youngsters seem to think they have better opportunities at home. Unless I'm mistaken a lot of Connacht's recent intake from other provinces is from AIL players.

The LV Cup would be a good thing for Irish sides. Its more money and more chances for Irish youngsters. If they could keep it alongside the B&I cup, so much the better. The Irish provinces need a better gateway between AIL and Pro 12 - and Connacht can't be that gateway, because they need Pro 12 players themselves.

 

[munstermuffin]

So they'd rather be less competitive by playing inferior players? They have to get the balance right between short and long term. For instance Muliania is probably only signed for a year.

And some of the loanees would also stay there long term.

But it's not just on the field they benefit from Muliania. Munster had Langford and Jim Williams, Leinster with Contepomi and Nacewa along with others. It's what you learn off field. Paul O'Connell benefited from Langford, Zebo from Howlett, Sexton from Contepomi. These guys pass knowledge and experience on. So why should Connacht replace their own young guys for a Leinster/Munster youngster who wouldn't be much better?
Let's remember if they were such a level above then Munster/Leinster wouldn't entertain letting them go in first place