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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is the DSPN.
DSPN, we are heading to Ireland. Caelan Scully, should New Zealand rugby be copying what Ireland do? Tell us.
In a time of million-dollar questions as we prepare for the FIFA World Cup, this is just the latest one of many million-dollar questions. I think there is credence in following certain things that Irish rugby does, but I think the number one
barrier to that is plain and simple Super Rugby is played out of what is it like 17 games in 20 weeks or something like that like it's a pretty short succession whereas the Irish calendar starts in mid-September including pre-season and runs until mid-June it's not replicable there's a reason why the system is in place the way it is and it's predominantly player welfare and the second part to that as well is we have our big international games in the middle of the club season years is at the
Chapter 2: What are the main differences between the All Blacks and Irish rugby?
end or whatever whatever flow you want to put i think i think you see it as the end of season so it is very different i think there's certain parts of it which are important central contracting you know is is never a bad thing england to follow that model i think the number of you know non-national team qualified players for lack of a better term so players who can't play for new zealand there's definitely credence in that as well to a certain degree
But I think that more than every system, it has its faults. You know, like Irish rugby has about 5% of all players who are non-eligible to play for Ireland. And you can definitely make a case that has made the provinces weaker because I've just watched a season where some of the best players in Ireland were Sean Jansen, who was a kind of second stringer at Leicester Tigers.
Seamus Hurley-Langton, who was an NPC player. Sam Gilbert was an NPC player. Even Ben O'Donovan at 23-24 came up to Ireland and instantly became the backup at Munster. after a couple of weeks, haven't not even played super rugby.
So as much as you can look at Ireland and say, we're doing a lot of things well, someone like me could look at New Zealand rugby and say, well, they still have the players. They still have the guys that I'd love to sign and hope there's a couple of Irish grandparents. So more than everything else, it's really the eyes of the beholder, isn't it?
Specifically talking about pathways, though, my understanding, or New Zealand's understanding anyway, is that you have your four traditional provinces that are professional teams that play in the URC. Give us an insight as to what's happening below that and whether that's working, because that's a massive talking point here in New Zealand.
And I'd love to know how Irish rugby fans are feeling about that system from where you sit.
Yeah, I'm not going to promos New Zealand rugby fans and pretend they don't know what they're talking about. Everyone knows that Ireland rugby isn't the biggest sport in Ireland. Football is still a massive imprint. GEA is the national pastime. So that's a factor. But ultimately, the trap that Irish rugby has fallen into in recent years is that it is very schools rugby orientated.
Still the vast majority of players come through the school system. If you look at the Leinster squad that played in the European Cup final, I think... and I could be wrong, I think just Ciarán Frawley and Jamie Osborne, of the 20 Irish players who came from Leinster, they're the only ones who didn't come through the school's pathway. Back in the day, it was a lot closer to, say, 50-50, 60-40.
Now, I am conscious of the fact that the school's pathway being the number one has been around basically as long as I've been watching the game, so I am conscious of that, so I don't have the numbers to hand. But it has skewed, and I think As well as that, New Zealand will look at, well, Irish grandparents and things like that. Those rules is something Ireland look at. Well, of course they do.
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Chapter 3: How does Ireland's central contracting model affect player retention?
We're just being a bit more upfront about that. I think it was Richie McCormack who coined that phrase and then carried on by Sam Cain. One other comparison I want to draw is not so much between New Zealand and Irish rugby, but between Super Rugby Pacific, which we're coming to the business end right now, and the URC rugby. as well over there. Obviously, the USA has been through some changes.
You've taken on the South African teams. I feel like both competitions have really strong narratives around them. around off the field stuff, the way that the competition works. Obviously with the URC now you have lots of travel involved. What is the feeling up there around the way your domestic games working at that level, just in terms of a product, both TV and for fans?
I think as a TV product it's doing quite well. I'm not privy to TV numbers or things like that exactly, but I think as a product it's doing well because ultimately the URC has had one of its most competitive leagues.
league seasons ever in terms of the regular season and I think there's a buy-in I think there's an acceptance among the hardcore rugby fans that the four provinces will be battling for playoffs most years maybe not every year but most years that Glasgow will every year that Edinburgh will probably every second or third likewise Benetton there'll always be a Welsh team and there'll be probably three South African teams battling for it which is pretty good return in fairness considering where the league was before
And I think there is a very much now, we're about to close the door on five years of URC action since it got pushed and expanded and enhanced. And I think it's in a much better position. I think the days of the old Pro 12, Pro 14 are long behind us. And, you know, look, that league served a purpose. I think it absolutely served a purpose.
I think it helped Leinster to their European success in 2018, for example. I think it helped Leinster even just bridge the gap between a 2018 squad and what we'd know then as the 2023 team that looked like they would conquer all around them, but didn't in the end. In terms of fan buy-in, attendances are a sticky one. Attendances are down across the board.
They're down in a lot of different sports. The only one that seems to be having an uptick in attendances is League of Ireland, which is our semi-pro soccer or football league here in Ireland. And that uptick is mainly in the kind of 18 to 34 demographic, where famously rugby doesn't really do that well. It does for the likes of myself. I've gone on plenty of trips, gone to matches.
I've been to over like 20 games this season, mainly working. That's not all matchday tickets. But I am the exception to the rule. Rugby doesn't really cater for that audience. It's an expensive sport. Tickets for a Six Nations game are easily starting at 100 quid or 100 euro for most seats. upwards of 200 for a very good seat. So ultimately, is rugby doing its best in that regard? Probably not.
In Ireland, we love free-to-air sport on RTG Car, which is the Irish-language speaking service. And URC is not as on that as it was before. It's down to, I think, 30 games a season, down from about 54. I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't know what your take is on it. I think there is an oversaturation of rugby at times.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does Clayton McMillan face in his first season at Munster?
I would be of the opinion that a British and Irish League is probably the natural end point. Not to exclude South African teams, I would not be in favour of excluding them or the Italians. I think they offer a lot. I think the South African teams in particular probably offered the most pure test of rugby in the Northern Hemisphere between physical packs and electric backlines.
But ultimately, if you're trying to sell a narrative, and rugby is always trying to sell a narrative, it's easier if you are the, you know, head of promotions at Bristol Bears to say, right, we're going to try and sell tickets for Munster to come to town on a Friday night. Well, the Munster fans can fly into Bristol.
They could take a half day at work and they'd still be there in time for the match. That's a hell of a lot easier. And I'm sure that's something you would have faced in Super Rugby as well, where there is an element where proximity can lead to something. Now, it's not guaranteed. And again, Super Rugby will be the test of that, Premiership as well.
But there's certainly an element that we're all looking over our shoulder and wondering, Is this going to be where we end up going down? At the moment, I'm not fully against it, to be honest. I'd nearly lean in favour of it as much as I support this African team's being in the competition.
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Chapter 5: How does the psychological edge influence All Blacks' performance?
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Yeah, really interesting points you raised there, because I think that if you, from our perspective anyway, if you replace the word URC with Super Rugby and the football conversation with, say, the NRL we have over here, we could be having the exact same chat the other way around with you asking me the questions. It's really interesting to know that
You know, the issues that the sport is seemingly facing in both countries are actually pretty similar. Interesting stuff. Now, moving on, we obviously, whenever we talk to people from Ireland, we love to get an update on our Kiwi connections because there are quite a few. And I'm going to start off with the big news of the week. James Lowe heading off. He's done. Please let us know.
Tell us what's going on there, please.
Yeah, it would appear, now I'm not in the rooms and I don't have as many contacts as, say, some Leinster-based sports reporters, but it would appear that an impasse was reached between James Lowe, Leinster and the IRFU and no contract was signed and now he's on his way off to Japan as we prepare for a World Cup.
I think what's going to be really interesting is Andy Farrell names his Nations Championship squad on Wednesday. does he pick James Lowe? Because famously, probably the most high profile player last to leave Ireland was Simon Zeebo in 2018. He announced that in February or January time, maybe a bit before it.
And in the next squad, Joe Smith left him out because he wasn't going to be around next season. Why bother? I don't think Andy Farrell is going to take that route. I think he's going to pick James Lowe and get every last minute out of him. And I think that's really interesting. In terms of how
the how it came to be it would appear that you know the rfu so there's there's a couple of layers to rfu contracts first of all there is the typical central contract that we've heard of before that used to be 100 rfu paid that's now down to about 60 give or take for for most players um which is a sizable chunk when you're lenster and you have 11 centrally contracted players that's a that's a lot of player wage to take on especially at the highest level james lowe was never on one of these
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Chapter 6: What is the current state of the URC and its competitiveness?
Because it gives us something to talk about heading into the summer as well. I think it's a great move. I don't know if it was his first game, could have been his second, when Tony Brown joined South Africa. They played Ireland in the summer in, I think it was Loftus first, Valtteri as well. And they tore Ireland open at times in attack in a way that South Africa hadn't done before.
I think their first try came from De Allende up the middle, Sia Khaleesi in an edge forward position, which you usually never see. He was very rarely getting possession at the World Cup before that. And he's run down the tram lines and Ireland have no answer for them. And it's like, oh my goodness, what has Tony Brown unlocked? He can do the exact same thing at New Zealand as well.
I'm sure of it. I think the perception in New Zealand, though, is quite a mixed one. I think there was an awful lot of confidence from Irish fans going into Chicago, which obviously ended up putting an awful lot of egg on Irish faces. And I think that kind of fear factor has probably kicked in again, because now it's, as you said, it's three losses on the bounce.
Yes, the World Cup game could have gone either way, but the other two games were firmly New Zealand's, you know, like very firmly they were New Zealand's there and true. And I think it will be interesting to see in a couple of weeks time how that perception changes, whether Irish fans start to look at them and go, oh, new coach, maybe not a new bounce. Let's see. I'm a fan of Dave Rennie.
I have been since he was in the Northern Hemisphere. I think he's a very good coach. I think Mike Blair in particular is a very highly regarded coach. I think he could do very, very well there. Jason Ryan as well. But although New Zealand may not be the team we feared of, say, 2015, granted, that was an unbelievable team. It would give anyone nightmares.
They're still a force to be reckoned with, ultimately. And I think that is probably one thing that you'll see out of Ireland is, there won't be too many people back in Ireland to win this one, I don't think.
And I genuinely, from my own vantage point, look at New Zealand now, and I think even in their state of flux, I think they're still questionably, or arguably, the second best team in the world. And I think that's something to be, maybe not proud of. New Zealand should, you know, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, France, if you're not first, you're not in it.
You know, like you have to be aiming for those standards. New Zealand, you know, often have done it. I think Ireland, once you hit that mountain, once you start reaching and start saying you're the best team in the world, you can't stop. You cannot, you know, you can't stop. And I wrote about this recently.
And I think that's the one thing that New Zealand, it's almost their mental strength in some capacity. Like it's a super strength for them that they will go into this window. They will have so much belief. They'll probably pick up three wins out of three in the summer. And then we're talking about how rejuvenated they are and how they're going to bounce into a World Cup that's only,
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