This has come up before.
Not so much the transferring sport, we hear that from commentators every week but the power of the Leinster schools system has obviously yielded phenomenal results. And Munster, by comparison, can’t compete with that system, purely down to the number of rugby schools at their disposal.
For them, they have to play a different game. Or a number of games.
And for provincial and Ireland legend Mick Galwey, one key factor to that is tapping into other schools and other sports. Use the clubs too, but broaden the search to get more talent over to the clubs.
“I’ll keep saying it, it’s great to see players coming through the club system first,” Mick Galwey said. He was promoting Heartburn Awareness Week.
“The people in the clubs are working very hard but as supporters we need to follow our clubs and get these young players coming through.
“That Jack Crowley is a very exciting player. Craig Casey, scrumhalf, my God – we never thought we’d replace Conor Murray but now we know we have a very good replacement. Young [Ben] Healy who’s playing out-half at the moment, he’s been fantastic, and all these other players, it’s just great to see.
“And do you know what I love about it? A lot of these lads are from west Cork and they’re from GAA backgrounds and God knows what and I think that is the way forward.
“Not everybody will get to play for their county but there’s a lot of raw talent out there of young lads who can switch over the rugby, or certainly give it a crack.”
When he transitioned from one of Kerry GAA’s rising stars to the oval ball, he was just relying on his sporting ability and athleticism to begin with. He learned his trade through the club and never looked back.
“Leinster has about 15 first class schools. That is probably the best academy in the world, never mind Europe.
“Whereas in Munster, we have four and the rest would be mainly GAA-playing schools. And yet you’re pulling fellas out of places – like that Munster team at the moment, from Tipperary, west Cork, and that’s what you want to see.”
You can watch him discuss his thoughts on getting more rugby players from GAA backgrounds here from 17:47.
Heartburn Awareness Week
- More than one third (34%) of Irish people are living with heartburn, 29% of whom experience frequent attacks.
- Main causes for heartburn cited as eating rich or spicy foods (54%); eating too much (34%); and stress (31%)
