Peter O'Mahony explains why 'too many Leinster players' for Ireland is not an issue

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Well said.

With the Ireland rugby team in somewhat of a down period at the minute, and clearly not a top-three side in the world anymore, the scrutiny over the make up of the squad has intensified.

Criticism from fans over the amount of Leinster players picked throughout the last decade has always been prevalent, with the country's most populated and successful province dominating selection.

In an interview with Virgin Media Sport, Munster icon Peter O'Mahony spoke on this issue, but was adamant that the best players need to be picked, and in his experience, have been picked.

When asked, "Were you against or did you ever think there was ever a problem with too many Leinster jerseys in the Irish team?", the former Ireland captain explained: "No, I didn't.

"The facts of it is, is the majority of the country, or a vast majority or a huge chunk of the country live in Dublin.
"Be it for work, be it for, you know, for lots of reasons.
"The capital city of our country is Dublin, and as a result, there's 1.5, 6, 7 million people, maybe more, live in the vicinity of it.
"So, the fact of the matter is you're gonna have more people playing the game there.
"You're gonna have more schools there. You're gonna have more schools who are into rugby there as a result.
"You're gonna have more teams producing more players and, you know, when you do the maths, that's a matter of fact.
"You also have the amount of my buddies that were moving to Dublin to play. To play sport, to work, sorry, to work more so than play sport.

"But as a result, now they're having kids. They're all of a sudden now gonna be living and playing in teams from Dublin. So that's part of it.

"I always felt that when I was playing for Ireland, the best team for Ireland was picked, you know what I mean?

"That was the way I always felt about it. You want to be playing with the best guys if that meant 24 Munster players or 24 Leinster players.

"I always felt that the best thing that had to be done was pick the best team. Give us the best chance to win.

"And look, there's arguments of course to be made, but I always felt that that was the case."

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