Seeing Leinster sign Barrett is crushing for rivals who must fear they’ll never close gap

On Friday, Leo Cullen lamented the fact that fans of the other provinces weren’t behind Leinster on their quest to win a fifth Champions Cup title. The comments, directly related to Cork’s embrace of their prodigal son Ronan O’Gara last week, went down like a thousand lead balloons.

By Monday, whatever goodwill that still existed towards Leinster disappeared as they added their latest superstar signing for next season.

As well as becoming one of the meanest teams on the pitch under Jacques Nienaber, Leinster are leaning into their position of Irish rugby’s big, bad wolf.

Their audacious swoop for RG Snyman, when he’d been told he didn’t have a future at Munster, was a new departure for the province, and by recruiting All Black Jordie Barrett on a half-season sabbatical, they’ve continued to flex their financial muscle.

As well as his comments about La Rochelle’s Cork stint, Cullen also spoke about the French club’s model and how it differed from Leinster’s largely home-grown approach.

While it’s true they beat the European champions with a team that had 11 starters from their own academy, it would be naive to think Leinster’s budget isn’t on par with Europe’s biggest clubs when the subvention of the IRFU’s central contracts is taken into account. If they were worried about perception, they wouldn’t have announced the recruitment of Barrett on the same day Dan Sheehan’s central IRFU contract was confirmed.

The juxtaposition of the two is key because part of the reason they can attract and retain such a talented squad is the number of players they have on the union’s payroll. Sheehan joins Hugo Keenan, Garry Ringrose, Robbie Henshaw, James Lowe, Andrew Porter, Tadhg Furlong, James Ryan, Tadhg Beirne, Josh van der Flier and Caelan Doris on national deals. And, when you look at that list, you’d be justified in wondering why Jamison Gibson-Park isn’t a made man, too.

We have reached the point of Leinster’s dominance whereby just two players from the other three provinces are on IRFU deals and one of those, Iain Henderson, struggles to get into the match-day 23 for Ireland because of the emergence of Joe McCarthy, who should be getting the big contract next time around.

You can be sure Munster will be pushing for Jack Crowley to be promoted to an IRFU deal when he next comes up for renewal.

The IRFU are supplementing the one-year contracts recently signed by Peter O’Mahony and Conor Murray, having previously helped bring Simon Zebo back home, and you can be sure David Humphreys is acutely aware of the imbalances across the provincial landscape as he gets comfortable in his all-powerful role at Lansdowne

Road. They’re taking an active involvement at Ulster, where the province are on the hunt for a new chief executive and head coach, with Jared Payne’s name featuring prominently in relation to that role.

Leinster would argue they’ve simply got their house in order and are making the most of what they have, spending their own money wisely.

But the way Irish rugby is structured without a draft system for promising young players coming through, Leinster’s success almost guarantees more success.

Those of a blue persuasion might suggest Munster squandered their pre-eminence 15 years ago and would argue they shouldn’t be punished for running things so well.

Twelve years ago, when Humphreys was running Ulster and they were recruiting top-quality players from South Africa and New Zealand and reaching a Champions Cup final, it looked like they were becoming a force, but the picture looks oh so different now. Connacht, meanwhile, are sacrificing their playing budget to get the stadium they so badly need to be built in what is a long-term strategy.

Leinster, meanwhile, are making the most of the schools system that feeds into their academy. Having those 10 centrally contracted players off their budget allows them to keep other squad players more than happy, and the strength of that squad makes them competitive across a long season. That then guarantees them big gates at the Aviva Stadium. They’ve hosted four matches there this year and sold out the clash with La Rochelle in six days. Croke Park is an EPCR game, but they’ll get a cut of the proceeds, and there’s prize money on offer if they win the title.

On the wall of their headquarters at UCD, there’s a list of the benefactors who contributed their own money to the building. That private money is still there to be tapped into when the need arises.

They are heavyweights, and when you marry the budget picked up by the IRFU and the income they receive from those sources, they’ve a heavyweight budget, and now they’re making it count. Replacing Jason Jenkins and Charlie Ngatai with Snyman and Barrett makes them stronger.

Recruiting a two-time World Cup-winning Springbok and a current All Black will help chief execu

‘It’s hard to marry Barrett’s arrival with an aligned strategy for Irish rugby ’

tive Shane Nolan and his commercial team shift RDS season tickets in a campaign where the venue won’t be in use for part of the term and they’ll have to move matches.

For Cullen, it means he has a ridiculous squad to go with his high-powered coaching ticket, which will include former Munster out-half Tyler Bleyendaal, who will replace Andrew Goodman as attack coach. Cullen’s challenge is fitting Barrett into his backline, where he’s competing against Keenan, Jimmy O’Brien, Ringrose, Henshaw, Ciarán Frawley and Jamie Osborne for his best positions of full-back or centre. Snyman, meanwhile, is in a battle for a place against Ryan, Ryan Baird and McCarthy.

Naturally, you wonder what Andy Farrell makes of it all as he faces the prospect of at least some of his best players having their opportunities limited by stars from afar, both of whom are major names for two of Ireland’s main rivals in 2027.

Being based here, they will also pick up plenty of intelligence on the Irish system during their stay.

The IRFU had to sign off on the signings, so it follows that Leinster’s supremacy is their policy.

Farrell benefits from the cohesion the boys in blue bring to the table in his set-up, and if the recruits help them win big games, they’ll become better, more confident internationals. The IRFU is more than the national team, however; they’re the guardians of the game, and it’s incumbent on Humphreys to find ways to bring Leinster’s rivals back to the top table.

There’s a sense of despair among fans of teams unable to compete in Europe while Ireland’s biggest fish go deep in the Champions Cup every year.

Leinster have done nothing wrong by recruiting Barrett, but it’s hard to marry his arrival with an aligned strategy for Irish rugby.