Schools talent factory puts Leinster top of class
England could learn a lot from the success story of Ireland’s production line
Leinster’s RDS Arena was rocking last Friday. Two teams committed to throwing the ball about, thousands of fans going potty in the stands and some real talent on display. It was not Johnny Sexton, Garry Ringrose and Cian Healy showing off their skills, though. It was Blackrock College versus Belvedere College in the final of the Bank Of Ireland Leinster Schools Senior Cup. And the standard of rugby was frightening.
If Leinster are driving Ireland’s success on the world stage – and having contributed 50 per cent of Ireland’s playing squad for the recent Six Nations, it would seem to suggest they are – then these schools represent the talent factory driving Leinster.
It is an extraordinary success story, but one that is perhaps under-appreciated outside Ireland. It bears close scrutiny, though, because there may be lessons in this system for England. Just consider the numbers: Of the 23 players who make up Leinster’s match-day squad to face Saracens in tomorrow’s Champions Cup quarter-final, 17 played in this competition as schoolboys before joining Leinster’s academy.
In fact, well over 50 per cent of Leinster’s current squad attended one of the 16 schools who compete in the Leinster Senior Schools Cup.
And the reality is the talent pool is even more concentrated than that. The vast majority of those players went to one of the five or six big schools who habitually win the Cup. Blackrock College (alma mater of Brian O’driscoll and current Leinster players such as Ringrose, Jordi Murphy and Joey Carbery) lead the way. Last Friday’s 35-12 victory was their 69th in the competition, having won the inaugural trophy way back in 1887. Then you have Belvedere (Healy), Clongowes Wood (Rob Kearney, Fergus Mcfadden), St Michael’s College (James Ryan, Luke Mcgrath, Ross Byrne). Thirteen of Leinster’s senior squad went to St Michael’s alone.
To appreciate how and why these schools are able to produce such a staggering number of top rugby players – and Ireland internationals – you need only attend one of these Cup games. Played in a six-week window in February and March, they are big showpiece occasions, almost professional in feel.
The final itself is a huge occasion, played at the RDS with a full team of officials. The match is broadcast live on television and attended by anything up to 10,000 partisan supporters.
“It’s a real occasion, isn’t it?” grins Justin Vanstone, the English head coach of Blackrock. I’m 15 years over here now and I’d never seen anything like it until I came over. It’s just incredible.”
Vanstone – in common with his opposite number at Belvedere, Phil Werahiko – identifies the close relationship with Leinster Rugby as the key ingredient. He says the province will provide resources and coaching expertise if requested – former England head coach Stuart Lancaster has been in to give a number of workshops since he arrived last year, for instance – but generally they trust the schools to develop the talent.
“They put a lot of trust in our set-ups,” says Vanstone, who doubles as the school’s PE teacher. “I think they trust the framework that is in place and there is no massive rush on their part [to get the students into the Leinster academy].”
It cannot all be that, though. England has some extremely successful public schools of its own – Millfield, Whitgift, Sedbergh, Wellington College. “I think it’s the fact that there is such a focus on the province here,” suggests Kieran Campbell, the head of Ulster’s academy. “There is a real parish mentality. They [the Leinster school students] would kill each other to play for Leinster. Whereas in London you have Quins, Saracens, London Irish… the students don’t necessarily care who they play for.”
Once they reach Leinster’s academy, Campbell notes, there also appears to be less pressure on them to sign professional forms. All of them are encouraged to go through further education.
“The biggest difference as I see it is that in England [the academies] have to make a decision on players at 18 or else they go somewhere else,” agrees Peter Smyth, the academy manager at Leinster (and a former player and teacher at Blackrock himself). “We like to leave it a bit later than that, until 19 or 20.”
“Perhaps that [making decisions later] has driven us to be more intuitive?” adds Campbell. “Whereas English clubs have the edge in terms of size, particularly in earlier age groups, given time, as rugby intelligence comes into it… there is a real focus here on core skills and on decision-making.”
Lancaster, whose own son is going through the English academy system and is therefore extremely well placed to comment, cautions against reading too much into that.
“Clearly the system works well here in Leinster,” he tells me. “You have to be careful not to generalise, though. English clubs and academies do an excellent job with young players in England, too. It’s not better in Ireland. It’s just different.”
Whatever it is, it is working. You need only look at Leinster’s team-sheet for tomorrow.
‘The school students would kill each other to play for Leinster’