Is anyone outside of Leinster consistently producing though? I'm a fairly regular attendee at Ravenhill and while Ulster have a fairly decent pipeline of good players coming through (Hume, Postlethwaite, Stewart etc.), I'm not sure they're going to be truly top class. You could say similar for Munster and Connacht.
I think the issue here comes from treating the Irish provinces as synonymous with Leinster. The Irish system has become very good at aligning the national side with a single club, so one almost functions as an extension of the other. The remaining Irish provinces, whilst punching above their weight, do not have the same degree of success at club level nor in terms of their contribution to the national side. Remove Leinster and the Irish system is fairly average.
In terms of systems of promoting youth talent from underage to age grade to pro, the Leinster system is more or less exactly what Munster, Ulster and Connacht follow. Leinster just have about 40% of the population, relatively fewer GAA strongholds than the rest and the largest rugby stronghold in the country. Connacht and Ulster have only ever really provided a handful of players to the international squad at a time, it'd be great to see improvement but that's not the be all and end all. I would also think Connacht have only really pieced it together recently, they've had some top performers at 20s level that they'd never had before.
Munster are being quite underrated in these posts too, they were URC champions in 2023 and topped the log in 2024. Weren't a match for Saints last year in Europe but few were. There's an argument to be made that their crop from the last three u20s sides, which are three years unbeaten in the u20 6n, are better than the Leinster guys. It's all gone a bit crazy for them this season which is a worry, but impossible to judge the fallout from it.
Now it's not perfect, a small population mixed with it fighting soccer and the GAA will mean that there will be gaps from time to time (prop looks like it's going to be a real issue in the next world cup cycle or two) but progression to the international game is generally quite seamless when there's any sort of talent there. Joe McCarthy, Calvin Nash, Jamie Osborne and Jack Crowley all looked very comfortable taking positions from established starters so far this year and I expect three of them to be top class internationals over the course of their career.
Ultimately though Ireland are really only one full generation of Leinster players into the current academy set up (Sexton and Healy both would have come through a very different system) and have seen improvement on improvement. The other provinces have now tapped into the techniques used by Leinster and 20s results indicate that there are improvements there also. All that's to say that I don't see why anything more than a reversion to the average over the last 10 years should be expected for a sustained period and that has been comfortably in the top 4 for the most part.
Whilst I feel the English system is less good for cohesion between clubs and country, it offers more opportunity to see different styles at play. I think the issue is more that England rugby is so woefully managed that we can't exploit our strengths nor mitigate our weaknesses. We have one of the largest player pools to choose from yet stubbornly stick with favourites in some places and churn through players in others. We have huge numbers of experienced coaches to call on yet go with the knee jerk flavour of the month. We have the resources to be one of the top jobs in rugby yet haemorrhage support staff and fail to get people with proven track records in the top job. We should be able to negotiate good contracts because people are desperate for the gig yet find ourselves constantly being bent over a barrel paying above market rates for average performers.
I think the fundamental issue is that rugby has become professional but the RFU has not, it's still run by a bunch of moronic old boys who haven't got a ******* clue.
To be clear, I wasn't claiming that England / the RFU are working at peak performance (same for Ireland, I think there's a few specific gaps in the system). But I do think the issues you raised aren't exactly quick and easy fixes even for a well run union:
"We have one of the largest player pools to choose from yet stubbornly stick with favourites in some places and churn through players in others."
I think this goes back to my point regarding styles. International rugby is so heavily systems based these days that it's more about picking the most suitable player to the system rather than the best player. Often they'll be the same player but not always and it can be hard to identify. I think this is why Ben Youngs has so many caps when perhaps not being at the level of most of his peers at international rugby, livewire 9s were a dime a dozen in the prem but not preferred in Jones' Sarries influenced system and Youngs was a far better athlete than the 9s on Sarries books at the time. For the same reason France went through approximately 8 million centre pairings between 2011 and Galhie taking over.
All in all it turns into a lot of failed experiments and reluctance to remove working parts even if they're not really a point of difference for the team.
This could definitely be improved upon but any position of relative weakness is always going to experience this when chips are down.
"We have huge numbers of experienced coaches to call on yet go with the knee jerk flavour of the month. We have the resources to be one of the top jobs in rugby yet haemorrhage support staff and fail to get people with proven track records in the top job."
So I think this is partly bad management on the RFU's part and feeds into the above. There's no progression path in the system. Last time they tried internal progression with Lancaster, once it failed they went scorched earth and needlessly threw out some very good talent along with him. Top class assistants don't find England roles attractive because there doesn't seem to be a pathway to progress to the top job. If there's no proven pathway to the top job you have to hire externally when replacing a coach. If you're hiring externally you either need to pick whoever the top prem performer is at the time, provided they're willing to take it, or whoever the best guy on the market is and this won't always be world class operators.
Each time this happens, it brings a new coach, a new system, new players they want to try out, new failed experiments and a higher chance of safe picks becoming more prominent etc...
Equally, it's not that easy a fix because the RFU only have the international assistants to choose from to progress internally and they might not have the quality required, anyone else is bringing in a lot of change off the bat. In contrast, since 1998 Ireland have always either promoted an assistant to the top job or a provincial coach and in the current set up, any of them will be very aware of the Irish system and metrics that the team and players are being analysed by and judged on and have experienced building a gameplan within this environment.
"We should be able to negotiate good contracts because people are desperate for the gig yet find ourselves constantly being bent over a barrel paying above market rates for average performers."
No idea on this one. It obvioudly wouldn't be a major issue if you were paying loads to a good performer but England will always be the top salary I imagine.
Overall, I don't know how the RFU can be expected to continue to make the right coaching appointments based on progression through the system whilst not letting talent in the prem slip through the cracks. And I expect dominant England sides in the future to be built on the back of one or two dominant prem sides coupled with a strong coach capable of building an effective system around them. It's not quite lightning in a bottle but far more uncontrollable variables than any of the URC unions have to deal with in my opinion.
