Luke Fitz to leave Leinster - contract row with IRFU

First topic message reminder :

Irish Times's Gerry Thornley (aka the mouthpiece of the IRFU) writes today that there is deadlock in Luke Fitz's negotiations on a new central contract with the IRFU and that he may be heading to England or France (London Irish being mentioned as one possible destination). Fitz not very happy, it seems, at having his salary cut from 280k to 200k and IRFU not prepared to go higher for a player who at best is going to be a panel member and not part of a starting XV.

IT link - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0327/1224313955286.html

Injuries and loss of form means that Fitz has fallen well down the pecking order for Ireland and also down the pecking order for Leinster. Good form by new young players like Zebo, D Kearney, Gilroy as well as Bowe and Trimble established as Ireland's starting wings means Fitz isn't exactly in a good negotiating position and I would have thought a 200k a year two-year contract is bloody good for a player who's going to be on the fringes for Ireland in the next two years.

I feel sorry for Fitz, it's that long ago since he was the starting wing for the Lions, but injuries have hit him hard and his form as he tried to work his way back in was not great. Maybe best thing for him might be a period outside Ireland.

Gibbo ya Ladyboy

Love you looong time jongen.

Shoite, that made me laugh. Somehow i had this voice of a Thai prostitute in my mind

Dat was de bedoeling... Thai Ladyboy in fact.

Reinstuuur, Reinstuur, Reinstuuur.

Daar zijn plekjes op de Wallen voor dat Gibbo

I don't think you can centrally contract all Irish qualified players. In my view it would deter a lot of top coaches from taking up posts in the provinces.

Out of a squad of about 40 a coach will have complete control over his 4/5 NIQ's maybe another 5 or so development contracts and his academy players. The availability of everyone else will be down to the national coach and their will be little a provincial coach can do to fight his own corner.

Now this may well be the case anyway as the IRFU do own the 4 provincial unions but at the moment, at least looking in from the outside, the provincial unions do seem to work to a reasonable degree of autonomy.

Personally I feel that we need to try and move away from central contracting. Before thrashing the idea I guess it has to be acknowledged that it was a great idea at the inception of professionalism. It meant that the provinces (and the IRFU) could keep hold of top Irish talent. It also laid the foundation for the current success enjoyed by the provinces.

It was a good system when we had few players of quality. It is also a good system which allows the IRFU to keep our world class players at home when the French clubs come calling. But nowadays - whe we have a good pool of talent and should have good competition for national places it seems out dated in nearly all cases.

I would make an arguement for central contracts for a very small few. At the moment this would be Ross as our only TH and possibly Ferris and POC/BOD as captains and the fact that they are so talismanic.

Outside of that - I don't see the point when there is genuine competition. We can replace all other players on the national team with players of similar ability. Competition should be encouraged and I feel central contracts are counter productive in this sense. A move to something similar to the EPS would suffice for the wider national squad.

With such a small player pool, though, I'm not sure it would work. Munster played DRyan as a blindside because Kidney was looking for a blindside/lock combo for the world cup. The same with Keith Earls, he was moved from centre, to wing, back to centre for Munster to accommodate where the national team needed him. Kidney asks that Tom Court get gametime at TH as well as Paddy Wallace playing a few games at 10.

Then you have during the 6Ns, a couple of the Munster players needing gametime (ROG, POM & Ryan) being parachuted into the Munster team against Treviso having not trained with Munster for a couple of weeks.

The other thing - just say Sexton headed over to France his club will only release him for the bear minimum of time required and will probably flog him to death anyway.

But court hasn't been made to play tighthead this season.