u/RuggerJibberJabber

Player names highlights in red are leaving and green arriving.

Key stats:

• 57 players featured for Leinster this seasons with an average age of 26.4.
• 9 players are leaving while 2 are arriving next season.
• The leavers played a combined 5936min for Leinster, which is 17% of the total, and are an average of 30.4 years old

IMO the danger areas are:

• Tighthead prop: Slimani is leaving and 33yo Furlong will likely be wrapped in cotton wool to prepare for the World Cup.
• Scrum Half: McGrath is leaving and JGP is 34yo.
• Centre: Ioane leaving, and both Ringrose + Henshaw are in their 30s.

Overall pretty healthy though and plenty of young players coming through. the 3rd ranked players in gametime averaged 25yo and 4th+ averaged 24yo.

In Lowes first 3 seasons he played 47 games for Leinster. Only slightly less than the 6 following seasons which added up to 55 games. So he went from playing an average of 16 games per season for Leinster to an average 9 games per season. And in the 23-24 season he actually played more games for Ireland than he did for Leinster due to the World Cup. With that in mind, how does Leinster footing the vast majority of the bill make any sense?

And as a side note, I always find it interesting that media discussions around Leinster's budget always includes the international payments as part of the player salaries, but when they discuss the French/English teams budgets its only ever focused on what their clubs pay them. Nevermind the fact that Irish international players gametime for their clubs is far more limited than their French/English counterparts

I think the Leinster coaches can be criticised for a lot of things, so this isnt a defence of them across the board, but I completely disagree with the idea that your 1st team needs to play every game at the end of the season or they'll be "undercooked".

• The team that won in 2018 was mostly rested for the 2 weeks leading up to the SF and the F and those who started for Ireland in the 6 Nations had the week off before the QF too.
• By resting those players they threw away 3 of their last 4 games in the Pro14
• Sexton and Kearney had nearly as many minutes for Ireland as they did for Leinster that season (JS: 706 vs 668. RK: 844 vs 766), while the players who played the most for Leinster weren't 1st choice Ireland players (Fardy 1522, Conan 1466, Toner 1440, Larmour 1333, Murphy 1292, O'Loughlin 1267, Cronin 1236, McGrath 1207)