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Ireland back row Ryan Baird to stay at Leinster
By Ian Cameron
Ryan Baird has signed a contract extension with Leinster, the province confirmed on Sunday morning.
The 22-year-old forward's extension signals a continued commitment to the club's developmental pathway, a system that has yielded remarkable results in recent years.
Baird's journey with Leinster began when he joined the academy shortly after completing his leaving certificate examinations in 2018.
The 6'6, 112kg forward quickly garnered attention for his exceptional physical attributes, with reports circulating of his remarkable prowess in the gym and his exploits as a schoolboy rugby star with St Michaels.
Baird's journey continued as he made his Leinster debut in 2019, following Ireland's U20 Six Nations Grand Slam win. His breakthrough came in the 2019-2020 season when he scored a hat-trick against Glasgow and earned his spot on the senior Irish national team.
Originally a lock, Baird embraced the challenge of playing at blindside flanker, where his freakish athleticism has seen him excel.
He has since become an essential part of the squad, offering versatility between the second row and the blindside. He has played No.6 for 53 per cent of his professional career to date, the other 47 per cent coming in the engine room.
Despite facing setbacks due to injuries, Baird is favoured to be a long-term solution at blindside for Andy Farrell's Ireland when Munster flanker Peter O'Mahony hangs up his boots.
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Latest Comments
In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
Go to commentsBens got a crush on KLA. So cute.
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