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Row erupts in Irish rugby as U20s player excluded in wake of possible Saracens deal
By Ian Cameron
A row has erupted in Irish rugby after a talented age grade hooker was removed from their U20s panel set to compete at the Junior World Cup in Georgia this week after he was reported to have penned a deal to move to European champions Saracens.
It's been widely reported that Tadgh McElroy was offered a place in the Connacht academy, but instead opted for Aviva Premiership giants Saracens.
McElroy - a native of Dundalk - is qualified to play for England, and although he has not yet been officially confirmed as having signed for the London club, the IRFU saw it fit to remove him from the panel for the championship.
The panel of RTE's Against the Head addressed the issue on Monday.
The 5'11, 104kg 19-year-old played for hometown club Dundalk RFC and more recently for Lansdowne RFC in the AIL. He was the starting hooker for the Ireland U20s in this year's U20s Six Nations, scoring three tries.
Despite this he was not offered a place in the Leinster academy programme.
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Latest Comments
"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"
I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.
But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.
Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.
"I'm afraid to say"
Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!
Go to commentsYou are a very horrible man Ojohn. Brain injury perhaps?
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