TRANSFER RUMOURS!!

[Scranner]

Jonny Sexton moving to Castres on 700,000 euro a year.

[eeyore]

Jonny Sexton moving to Castres on 700,000 euro a year.

Not Racing Metro?

[Scranner]

Yeh! Got that wrong. But the point is the frenchies seem to be buying up all the talent. What are we going to do when they come after ours?

[pip14]

These aren't rumours, or a contract negotiation...shaggy on newstalk this morning saying it was a pivotal point of Sextons career and he had made his mind up. At 750,000 a year you can't blame him

[ColinM]

Jonny Sexton moving to Castres on 700,000 euro a year.

Not Racing Metro?

According to the wireless Stade Toulousain and Jonny Wilkinsons Toulon are waiting in the wings if he doesnt much fancy Racing Metro

[Snipe Watson]

Yeh! Got that wrong. But the point is the frenchies seem to be buying up all the talent. What are we going to do when they come after ours?

[Samstew]

Yeh! Got that wrong. But the point is the frenchies seem to be buying up all the talent. What are we going to do when they come after ours?

In my opinion, there will not be a lot that we can do!
The French T14 is fast becoming the rugby equivalent of the English Football Premiership.
As with football, In the future clubs are going to need some sort of Sugar Daddy in order to be able to compete.
We are seeing a small number of teams within this league with what would appear to be bottomless bags of money to buy up not only the best available talent from the Southern Hemisphere, but it would now appear that they are now casting their net a little closer to home in tempting top players from the UK and Ireland.
I fear now with this Sexton story, a trickle may turn into a steady flow, as we have seen with the Welsh.
If things were to go down this road, UK and Irish clubs will only be feeder clubs for the French

[The Boo Radleys]

Ulster Sugar Daddy = Rory 'Nike' McIlroy....

[ruckover]

Morne Steyn to join Stade Francais at the end of the 2013 Super Rugby season

[bazzaj]

Yeh! Got that wrong. But the point is the frenchies seem to be buying up all the talent. What are we going to do when they come after ours?

In my opinion, there will not be a lot that we can do!
The French T14 is fast becoming the rugby equivalent of the English Football Premiership.
As with football, In the future clubs are going to need some sort of Sugar Daddy in order to be able to compete.
We are seeing a small number of teams within this league with what would appear to be bottomless bags of money to buy up not only the best available talent from the Southern Hemisphere, but it would now appear that they are now casting their net a little closer to home in tempting top players from the UK and Ireland.
I fear now with this Sexton story, a trickle may turn into a steady flow, as we have seen with the Welsh.
If things were to go down this road, UK and Irish clubs will only be feeder clubs for the French

I think the IRFU is a reasonable enough employer or we could not have afforded to keep the likes of BOD, who was courted by French clubs at one stage.
Irish provences continue to attract the big stars as they would only come if there was the big money.
The policy of prioritising the selection of home based players helps with keeping our players here as well.
The major failure of the Welsh was not centralising the contracts of players as we do, along with bad business plans highlighted in a recent report which has allowed football to dominate in traditional rugby regions such as Swansea and Cardiff in recent years.
Their regions have basically been run as our clubs have been run here with no real external expertise in marketing the product and more or less on an old boys network.
The net result is no money for the players most of whom do not want to go but have little choice due to the exhorbitant amounts offered in France by comparison.
I think the IRFU acknowledge the importance of hanging on to our top players at all costs as they did with BOD, who is and was our most marketable asset.
Otherwise that may start off the exodus that none of want to see.

[breakdown]

What is the IRFU's policy in selecting players at French clubs?

[breakdown]

Just rumours but John Smit has apparently left Sarries for Toulon

[breakdown]

Yeh! Got that wrong. But the point is the frenchies seem to be buying up all the talent. What are we going to do when they come after ours?

Keep them. At this stage I can only see one Ulster player go off to France a few years down the line: Pienaar. While he has said that he is extremely happy here he will obviously at some point leave or be forced out and he seems to really be enjoying playing 9 in Europe, far more than Super Rugby, and with his children growing older he may feel it is right for them if he goes to France to accept the big money contracts (not that he's not on big money here).

If Afoa left he would go back to NZ to live with his wife and kids, Muller has said he will retire here and Payne obviously has the intention of playing for Ireland. The rest of our lads are Ulster guys through and through, and the guys that are here bu residency, well, they are good players but I can't see them attracting interest from any big spending club

[Bangors]

Watched BOD interview on Sky at Christmas
I think the Clermont 'interest' is just a negotiating ploy
The IRFU have managed to hold onto the Big names so far and their player managment ensures a long career with ,in RoI, generous Tax breakes

[scrum5]

The French federation really need to stop this influx before it ruins the national team, also the AP teams need to wise up and instead of alienating the Rabo teams support them...