In the past few weeks there have been two team sheets that have jumped off the page. Firstly, it was Bath’s “B team” against Saracens in the Premiership, then came Leinster’s all-star cast facing Wasps in the Champions Cup curtain-raiser on Friday night.
The first prompted accusations that Bath were waving the white flag, the second considered a statement of intent by the standard-bearers of European rugby; the product of a centralised system driving Ireland’s success at club and international level. In short, Bath were vilified for rotating players whereas Leinster are often praised for it when it means they can wheel out the big guns, suitably rested, at key points of the season. Central contracts ensure player rotation whereas the Premiership’s commercial interests make for attrition. And no one is more acutely aware of the differences than Girvan Dempsey.
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There are few better placed to assess the contrasting structures in Ireland and England. A one-club man as a player, he began his Leinster career in 1996, finishing in 2009, before going on to work with the academy on the recommendation of Michael Cheika. He oversaw the rise of players such as Tadhg Furlong, Garry Ringrose and Dan Leavy before spending three years as senior backs coach and his capture by Bath over the summer was arguably the shrewdest bit of business by any Premiership club.
“It is different, there is no point in saying it’s not. The Premiership is highly competitive, there are so many teams who are strong and challenging,” says Dempsey. “The approach in Ireland is very different, it was always about managing international players’ game-time and their minutes played, trying to get them to peak at different stages and with that rotating the squad over different stages of the season. That’s something that Leinster have done over the last four or five years, massively facilitated by a very strong academy.
“Nationally, Ireland have benefited from central contracts. It has been a vehicle to help in terms of player welfare and player management. At least 80% of revenue comes from the international game so the IRFU has always cited that as the pinnacle, making sure the national team is successful and then everything else will build off that. The provinces have worked unbelievably over the years in terms of development programmes but the way it has grown has been huge.”
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Dempsey is in no doubt as to the benefits of the top-down structure in Ireland but whereas so often the focus is on the rest afforded to senior players such as Johnny Sexton, Dempsey looks at the wider picture. “The biggest thing was providing the player with the opportunity,” he adds. “Ross Byrne is a prime example. He was man of the match last weekend and he is given the opportunity to play when Johnny Sexton doesn’t play.
“It wasn’t just a case of making wholesale changes and putting a completely different team out which I think was done seven, eight, nine years ago. Now the mindset of the provinces is to build the depth and combinations. In the next couple of years, you’re going to see more redistribution of players. New Zealand have done it and Ireland are looking at – Joey Carbery is the example – because the most important thing is that the best players are getting to play at the highest level possible to help the national team.”
Dempsey is relishing Bath’s European double header against the champions in December but acknowledges the need for his new side to get off to a winning start on Saturday against Toulouse. “We feel that our game is growing both sides of the ball but we’re going to be faced with a very different challenge,” he says. “Toulouse don’t play like any other side we’ve faced in the Premiership yet so that’s exciting for us.”