I’m not talking historically. Ireland overtook them for a couple of years.
Interesting discussion this. Popularity has increased certainly but no doubt. The hype around the relative success is extraordinary and fair play to IRFU marketing manager. H Cup receives much more publicity in Ireland than it does in UK or France. It has garnered much publicity through simple things like announcing teams and squads well in advance of matches so as it then feature on sports news slots. With this increased publicity has come increased popularity. Even look at amount of publicity Munster’s H Cup victories and talks of holy grails has gotten compared to Ulster’s eleven years ago in what was arguably a much bigger achievement considering the amount of homegrown players we had.
I’d agree with rocko and there was a strong element of elitism about the game. That elitism still exits unfortunately. Schools rugby is seen as somehow being the be all and all for teenagers which is a joke. Remember my own club playing days where some of our players couldn’t play for us in the league because they played schools rugby at a good level. There’d be no question of the reverse happening. Schools rugby is by and large elitist and that isn’t restricted to Leinster at all kev. Clubs rugby isn’t as elitist but kev you are cutting out the historical power base and more than half the country by arguing that in the republic (why exclude 6 counties???) and apart from Leinster there aren’t isn’t one elitist club. Certainly is a higher percentage of children playing rugby at primary school level know. Real battle is to ensure that these children don’t have to go to the right school to be given a fair crack of the whip. If they don’t some may continue to play the game but many will leave.
Tremendous work here by Chocolate Mice, just tosses the bait out and watches the ensuing hijinx.
Bravo. 
Its not, they are elitist schools, who happen to play rugby. Doesn’t make every person who plays rugby part of the “elite”.
I went to an elitist school that played GAA.
Interesting discussion this. Popularity has increased certainly but no doubt. The hype around the relative success is extraordinary and fair play to IRFU marketing manager. H Cup receives much more publicity in Ireland than it does in UK or France. It has garnered much publicity through simple things like announcing teams and squads well in advance of matches so as it then feature on sports news slots. With this increased publicity has come increased popularity. Even look at amount of publicity Munster’s H Cup victories and talks of holy grails has gotten compared to Ulster’s eleven years ago in what was arguably a much bigger achievement considering the amount of homegrown players we had.
I’d agree with rocko and there was a strong element of elitism about the game. That elitism still exits unfortunately. Schools rugby is seen as somehow being the be all and all for teenagers which is a joke. Remember my own club playing days where some of our players couldn’t play for us in the league because they played schools rugby at a good level. There’d be no question of the reverse happening. Schools rugby is by and large elitist and that isn’t restricted to Leinster at all kev. Clubs rugby isn’t as elitist but kev you are cutting out the historical power base and more than half the country by arguing that in the republic (why exclude 6 counties???) and apart from Leinster there aren’t isn’t one elitist club. Certainly is a higher percentage of children playing rugby at primary school level know. Real battle is to ensure that these children don’t have to go to the right school to be given a fair crack of the whip. If they don’t some may continue to play the game but many will leave.
- I excluded Ulster mainly because i know little enough about the club game there, but it always seemed to me it was played by the Prods for the most part, but across a large spectrum. But i suspected it could have been quite elitist.
- You continue to ignore that professionalism only started 15 years ago, what happened previous to that is irrelevant to most of our discussion, as things have changed so much in that time. Ulsters Inter-Pros etc are not part of a professional rugby discussion.
- The HEC gets massive exposure in England, so not sure what you are on about there.
- Munster had a massive amount of Munster born players playing for both HEC’s, don’t know why you consider Ulster win any better. Without even bringing up the fact the English hadn’t played in '99. Think it was 2 foreign players in 06, 3 in 08.
- Elitism is there, i’m not denying that. I just don’t think its as wide spread as ye suggest. But both Rocko and Larry seem to come from the parts of the world where they would have been exposed to this. Where i’m from its a very small minority.
- Yes Schools Rugby is elitist for the most part, but the % of those lads playing the game is very small.
- Maybe its a Munster thing, but an awful lot of their Irish born players went to “regular” schools, and came through the club scene.
Ireland’s “golden generation” won one Grand Slam (2009) compared to Wales’s two (2005, 2008), just saying like.