Top 14 : les Lyonnais Couilloud, Berdeu et Guillard blessés

Of course this sort of thing is normally organic, so as I say, that and things like the value of a player to a Super Rugby team (in NZs instance its heavily toward possible national selection, just a 'factory') will naturally change the more the competition (of which SR must be one of the few) is profitable.

So the first thing you would see is a reduction in players leaving simply because their are less coming off contract (once the conrtact length is on average a year or two higher). Of course these dynamics already exist for a league like the Top 14, and hence we already see transfer fees take place. You just need more Top 14's to see it really gain momentum.

But as I randomly came up with in another post, a similar thing (rewarding clubs for player development) could be done internally (by a union/competition), by creating some sort of holding fund of contract payments, where it creates 'boosts' for the player if they are loyal, or for the club if they loss out on the investment. Don't ask me about law for these sort of things, but I've seen similar concepts before.

Apart from that I agree with everything you've said there; Ireland is a team past their peak right now.

What’s even clearer still, is that they are now showing every sign of being on the wane with the departures of Lancaster (his influence was huge from his Leinster chair), sexton and Catt. With more due to head for the exits next year, and others pretty soon thereafter, it’s going to be a real challenge to get back to these levels.

I don't think anyone was arguing that Ireland doesn't have foreign-born players. I just wanted to point out how silly it is to take the absolute number of overseas births, which lumps in Joe McCarthy and James Lowe together despite one being, y'know, Irish.

Ireland's squad has four or five* non-Irish players, not eight.

*I could go either way on Hansen.

Hoisted by your own p’tard…

Oh and the Kpoku brothers too I guess but they're half French or something I believe.