Harry Byrne extends stay at Bristol

The anti symmetry of seasons means a concurrent like for like can never be made, everyone knows that BUT if you’re going to critique the French welfare decisions like this then you need to look at their ACTUAL minutes from Sept ‘24 to the Top 14 final for this year and compare with NZ from Feb ‘24 to Nov ‘24. That’s the closest available ‘apples with apples’ comparison.

And it’s also that time period where the French have made their welfare decisions, so if you’re going to slam them for it, at least be accurate and fair.

The whole point is to compare the exposure of the top NZ players to their French counterparts. The French theory is that their top players cannot tour because they play far more rugby.

That is not true. By the end of their season the top NZers could be hitting well above 2000 minutes, just on the limited evidence presented.

Your additional stats are useful but would the conclusions be different? No.

If those same NZers play in November many of them will be near that 2000 minute limit. There are 720 minutes of rugby to be played before the tour even starts, and another 320 minutes in the course of it.

But it is easy to make the projections from the stats presented. They still have 13 intl games left to play, which is an eye opener in itself!

It is obvious that many of those ABs will hit 2000 minutes by the end of November, based on the stats given. May will have played more minutes than their French equivalents.

I do acknowledge Soliloquin’s extras have been helpful, so thanks to him for that.

Thanks again the numbers, kiwi minutes very enlightening, I still like a stat.

The Toulouse players I quoted later in the piece will not cross that threshold.

Use your common sense, NZers have to be in the comparison because we want to compare their minutes by the end of their season [Decemeber].

There are solid ABs who already around have 1100-1200 minutes on the clock with 13 international games still to play. They will hit 2000 minutes pretty comfortably.

Compare apples with apples.

And here you have chosen only Toulouse players, who had a mentally challenging year in the club (2 deaths of people close to the squad, the Jaminet case and lots of injuries). Because it has a huge impact and fortunately more people take the psychological aspect into account.

And the rule is either 25 games or 2000 minutes, with possible bendings on either side like with Barassi or other players.

All in all, the exhaustion is not only physical, but also mental as I mentioned.

If you add EPCR + November 2024 you have a whole NH season minus this tour.

Kiwi players have only had SRP and there are 13 potential matches left this season for them.

Both Darry & Lord are only 24, so both learner drivers in the lock craft development phase, to be fair on Lord. Like Finau, Lord needs to find the mongrel to go with the size. I read somewhere Lord bulked from 106kgs to 114kgs this last couple of seasons. So the Razor Gang has its work cut out for it.

Yes, Shalfoon & Beehre join the long list of 1.98cm locks we have. Shalfoon though comes with a grunt x factor after watching his SRP2025 season. Or I may be biased lol.

And that’s what you should have done before reaching ANY conclusions.

Ironic title of ‘Who is telling the truth about France's tour of New Zealand?’ and it ain’t this piece!

They have a domestic comp which is potentially 10 games shorter than Top 14 - bt looks at how minutes some of those ABs have already played.

Some are hitting 1200 minutes with 13 int’l matches still to come!

No it doesn’t include EPCR or Nov 2024 minutes as others have pointed out above. It was a tough comparison because if I went ‘whole season’ for France I would have had to project figures for TRC and EOYT 2025 minutes for Kiwi players. So I settled for a more limited comparison of domestic comps plus 6N.

But it’s easy to work out for yourself athta many of the top ABS will be getting to 1800-2000 minutes with another 13 games still to play!

How are you, still contributing at the other place?