RUGBY:Leinster CEO Mick Dawson talks to GAVIN CUMISKEYabout the need to dissuade schools from seeking partnership deals with English clubs

LEINSTER CHIEF executive Mick Dawson spoke yesterday of the need to dissuade schools within the province from seeking partnerships with English clubs that would create a pathway for home-grown Irish players to accept professional contracts after their Leaving Certificate.

“We would discourage any relationship with overseas clubs by being very proactive in what we do ourselves. We have had discussions with a number of schools about this,” said Dawson.

“We would not be happy at all about schools building a relationship with an overseas club.”

Dawson recently spoke to St Michael’s College in Ballsbridge about making contact with the Leicester Tigers and Harlequins.

“I think it is a misguided notion that it would be good (for young players) to broaden their scope,” said Dawson.

“The suggestion is that if a player doesn’t get into the Leinster Academy he might be able to find an alternative place to play professional rugby, but you can be sure clubs like Leicester and Harlequins don’t want the second best players.

“They are not looking for the fella who is not making the Leinster Academy. It is a cut -throat business, professional sport, and everybody wants the best not second or third best.”

So, interest from English clubs is seen a real and present threat to Ireland’s talent pool?

“Very much so, we see it as a threat,” Dawson continued.

“I think the Leinster schools cup packages the players very nicely for the English clubs to come over and see the best players. They don’t have a similar packaged system over there. Also, there is a lot of talent over here.

“There is a stepping stone system here and hopefully you catch everyone in that. You’d imagine for the kids living in Dublin and Leinster this is their first port of call. If we miss somebody, well, they are perfectly entitled to go somewhere else.

“We would be concerned about players going to clubs like Leicester or Harlequins but all we can do is make sure we do everything better than anyone else. We would be very pro education and that sort of thing which I wouldn’t think is as big on the agenda overseas.”

The most high-profile player to slip through the Leinster net is the current Leicester Tigers captain Geordan Murphy, who moved to England not long after leaving Newbridge College in 1996.

“And Johne (Murphy) as well,” said Dawson of a player who left the Tigers for Munster last summer. “He played with us at under-20s but didn’t make the academy. We missed him.

Only one player, Sam Coughlan-Murray of Newbridge College, came directly from last year’s Leinster schools system into the professional academy set-up, with another eight players funnelled into the sub-academy to be assessed and developed over the year.

“We know them as rugby players but we don’t know their character or attitude until we get them training six days a week,” explains the Leinster Academy manager Collie McEntee. “The sub academy is to make sure they are ready for the professional game. The English game is more about numbers.”

Two players who featured in the 2010 Leinster Schools Cup subsequently signed professional deals in Britain. Clongowes’ promising fullback Stephen MacAuley joined Leicester, while the Welsh-born, Castleknock College-educated, Ross Jones went to the Ospreys.

Both were schoolboy representatives and candidates for the Leinster set-up.