TALENT FACTORY
WHEN LEINSTER overcame Ulster in that epic Champions Cup quarter-final in Dublin in late March, they managed to get over the winning line with three 2018 Grand Slam winners – Rob Kearney, Dan Leavy and Andrew Porter – starting on their bench and three more – Johnny Sexton, Devin Toner and Jack McGrath – in the stand.
Another two of the Ireland squad that took the Slam were Leinster players at the time, but are now unavailable to them, Joey Carbery having been moved to Munster to get out from Sexton’s shadow and Jordi Murphy heading to Ulster in pursuit of the game time that he wasn’t going to get in his home province given the vast back-row talent that exists in Leinster these days.
The province has the most remarkable talent overspill. If you constructed a team made up of Leinster-reared players that don’t currently play for Leinster you’d have a
