With the news both Peter O'Mahony and Tadhg Furlong have signed new long term contracts with the IRFU, Off the Ball's Saturday Panel discussed the difficulties the Irish union has in keeping its players at home.
Given the competition from France and England and the higher wages on offer, former Ireland captain Keith Wood thinks we have to look outside the box with the way treat players going forward.
"Tadhg Furlong is a different one for me - he's still a young prop. Even though in my view, he's the best tighthead in the world. I was very disappointed he wasn't shortlisted for 'World Player of the Year' this year. I think he's a class player but he's young and needs another few years to which he's signed a really good contract.
"Props tend to play for a long period of time and if he can get a great contract here - he may get the opportunity to go away for a few years whatever - we just need to be able to think in that fashion.
"We need not to be able to close the door entirely on somebody going away. We can close it for a year or two and say 'actually, you can go but we want you back after a while, this is your pension in the middle'. I don't know - we just have to look at things differently.
"We can't be this blanket 'no way' and though that is necessary to try and protect what we have here so, as I say, we have to be innovative in that as well because we don't know what the actual route is for that," he added.
While previously, only the elite Irish players have been targeted by foreign clubs, the huge influx of cash into both the English and French clubs means our homegrown talent at all levels could be at risk.
The full discussion is available here:
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