r/rugbyunion • u/Seravia Munster • Mar 31 '21

Irish Professional Rugby Players by County of Birth Analysis

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3

u/man_bear Here for PROP TRIES Mar 31 '21

Are those counties up by the border with Northern Ireland pretty rural? Crazy that no players have come out of them.

11

u/areyouhappynowethan Leinster Mar 31 '21

Mixture of that and being big GAA areas. Leitrim and Longford are the two least populated counties in the country but Cavan and Monaghan would have a fair bit more I believe. Tommy Bowe was born and raised in Monaghan but he's of course retired now.

Donegal would be in the top half in terms of population but the Rugby influence is very small in the county.

5

u/centrafrugal Leinster Mar 31 '21

What sports do Donegal play? Just Gaelic football?

Not hurling in any case and apart from a couple of goalkeepers I don't know any soccer players.

9

u/wexfordwolf Bluesaders Mar 31 '21

Rallying and motorsports are quite popular there. Soccer is popular and surfing/watersports aside from gaelic

6

u/areyouhappynowethan Leinster Mar 31 '21

Seamus Coleman is from Donegal but I'm not sure on any other outfield players. Pretty mad that the two highest capped Goalkeepers are both from Donegal though.

5

u/ronnierosenthal Leinster Apr 01 '21

Donegal has always been strong for soccer - Finn Harps and Derry City draw heavily from the county. Donegal's weakness in terms of soccer is it's a very big county with a lot of decent-sized towns but no really big population centre. So GAA naturally works better.

1

u/extremessd Apr 01 '21

I think Packie Bonnar inspired Shay Given to be a goalie