A WEEKLY COLUMN LOOKING AT
TOPICS BEYOND THE SCOPE
OF OUR FEATURE MATCH OF THE WEEK
WRAP OF A WRAP
Obviously after such a big Irish win the wrap pod is that much more enjoyable, but even on top of that I had two excellent analysts in Mark Jackson and Tom Coleman helping me harp on the 80 minutes. There may not have been a lot of scores but there were definitely a lot of critical moments and as ever we worked our way through the exciting timeline from start to finish. Click here to catch it on Spotify but you’ll also find it on Apple and most major platforms.
HARPIN ON…FINAL THOUGHTS AFTER RSAvIRE
With matches kicking off at both 4:45 and 8pm on Sundays during the World Cup, that puts time restraints on our wrap pod recording and unfortunately we had to ditch plans for a bonus pod this week, instead I put a clip from the actual pod up on YouTube which you see below.
But with Ireland off next weekend, Mark Jackson has kindly agreed to come back and harp on the topic we had chosen, namely how coaches adapt during a match when one part of the game plan isn’t working, hopefully I’ll be able to post this by Saturday.
TENACIOUS IRISH D
It goes without saying but the RSAvIRE rewatch was beyond fascinating, and I for one was fixated on a pair of Springbok scrums in our 22 around the mid point of the first half. We hadn’t even troubled the scorers at this stage and we were in grave danger of going ten points down but with some determined defending, helped out a bit by poor opposition decision making, we kept them out and we put together the TikTok below, all while knowing full well of course that at some point it will be taken down. #LetTheClipsPlay
SING WHILE THEY’RE WHINGING
Here’s another TikTok video, this my weekly “rant” I suppose you could call it. I didn’t really want to have to weigh in on the whole Zombie nothing-burger but in the end it seemed to be the perfect topic for this segment. I’ve added the tweet that appears in the clip plus another one I thought of using.
AIL UPDATE RETURN
I’m very much kicking myself that I missed the Women’s AIL kickoff last week in this column so I’ll try to make up for it here (still means I’m giving the league more coverage than most outlets unfortunately).
As you can see, with a 9-team league plus a postponement and a Round 2 fixture still to be played this Thursday, this year’s league is still getting off the ground but still there have been some predictable results for the big teams, although the big opening day Dublin derby between Rock and Belvo was close and got good coverage with a live screening on YouTube.
We’ll be following the competition here throughout as well as the men’s when that kicks off in October.
Round 1
BLACKROCK COLLEGE 22 – 17 OLD BELVEDERE
GALWEGIANS 12 – 25 BALLINCOLLIG
SUTTONIANS P-P RAILWAY UNION RFC
WICKLOW RFC 7 – 27 UL BOHEMIAN
Round 2
OLD BELVEDERE 32 – 0 WICKLOW RFC
RAILWAY UNION RFC 71 – 7 COOKE
UL BOHEMIAN 82 – 0 GALWEGIANS
Thu Sep 28
SUTTONIANS v RAILWAY UNION RFC
WXV SQUAD
While we’re on the subject of the Women’s game the squad for the WXV3 tournament was announced by new head coach Scott Bemand. Obviously I’m not crazy about the fact that we’re in the third tier of this new competition, nor am I crazy about the whole “being played in Dubai” aspect of it either, and finally there’s this “your chances of playing for Ireland are better if you live in or around Dublin” mantra which really does sound tone deaf considering not only all the women’s game on these shores has gone through in recent years, but also how much it has progressed elsewhere.
Still, we plan to give the girls our full support ounce the competition rolls around.
WXV3 Ireland Fixtures
• 13th October v Kazakhstan 16.30 Irish time
• 21st October v Colombia 14.00 Irish time
• 28th October v Spain 14.00 Irish time
All games will be streamed for free on World Rugby’s RugbyPass platform.
MAD DOG RETIRES
Very sad to hear of the retirement of Ian Madigan, although it does look like he has a promising future in the punditry game as he has been demonstrating throughout the World Cup so far.
ICYMI we dedicated a Throwback Thursday post to him last week, looking back to an article I wrote when he announced he would be leaving Leinster, to which he graciously replied.
POSSIBLE RWC FORMATS
This is an issue which comes up every World Cup going way, way back. What is the best way of actually staging a RWC? The four pools of five has been going quite a while now, yet with one team missing out each round and an insistence on midweek matches it has offered some serious challenges to organisers. For example, France play their four pool matches over 30 days while Namibia complete theirs in just 19.
What is the answer? Honestly none will be perfect. Some say they are planning to move to 24 nations, which would be good in one aspect as it would include more lower tier nations, yet while four pools of six might solve the uneven fixture problem, it also adds one extra match which would put extra pressure on squads meaning they would probably have to be increased, thus putting financial pressure on those same smaller nations.
I’ve wondered if some kind of “cross pool” method might work with a draw instead creating six pools of four. With the pools paired off AB, CD and EF, everyone in one pool could get four matches against teams from the other one. Then the top eight (pool winners + 2, old school HCup style) could advance to the quarterfinals, with possibly a plate competition for the next eight with next RWC qualification on the line. That way no team plays more than 7 matches, plus with 3 set groups of teams playing each other, they could be held exclusively Friday, Saturday and Sunday thus ensuring 7-day turnarounds for all squads.
Everyone seems to be offering suggestions so that’s mine!
MORE PERMUTATIONS
When he’s not going back and forth to Paris offering excellent reports from Ireland’s RWC matches, Cian “RugbyKino” O’Muilleoir has also been known to produce excellent spreadsheets allowing us number crunching fans to look at all the possibilities with bonus points and what-not, and here he has done one for the four World Cup pools, simply plug in the results you think might happen and find out who makes the last 8 and who plays who. Simples!
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
By rights I should be taking things easy this week what with Ireland off next weekend, but I guess the World Cup bug has got hold of me so I have a few little things planned for the coming days. Biggest one is on Sunday and instead of a wrap pod I’m assembling another “all-provincial panel” to look at not only the tournament so far, but also the prospects for the 4 provinces with the URC kickoff coming think and fast.
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And as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 