80+ column : Feb 27

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FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere, now including a few thoughts added by myself (JLP).

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JLP : Obviously it’s awesome to see Garry is close to returning but those thoughts quickly turn to – who makes room for him?  Bundee & Robbie are in a groove together now plus Stu hasn’t put a foot wrong either.  There’s a case to be made for Ringrose to play on the wing and he would definitely be good there but that wouldn’t exactly be fair on Calvin Nash would it?  Definitely comes under the heading of “good problems” for Andy & co.

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JLP : Ahead of the Calcutta Cup, I was genuinely concerned about our Round 4 trip to Twickenham, but I still held it back a bit until I saw how they got on at Murrayfield, and after an impressive start the way the Scots, or arguably DVDM, tore them down made me feel a whole lot better.  Then I see Borthwick’s words afterwards which basically amount to responding to the question “what went wrong” with “damned if I know” then I feel better again.  OBVIOUSLY, I’m taking nothing for granted – whatever goes before I fully expected England to be fully pumped to knock us over, I just feel better about their chances of doing it.

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JLP : Let’s just say this incident didn’t make our wrap pod!  To be fair, I actually thought it was a try at that moment, but if some Welsh fans think this is the issue to be focusing on from the match, especially in the area of ‘referee injustice’ when they themselves somehow managed to keep 15 on the park from start to finish, then I say let them at it.

As you’ll see further down this column, we’d much rather focus on the fans who want to have a bit of craic after the match.

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JLP : I may have been glued to the telly as this kick was being taken, but I definitely missed this.  I’m torn on this…it was such a critical moment of the match and the ball hitting the post caused so much controversy that it would have been a hell of a spot for the officials to call the movement.  Has the TMO ever gotten involved for something like this?  Perhaps they should.   Possibly could have made a great and much deserved result (red card or no) for Italy even better.

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JLP : Someone call the Clickbait Police!  When I’m just scrolling through my aggregator in general, I tend to cross the road to avoid headlines like this, but for Front Five I will take the odd peek down the rabbit hole and see what’s going on.  Obviously the “Irish person does something against English person” factor is being played up but I have to admire the irony in the subeditor’s outlandish use of the word “outlandish”.  Look – overall I’m not crazy about emphasising nations of birth for test players, the qualification rules are what they are and the players are technically representing the union.  I mean it’s not like Ireland doesn’t rely on players who qualified, but if anyone wants to say they’re not as much Irish rugby players as anyone else in the squad, well, we’re in a whole other area.

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

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WRAP OF A WRAP

So there I was at my daughter’s match on Sunday morning when a text came in that had me scrambling to put together a traditional 3-person wrap pod.  No hard feelings to he who had to cancel, life has a habit of doing that, I just had to throw myself at the mercy of my top band of contributors and thankfully Ciarán Duffy & Kristian Ross were able to cover the win on Sunday.  

If you missed the wrap pod, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

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FULL  POD

Because of the scramble I mention above I had to ditch the bonus clip this week, in fact I may leave it for a while as it can be unnecessarily time consuming.   So to have something to post to YouTube I made a headline video of the full wrap pod.  There is still one extra topic right at the end – what with Kristian being an Ulster fan I thought it rude not to ask him about the Dan McFarland news from during the week.

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CAN WE CALL IT A DRAW?

I’m a self-confessed nerd and I love all that wonky talk about competition formats and such so this may not be for you, but I do believe this is a subject that may well come up again despite the tweaks World Rugby has made.

@harpinonrugby

Our 80+ column posts every Tuesday afternoon at harpinonrugby.com

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LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

Pretty much a “steady as she goes” report, great to see Jamie and Ross made it through their first match back but still concerning to see names like Jimmy O’Brien and Charlie Ngatai still rooted to the bottom tier.  Was a bit worried to see Tommy O’Brien limp off against Benetton but it seems he’s ok, so I doubt there will be that many changes in the 23 for the trip to Cardiff.

NB : the above matchday 23 is completely from my own mind, I’m certainly not suggesting I have any ITK a la Thornley

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NOT  A TWEETUP 

After doing such a great job promoting the hashtag “IrelandWeek” in the lead up to the match, Welsh fan Ed Jenkins suggested a “gathering of individuals who engage on the platform currently known as X”, with the stipulation that it wasn’t called a “tweetup”.  Sadly I wasn’t in the vicinity but as you can see a solid front row of Harpin forwards answered the call.

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A post shared by Jeff Pagano (@harpinonrugby)

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“SVNS” UPDATE

The pool stages were definitely a far cry from the success both Irish genders enjoyed in Perth, but the weekend most certainly was not without silver linings.  

Obviously winning one leg in a series offers no guarantees of a repeat in the next one, but after defeating South Africa, we were done over by both Brazil and New Zealand and it wasn’t enough for a quarterfinal spot.  Still, once in that position you can only aim to finish as high as you can and with wins over GB and Japan the girls did just that leaving them 9th.  On the overall table it doesn’t look like we can aim much higher than 4th with AUS, NZL & FRA leading the way.

The men also just had one pool win but in their case it got them into the quarters as a best 3rd place finisher, and who did they come up against but France with Monsieur Duponte who of course got the winning try.  However they also managed to salvage the most they could out of the position playoffs, defeating Fiji in extra time to leave us 5th in Vancouver and, somehow, SECOND on the overall standings!  Argentina seem to be running away with 1st place but to finish behind them would certainly be quite the achievement.  Standout player from the matches I saw was definitely Zac Ward, who got that winning try in ET and is quite the strong carrier.

Now the circus moves on to LA and you can see our fixtures below.

VANCOUVER 7S

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🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

With Stade winning the Parisien derby inflicting yet more pain on Stu’s Racing, they and Toulouse both hit the 50point mark atop the 🔝🐱🐴 table after round 16.   Castres lead the chasing pack while ROG’s La Rochelle are hanging on to barrage contention by their fingernails after the NINTH league defeat of the campaign to go with the two in Europe.  It’s actually starting to get them looking over their shoulders at the relegation positions where Montpellier are winning their way off the bottom.  Victory next Sunday against Clérmont will be critical for ROG although Toulouse v Castres is the tie of the round.  

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AIL UPDATE 

It was essentially a final trial match ahead of the Women’s Six Nations but the all-Irish clash at the Kingspan Stadium also offered the Wolfhounds the opportunity to lift the Celtic Challenge title, and they accepted the offer with a convincing 47-26 victory over the Clovers.  They can’t be caught atop the table so congrats are definitely in order!  Here’s hoping they can continue the winning ways with the green jersey on, absolutely vital that we get at least a win or two under our belt.

Meanwhile in the AIL both genders return to action after a bye week, with Lansdowne v Cork Con in the men’s comp being the pick of the fixtures.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

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WOMEN’S AIL

NO FIXTURES LAST WEEKEND

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MEN’S AIL

NO FIXTURES LAST WEEKEND

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RUGBY EUROPE CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

I will be very surprised if it isn’t a Georgia v Portugal final but you never know, we’ll see if Romania and Spain can cause an upset.

NO FIXTURES LAST WEEKEND

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NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Short but sweet column this week, next up we’re turning our attention to Leinster’s URC visit to Cardiff keep an eye out for the preview & wrap pods.

Finally, as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

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