80+ column : April 2

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WRAP OF A WRAP

“Dunno about you lads but this could be the most enjoyable wrap of the season so far”

“My take: very poor match to watch. One of the worst in a long time. We were poor and they were brutal!”

It may seem strange that those two comments both refer to the same match but in a way I’m not surprised.  The first was from me on WhatsApp to this week’s contributors Conor Cronin & David Cordial.  The second was from a Harpin follower “bashbranagan” on BlueSky.  It was that kind of match but I was coming from a place where literally any kind of a win from the two matches in SA would be a good result, and for the most part CC & DC agreed as they did their usual excellent job going back over the action.

ICYMI click here to check it out on Spotify or you’ll also find us on Apple and most major platforms.

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FRONT FIVE

A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape

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ITALIAN JOB

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WHERE THERE’S A WILLEMSE

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ROG V MUNSTER

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BILLY BARRY

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CHEETAHS AND FOOLS

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HARPIN ON…LEINSTER’S CHAMPIONS CUP 23

Here’s the lead-in question : 

“After a successful enough South African tour, Leinster now turn their attention back to the Champions Cup with Harlequins coming to Croke Park next weekend and all going well for the boys in blue, there might be a quarterfinal the following week as well – that’s as optimistic as my uber-superstitious nature will allow me to be.  So after 18 matches this season looking at over 50 different players, what do we now think is our best matchday squad going into the business end of the season?  Not for the first time we’re using the worst possible method of selecting a squad – I’ll be nominating a bench, Conor will take the pack and first up we have David who is going to give us his ideal backline…”

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LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE

Slightly different this week…rather than post my predicted 23 I’m going to make you watch the bonus clip where our wrap panel picked one just a few days ago.  That was without the benefit of the injury report but it turned out ok for what we selected anyway.

HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V HARLEQUINS

[SEE THE ABOVE VIDEO]

caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley

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TROLL PATROL

Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.

Leinster & Ireland get plenty of stick on the socials from the South Africans which is mostly why Kino felt moved to clap back with this shark-related burn…

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Women’s Six Nations

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Irish Shield

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All Ireland Leagues

WOMEN’S AIL

MEN’S AIL 1A

MEN’S AIL 1B

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SVNS

SINGAPORE SVNS POOL DRAW

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Challenge Cup

Premiership

🔝🐱🐴

ProD2

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Super Rugby Pacific

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NEW PLAYOFF FORMAT – ONLY TOP SIX QUALIFY

Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting

Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3

Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.

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RWC2027 QUALIFIERS

The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.

Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.

A new update has dropped this week – follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..

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Japan League One

Major League Rugby 

Harpin Prediction League

This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.  

Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame.  I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.

As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare but down at the foot of the table, an impressive couple of rounds has seen Keego move of the bottom for the first time in two years.

We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting, and partly thanks to my prediction of Leinster to win in Durban, I just about edged HPL runaway leader Kino to reach the first ever Harpin’ Mug Final where I’ll play the winner of Tom v Conor in the next round.

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NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

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