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ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

• WRAP OF A WRAP
• RETURN OF THE KING
• ‘DAM LUCK
• MUNSTER DE-KLEYNED*
• TOOTHLESS SHARKS
• CLICKBAIT OF THE WEEK
• FINAL ROUND PERMUTATIONS
• NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP “EXPLAINED”
• LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
• TROLL PATROL
• COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Celtic Challenge)
• NEXT HARPIN’

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WRAP OF A WRAP

We’ve recently added a new feature that’s proving relatively popular. As I watch the latest Leinster/Ireland match live, I take meticulous notes on the action in my own shorthand – I had been deleting them each week but this season I started sharing them on Substack for shits and giggles, and a few weeks ago I added the real-time comments of the various Harpin commentators as they reacted to key moments of the match in our WhatsApp group. I thought it best to redact their names, but for this week I got the idea to colour code the redactions so you could at least see patterns in what they are saying.

Below is a sample of how the group reacted to the double blow of Tommy O’Brien getting a yellow card and Ciarán Frawley going off injured…

It’s a lot of extra work but it’s also a fun new addition to my rewatch on Sunday mornings and with the positive response I have gotten I’ll keep it going for the foreseeable.

Thankfully the wrap pod itself was also fun to produce given the result! Hugo as ever did a top notch job going back over the key points, in fact for this match we had to go longer than usual as there was so much to take in.

ICYMI you’ll find the pod here.

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It’s 2026 and for the Irish women’s senior rugby team, the time to reflect on the amazing gains made in the last World Cup cycle is gone. Now it is time to begin the next one and build on that amazing performance against the French in Bristol.

And naturally it is imperative that we begin that cycle with a convincing victory and I very much back the girls to get the job done.

What’s that? Our Six Nations opener is against World Champions England in London? OK, maybe not “imperative” then, but you get the idea…

Probably the name that jumps out of Bemand’s squad the most is that of Erin King who was of course a very conspicuous absentee from RWC2025 and is already helping the Wolfhounds tear up trees in the Celtic Challenge. And as we watch the Irish sides dominate that competition yet again, it’s clear that once the impressive list of Premiership players are folded in (Aoife Wafer, Brittany Hogan, Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald, El Perry, Niamh O’Dowd, Grace Moore, Neve Jones, Sam Monaghan and Nancy McGillivray) we’ll have quite the squad.

Even though we have both England and France away this season, I am still very much looking forward to this campaign.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL 80+ COLUMN ON SUBSTACK