Saturday, January 31, 2026
Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.
Ah here, is it the last day of January already? It doesn’t feel like I’d quite gotten finished saying “Ah here, is it the last day of 2025 already?” yet here we are. I must be having tons of fun. It certainly wasn’t from the weather for the past week, mind you. Storm Chandra not only wreaked havoc by causing floods and upturning wheelie bins but took mind to circle back and wreak some more later in the week for good measure.
Which means the forecast for the Aviva tonight of 5॰, little or no wind and 25% rain sounds positively tropical and having been forced to miss the La Rochelle thriller I’m extra looking forward to some live Leinster Rugby this evening.
The latest Harpin preview was a little different this week. The actual format was still the same, but right after the intro when I normally ask my regular guest Keego about last week’s match, he elected to focus on the ban inflicted on Bundee Aki during the week. We don’t discuss what we’re going to say beforehand and I reckon this could have been the most I have ever disagreed with him in all the years we have been doing these preview pods.
Obviously that’s not necessarily a bad thing, in fact many suggest ALL podcasts should have an element of opposing sides, but with this one being so short and the opening segment meant to be brief, we couldn’t really get into it. I did push back a bit, but rather than relitigate the whole matter here you’d be better off listening for yourself so you can do that here. There is also, of course, a decent look ahead to this evening’s match if I do say so myself.
And let’s not forget my latest stint on DublinSouthFM…
But before the spotlight gets turned on the team from the Scottish capital, I’d like to first look at their 1972 Cup rivals the Glasgow Warriors, who consolidated themselves at the top of the URC table (although the Stormers who are 7pts behind them have two games in hand) with a 31-22 victory over Munster last night at Scotstoun.
I didn’t see all of the match, but it was 12-5 to the home side when I joined so I got a decent look at the free flowing rugby they are playing this season. It really was a sight to behold. I spend a lot of my harpin’ time trying to justify Leinster’s defence-centric approach this season but I have to say, at times I do miss the days when we were all freely using the phrase “Leinstertainment” and Glasgow certainly had their own version on display at times last night.
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 