ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…
- WRAP OF A WRAP
- CLOSING THE GAP
- GOODE ADVICE
- THE REST IS POLITICS
- LIONS BEYOND 2029
- CLICKBAIT OF THE WEEK
- THE TOULON CHALLENGE
- LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
- TROLL PATROL
- COMPETITION UPDATES (incl AIL finals)
- NEXT HARPIN’
WRAP OF A WRAP
It was an unusual weekend for content producing here at Harpin Manor – first, I was unavailable Friday to record the preview with Keego once the team was named so we did a “drop-in” version where he recorded his bit and I added mine but the video wasn’t ready until Saturday morning.
Then a family event on Saturday evening meant I had to miss both the Leinster and Ireland women’s matches. I did a reasonable job avoiding the Leinster score until the Sunday morning, I did catch a glimpse of a scoreline where the boys in blue were leading 14-5 but didn’t know what stage of the match that was. Turns out it was just before halftime and I let out an almighty roar of frustration when we shipped that needless penalty right at the death.
Anyway, whatever the outcome it was great to have Jay Long back on the pod to mull it over, click here if you missed it.
CLOSING THE GAP
There is still a gap between these two sides. Albeit it has shrunk to the point that this is now a proper rivalry.
France too strong for Ireland as their superior depth shows in Six Nations victory
Nathan Johns – Irish Times
Friend of the pod Nathan hits the bullseye with this account of Ireland’s defeat in Clérmont on Saturday evening. Continuously losing to both England and France does not necessarily mean the squad isn’t improving. You could argue that at this stage a lot of the difference between the sides was down to Irish lack of accuracy as opposed to actually not being good enough. Like I said earlier I didn’t get to watch this match live but I did switch over for a couple of minutes towards the end of the first half and Ireland had a penalty which Dannah O’Brien tried to put to touch in the corner but it ended up going dead. A couple of plays later the French were back down the other end of the pitch scoring. Fix that, improve the depth and we can definitely close the gap even further and I’d definitely have faith in the squad to do just that.
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 