511 : Leinster v Scarlets wrap

27 March 2026; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster scores his side’s third try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Scarlets at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile

🏉 Wonderful wingers

🏉 Backup 9s

🏉 Sam’s future

🏉 Fits and starts

🏉 Scrappy Scarlets

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

RICHARD MIFSUD

FULL TIME TAKES

David Lawlor

We strolled through Europe last season and came out with a disappointing defeat in the semi’s. This year we’ve been way below that level but we’re still in a decent spot in Europe and the URC. Hopefully with Ryan, Conan, Keenan and Baird to come back in the next few weeks things might improve. Osborne at 12 is the future.

Liz Power

I was bored out of my skull. There was a mass exodus around us between 65 and 70 minutes. Getting to the bar/train was more appealing than watching it

Christy O’Connor

That first half is one to forget. Very poor over all, we had a couple of moments of great play early in the 2nd half but it became stuttery again. JGP has made a number of passes this season that we’re intercepted, luckily the majority never led to tries. JJ Kenny and Tommy O’Brien were in great form.

This has been are poorest season in a long long time, if we win anything I’ll be shocked. The only thing we’ve been consistent with this season has been our ill discipline

Tom Clarke

Need to up the performance big time for next Sunday.

Richard Collumb

Nienaber is our Steve Borthwick.

Cormac Mannion

I thought we could rely on “muscle memory” for the next few matches and Farrell’s influence would still have an effect on the performances. Well that theory went out the window very quickly. The discipline of the team was an absolute disgrace in the first half. Countless penalties and zero defensive alignment.

The attack wasn’t much better. The team lived off raw talent rather than the coaching. It’s awful to watch and the more I see, the more I’m reminded of the 2014-2015 season under MOC. Quite a few players looked disinterested tonight

Kevin Kelehan

This game was always going to be imperfect trying to re-integrate the blue Irish players en masse. Thankfully the second half was better, bodes well for the more important games against Embra and Ulster at Ravenhill. The attendance below 13,000 is however a real worry for financial planning of the game next season, need to be getting much bigger crowds than this

Bernie Cunningham

Overall a patchy performance, lots of errors trying too hard at times. Need to up our game next wk…6/10

Gavin Hegarty

Good few of these players were firing under Andy Farrell two weeks ago. Now they are rudderless and dull. How is this possible? Something seriously wrong in UCD.

Louis Hoffman

We won’t win anything this year.

Chris McDonnell

Can’t play rugby without an outhalf. The best 2 outhalves in the club are frawley and tector. Pendergast is broken and needs to be given time off. 3 seasons ago Cullen should have done the decent thing and walked away. The man is deluded if he thinks he’s not the problem.

Michael Byrne

Harry Byrne and Frawley aren’t getting enough time at 10, no point in investing time with Frawley at 10 now with a move Connacht, Leinster will regret that decision. Harry Byrne needs game time, its going to cost us when we face tougher opposition. We were very nearly full strength and should have put Scarlets away early. They really came to play so it was a decent win but 3 years ago that game would have been over in 20 minutes.

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S BEST XV”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

Slaves to the algorithm & football Prague-matism

Saturday, March 28, 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.

It’s another week when I write this AFTER our feature match of the weekend has been played – thankfully this time it was a win for my team, a bonus point one to boot.

At halftime I was approached by Huw Griffin, aka “HG Rugby” who was over for his first visit to the Aviva Stadium. He asked me what I thought of the first half, I gave my honest opinion that the Scarlets impressed in the first quarter but Leinster eventually grew into it and that we really needed a strong 10m spell after the break. I guess he was impressed with this response…

To be clear I was professing expectations rather than predictions but thankfully the boys in blue didn’t let me down at least for that spell. It certainly wasn’t a perfect performance but myself and Rich Mifsud will go over all that for the wrap pod recording on Sunday evening.

I feel bad I wasn’t able to chat to Huw after the match for his account as he requested, but I had to leg it at fulltime, I definitely owe him an interview at some point.

Here’s what I was thinking before kickoff, courtesy of my Dublin South FM slot after the 5pm news on Friday…

What I’d like to focus on this week is a disgusting post I saw on Facebook, sadly by another one of my fellow online creators.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL POST ON SUBSTACK

510 : Leinster v Scarlets preview

Our guest : NEIL “KEEGO” KEEGAN

www.keegolaughs.com

Apologies Up Front on Apple Podcasts

LEINSTER : 15 Jimmy O’Brien 14 Tommy O’Brien 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Jamie Osborne 11 Joshua Kenny 10 Harry Byrne 9 Jamison Gibson-Park

1 Andrew Porter 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Brian Deeny 6 Max Deegan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)

16 Gus McCarthy 17 Jerry Cahir 18 Rabah Slimani 19 Conor O’Tighearnaigh 20 Alex Soroka 21 Fintan Gunne 22 Sam Prendergast 23 Robbie Henshaw

SCARLETS : 15 Blair Murray 14 Tom Rogers 13 Joe Roberts 12 Johnny Williams 11 Ellis Mee 10 Joe Hawkins 9 Dane Blacker

1 Kemsley Mathias 2 Harry Thomas 3 Archer Holz 4 Sam Lousi 5 Max Douglas 6 Jarrod Taylor 7 Dan Davis 8 Fletcher Anderson (c)

16 George Roberts 17 Sam O’Connor 18 Henry Thomas 19 Jake Ball 20 Tristan Davies 21 Archie Hughes 22 Ioan Jones 23 Macs Page

BKT United Rugby Championship

2025/26 Round 14

Friday, March 27, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 7:45pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1, URC.tv

Referee: Aimee Barrett-Theron (SARU)

AR 1: Peter Martin (IRFU)

AR 2: Chris Lough (IRFU)

TMO: Quinton Immelman (SARU)

80+ column : March 25

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

WRAP OF A WRAP
THE IMPORT-ANCE OF BEING REIKO
PROJECT HAIL MARY’S
JACK OF ONE CLUB
BEN AND GONE
ACCUSED
WOMEN’S 6N PREVIEW
[EXTRA STORY]
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
TROLL PATROL
COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Super Rugby)
NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

It’s always a pleaseure to have Cian “RugbyKino” O’Muilleoir on the pod, since he was doing his own show MudderRucker that follows women’s rugby along with also-friend-of-the-pod Ailbhe O’Nolan his opportunities to appear have been limited to say the least. Obviously it was a shame that his appearance had to be for a bad Leinster loss, of course, but still there was a job to be done picking apart what went wrong and he did an excellent job as ever. If you missed it, click here to check it out.

THE IMPORT-ANCE OF BEING REIKO

“…he hasn’t added any clear and obvious lift in quality to ‘the big show’ the east coast province are so used to delivering.”

Why Rieko Ioane is struggling to match Barrett’s X-factor impact for Leinster

Nick Bishop – Rugbypass.com

We touched on this for the wrap pod and clearly we’re not the only ones who noticed.

Two factors to consider before continuing…first, I’m wary of accusations of “import blaming”, something that has been known to happen at clubs not doing well throughout all team sports. We also have to acknowledge that it was highly unlikely that Reiko’s career cameo at Leinster was never going to come close to that of Jordie Barrett’s – although the similarities between them are plentiful, there are also plenty of differences so to expect the same output would have been crazy.

All that said, he has hardly set the world alight for us. It’s true, his intercept and pass on the run to JJ Kenny for our opening try in Scotstoun was quality, but when you wear that blue 13 jumper in particular you are expected to fulfil defensive duties as well and he was found wanting for more than one of the tries Glasgow made look all too easy.

To be perfectly honest, were I to pick an elite matchday squad for Leinster right now, even leaving out those injured, I can’t find a place for Reiko, which surely calls into question the value for money we’re getting for him.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE ON SUBSTACK

509 : Glasgow v Leinster wrap

🏉 Gone in 11 minutes

🏉 Struggling attack

🏉 Confusing calls

🏉 Defensive concerns

🏉 They were Warriors

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CIAN O’MUILLEOIR

MudderRucker podcast

FULL TIME TAKES

Cormac Mannion

I know people will say we were missing a load of internationals but so were Glasgow! Also, that squad of players last night had been training together for the last few weeks. You wouldn’t have thought it. Some of the handling skills were downright shocking. Zero intention shown in tackling at times. No real defensive alignment, no defensive patterns.

The attack ran out of ideas every time it went past 3-4 phases. Shovel it sideways and eventually basketball pass out to a forward loitering on the wing.

Sam didn’t have a great game but he didn’t have much to work with. Slow ruck ball and McGrath was very slow distributing to him with a number of hospital passes. He really was having to force the game at times and needlessly kicked the ball away because he ran out of options

We look badly coached and the shape of the team reminds me of the latter stages of Gary Ella’s and MOC’s tenures … the awful defence under Ella and the dire attack under MOC.

Our only hope is the returning internationals retain the “muscle memory” from Farrell for the rest of the season

David Lawlor

Discipline was a killer but falling off tackles like that is what you expect to see from the half time minis. Pack Reiko off now and use Henshaw, Ringrose and Osborne in midfield for the rest of the season. Snyman should only be used off the bench as an impact sub. Major questions to be asked over Sam’s ability to control big games.

Gordon Addie

Glasgow are regularly in the top spots in the URC every season, so should never be taken for granted that Leinster go and win away to Warriors, theyve lost plenty in Glasgow over the years. The surprise was how emphatic the victory was given Glasgow were arguably missing about 12-13 starters and had a 2nd string pack out, while Leinster fielded a team with several Lions, a Springbok and an All Black. The sides will look very different next time they meet likely in a knock out game but Glasgow will fancy they can upset them again.

Liam Brosnan

Leinster were a great team, now they are a good team. Other teams have improved, it’s cyclical. They are not contenders for champions cup but they are the best irish side

Kevin Kelehan

Glasgow are a different side to last season, much stronger, we’ll be back in Scotland for the semi in the Champions Cup assuming both sides don’t slip up. Discipline cost Leinster this match, not good enough, on 13 men conceding 26 points and chasing the game after that. Leo needs to field a near full strength side next week as the lack of match continuity was glaringly obvious in this defeat. Some of the more excitable fans showing their true colours after this game, you don’t turn on specific players and or the coach when you lose away to the top team in the league.

Greg Kelly

We used to win these games at a canter. You have to wonder what has changed? Ioane can head home now as he is not the calibre of marquee player required. Snyman has been poor the last few games and it seems teams are now wise to his offload game. Sam’s confidence has been shredded by the 6 nations and we looked soft upfront tonight. We need to be competitive in these international windows otherwise it’s uphill in the playoffs

Craig Grehan

Are we all neglecting the fact we’d a team of irish internationals not playing ?

Let’s not forget.

Why are we not playing Osborne? Ringrose? Gibson Park? Captain Doris? Van Der Flier? McCarthy? Ryan? Furlong? Sheehan?

Dont gimme the “International rest” crap.

We’d Conan and Kelleher there.

Big games need big calls.

We’re a team of softies at times

Richard Collumb

Coaching ticket not up to it. Prendergast needs a break & discipline needs improving

Chris McDonnell

The step up in attack when frawley came on was massive. To think he was driven out of the club is baffling. I’d say Lancaster can’t believe his luck.

The coaching ticket needs to go. The 3 stooges are dragging us from bad to worse. Cullen claims to love the club, if he really did he’d admit he’s out of his depth and walk away.

Christy O’Connor

I’ve said it a million times now, we have gone backwards under Nienabar and Bleyendaal. Ulster players deserve their spots in the Irish team, they are playing much better rugby, they’re playing how we used to play before we lost Lancaster.

Absolute shite rugby style. Clueless in attack. More fun watching paint dry

Louis Hoffman

Cullen and Nienaber must go.

Dreadful

But to see that kn*bjockey Zebo delighted that a Scottish team beat an Irish one. What a jerk

Odran John OBrien

Time for the coaching team to change

CLICK HERE FOR THE REAL-TIME REACTIONS FROM

THE HARPIN WHATSAPP GROUP THROUGHOUT THE MATCH

Get in the conversation yourself by leaving

your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle

in Leinster & Ireland matches on our Facebook page

URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “WOMEN’S 6N PREVIEW”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

508: Glasgow v Leinster preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST

LEINSTER : 15 Hugo Keenan 14 Joshua Kenny 13 Rieko Ioane 12 Robbie Henshaw 11 Jimmy O’Brien 10 Sam Prendergast 9 Luke McGrath (c)

1 Alex Usanov 2 Rónan Kelleher 3 Thomas Clarkson 4 RG Snyman 5 Brian Deeny 6 Jack Conan 7 Will Connors 8 James Culhane

16 John McKee 17 Jerry Cahir 18 Rabah Slimani 19 Conor O’Tighearnaigh 20 Max Deegan 21 Scott Penny 22 Fintan Gunne 23 Ciarán Frawley

GLASGOW : 15 Josh McKay 14 Kyle Rowe 13 Johnny Ventisei 12 Stafford McDowall (c) 11 Ollie Smith 10 Dan Lancaster 9 George Horne

1 Patrick Schickerling 2 Gregor Hiddleston 3 Fin Richardson 4 Alex Craig 5 Alex Samuel 6 Euan Ferrie 7 Sione Vailanu 8 Macenzzie Duncan

16 Seb Stephen 17 Rory Sutherland 18 Sam Talakai 19 Jare Oguntibeju 20 Ally Miller 21 Angus Fraser 22 Jack Oliver 23 Adam Hastings

BKT United Rugby Championship

2025/26 Round 13

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Scotstoun Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1, URC.tv

Referee: Adam Jones (WRU)

AR 1: David Sutherland (SRU)

AR 2: Ciaran Stark (SRU)

TMO: Aled Griffiths (WRU)

507 : Ireland v Scotland wrap

🏉 Beirne & the backrow

🏉 Jamie O

🏉 Tartan resistance

🏉 Squad depth

🏉 What’s next

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

MARK JACKSON

FULL TIME TAKES

Cormac Mannion

Bizarrely we looked stretched out wide despite adding more pace in the backs. However, we.absolutely smashed Scotland up front. Really happy with how we’ve progressed over the last four weeks and we were missing so many players.

We looked far better coached today whereas Scotland lost their heads a few times

Louis Hoffman

Defence won us that game despite the score, almost nullified totally a great Scottish backline

Gavin Hegarty

When, in the history of any tournament, has each team come out happy?

France: winners

Ireland: good tournament and hugely improved after a disaster start. Triple crown

Scotland: retain Calcutta cup, 3/5 a good return

Italy: beat England for the first time. 2/5 a good return

England: salvaged a lot of pride in their loss to France and showed a turn

Wales: finished bottom but showed they are coming back to what world rugby needs

Just my Sunday morning thoughts!

Rugby was the real winner yesterday

Gerald Williamson

The Irish defense when under pressure from Scottish attacks performed exceptionally well. The subs bench made quite an impact particularly Darragh Murray’.

Bernie Cunningham

Ireland just a grt performance, Scotland just couldn’t handle Ireland in all aspects of the game today. COYBIG

Christy O’Connor

Brilliant performance, when will the Scots learn not to give us fuel before our games (Darcy Graham Ireland are there for the taking) 🤣

CLICK HERE FOR THE REAL-TIME REACTIONS FROM

THE HARPIN WHATSAPP GROUP THROUGHOUT THE MATCH

Get in the conversation yourself by leaving

your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

Italy 18-15 Scotland

England 48-7 Wales

France 36-14 Ireland

Scotland 31–20 England

Italy 13–20 Ireland

Wales 12–54 France

England 21-42 Ireland

Wales 23-26 Scotland

France 33-8 Italy

Ireland 27-17 Wales

Scotland 50-40 France

Italy 23-18 England

Ireland 43-21 Scotland

Wales 31-17 Italy

France 48-46 England

NEXT HARPIN’

ST PATRICK’S DAY

BONUS CHAT : “6N TEAM OF THE TOURNAMENT”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

506: Ireland v Scotland preview

Our guest : NEIL “KEEGO” KEEGAN

www.keegolaughs.com

Apologies Up Front on Apple Podcasts

IRELAND : 15 Jamie Osborne 14 Rob Baloucoune 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Stuart McCloskey 11 Tommy O’Brien 10 Jack Crowley 9 Jamison Gibson‑Park

1 Tom O’Toole 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Tadhg Beirne 6 Jack Conan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)

16 Rónan Kelleher 17 Michael Milne 18 Finlay Bealham 19 Darragh Murray 20 Nick Timoney 21 Craig Casey 22 Ciaran Frawley 23 Bundee Aki

SCOTLAND : 15 Blair Kinghorn 14 Darcy Graham 13 Huw Jones 12 Sione Tuipulotu (c) 11 Kyle Steyn 10 Finn Russell 9 Ben White

1 Pierre Schoeman 2 George Turner 3 Zander Fagerson 4 Max Williamson 5 Grant Gilchrist 6 Matt Fagerson 7 Rory Darge 8 Jack Dempsey

16 Ewan Ashman 17 Rory Sutherland 18 Murphy Rae 19 Alex Craig 20 Magnus Bradbury 21 George Horne 22 Kyle Rowe 23 Harry Jordan

Guinness Six Nations 2026

Round 5

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 2:10pm

Live on : Virgin Media One

Referee: Luke Pearce (RFU)

AR1: Angus Gardner (RA)

AR2: Damian Schneider (UAR)

TMO: Andrew Jackson (RFU)

FPRO: Ian Tempest (RFU)

505 : Ireland v Wales wrap

6 March 2026; Jacob Stockdale of Ireland scores his side’s first try during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and Wales at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

🏉 Inconsistencies

🏉 Jack Conan

🏉 Welsh D & Carré’s carry

🏉 Placekicks

🏉 3x👑 favourites?

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

TOM COLEMAN

FULL TIME TAKES

Monica Baghi

Well done Wales, you fought well and gave us a hard game – Congratulations Ireland 🇮🇪

Lorraine Matthews

Always rooting for Ireland, but can we stop for a moment to appreciate the majestic scene that was Carre’s try? That hunk of human was motoring!!

Craig Grehan

If anyone was thinking that game was gonna be a thrashing they haven’t been watching this 6 nations.

Ireland didn’t play bad just sloppy, trying to force keeping the ball alive at times. But enough to get away with the win.

Great to see stockdale again claim his stake. Conan played unreal and deserved the motm. Wales weren’t bad. In fact they were very very good.

That said, how is it nobody seems to notice looseheads boring in on our tightheads?

But if Porter was on he’d be pinged every time?

Craig Boyd

Probably sums up where we are. Not the brilliant team we thought we were when beating England and not as bad as people thought we were after the France and Italy games. It’s a toss of a coin predicting the result against Scotland

Cormac Mannion

Someone in the media commented this week that it was probably the biggest backline we had ever fielded. However, if you’re going to kick contestable kicks you need more than one of your back three capable of actually challenging for the kicks.

Some of our backline had all the turning ability and agility of an oil tanker.

Despite that, Wales are becoming increasingly tough to break down and are definitely improving.

Dickson had another of his special nights. Why we have had to suffer him twice in the tournament is beyond me

Eamon Saunders

I thought we got away with one but hung In There for a win

John Kehoe

Versus France Ireland kicked far too much ball away; today they didn’t strategically kick any way near enough

Chris McDonnell

We missed the likes of Tommy O’Brien or Mac Hanson to add some energy to the backline. Osbourne joined the line once and scored, frawley added a different picture when he came on.

David Ryle

I saw people from a certain province commenting that stockdale can’t catch a high ball. Caught a few today.

Christy O’Connor

We went from being a team that couldn’t win a lineout but we are now a team that can’t scrum. It needs to be sorted before the world cup

Mick O’Leary

Glad we won, but Wales played great!

CLICK HERE FOR THE REAL-TIME REACTIONS FROM

THE HARPIN WHATSAPP GROUP THROUGHOUT THE MATCH

Get in the conversation yourself by leaving

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

Italy 18-15 Scotland

England 48-7 Wales

France 36-14 Ireland

Scotland 31–20 England

Italy 13–20 Ireland

Wales 12–54 France

England 21-42 Ireland

Wales 23-26 Scotland

France 33-8 Italy

Ireland 27-17 Wales

Scotland 50-40 France

Italy 23-18 England

Round 5 Fixtures

Sat 14 March

Ireland v Scotland

Wales v Italy

France v England

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “6N > TRC”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

504 : Ireland v Wales preview

Our guest : CIARÁN DUFFY

Post to Post blog

IRELAND : 15 Jamie Osborne 14 Robert Baloucoune 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Stuart McCloskey 11 Jacob Stockdale 10 Jack Crowley 9 Jamison Gibson‑Park
1 Tom O’Toole 2 Rónan Kelleher 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 James Ryan 5 Tadhg Beirne 6 Jack Conan 7 Nick Timoney 8 Caelan Doris (c)
16 Tom Stewart 17 Michael Milne 18 Thomas Clarkson 19 Joe McCarthy 20 Josh van der Flier 21 Nathan Doak 22 Tom Farrell 23 Ciaran Frawley

WALES : 15 Louis Rees‑Zammit 14 Ellis Mee 13 Eddie James 12 Joe Hawkins 11 Josh Adams 10 Dan Edwards 9 Tomos Williams
1 Rhys Carre 2 Dewi Lake (c) 3 Tomas Francis 4 Dafydd Jenkins 5 Ben Carter 6 Alex Mann 7 James Botham 8 Aaron Wainwright
16 Ryan Elias 17 Nicky Smith 18 Archie Griffin 19 Adam Beard 20 Olly Cracknell 21 Kieran Hardy 22 Jarrod Evans 23 Louie Hennessey

Guinness Six Nations 2026

Round 4

Friday, March 6, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 8:10pm

Live on : RTÉ2

Referee: Karl Dickson (RFU)

AR1: Nika Amashukeli (GRU)

AR2: Damian Schneider (UAR)

TMO: Andrew Jackson (RFU)

FPRO: Tual Trainini (FFR)