Leinster: 15. Ciarán Frawley, 14. Tommy O’Brien, 13. Hugh Cooney, 12. Charlie Tector, 11. Joshua Kenny, 10. Sam Prendergast, 9. Jamison Gibson-Park
1. Andrew Porter, 2. Dan Sheehan (c), 3. Thomas Clarkson, 4. Joe McCarthy, 5. Brian Deeny, 6. Diarmuid Mangan, 7. Will Connors, 8. Jack Conan
16. Gus McCarthy, 17. Jack Boyle, 18. Rabah Slimani, 19. Conor O’Tighearnaigh, 20. Max Deegan, 21. Josh van der Flier, 22. Luke McGrath, 23. Harry Byrne
Connacht: 15. Sam Gilbert, 14. Chay Mullins, 13. David Hawkshaw, 12. Bundee Aki, 11. Finn Treacy, 10. Josh Ioane, 9. Matthew Devine
1. Denis Buckley, 2. Dylan Tierney-Martin, 3. Finlay Bealham, 4. Joe Joyce, 5. David O’Connor, 6. Josh Murphy, 7. Cian Prendergast (c), 8. Sean Jansen
16. Eoin de Buitlear, 17. Billy Bohan, 18. Fiachna Barrett, 19. Darragh Murray, 20. Paul Boyle, 21. Ben Murphy, 22. Harry West, 23. Cathal Forde
Normally for these Front Five segments I go out of my way to find topics that are far removed from our Harpin’ feature matches since we cover those on the podcasts, but I really had to make an exception for this one.
On the Munster v Leinster wrap I did speak to the over the top reactions to the refereeing on the socials, ones that suggested the questionable calls only went against Munster, but then I read this article were Owen tells the keyboard warriors to hold his beer. A contributor in the Harpin WhatsApp group said it best…
I was frankly shocked to discover the author is a former head of referees for the IRFU, given how firmly he flung a neophyte referee under the bus
And the fact that it is a respected referee doing the criticism, particularly at a time when we are supposedly meant to be protecting officials from abuse, compounded all of my other complaints re the content…
27 December 2025; Josh van der Flier of Leinster celebrates in the closing moments of the United Rugby Championship match between Munster and Leinster at Thomond Park in Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Close game, Munster pushed hard & Leinster defence improving. Harry best 10 we have.
Lorcán Murphy
A dogfight of a game which will stand to both teams and Ireland in the longer run. This was all about the result and who wanted it more
Dave Murray
Two very tough inter-pros and 9 points from them, we can’t complain about that. Our attack was very one dimensional, but its a tough defence that wins games in Thomond and we defended superbly. NB Leo with Zebo after the game was also a nice bonus
Louis Hoffman
Just about Fair result, few bruised bodies tomorrow. Ruck was a mess
Kevin Kelehan
Munster pushed Leinster bloody hard, Leinster defence was back where it needed to be. The second half against Ulster may be the time we say that Leinster’s season clicked and where the believe came to win when the chances aren’t there.
Gavin Little
Scrums are a mystery… we win penalty after penalty and Munster don’t get penalised, then in the second half the ref calls “use it” almost immediately on every scrum completely nullifying our advantage
Christy O’Connor
Started off brilliant and the intensity was great, it dropped off as the game went on though. Our defense was great and our attack is still very one dimensional.
The highlight of the night was Leo absolutely ripping Zebo in the interview after the game.
Gerald Williamson
The Leinster defense was impressive. It was a close game with not much free flowing Rugby due to the tight marking. The Ref did not have a bad game.
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LEINSTER :15. Ciarán Frawley 14. Tommy O’Brien 13. Rieko Ioane 12. Robbie Henshaw 11. James Lowe 10. Harry Byrne 9. Jamison Gibson-Park
1. Andrew Porter 2. Rónan Kelleher 3. Thomas Clarkson 4. Joe McCarthy 5. James Ryan 6. Max Deegan 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris (c)
16. John McKee 17. Paddy McCarthy 18. Tadhg Furlong 19. Diarmuid Mangan 20. Scott Penny 21. Fintan Gunne 22. Charlie Tector 23. Andrew Osborne
Munster: 15. Shane Daly; 14. Calvin Nash, 13. Tom Farrell, 12. Alex Nankivell, 11. Thaakir Abrahams; 10. Jack Crowley, 9. Craig Casey; 1. Michael Milne, 2. Lee Barron, 3. Michael Ala’alatoa; 4. Edwin Edogbo, 5. Tom Ahern; 6. Tadhg Beirne (C), 7. Jack O’Donoghue, 8. Gavin Coombes.
Replacements: 16. Diarmuid Barron, 17. Jeremy Loughman, 18. John Ryan, 19. Jean Kleyn, 20. Fineen Wycherley, 21. Paddy Patterson, 22. Dan Kelly, 23. John Hodnett
19 December 2025; Rieko Ioane of Leinster dives over to score his side’s first try despite the tackle of Rob Baloucoune, bottom, and Jacob Stockdale of Ulster during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Ulster at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
I could copy and paste my comment from last week. But I’ll ask the question again. How are the current coaching ticket bringing these players to the next level?
Gavin Little
Our basic skills used to be second to none, but now every phase feels like a risk. Confidence seems through the floor. Strangers playing with each other.
There used to be complaints that we’d peak too early, and maybe we will come good when it matters. At the moment that seems like a far way off.
John Jones
Still time to build into the season but something not working at the moment. I don’t know if it is just the lack of a proper pre-season together, or if there really is something off in the coaching/current coaching ticket? Still wouldn’t put it past them to put in a big performance Vs Munster though and kick on from there…
Kevin Kelehan
Very happy with Leinster reeling in a quality side last night, the fans expecting Leinster to go out week after week and put 50 points up and concede little more than a consolation try are unrealistic. A lot of credit to Richie Murphy who is getting a lot out of a side with few internationals but lots of guts and effort. I thought James Ryan was very unlucky to be carded for what looked like a fairly standard clear out. On to another game that can be lost in Thomond next week.
Johnny McGovern
I like the look of the Leinster winger Kenny . Stood up physically and has a sense of class about him . May be a bit inexperienced positionally at this level but he has Gaz and will only get better . Unfortunately Tector is not a centre ! Slipped off too many tackles . Gunne should have been brought on at half time too. Ritchie Murphy doing a great job up in Ulster clearly. With a bit more composure second half Ulster would have beaten Leinster . McCloskey and Steward had huge games .
Christy O’Connor
The only good thing lately is that we are winning games. However we cannot keep winning ugly and expect to win a trophy playing like this. Some serious damage is being done to the brand/style of Leinster and the longer it goes on the harder it will be to reverse it.
Craig Grehan
Ulster snatched a loss from the jaws of victory. Leinster very lucky.
3 out halves on the pitch throughout the whole game and we looked flat as feck. Ulster were solid, can’t take that from them.
Have we any centres?
Lineout looked sharper thank god.
How is Ryan not getting to grips with ruck entry?
We’ve also learned Harry byrne is in fact the better 10.
Eamon Saunders
I’m fed up at this stage of saying another poor performance but a win ,maybe I’m wrong but good teams win playing poor but a good performance is what we need
Gavin Hegarty
Dire.
Just dire.
How did we go from niling Glasgow and Quinns with huge scores in Europe and winning the URC last year to this type of performance? Confidence seems shit squad wide.
So many little mistakes. Unforced knock ons, losing every high ball, sliced kicks.
Techtor is a great player but was so far off his own pace. Penny was anonymous all game. Sam’s passing seemed to take an age to wind up.
Something needs to happen to salvage this season, we really didn’t deserve a win tonight.
Chris McDonnell
Dreadful kicking especially from mcgrath, pendergasts confidence is shot. Gunne was very good when he came on. Joe is a monster. Soroka was excellent, lowe is not playing well at all. Tectors first bad game. Less and less people are going to pay to see this brand of rugby. Boxkick after boxkick. Its an expensive hobby to watch leinster the least they can do is try to play good rugby
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This week’s wrap pod was probably our shortest ever, so much so that I added a sample of the bonus chat to the end to give it a few extra minutes. I still think myself & Hugo covered the win in Leicester pretty comprehensively, though I think in future I’ll aim to go a bit longer. The pods were pushing an hour last season, which was too much, but I think under 30m is going too far in the other direction. Takes a while to bed in a new system I guess, although I can’t believe this was the THIRTEETH Sunday night recording of the season already – have we really been going for a quarter of a year???
Thorinho doesn’t think he’s the first to discover the format flaws in the comp is he? Fans have been railing on it for years now, as have I been, well, I suppose you could say “defending it” though that’s not quite the case. I think it would be better to say that my problems with it seem to be different to everyone else’s.
I really don’t get the whole fixation with “being easy to qualify for the knockouts” which appears to be the biggest bugbear. While I do agree that 24 teams are too many (especially when the team finishing 3 from bottom of the Premiership gets in) the fact that you can lose one match and still reach the round of 16 isn’t as ridiculous to me as it is to some.
Because should you qualify this way, you will face an away challenge in that Round of 16 to a team that has probably won all their matches, and thus you will either not go any further, or you can produce a headline making result.
The Round of 16 has replaced rounds 5 & 6 of the pool stages under the old method, which to my mind was equally ridiculous and when there were only 8 qualifiers out of 24 or 20, teams selecting weaker sides was still an issue.
Where the problem lies for me is the fact that the competition is scattered throughout the season in blocks. Two matches here, two there, with domestic matches in between, plus of course the massive Six Nations-sized gap where it’s possible for clubs to go into the knockout stages with a very different squad to that which contested the pools.
I have always argued on these pages that rugby tournaments should be played in one block no matter what the format, and what the Northern Hemisphere season does is force coaches to choose between competitions when it comes to selecting their squad, and frankly I can’t blame them when they more often than not prioritize qualification for next year’s Champions Cup over success in this year’s.
To be fair, I would still be in favour of reducing the amount of teams, but I also have sympathy with the EPCR over the small amount of dates available for the pool stages. Since COVID the Premiership & 🔝🐱🐴 seem reluctant to give the two dates back so assuming the Champions Cup absolutely MUST make do with just 4 rounds, my proposed changes would be a reduction to 18 clubs as well as something I can’t believe I’m suggesting.
One of my biggest pet peeves with the rugby blazers has been an over-reliance on copying what football does and expecting it to be as lucrative. Just look what they did to rebrand the Heineken Cup, making it look almost identical to the Champions League with a similar logo and even playing an “anthem” before matches. Most crucially they tried to mimic the sponsorship model in the hope that it would attract multiple sponsors when instead they can barely get one for the main event and can’t seem to get any corporate interest at all in the Challenge Cup.
But for me the one thing from soccer they could borrow is a recent change to a “Swiss model” of pool stage, namely one big league table for all the clubs as opposed to separate pools. This takes away a glitch found last year in a pool which included Bordeaux and Toulouse, as well as one that could possibly happen again in Leinster’s pool along with the Stormers, whereby a team can win all their matches yet still fall outside the top 4 seeds. IMO this is a much more “ridiculous” outcome than one win scraping you into a likely Round of 16 tonking.
There could also be a realignment of prize money making mere qualification for the competition less lucrative and offering more for reaching the final eight, putting more jeopardy on the round of 16 assuming there has to be one.
12 December 2025; Jamison Gibson-Park of Leinster scores his side’s first try during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leicester Tigers and Leinster at Mattioli Woods Welford Road in Leicester, England. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
The more I think on that performance, the more I reckon the 1% is right.
The previous big obvious things (scrum, lineout, discipline) are more or less fixed, certainly improved.
Outside of that we’re getting into the right patterns and areas both sides of the ball, pretty much, but then… it falls apart. The reason differs. Sometimes it’s ruck resourcing. Sometimes it’s ball placement. Sometimes it’s offence or defence position or role confusion. Sometimes it’s accuracy/execution.
None of them feel like they’d be a massive issue to fix by themselves. But they’re all happening in every match like a random failure generator.
It needs fixing, and quick.
Darach Kennedy
An away win in Welford road. I’ll take that. Someone else can try and gather up some negatives.
Greg Kelly
Leinsters poor attack and sloppy execution continues. You wonder what’s really going on. We were the better team overall and they never really looked like scoring in the second half but our attack was woefully sloppy.
Irish rugby should be concerned overall with the loose head situation. Regardless of what happens referees seem to think we are weak there. There were some real garbage calls against McCarthy in the first half but as with Porter there is a perception.
Christy O’Connor
Another poor performance overall with some good individual performances. So many poor passes and spilled balls. At least our lineout was the best I’ve seen in a good while.
Doris needs to be careful moaning at the ref so much, the hit on Conan was a rugby incident and nothing more.
Our defense is not going to be good enough when we come up against better teams
Kevin Kelehan
Very happy that despite conceding two really well taken tries against the run of play the lads kept their belief and upped their work rate. The coming six weeks will make or break Leinster’s season, Ulster, Munster, Connacht, La Rochelle and Bayonne. Great to be heading into that run knowing that when the opportunity for players to go missing, they refused to take it.
Odran John OBrien
Brilliant win away from home but the Leinster attack is simply awful
anyone have Isa’s number? We could all do a whip around to persuade him to come back and coach
Chris McDonnell
If we could only put the straps Robbie henshaw has on his accordion on to a rugby ball, he might not drop the ball as much.
Craig Grehan
Win is a win. Grafted that one out
Tom Fingleton
Look at all the stats from tonight and the try return from the dominance . Tells you all really
Richard Collumb
4 points away, despite playing at times like they only met each other in the dressing room.
Eamon Saunders
Not a great team performance but again some very good individuals
Lorcán Murphy
The good news is they’re getting gritty away wins playing poorly with injury disruption. Can only get better
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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.
As promised last week, the Christmas decorations are now up in the Pagano household, and I have even resorted to AI to festivize the logo for the time of year that’s in it.
Speaking of AI, I’m afraid I have to hang my head in shame when it comes to our latest preview show on YouTube. When I talk of producing content I often joke about having a “Harpin’ Legal Department” or “Harpin’ Graphic Department” assuming most people know my tongue is firmly in my cheek as I type. The reality is that apart from my excellent group of contributors who join me on pods and take part in our WhatsApp group, the different hats are generally worn by my good salf.
Which means I have come to resort to AI more and more for research to save time, and sadly the same ways AI photos often come out with 6 or 7 fingers on each hand, the data I ask for can be wildly inaccurate.
The Preview show follows a specific template each week, and one mini segment involves looking at the other matches in the round of the weekend for the tournament Leinster or Ireland are playing in that weekend. When it’s Champions Cup time, I do try to include all the Irish provinces which means I have to also keep tabs on the Challenge Cup.
So when setting up the graphic for the video, rather than go to the official Challenge Cup site like I should have done, I relied on AI to provide me with the list of games and for some reason I was told Ulster were playing against the Dragons while Connacht were playing the Cheetahs.
Both were totally wrong, their opponents were in fact Cardiff and Black Lion respectively, and it’s way too late to fix it. I only noticed there was egg on my fac when I was researching for my weekly Dublin FM slot and it dawned on me that Connacht couldn’t possibly be playing away from home two weeks in a row.
