14 December 2024; Andrew Porter of Leinster is tackled by Pierre Fouyssac of ASM Clermont Auvergne during the Champions Cup Pool 2 match between Leinster and ASM Clermont Auvergne at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
I can’t actually remember a worse Leinster lineout performance in over 20 years. Some of the handling was also atrocious.
Again, similar to some of Ireland’s performances recently, our players seem to constantly get isolated at the breakdown.
We also appeared to unnecessarily overcomplicate a lot of our handling and passing when being a bit more direct would have been the wiser choice.
Some worrying flaws from Ireland that have seeped into Leinster’s performances.
Kevin Kelehan
Line out is dysfunctional, I know Dan Sheehan is out but without him it has been a disaster, making sure he is fully fit has to be the number 1 objective for Leinster, the throwing today was so bad you’d nearly have JVdF throwing in and Kelliher/McCarthy in for scrummaging and loose play. Fix that problem and there are so many positives from today. The signings of Barrett, Snyman and Slimani are all hits, Sam Prenddergast was outstanding, his tactical kicking, distance to touch off penalties and passing were all really great. Henshaw and Ringrose both superb and Jimmy O’Brien looking close to his best again. A point dropped today but equally 4 points won against a slumbering European giant that was awake today.
Paul Lacey
Will we ever find another Andrew porter. He has to be burnt out .clarkson is playing brilliant rugby. Jvd & Morris need a break..
David Ryle
Scrappy game but a win is a win.
Colette Caddle
An amazing game, two excellent sides but Leinster line outs need a lot of work.
Get in the conversation yourself by leaving
your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle
Sunday evening match meant Monday evening pod recording so everything was pushed back this week, for the third week in a row Ciarán Duffy had to sub in for a late withdrawal and he joined Rich Mifsud going back over Leinster’s win in Bristol.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
TOM VOYCE RIP
MUNSTER MIKE
WELSH SNUB
HOGG WATCH FINALE?
CONSTRAINEDGATE
(CLICKBAIT OF THE WEEK)
HARPIN ON…THE CHAMPIONS CUP’S PRESTIGE
For this week’s bonus chat we wondered if the Champions Cup is losing its prestige. Truth be told I didn’t really say all I wanted to, I forgot to bring up the lack of respect with which the French teams in particular treat the competition when it comes to team selection, and also how the introduction of the South African sides has been far from perfect given the amount of frequent flyer miles they have to put in. But overall I’d say we hit most of the rest of the topic.
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V CLÉRMONT
Barrett, T O’Brien, Ringrose, Henshaw, J O’Brien, Prendergast, Gibson-Park
Porter, Kelleher, Clarkson, J McCarthy, Ryan, Baird, van der Flier, Doris (c)
G McCarthy, Healy, Slimani, Snyman, Conan, McGrath, R Byrne, Turner
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
N/A
INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
N/A
INJURY UPDATE – NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Ciarán Frawley: was withdrawn at half-time against Bristol Bears with a back injury and will require further assessment but is unavailable for selection.
James Lowe: is unavailable for selection after picking up a calf injury and is due for further assessment this week.
Hugo Keenan: is unavailable for selection after picking up a wrist injury and is unavailable for the next few weeks.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Dan Sheehan, Rob Russell, Will Connors, Jamie Osborne and Tadhg Furlong.
RADIO RETURN
All going well I’ll be resuming my radio ‘bit’ on DublinSouth FM right after the 5 o’clock news on Friday, be sure to check it out.
HARPIN’ WRAPPED
We’re all getting our Wrapped summaries so might as well share some of the Harpin’ info…I know they only focus on the positive so let’s just say we won’t be throwing too many bouquets at ourselves but still always good to learn that listenership is increasing and although 39 is an extremely humble number compared to the big content creators, knowing that’s the number of Spotify users who have Harpin as their top listen each week is something to be chuffed about. And the podcast which was most popular is far from a surprise given the way this rugby year has gone.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
Starting to think the Harpin contributors are actively trying to get into this feature and if so who am I to deny them the honour??? This is in reponse to some of the fallout to “Constrainedgate” as I mentioned in the Front 5 video.
Irish Shield
Interprovincial A Championship
All Ireland Leagues
WOMEN’S AIL
MEN’S AIL
SVNS
NEXT ROUND : PERTH JAN 24-26, 2025
CHALLENGE CUP
Premiership
🔝🐱🐴
ProD2
Harpin Prediction League
THIS SEASON THE HPL IS ADDING A NEW KNOCKOUT COMPETITION
CALLED “THE HARPIN MUG”
(BECAUSE THE PRIZE IS AN ACTUAL MUG SO WE COULDN’T CALL IT A ‘CUP’)
THE SEEDINGS ARE DETERMINED BY THE STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 6
AND YOU CAN SEE THE FULL BRACKET BELOW
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Friday – Leinster v Clérmont preview with Keego
Return of Harpin’ Dublin South radio slot after 5pm news
8 December 2024; Jordie Barrett of Leinster during the Champions Cup Round 1 match between Bristol Bears and Leinster at Ashton Gate in Bristol, England. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
First half was poor, but the second half was loads of fun and I especially enjoyed the two tries from Sam ‘Not A Running Threat’ Prendergast
Louis Hoffman
Could a scrum ‘expert’ explain to me, what all that nonsense was about? Was it the refs fault?
Kevin Kelehan
Dreadful ref, his scrum time nearly wrecked the game completely. The bench was ridiculously over strength but thankfully it worked a charm when introduced, a BP on the road is all that history will record in a game of two halves.
Jackie McEachern
Definitely a “game of two halves”. As others have said, our bench obviously made a huge difference. While the reffing was horrible, we showed good composure in the first half when we had two yellow cards to attack and score a try.
Brian Patrick Donnelly
match ruined by inept, pedantic, awful refereeing. We were good for 20 minutes and that was that.
Shane Mcdonald
Just watching it it now at half time but how on gods green earth did the ref linesman tmo miss the very very very obvious hands in the ruck when jvdf nearly got over in the corner
Stevie wonder could have seen that and tv kept showing it over over over 🤦
Greg Kelly
BP away to the 2nd placed team in England is not to be sniffed at. The officiating was poor. We got little change from the officials in the first half but credit to the lads they worked around it well. Not sure how the TMO doesn’t intervene to card Thacker for pulling the ball out of Joshs hands on the goal line in the first half but comes in to reverse a lineout🤷♂️
Get in the conversation yourself by leaving
your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle
LEINSTER :15 Ciaran Frawley 14 Jordan Larmour 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Robbie Henshaw 11 Jimmy O’Brien 10 Sam Prendergast 9 Jamison Gibson-Park
1 Jack Boyle 2 Ronan Kelleher 3 Rabah Slimani 4 Joe McCarthy 5 James Ryan 6 Max Deegan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Jack Conan (c)
16 Gus McCarthy 17 Andrew Porter 18 Tom Clarkson 19 RG Snyman 20 Caelan Doris 21 Luke McGrath 22 Ross Byrne 23 Jordie Barrett
BRISTOL BEARS: 15. Rich Lane 14. Jack Bates 13. Kalaveti Ravouvou 12. Benhard Janse van Rensburg 11. Gabriel Ibitoye 10. AJ MacGinty 9. Harry Randall
1. Ellis Genge 2. Harry Thacker 3. Max Lahiff 4. James Dun 5. Joe Owen 6. Santiago Grondona 7. Fitz Harding (c)8. Viliame Mata
16. Gabriel Oghre 17. Jake Woolmore 18. Lovejoy Chawatama 19. Steven Luatua 20. Benjamin Grondona 21. Kieran Marmion 22. Joe Jenkins 23. Benjamin Elizalde
Double wrap pod weekend meant recordings Sunday and Monday evening, and there was an added wrinkle with a (totally understandable) late withdrawal on the Monday so I was very grateful in particular to Ciarán for stepping in but also to Tom, David & Rich for providing their usual top notch descriptions and insights.
BTW because of the whole “two wrap pod thing”, we decided not to do a bonus chat again, it should be back next week where we plan to harp on whether or not the Champions Cup is losing it’s lustre.
Porter, Kelleher, Slimani, J McCarthy, Snyman, Baird, van der Flier, Doris (c)
G McCarthy, Healy, Slimani, Ryan, Conan, McGrath, Prendergast, Barrett
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Jordan Larmour, Jimmy O’Brien, Lee Barron and Jack Conan: all four players came through the game at the weekend with no issues after returning from injury.
Paddy McCarthy and Tommy O’Brien: both players have returned to full training.
Ryan Baird: has come through the Graduated Return to Play Protocols and is available for selection.
INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
N/A
INJURY UPDATE – NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Will Connors: is unavailable for selection after picking up a hamstring injury at the weekend against Ulster Rugby.
Jamie Osborne: is unavailable for selection after picking up a groin injury during the Autumn Series.
Tadhg Furlong: is unavailable for selection after picking up a hamstring injury during the Autumn Series.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Dan Sheehan and Rob Russell.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
This week more Leinster on Munster trolling, maybe I’m leaning in to this genre a bit too much lately but when it’s this good I can’t help myself! Quality Dadjokery from James.
Irish Shield
Interprovincial A Championship
All Ireland Leagues
WOMEN’S AIL
MEN’S AIL
SVNS
NEXT ROUND
CAPE TOWN
SAT DEC 7
7:22AM WOMEN V SPAIN
9:44AM MEN V SOUTH AFRICA
1PM MEN V ARGENTINA
2:04PM WOMEN V FRANCE
NOTE THE CHANGE IN FORMAT FOR THE CAPE TOWN 7S
INSTEAD OF 3 POOLS OF 4 THERE ARE 4 POOLS OF 3
SO ONLY 2 POOL MATCHES EACH
THEN RANKING SEMIFINALS & FINALS
Premiership
🔝🐱🐴
ProD2
Harpin Prediction League
THIS SEASON THE HPL IS ADDING A NEW KNOCKOUT COMPETITION
CALLED “THE HARPIN MUG”
(BECAUSE THE PRIZE IS AN ACTUAL MUG SO WE COULDN’T CALL IT A ‘CUP’)
THE SEEDINGS ARE DETERMINED BY THE STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 6
I’m not too worried about the attack just yet. It took Catt a bit of time to sort that out when he took up the role so let’s hope Goodman makes improvements by the 6N.
However, our lineout is appalling and this is nothing new. Serious questions to be asked of O’Connell and what he’s doing there.
Big step up for Prendergast today and he’ll learn from it. Suddenly we now have options at 10 post Johnny. Crowley was really up for it when he came on too.
Another issue though seems to be the back row. We seem to get isolated an awful lot at the breakdown and giving away a lot of turnovers. Ruck clearance has definitely gone downhill this year.
Ronan McManus
I’m not sure that Prendergast’s more languid passing style helped us against the Aussie rush defence. They were in among us by the time the ball came into the centre.
Some real flashes of quality from him though.
Sort.out.the.lineout.
Kevin Kelehan
Bench was the difference between the sides, Dan Sheehan will be back once fit and Gus McCarthy should be on the bench, you need to win your own line outs, something that only happened once McCarthy came on. Jack Crowley also showed so much more accuracy and energy in his time, Prendergast just not up to the pace aged 21. Craig Casey also full of energy when introduced. Josh VDF also superb and was Doris as was Big Joe and Porter.
Sean MacDonnchadha
Can’t sweep this under the rug and say a win is a win and move on. That lazy mentality has only ever gotten us to the same QF exit in world cups. Lineout and attack are serious issues and can no longer be ignored – changes needed.
Jackie McEachern
Lineout needs to be sorted. Bench made a big impact (esp Crowley, Casey and McCarthy). Glad we got the win but that could easily have gone the other way.
Get in the conversation yourself by leaving
your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle
29 November 2024; Jordan Larmour of Leinster scores his side’s second try during the United Rugby Championship match between Ulster and Leinster at Kingspan Stadium in Belfast. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
After last year, I’m so happy to get 5 points in Belfast. But it’s frustrating that Byrne’s conversion misses wind up meaning Ulster get the LBP. JOB was great.
Gordy Graham (Ulster fan)
Amazing that Ulster got anything from that game considering the state of our scrum. Both sides had an error strewn first half, both a bit better the second but Leinster, as they often are, were clinical enough to get the win.
Sean MacDonnchadha
Slimani brought in for nights like these. A rock of solidity with the first line front rowers away. Built our win around scrum power 💪🏼 Also great to see Larmour perform so well. A leaders performance by Jack with a great steal at the end to seal the win.
Kevin Kelehan
5 points for Leinster, decent progress report for Ulster who could have been a lot further in front at half time if they converted better
Colin Mcconaghie (Ulster fan)
Hate to criticise officials but that was so poor. Reffed both teams differently
Get in the conversation yourself by leaving
your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 