We’ve recently added a new feature that’s proving relatively popular. As I watch the latest Leinster/Ireland match live, I take meticulous notes on the action in my own shorthand – I had been deleting them each week but this season I started sharing them on Substack for shits and giggles, and a few weeks ago I added the real-time comments of the various Harpin commentators as they reacted to key moments of the match in our WhatsApp group. I thought it best to redact their names, but for this week I got the idea to colour code the redactions so you could at least see patterns in what they are saying.
Below is a sample of how the group reacted to the double blow of Tommy O’Brien getting a yellow card and Ciarán Frawley going off injured…
It’s a lot of extra work but it’s also a fun new addition to my rewatch on Sunday mornings and with the positive response I have gotten I’ll keep it going for the foreseeable.
Thankfully the wrap pod itself was also fun to produce given the result! Hugo as ever did a top notch job going back over the key points, in fact for this match we had to go longer than usual as there was so much to take in.
It’s 2026 and for the Irish women’s senior rugby team, the time to reflect on the amazing gains made in the last World Cup cycle is gone. Now it is time to begin the next one and build on that amazing performance against the French in Bristol.
And naturally it is imperative that we begin that cycle with a convincing victory and I very much back the girls to get the job done.
What’s that? Our Six Nations opener is against World Champions England in London? OK, maybe not “imperative” then, but you get the idea…
Probably the name that jumps out of Bemand’s squad the most is that of Erin King who was of course a very conspicuous absentee from RWC2025 and is already helping the Wolfhounds tear up trees in the Celtic Challenge. And as we watch the Irish sides dominate that competition yet again, it’s clear that once the impressive list of Premiership players are folded in (Aoife Wafer, Brittany Hogan, Cliodhna Moloney-MacDonald, El Perry, Niamh O’Dowd, Grace Moore, Neve Jones, Sam Monaghan and Nancy McGillivray) we’ll have quite the squad.
Even though we have both England and France away this season, I am still very much looking forward to this campaign.
10 January 2026; Harry Byrne of Leinster celebrates after converting an 80th minute penalty to give his side a 25-24 victory during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leinster and La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
🏉 That start & that finish 🏉 More injuries 🏉 More ill discipline 🏉 Breakdown decisions 🏉 Vintage visitors
A super match to attend, havent witnessed that atmos in the aviva in quite some time, but left feeling Leinster’s attack is soulless. Defensively strong but lacking ideas elsewhere. Joshua Kenny is a very exciting prospect, would be super to see him start a 6N game- maybe v Wales so that he doesnt get the same level of pressure overload that appears to be destroying SP (or perhaps SP simply isnt good enough, time will tell)
Eamon Saunders
That was close but great performance from Leinster considering we had so many big names missing
Cormac Mannion
Yet again we score early and then fail to do so for a huge chunk of the match. Gotta admire the grit but our ball presentation going into contact, our breakdown work and our ruck defence are utter garbage at the moment.
Fair play to JJ, he’s really growing into the role and it’s brilliant to see him and TOB burning players with sheer speed.
The third and fourth tries were great to see, pure instinct and well worked through the hands.
Balls of steel for Harry to nail that final kick but quite telling that Sam handed the ball to him.
La Rochelle wil be kicking themselves though. They butchered two certain tries
Conor Cronin
I’ll be doing a rewatch tomorrow before I judge this game completely, but I will say that from my seat it seemed like the ref had more impact on this game than he should have, and our choice to not go for points at 12-0 could’ve returned to catch us out, it would’ve put us 3 scores ahead and had an impact on their attitude to the game. Game management and captain decisions need a little attention for tight games like this
Vincent Duggan
Leinster lucky to get away with this one. La Rochell butchered 3 try attempts. Carley is an international standard ref he pulled Leinster for all the stuff they get away with in the URC, killing the ball a the breakdown and offside in midfield. Prendergast was responsible for two tries because of his inability to defend. Leinster were cut apart in midfield.
Tom Clarke
Given the injuries and then the injuries in the game that was a great win. A lot to work on defensively but the lads showed great fight and resilience.
Andrew Byrne
Looks like our depth at prop is better than we all thought. Fair play to Jerry Cahir off the bench, did a great job when he came on.
Billy Glynn
Two men playing their first H Cup two tries from kenny and brilliant from jerry Cahir AIL to H Cup 👏 great win with a bonus point can’t complain really.
Keith Bruce
Great game, La Rochelle didn’t take their chances and should have overrun Ireland, not looking good for Leinster in the six nations.
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3 January 2026; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster on his way to scoring his side’s fifth try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Connacht at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Huge improvement over previous performances but still quite worrying how we switched off for about 25mins in the first half and allowed Connacht to go 17-14 ahead. Sam really mixed the good with the awful.
The good – some great kicks, passes and tries
The awful – two dreadful turnovers where he got turned over and the poor attempt at a tackle in the second half. Also – the sliced penalty that went dead.
Gotta feel for Connacht, the squad is paper-thin and while they showed flashes of Lancaster at times, they ran out of steam
Damien Mullen
Premier League v Pub League
Chris McDonnell
Good to see passing rugby again. Deeny’s best game by a mile. If Aki is not dropped from the 6 nations squad then Farrell is not watching games.
Darran Kearney
Great overall performance and we did well to steady the ship after a ropey 15 mins. Leo said it post match and opposition will target it to get scoreboard pressure on us and back that we’ll wilter. The tough tight games we are winning now hopefully stand later in the season. Concern is every team looks good attacking against Connacht at the moment. Just can’t see given form this season to date how we’d beat serious contenders for silverware, we all thought the same in 2008/9 though!!. Plenty of road left to go for things to come together. Got to have Harry for the big matches.. Agree with Luke Fitzgerald, no amount of skill can offset the D weakness in Sams game, another 3 or 4 horrors this evening again unfortunately. Still young and will get better but tackling is 99% mindset, the risk is he’ll be another in a long line of extremely talented 10’s who don’t achieve what their talent deserves as coaches can’t risk them.
Cormac Mannion
Can anyone explain why Brace went all the way back from our tryline to the halfway line to blow for the penalty from Connacht’s scrum when he had been playing advantage all that time? I’ve never seen advantage called back to that degree before. Personally I thought it was ridiculous. Connacht made approx 45m with advantage, got turned over on our tryline yet he goes.back for the penalty to them???
Richard Kennedy
Finally, some adventurous rugby. Admittedly it’s easier when the pack is completely on top but we haven’t seen it at all this season so it was refreshing to see it actually happen.
John Curran
Worried for Ireland, both Bundy and Henshaw look well past it, yes I know Robbie wasn’t playing tonight but in recent performance
James Gill
The best flowing rugby leinster played all season and Sam’s passing was outrageous at times nobody can spin it as good as him
Valerie Tumulty
I just want to say, as a Roscommon woman, I love Andrew Porter❤️❤️
Eamon Saunders
Good performance and some great individual performances from the younger lads great win
Lorcán Murphy
More flow in the 2nd half but very worried for Connacht at the same time
Michael Canavan
I would like to say congratulations to the connacht fans , I haven’t seen one negative comment on the game , leinster getting lucky, its the refs fault, and all the usual shit likewise get from another club i won’t mention, so I just like to say i admire connacht for that , thank you connacht and supporters
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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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