EXTRA THOUGHTS

Love this time of year, new season about to begin, full of opportunities to improve on what has gone before.

I had been disappointed for a while that there was no home preseason senior fixture for Leinster this year, and the weekend just gone would have been the perfect window for it, but as it turned out the Irish 7s both women and men did us proud down in South Africa at the Rugby World Cup.

Obviously it was a bit different from normal rugby weekends; normally your team just plays the one match so you an plan other life things around it, but this time it was all about setting reminders on your phone for mad kickoff times like 11:33am, but boy, was it worth it.

And I know the men got the bronze medal and all which was an incredible achievement in its own right, but let’s not forget the women who also finished their campaign with a victory, clinching 7th place with a 26-10 win over England. Both sides very much did us proud and have the ability to push even further down the road.

I’ll keep saying it – we need the World Rugby Sevens circuit to come to Ireland. Doesn’t have to be Dublin, I don’t care if it’s at Malin Head or Mizen, just find a slot on the calendar and give us an awesome day out to finally get to see these legends in the flesh. I’m trying to get a hashtag going on the twitter machine maybe you can help me give it a push…

Followers of our previous “.net” site may remember a daily feature called The Front Five where we shared quotes and links from around the ruggersphere. Now we have reimagined it into a segment on our main show each week which gives us a chance to step out of the Leinster & Ireland bubble on a regular basis.

And if you keep an eye on all of our social media channels you’ll see more of our old features still going, like Rugby on TV and also Eurowatch where we keep tabs on Leinster’s upcoming opposition in the Heineken Cup. As well as our established accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram be sure to follow us on both TikTok and YouTube as well, the plan is to post regular videos there throughout the season.

But the focus of our main show this week is of course Leinster’s squad depth and I have to say both Mark and Tom came brilliantly prepared to go over all of our options so be sure to have a listen.

Also a shout out to the poster on the Babbling Brook Leinster message board who goes by the moniker “mildly interested” as it was their detailed listing of the squad which we used for the show.

Next week it’s all for real folks! Keep an eye out for our Zebre v Leinster preview on Friday, and before that we’ll be have bonus episode for you with a brief look at Connacht’s squad. JLP

FRONT FIVE LINKS

URC plans to bring rugby to Qatar after signing new partnership · The42 – Murray Kinsella

Virimi Vakatawa: French centre not allowed to play in France because of heart condition – BBC Sport

Irish-qualified Oli Jager signs new deal with Crusaders in New Zealand – Pundit Arena  – Eoin Harte

Ireland well beaten by New Zealand in WC 1/4 final (rte.ie)

New Zealand prove too strong for Ireland in Rugby 7s World Cup semi-final – Independent.ie