BORDEAUX BEAT BATH, BILBAO BOUND, BUT BOTH BRILLIANT & BEATABLE
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
TROLL PATROL
COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Super Rugby)
NEXT HARPIN’
WRAP OF A WRAP
My cough which has haunted me for the past few weeks seems to have mostly gone, at least when I’m recording podcasts which is the main thing. Both preview & wrap recordings went well, although when I met some friends in the pub after the match on Saturday it seemed to be back. “There’s a bug going round” as the saying goes so I won’t look for too much sympathy. Anyway Tom Coleman was on for the wrap pod offering his usual superb technical analysis from a coaches’ standpoint. On WhatsApp during the match he said we had the beating of him, even when we were in card trouble, and he was right. Just. But still right. Click here if you missed it.
RANDLE SCANDAL HANDLED
One step forward, two steps back. That’s the way this season has panned out for Munster.
Always the right option IMO. I know many are dwelling on how “accusations like this made against a young man can stay with you for your entire life”, and this is true, but I might push back by saying “sexual assault can stay with a young woman for the rest of her life too”. If we are to constantly bring up that the legal case was dropped and he denies it all, we must also bring up that the victim has not publicly withdrawn the allegations.
But from a purely rugby standpoint, this story is about Munster who most certainly did not need this matter at all and I don’t know what they were thinking trying to pursue it. Was the agreed approach “ah, sure, it’ll be grand”???
Anyway. The matter has been dealt with and they have to try and salvage something from their season. Results have improved it’s true but concern over a Tadhg Beirne injury looms large. As the URC table stands right now there would be a Leinster/Munster quarterfinal which maybe, just MAYBE, will cause a bit of hype…
It was an unusual weekend for content producing here at Harpin Manor – first, I was unavailable Friday to record the preview with Keego once the team was named so we did a “drop-in” version where he recorded his bit and I added mine but the video wasn’t ready until Saturday morning.
Then a family event on Saturday evening meant I had to miss both the Leinster and Ireland women’s matches. I did a reasonable job avoiding the Leinster score until the Sunday morning, I did catch a glimpse of a scoreline where the boys in blue were leading 14-5 but didn’t know what stage of the match that was. Turns out it was just before halftime and I let out an almighty roar of frustration when we shipped that needless penalty right at the death.
Anyway, whatever the outcome it was great to have Jay Long back on the pod to mull it over, click here if you missed it.
CLOSING THE GAP
There is still a gap between these two sides. Albeit it has shrunk to the point that this is now a proper rivalry.
Friend of the pod Nathan hits the bullseye with this account of Ireland’s defeat in Clérmont on Saturday evening. Continuously losing to both England and France does not necessarily mean the squad isn’t improving. You could argue that at this stage a lot of the difference between the sides was down to Irish lack of accuracy as opposed to actually not being good enough. Like I said earlier I didn’t get to watch this match live but I did switch over for a couple of minutes towards the end of the first half and Ireland had a penalty which Dannah O’Brien tried to put to touch in the corner but it ended up going dead. A couple of plays later the French were back down the other end of the pitch scoring. Fix that, improve the depth and we can definitely close the gap even further and I’d definitely have faith in the squad to do just that.
The cough I had last week is still hanging around which meant for more challenging editing but thankfully my latest guest Rich Mifsud wasn’t put off as he offered a great analysis of Leinster’s win over Ulster, a result particularly satisfying as a running joke in our WhatsApp group had been that Leinster tended to lose whenever he was on, and this particular week it felt like that trend would return. If you missed the latest pod you’ll find it here.
You may notice a theme of sorts among this week’s Front Five, namely that of women, and not just in terms of them playing rugby.
THE RANDLE SCANDAL
“I’ve known Roger for a long time. I think he’s an outstanding human, well-loved by family and people that have worked alongside him for a long period of time.”
We’ve been down this road before when it comes to rugby players accused of abuse, and each case has its own context that deserves to be considered separately. But in this instance, I genuinely cannot understand how this appointment could be seen as a good fit for Munster in any way, shape, or form.
The appointment has reignited scrutiny of a 1997 rape allegation made while Randle was with the Hurricanes in Durban. The charge was withdrawn when the complainant declined to proceed, but she maintained her allegation, and the incident has resurfaced repeatedly. Randle has always denied the accusation, yet its re‑emergence has prompted backlash from supporters and even resignations from members of Munster’s Professional Game Board.
Given that the incident dates back to 1997 and we are relying on archived reporting and second‑hand summaries, we should be careful about the conclusions we draw. But one thing is clear: the line that “there has been no conviction” does not end the discussion — not even close. It is entirely plausible that the case was withdrawn because the complainant felt her evidence wouldn’t secure a conviction, which is very different from proof of innocence.
This brings us to the core question for a platform like Harpin’ On Rugby: is this a worthwhile appointment from a PR standpoint for Munster Rugby? I would argue no — even without the difficulties they’ve faced on and off the pitch this season, and certainly not with them.
To my eye, the whole thing reeks of a kind of internal conspiracy: everyone involved must have known the appointment would be controversial, which means they needed a rhetorical strategy to present it to the public. And although this is a hot take, I suspect part of that strategy was timing the announcement after Munster’s visit to Durban — the location of the alleged incident — in March.
And honestly, if you find yourself needing to “close ranks” with public statements like McMillan’s above in order to justify hiring someone with a chequered past, then the answer should already be no.
This leads me to believe McMillan may have issued an ultimatum along the lines of “he joins us or I leave.” Even if that were true — and again, this is speculation — I would still argue that the net benefit to Munster would be for Randle not to come. And even if you dismiss that theory entirely, there are still multiple other plausible scenarios that raise the same red flags.
The fact that individuals within Munster Rugby were reportedly willing to resign over this suggests they may know more about the case than the public does. Overall, it’s a horrible situation that doesn’t belong in the Irish rugby story — especially given how similar cases have been handled in the past. Others have been forced to leave these shores (and I agreed with those decisions), so surely the only consistent resolution here is to reverse the appointment.
Anyone who knows me will tell you it gives me no pleasure to see this happening at Munster, or indeed anything that has happened there this season. We’ve said repeatedly on our podcasts that we want four strong provinces. And if the opinion of a Leinster fan isn’t enough, there’s an interesting thread among Munster supporters on BlueSky — mainly contrasting views from Three Red Kings and IWRSC. Below is a sample but click here for the whole thing.
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.”
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.
Since we cut from two guests on the wrap pods to one, having the same guest two out of three weeks has been a rarity but that’s how things turned out for the Cardiff pod and since Conor Cronin also chipped in to the 500th episode it means he earned three caps in as many weeks which I doubt has ever happened.
Unfortunately that one dull fact is more interesting than anything that actually happened in the URC match at Cardiff Arms Park but still Conor did a great job analysing what went wrong; I reckon it’s worth a listen if you missed it, click here to do so.
RUGBY’S ASHES
An “identical exhibition trophy” is set to be used for the remainder of the championship
Not really a crazy story I suppose, fires happen, but I have to say I’m intrigued by the article simply saying “The fire, reported to have taken place in Ireland, led to no injuries…”.
Eh, maybe since you’re the Irish national broadcaster you might want to follow up on that? Where in Ireland? How did the fire start? To be fair if those details WERE in the article I probably wouldn’t pay them much mind, but they are still conspicuous by their absence and it leaves me an itch that needs scratching.
Plus all the talk of a new trophy being “forged” gave our WhatsApp group the perfect opportunity to run a host of Tolkien themed memes…
Our newest contributor is Hugo Gordon, and our schedule worked out in such a way that he had arguably the two “cushiest” assignments for an Irish podster in the opening three weeks of the 2026 Six Nations – first previewing the French game, when there was still even a smidge of hope for an upset away win, and finally wrapping the England game, when Ireland actually got one.
It goes without saying that this pod in particular was a pleasure to record, especially since we could spend the first portion reversing the mood from the previous week when we panned our attack plan, such as it was.
The whole point of this 80+ column is meant to be to turn the spotlight on anything BUT the Leinster & Ireland men’s rugby teams, but after that performance in Twickenham I think it would be rude not to bring it up a few times anyway. Besides, I do get away with it on a technicality in that the three Front 5 articles devoted to it involved reactions from non-Irish sources.
First up is Mike Tindall – look, while this stance may positively reek of sour grapes it is probably one that a lot of English fans will take when summarising the match. Plus it’s true, Borthwick’s men were below par and we did explore this on our wrap pod, it was definitely a factor.
But Ireland were pretty low on confidence too and there was no guarantee that we could take full advantage of England’s shortcomings, so to say we “did nothing to win” is disingenuous to say the very least.
And then of course there’s this – given his royal family connections….does Tindall really think he needs to be the poster-child for such a gaslighting opinion? REALLY? At THIS particular time? Baffling. I’ll leave it there.
As you’ll see a bit down the page, this ‘Thursday Six Nations kickoff’ malarkey is really grinding my gears, not least because it messes up my content schedule. Our preview will record Wednesday evening so I will post this late on Tuesday.
When it comes to the Edinburgh wrap, I was joined by Mr Leinster Royalty himself Tom Coleman who gave an excellent account of the match as well as an overview of Leinster’s season as you’ll see in the bonus chat. We began by focusing on Leinster’s NIQ players. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one cursing RG Snyman during the match on Saturday for overdoing the funky offloads but Tom did a decent job of providing counter point with all the good he’s done, as well as looking at Reiko & Rabah.
…had far to go. And I’ll tell you what, you’d have to go pretty far to convince me that any of the reasons given for bringing this match forward to a goddam Thursday make any sense.
I mean, forgive me for not keeping up on the latest bobsledding and luge news but when this day switch was first announced, and I heard it was to do with the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics, I thought that meant the games were IN France. But they’re not. They’re actually in Italy. So why isn’t it their game with Scotland that gets moved instead of ours????
I mean, going by this article it seems that a weekly ProD2 fixture plus several World Cup matches under a very flawed format somehow makes this marquee matchup going to midweek understandable. Excusez‑moi, mesdames et messieurs, but it doesn’t.
Hey there, welcome to our latest 80+ column, where my goal is to harp on anything but Leinster & Ireland rugby and, well, I almost get there each week. Almost.
The wrap pod on Sunday featured Leinster’s biggest fan in Gibraltar, Rich Mifsud, who offered his thoughts on the win over Bayonne, ICYMI you can find it here.
It was officially Harpin’ pod number 490 which means a big milestone is on the horizon and if the numbers followed their usual progress then 500 would have been the wrap pod for England v Ireland in the Six Nations so instead to mark the occasion we have a special episode planned, more info on it closer to the time.
For now it’s time to kick off the column with Front Five, a feature I started on the old blog back in 2014. In those days I’d actually choose five articles to post every day to both keep the content flowing and to keep myself up to date on what’s happening in the ruggersphere. These days with podcasts and videos and such to work on, once a week is plenty.
FORMAT TWEAKS
…there is collective support from coaches and clubs to commence their campaigns before the packed November Test window.
Since this current format was introduced I have always been torn on my opinion, certainly not with what seems to be the majority. The elements that appear to annoy most people never really bothered me, like “How can you win just one game and still make the knockouts?” (you might make the knockouts but you’ll be away to a team that probably won all their matches) and “bring back the pools of four” (had plenty of flaws of its own like dead rubbers in January). Still, I wouldn’t be delighted with the current status quo, like “how the hell can a team finishing 3rd from bottom of the Premiership earn a shot at being champions?” so it’s not like I’d be a staunch defender.
This article seems to suggest that for the most part the current four pools of six with four matches each seems to be set in stone until 2030. That only annoys me because it means four more seasons of format nay-saying online if I’m honest. But as you can see by the quote, there is talk of perhaps playing matches at different times of the year, with one, possibly even two matches in October, plus a gap between the Round of 16 and the Quarterfinal.
I kind of like those ideas, in fact I’d suggest putting the Round of 16 BEFORE the Six Nations; imagine if that Champions Cup bracket was taking place this coming weekend? Anyway – we’ll see what they end up doing. I’m sure the collective ruggersphere will be delighted with the decision regardless…
OH BTW…here’s one other thing I definitely would change, this popped into my inbox Wednesday morning…
I don’t care what marketing jargon you might throw at me to explain why they have done this, I can’t see the logic in announcing nominees for POTY when the Y is only 3 weeks old. Makes about as much sense as a certain someone expecting to get a peace prize.
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.
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…
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 