Category: 80+ column

80+ column : Boo to booing the booing

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

WRAP OF A WRAP

Another Leinster win to harp on this week, naturally I’m tempted to put it all down to my new pod format but I guess I’ll go with the general impression that the lads have not only a winning mentality but we’re also learning how to face up to adversity within a match to dig deep and be ahead by the final whistle.   As ever Keego and Rich did an excellent job summarizing the match.

One thing I didn’t mention on the pod was that I was reminded of an Ospreys v Leinster clash from 2012 when arguably the league’s most organic rivalry was at it’s closest, on this occasion rather than go 10-0 down we actually led by that score ourselves in the early stages and I vividly recall us winning a penalty in their half only for Leo Auva’a to take a quick tap only to lose it shortly afterwards.  

We weren’t to score again in a 19-10 defeat and I was furious in my writeup which was unusual because even during the lean Matt O’Connor years I would do my best to find some kind of a positive.  Anyway as we know the Ospreys went on to have a much longer “lean spell” themselves although there have been signs lately that they are at least on their way back and it would be great to see them and indeed other Welsh regions breaking into the top 8 of the URC.

If you missed the pod, check it out here or on most major platforms.

HARPIN’ ON…KEEPING IRISH PLAYERS

This week’s extended chat on the Sunday pod recording was about the Ben Healy move to Edinburgh/Scotland, Rich gave his views for the main show but myself and Keego joined the discussion for the YouTube clip you see below.

To summarize my own view, yes of course it would be better to keep all Irish players on Irish shores all the time, but we can’t consider it a failure every time one leaves because we can’t expect as many as 6, 7 or 8 players in a particular position, especially one like out-half, to all stick around hoping for a test call up when there is an alternative out there.  

If you’re playing the clip above maybe pop over and subscribe to the channel too?  That’s where we post our Preview Show as well as other content throughout the week.

BOO TO BOOING THE BOOING

On the pod I mentioned a conversion attempt by Ross Byrne where he not only had to contend with the conditions, the referee complying with the stricter new timing laws and also the pressure of extending our lead to 8 points, but also the loud booing of many in the home crowd.

We never like to hear this kind of behaviour from fans, and we’ve been guilty of it ourselves here in Ireland, I’m remembering a Dan Parks conversion for Scotland at Croke Park in particular.  But actually for this particular point I actually want to focus on something different, namely pigeon-holing entire groups of fans.

I’ve seen a lot of comments on social media saying how that booing is somehow typical of what you’d get from “Welsh fans” and I have to say that is absolute bollocks.  I don’t like it when I see people take abuse from Leinster fans and tar us all with the same brush so I’m certainly not going to be happy when I see our fans doing it to others.

There is for sure a distinct group of Twitter accounts which we call “WRT” or “Welsh Rugby Twitter” and that’s fine as a collective (that tends to say everything is the URCs fault, reckons the Premiership is some kind of promised land, etc, etc) but I can absolutely guarantee that the vast vast majority of actual Welsh rugby fans are genuine every bit as much as Leinster, Ireland or any other nationality.

For me, failing to distinguish between groups within fan bases is just as much responsible for the toxic sludge we tend to see on social media as the trolling comments themselves.

Ignore.  Mute.  Block.   Report.  Whichever seems appropriate.   Sharing and generalising only ensures it will continue IMO.

TIK TOK POTM

Disagreeing with the Player of the Match selection is becoming a feature in this column, although I do understand why the Welsh broadcaster would tend to go with a home team player and it is true that Kieran Williams did have a fine outing against Leinster (dropped ball just before hearing his name being called out notwithstanding) but I reckon Jack Conan was definitely in with a shout for the gong as well and as you can see below, Rich concurred.

@harpinonrugby

Our Ospreys v Leinster wrap pod is now available at http://www.anchor.fm/HarpinOnRugby as well as most major platforms

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com

WOMEN’S INTERPROS

I always say it, but I’ll still say it again.  I would LOVE to have the time to give the Leinster women’s team exactly the same coverage as I do the men’s, but it’s just not possible for the time being so we will try to feature them as much as we can, and they opened their Interpro campaign at the weekend with a convincing enough victory over Connacht at Energia Park, although the score remained 0-0 for a long period in the first half.

Many many thanks for Conor Cronin for providing a report of his experience on the day, it was included in the pod but I have also shared the piece here ICYMI.

Next up it’s Munster at lunchtime on Saturday, and with them also having had a BP victory in round 1, this could be a tournament decider so definitely worth checking out on TG4.

INJURY REPORT

Our worst fears about Charlie Ngatai were realised after he was taken off at halftime in Swansea, hopefully he will be back soon.  However despite Robbie also being out I see no drop in our talent with Jamie Osborne stepping in at Kingsholm on Saturday, here is a lineup they may go with…

15. Keenan 14. J O’Brien 13. Ringrose [c] 12. Osborne 11. Lowe 10. R Byrne 9. Gibson-Park

1. Porter 2. Sheehan 3. Alaalatoa 4. Ryan 5. Molony 6. Baird 7. van der Flier 8. Doris

16. Kelleher 17. Milne 18. Healy 19. Joe McCarthy 20. Conan 21. Foley 22. H. Byrne 23. Larmour

…obviously there are one or two tight calls, Dan Sheehan has had a lot of gametime this season including an extra shift in Swansea when John McKee was forced off, so it’s very possible that Kelleher would start instead.  Also Jimmy O’Brien/Jordan Larmour are very interchangeable.

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Will Connors: will again look to step up his rehabilitation programme from a bicep injury

Thomas Clarkson: will step up his rehabilitation this week from an arm injury

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Johnny Sexton: suffered a cheekbone injury against Connacht Rugby and had a procedure last week and will be unavailable for the Gloucester game and will be further assessed next week but is expected to be back ahead of the Six Nations

Tadhg Furlong: has recovered from his ankle injury but had a minor setback last week in training with an unrelated calf injury and will be unavailable for selection this week as a result but is expected to be back ahead of the Six Nations

Charlie Ngatai: suffered a hamstring injury in the game against Ospreys and will be unavailable this week

There are no further updates on:

Luke McGrath (ankle), Max Deegan (ankle), Ed Byrne (knee), Jason Jenkins (hamstring), Robbie Henshaw (wrist), Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

Over in English football last weekend they have the 3rd round of the FA Cup where a drawn match means the teams have to meet again in a replay after a week or so.  The reason I mention that is that the AIL men’s Div 1A had something similar as Dublin University and Cork Con played out a dramatic 35-35 draw at College Park in their rearranged round 9 fixture, with the three points keeping them in 3rd and 4th respectively although still inching them closer to the top two. And technically there is to be a replay of sorts, as this weekend’s Round 10 pits them together again, this time at Temple Hill.

Meanwhile at the other end of the table Ballynahinch put some distance between themselves and the relegation zone with a bonus point win over UCD, although the students also benefited getting a try and losing bonuses themselves to move up two places, and they also face a rematch in round 10.

The rest of the action this weekend sees leaders Terenure hoping to return to winning ways, getting another chance to beat Young Munster on their home patch at Lakelands.  Clontarf, also in the top four, travel to Dooradoyle to play bottom of the table Garryowen while Shannon and Lansdowne square off each hoping to stay out of the bottom two.

Men’s AIL

Ballynahinch 31-25 UCD

Dublin University 35-35 Cork Con

Sat Jan 14

Garryowen v Clontarf

Cork Con v Dublin University

Shannon v Lansdowne

Terenure v Young Munster

UCD v Ballynahinch

HARPIN’ PREDICTION LEAGUE

Not only is Kino really starting to pull away at the top of the HPL but I’m also now anxiously looking over my shoulder at Messrs Coleman & Jackson behind me.  Although having had to wear the Jersey of Shame for my wooden spoon last season, I wouldn’t really mind slipping a spot or two once Keego stays where he is!

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Back into European action we go, with Kingsholm the destination and we will of course be giving it the usual Harpin treatment with Keego joining me for our preview on Friday, the wrap pod recorded on Sunday evening with the help of Mark Jackson & Conor Cronin, and all of our other usual features in between.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : That song, The Marler Line, Women’s Interpros

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

WRAP OF A WRAP

It was a near perfect start to 2023 in every sense for this Leinster fan when it came to my RDS experience.  

First there was the actual journey to Ballsbridge; normally at this time of year the bus doubles as what I call “The Funderland Express” on which I’ve been forced in the past to sit upstairs with dozens of 10-14 year olds passing around naggins and spliffs for over half an hour.  This time while the numbers of youth were about the same as always, their behaviour was not, thankfully.  They were mostly silent looking at their phones.

Then we had the match itself, which Tom & Conor did a perfect job helping me wrap on the latest pod, and as a fan I can’t have too many complaints about a bonus point win that wasn’t always a one-sided affair, the obvious wrinkle of course being the injury to Johnny Sexton, more on that to come later in the column.

Last but certainly not least there was my journey home; generally I leave the ground anxious to get my bus home as often I can be left waiting for up to an hour but this time I was at the stop just a few minutes before it arrived so like I say it was a near perfect night all round.

If you missed the pod, check it out here or on most major platforms.

HARPIN’ ON…THE CHEEK OF SEXTON

Predictably there was a lot of reaction to the incident which resulted in Johnny Sexton’s injury, a lot of it maybe a bit OTT from certain quarters but I’ll touch on that a bit more in the next segment – for now here’s this week’s extended YouTube clip taken from the podcast where I reckon we provide an honest take on both Sexton’s collision itself and how it probably should have been dealt with by the officials, as well as comparing it to the Jack Carty sanction which came just before it.

If you’re playing the clip above maybe pop over and subscribe to the channel too?  That’s where we post our Preview Show as well as other content throughout the week.

GOING FOR A SONG

I mentioned earlier about rushing from the RDS to get my bus, and when I’m travelling on my own I generally play music on my headphones so when I say I didn’t hear the controversial song played after the match, I mean it as truth and not in the “Karl Dickson says he didn’t hear anything” sense.

My view on the matter itself is simple.  It should not have been played, there are literally thousands of other songs that would have worked that don’t even have a hint of controversy about them, but IMO we should take at face value Leinster Rugby’s statement (which was issued while I was still on that bus home btw so they dealt with it fast) which implied that it was done without the knowledge of senior management.  All of which means the matter itself should be done.

But is it?  Of course not.  We live in a social media age where everyone is looking for attention so it was inevitable that this was going to be dragged through a couple of news cycles.  

To be fair, in some cases I agree the continued discussion was warranted, especially when it comes to a comparison between the reaction to this and what happened when the Irish women’s soccer team was filmed singing after qualifying for the World Cup finals.  No questioning the disparity here, that’s for sure.

But there was much indignation from other angles too, and one which really got me was a suggestion that Leinster were getting a “pass” that would have been denied to other provinces.  For me this was drifting towards something we were talking about on the pod in pre-season, namely the “ABL Narrative”, which I define as a groupthink within the Irish rugby discourse that essentially looks for ways, if not to actually demonize Leinster itself, to at least diminish the province’s success by suggesting there is a prevailing favouritism from media and blazers alike. The same mindset was often applied to the non-call of Sexton’s challenge.

Again…was this a mistake? Yes.  Do we need a long drawn out debate about the songs themselves?  No.  Should a statement acknowledging the mistake be sufficient to put it all to bed no matter what the province, sport or gender involved?  Absolutely.

TIK TOK POTM

On last week’s column I disagreed with Scott Penny being named Player of the Match, thinking it should have been Dan Sheehan.  Again I’ll point out I don’t share that opinion because I’m against the former player, nor because I’m biased towards the latter, it’s just how I felt about that particular 80 minutes.

Well the same kind of happened in the Connacht match, although when Larmour got his second try I was pretty sure he’d get the award even though it was early in the second half.  However over the 80 minutes I am pretty much in agreement with Tom in this clip…

@harpinonrugby

A clip from our #LEIvCON wrap pod available now at anchor.fm/harpinonrugby and most major platforms

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com

THE MARLER LINE

I harped on this in last week’s column, but the incident was always going to bleed into this one given there has been a ruling on it since.  Again we had pretty much full agreement on the pod that two weeks was a ridiculously low sanction, and the most annoying element to all of this has been the reaction which comes from a place of “FFS it’s a man’s game, things are said on the pitch, let them play”.

Yeah, about that.  For one thing, that narrative suggests it was Heenan that had the problem, when in actual fact the whole thing escalated when Marler was responding to something said to him.  All of which means that while of course there will be an element of “sledging” in pretty much every team sport, there surely has to be a line drawn and officials need to know where that is.

Now while I appreciate that finding the right words to effectively define “wrong” words is far from easy, and I’m glad I’m not being paid to find them.  But the fact is, those running the game ARE being paid, so they need to crack on with it.

When it comes to Marler’s punishment, I couldn’t understand why saw any mitigation at ll given he has been done for this before.  The previous incident involving Samson Lee wasn’t even mentioned in the report that I could see.

Maybe if and when the officials do find a way to define “the line”, we can name it after Joe and let the effect on his legacy be the punishment since he seems comfortable with having this reputation?  Just a thought.

WOMEN’S INTERPROS

The Women’s Interpros kick off this weekend, including Leinster’s only home match of the campaign against Connacht at Energia Park.

Personally I’d prefer it if the competition could be a full six rounds with everyone playing each other home and away, but I do appreciate that while the women’s game does need to progress it has to be measured until they reach full professionalism and besides, there are already extra matches to the schedule what with the new Celtic Nations competition which will take place before the Six Nations kicks off at the end of March.

As for the Leinster squad it’s exciting to see the first competitive squad being named by new head coach Tania Rosser and I look forward to watching her side compete over the coming weeks.  The full competition is getting live broadcast coverage courtesy of TG4 and BBC NI.

Saturday, 7 January 2023 – Round One

Leinster v Connacht, Energia Park, 2.30pm (TG4) 

Munster v Ulster Musgrave Park, 4.45pm (TG4)

Saturday, 14 January 2023 – Round Two

Munster v Leinster, Musgrave Park, 12:15pm (TG4)

Ulster v Connacht, Kingspan Stadium, 2.30pm (BBC NI)

Saturday, 21 January 2023 – Round Three

Connacht v Munster, The Sportsground, 1.00pm (TG4)

Ulster v Leinster, Queen’s University Upper Malone, 5.30pm (BBC NI)

BEN HEALY

News of Ben Healy’s move to Edinburgh with a view to qualifying for Scotland is just coming through as this is posting so I’ll just add my initial thoughts…it has been expected for a long time so it’s no great surprise.  What is interesting is that they announce it right after he produces a match-winning seven points at the Kingspan!  Also there are rumblings that Ulster’s John Cooney could be making a similar move.

Overall it’s hard to blame players for taking advantage of the change in “second nation” rules, in fact it’s good to see more options available.  Is it a “mistake” on the part of Munster & the IRFU to let them go?  I’m not so sure, but that is in no way a reflection on Healy himself or indeed any player.   

When it comes to province and country, we have to make decisions on pecking order in every position and if those who find themselves fourth or lower have an opportunity to go elsewhere, they should be free to take it.  And we should wish them all the best, so much so that even if they succeed in their new role it should be celebrated rather than used as “proof” that the initial decision to let them go was wrong.

Obviously the ideal scenario is to have all Irish players at the provinces all the time but for several different reasons, one big one being simple maths, that’s just not possible. There will always be opportunities outside our “bubble” and that’s just how the world works.

INJURY REPORT

We were all waiting on reports on Sexton’s cheekbone but the text doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know apart from the date of the “procedure”.  A trusted source passed on this message over WhatsApp… 

[“A mate of mine who is a maxillofacial surgeon looked at that photo and said it’s probable he’s broken’s his zygomatic arch and would say 4 to 6 weeks recovery if that’s what has actually happened!“]

…BUT do please appreciate that the above is at best second hand information and we can only go by official releases by the province & IRFU.

Elsewhere I’m hoping that both Furlong & Connors will be available for selection soon and when it comes to next weekend’s trip to Swansea I reckon we could be looking at a fair amount of cotton wool in our selection with a starting XV of something like this…

Cosgrave, Russell, Turner, Osborne, Kearney, H Byrne, Foley.

Milne, McKee, Ala’alatoa, Deeny, J McCarthy, Soroka, Penny, Ruddock

Still a decent squad in fairness although the Ospreys do seem to be on a decent run of late which could make it an interesting contest.

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Tadhg Furlong & Will Connors: will again look to step up their rehabilitation programmes from ankle and bicep injuries respectively

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Johnny Sexton: suffered a cheek bone injury during the game against Connacht Rugby and will have a procedure today and will be further assessed then

Luke McGrath: will be unavailable for selection for the Ospreys game after picking up an ankle injury

Max Deegan: will be unavailable for selection for the Ospreys game after picking up an ankle injury

There are no further updates on:

Thomas Clarkson (arm), Ed Byrne (knee), Jason Jenkins (hamstring), Robbie Henshaw (wrist), Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

Club season is over for the women while the men are only at the halfway stage and Division 1A has two big rescheduled matches this weekend taking place at either end of the table.

Dublin University and Cork Con both have 29pts lying 3rd and 4th respectively and they go head to head at College Park, with a familiar name holding the whistle in George Clancy. 

Meanwhile as Garryowen look like they need a miracle to avoid relegation 9 defeats from 9 to start the season, there’s some congestion above them for the other spot including Ballynahinch and UCD who meet at Ballymacarn Park.

Men’s AIL

Sat Jan 7

Ballynahinch v UCD

Dublin University v Cork Con

HARPIN’ PREDICTION LEAGUE

I made up a bit of ground on Kino this week in a round where there were more unexpected results than usual.  Tom got the Yellow Cap while Keego, well, I really don’t think there’s any coming back from there.

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

We play Those Pesky Birds next, and as I suggested in the Injury Report section they might fancy themselves to nick this one so we’ll be talking about that in our Harpin Preview on Friday when I’ll be joined by Ciarán Duffy, with the wrap pod being recorded on Sunday evening, with of course all of our other usual features in between.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Rule changes, Twitter trolls & Counting to 4

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone  

WRAP OF A WRAP

Hard to believe this week’s wrap pod is the 19th under the new format, and it was good to have Ciarán Duffy back on along of course with Mark Jackson to talk about St Stephen’s Night’s victory down in Thomond Park.

If you missed it, check it out here or on most major platforms.

HARPIN’ OFF… 

With the week that’s in it I’m leaving out a few of the website’s regular features, including YouTube & TikTok clips from the wrap pod.  Back to “normal” next week all going well.

PENNY FOR MY THOUGHTS ON POTM

I hope it’s obvious that when I disagree with a Player of the Match selection it doesn’t mean I have anything against the winner of the award.  Scott Penny got the gong from the TG4 commentary team at Thomond Park while I felt it should have gone to Dan Sheehan.  It’s a simple point and since I write this column every week I might as well bring it up but I certainly don’t do it to put anyone down.

I CAN’T COUNT

Maybe one of the reasons I don’t want to produce too much extra content from the wrap pod is that I made a major howler in the recording that I’d rather forget!  Although I will offer full disclosure here as it involves an issue I’m interested in… 

As I watched the game live, let’s just say, I had been enjoying “the Christmas spirit” a bit too much which, let’s also just say, “clouded my judgement” a tad.  One thing I misjudged was the amount of tries Leinster had scored, and in that final sequence as we were attacking the Munster line I was really hoping we’d go for it because I thought it would give us a fourth try and a BP.

Then my thoughts went on to the BP system itself, and how we’ve been saying on the pod this season that the “4 try” method used in URC, Prem, 6N & RWC isn’t as fair as the “3 tries more” one used in Super Rugby & the 🔝🐱🐴.  This led me to form the “harpin’ point” that if we had gotten the try it would actually prove the 4-try way needs to be scrapped as it wouldn’t have been right that this particular match could possibly end in a 5-0 split of match points to the visitors.

Now that’s all well & good when I had a few beers on me (ok, maybe more than a few) but somehow my brain held on to the harpin’ point for 24 hours and I brought it up on the pod only for Mark to rightly explain that we had in fact only scored the two tries so the point was as moot as moot could be.

So as you can imagine that clip didn’t survive the editing process, however I still think the bonus point system needs to switch to the “3-tries” method.

ASSHOLES ARE ASSHOLES 

I am so, so, sick of this sequence and would love for it to be broken.  Sadly it usually comes to my attention most whenever Leinster play Munster 

  1. Thing happens in rugby match
  2. A few people claiming to be “fans” of one team get abusive on social media towards fans of the other
  3. A few of those fans on the receiving end then expose the abuse, making it look like this is what fans of that team are like
  4. A long exchange ensues which many blame entirely on “rugby twitter”

To be absolutely clear, the 2nd stage of the sequence is the worst by far.  Obviously.  All forms of insults, abuse and bullying are wrong wherever they are found and need to be called out.

But someone also needs to push back on stages 3 and 4.

No, this is NOT what fans of that team are like in general.

No, this is NOT what fans of rugby are like in general.

And no, this is NOT even what Twitter itself is like in general.

IMO people who are capable of this behaviour don’t need to follow any particular team, follow any particular sport, or even use one or another particular platform.

When it comes to these exchanges, we need to make sure 100% of the negative attention goes on these instigators, yet when we respond by tying them to decent people who follow the same team, or same sport, or use the same platform, I reckon we siphon off some of that negativity for ourselves.

Call out the assholes as assholes by all means.  But we must also be sure to separate them from the decent people who just want to have a conversation.  And most of all, mute/block them.  It may be a vicious cycle the way things are now, but I believe it is one we have the power to stop.  

It might be a worn out cliché by this stage, but “haters gonna hate” is as true as it is concise.  

JOE MARLER

Speaking of assholes, Joe Marler.  

And actually he seems to be getting positive attention on social media because he apologised for what he is reported to have said to Jake Heenan on the rugby pitch.

Eh, no.  He’s got form.  He’s certainly no hero for apologising, that is the bare minimum of what he should have done.  Maybe, just maybe if he can go a whole calendar year without it happening again we can celebrate that, but in my book he has ruled himself out of any praise until then at the very very least.

RULE CHANGES

This week’s column has already gone longer than I intended, with this point being the only one I originally intended to harp on.

Obviously I want to see rugby take measures to speed things up, yet I still feel somebody needs to push back a little against this introduction of rule changes, because I definitely have concerns.

First of all, while I know the rugby calendar is different all over the world, to make significant changes right smack in the middle of the European season goes against pretty much everything I believe is fair for a sporting competition.  I shouldn’t have to spell out reasons for why a tournament shouldn’t change its rules halfway through.

Plus there’s the added factor that we’re making changes just before a World Cup.  Maybe, just maybe I have too much “skin in the game” on this point being a Leinster & Ireland fan because Johnny Sexton does have a reputation for taking time on his placekicks, but since he’s such a high profile player, to bring the change halfway through a club season as well as three-quarters of the way through a RWC cycle would seem to affect him more than others.

But my biggest reason for pushing back on these changes has to do with player safety.  

Yes, we want to avoid time wasting in the game where possible and this will definitely help keep the “casual fans” interested, but I have to ask, just how much of a problem is this REALLY?  Is it possible we might be over-reacting a bit when it comes to stoppages?

The actual playing time of a rugby match is one hour and 20 minutes.  Factor in fifteen for halftime and you’d really hope the final whistle will blow well short of the two-hour mark after kickoff time.  And that’s what we should be aiming for.  

For example, Leinster’s recent Heineken Champions Cup match against Gloucester at the RDS kicked off at the later than usual time of 8pm of a Friday night.  That meant I was always going to be anxious getting my bus home as it can often take a while leaving the ground given the press box is right at the back of the Grandstand so I have to wait until the bulk of the supporters leave before I can.

Yet I not only made it to my bus stop to catch it at 10:15, I actually waited seven minutes before it came.  Maybe the one-sided nature of the scoreline helped but I still didn’t stand up to leave until the final whistle blew.  And for me personally, that’s fine.  I really don’t know how many tweaks and changes to the Laws we’d have to make that would actually be worthwhile getting me out of there any sooner.

On the subject of water breaks, they don’t bug me as much as they do most other viewers although one concern I would have about them is that I fear they are being brought in to facilitate matches being played in places like Dubai & Qatar in future, and there have been rumblings in the press recently that this does look like happening.

Which brings me back to player safety.  For me, this is a much bigger issue we need to address, and there are areas when it comes into direct conflict with the time-saving.  Whether we like to admit it or not, tackle technique is still a major grey area in our beautiful sport and it’s one we have to keep working at.

And unfortunately some of this “work” involves teams of officials making sure they get their calls right especially in the high profile matches as their exposure will hopefully trickle down to all levels through the sport.

So as I have said before on these pages and I won’t tire saying it again in the future, when it comes to TMO calls the last thing the officials need is added pressure from the viewing public simply because we’re worried about a few extra seconds being somehow taken from us.

Like I say, if matches start lasting two hours or more then we know things are going wrong, but we should also appreciate that efforts need to be made to help ensure that actual careers last as long as they possibly can.

INJURY REPORT

Good news, there were no new names added to the list and it’s great to see Messrs Furlong & Connors close to being available.

The final group still contains many concerns however.  I don’t like suggesting some injuries are worse than others but Henshaw is a name Leinster & Ireland would want to see moving up the list sooner rather than later and for the province it doesn’t look good to see Jenkins there either. 

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Tadhg Furlong: will again step up his rehabilitation this week from an ankle injury and will be assessed as the week goes on

Will Connors: will look to step up his rehabilitation programme further this week as he nears a return from a bicep injury

There are no further updates on:

Thomas Clarkson (arm), Ed Byrne (knee), Jason Jenkins (hamstring), Robbie Henshaw (wrist), Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

The 22 portion of the 22/23 is done for Leinster and we kick off the 23 at the RDS with Connacht the visitors.  We’ll have the preview on Friday and the wrap will record on Monday.  In the meantime, have a happy and safe New Year and be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : HCC revamp, Venue SNAFU & Rock champs

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

WRAP OF A WRAP

Some might say there’s not a whole lot to talk about after a 57-0 drubbing.  I am not among that “some”, and thankfully neither were Tom Coleman & Nathan Johns who found plenty to harp on for this week’s wrap pod.  After all, we are Leinster fans and we love talking about a rake of tries when we score them, but we also found a load of other angles as well.  If you missed it, check it out here or on most major platforms.

HARPIN’ ON…THE HCC FORMAT

In last week’s 80+ column I offered a quasi-defence of the HCC format, suggesting that while maybe this current one has flaws, it should be pointed out that the old one was far from ideal in itself.  As you can see I let my guests offer their own takes on the situation in this week’s You Tube clip.

Only thing I will add is that I suggested last week that I would do things differently altogether so I may as well give a taste of it here…remember, I KNOW this will never happen but my ideal scenario would be to scrap the current set of competitions altogether in favour of one pan-European/SA pyramid structure with something like a pair of 16-team top divisions playing round-robin.  

“A” would be the elite offering 6 or 7 qualifiers for the championship quarterfinals but I’d also have a “B” level where not only would there be promotion but also the top 1 or 2 would get a shot at the knockout rugby as well, meaning 32 clubs would begin every season in contention for the title.

Below that would obvs get tricky, but regional divisions feeding into the top 32 is definitely do-able and the important thing would be to keep the door open for clubs from any nation logistically able to join.  

Again, I’m not suggesting this is ever likely to come into being, but what’s the point in complaining if you’re not going to offer an alternative?   Anyway…here’s what the lads had to say…

If you’re playing the clip above maybe pop over and subscribe to the channel too?  That’s where we post our Preview Show as well as other content throughout the week.

RAGIN’ HILL

This is of course a site for Leinster & Ireland fans to offer their opinions not only on what happens on the pitch but also off it.  Obviously it goes without saying that if the reigning European champions were due to play at the RDS only for me to find out first that the match had been switched to a two-hour drive up the road, but also to then find out that fans aren’t allowed to travel as well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be happy.

Next while the match is going on, as my team is getting off to another poor start into the bargain, I find out that there are actually travelling French fans/”delegates” cheering their side in the stadium anyway???  

As it turned out the only thing close to a saving grace for Ulster supporters was their performance in the second half, digging out two bonus points which keeps their hopes of getting to the knockout stages alive.  Still, I really think an independent investigation outside of EPCR & Ulster Rugby needs to be done on the whole affair in the hope that it can be avoided in the future.

Of course I know pitches do freeze over, but maybe we need to be better prepared for alternative venues especially at this time of year?

PUT THE 🐐 TO PASTURE

I’m not one of those rugby fans who tries to pretend the round ball game doesn’t exist and I’ll freely admit I was watching the World Cup Final and congratulations to Argentina for their victory.

Since then the Twitter account for the Guinness Six Nations posted a standard enough question…

…but to be clear, I don’t bring it up to have the debate on this pages.  Instead I’d like to harp on that symbol.

You don’t need me to tell you that it is a “goat” to represent the acronym “greatest of all time”.  And obviously in sports we love having these discussions and I for one have taken part in many of them over the years.

However I feel we still need to be mindful of what this kind of absolutism can do to our opinion forming, especially in the social media age when we feel we want to comment on something amazing we have just seen and assume it won’t get noticed unless we point out that it has to be the very, very best of all time ever in the history of everything.

This annoys me quite a bit and while I’m at it I might as well add my dislike of the response “one hundred percent” when having a debate about something.  For one thing, generally when I hear that it tends to be followed by a counter point but my overall problem is that there’s no need to go all in on what anyone else is saying.  If we’re all “100%” with each other there’s no point in debating at all and where’s the fun in that?

Maybe we could adapt it and ban the use of 100 and instead encourage people to come up with a more realistic number before offering a reply.  Or, instead, maybe just ditch the numbers altogether…

Sorry, it’s just a bugbear of mine, and where better a place to put it in writing?

LEINSTER RUGBY HELP RAISE FUNDS FOR ED SLATER

Posted this already on Monday with the wrap pod but definitely worth posting again.

16 December 2022; Leinster captain Garry Ringrose and Gloucester captain Ben Meehan, pictured with referee Luc Ramos, donate jerseys for a raffle in aid of the Ed Slater foundation before the Heineken Champions Cup Pool A Round 2 match between Leinster and Gloucester at the RDS Arena in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Earlier this year, Gloucester Rugby lock, Ed Slater, announced his retirement from the game with immediate effect after his diagnosis with Motor Neurone Disease (MND).

To help support Ed and his family, Gloucester Rugby opened a JustGiving page and to date over £220,000 has been raised to help support Ed, his wife Jo and their three children.

With Gloucester Rugby playing Leinster Rugby last weekend in the Heineken Champions Cup, both clubs wanted to mark the occasion and also use the opportunity to highlight Ed’s illness and to try and raise even more funds for him and his family.

As a result, two unique Leinster Rugby and Gloucester Rugby jerseys were signed by the match day squads, with both jerseys bearing his name and the number four.

Captains Garry Ringrose and Ben Meehan presented the jerseys to each other before the game and the jerseys will now be used as a raffle item on the Leinster Rugby Instagram account.

To enter, you only need to reply to the post on Instagram and then donate a minimum of £20/€20 to the JustGiving page set up for the Slater family.

The winners will need to show proof of donation before their prize will be allocated to them.

To donate, please click HERE.

INJURY REPORT

Report came about 24 hours later than usual, just before I’m ready to publish this article in fact, so you’re getting my initial reactions and it’s good to see Will Connors moving up the list although it’s a bit worrying that Tadhg Furlong hasn’t moved at all.

And as for Ed Byrne, that’s a horrible outcome, hopefully he’ll be back in time for the business end of the campaign, in the meantime we’ll be giving the likes of Michael Milne a chance for more game time.

INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Johnny Sexton: came through the game at the weekend against Gloucester Rugby with no issues after his return from a calf injury

Jordan Larmour: came through the game at the weekend against Gloucester Rugby with no issues after his return from a foot injury

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Tadhg Furlong: has again increased his training load further towards the end of last week and will be further assessed this week for an ankle injury ahead of a final decision later in the week

Will Connors: will look to step up his rehabilitation programme this week as he nears a return from a bicep injury

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Thomas Clarkson: picked up an arm injury playing with DUFC and will be unavailable for up to eight weeks

Ed Byrne: picked up a knee injury in the game against Gloucester Rugby and will have a procedure this week which will rule him out of action for up to 12 weeks

There are no further updates on:

Jason Jenkins (hamstring), Robbie Henshaw (wrist), Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), James Tracy (neck), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

Energia All-Ireland Women’s League Division 1 Final, Energia Park, Dublin 17/12/2022Blackrock College vs Railway UnionBlackrock team celebrate after the gameMandatory Credit ©INPHO/Lorraine OSullivan

After the previous week’s postponement it was good to see the Women’s AIL final take place on Saturday with the full TV coverage on TG4 and it was to be Rock’s year as they avenged last year’s champions Railway Union to lift the trophy after a strong second half showing led to a 27-7 victory. Next up for women’s rugby is the interpros in January, also with TV coverage, providing a great platform for selectors ahead of the Six Nations, except for the absence of the sevens players, of course.

Meanwhile on the men’s side, Lansdowne and Shannon got mixed up in the Ravenhill debacle when they got shoved on to the Aviva back pitch but between them the two matches produced a total of 137pts as Shannon made their trip worthwhile thanks to a 41-31 BP victory.  

I harped last week on the fascinating 5-way battle developing for the 4 semifinal slots at the top, but there’s also a scrap at the other end as this victory moves Shannon out of the bottom 2 yet there’s still only 5pts separating UCD in 9th and Hinch in 6th.  And guess what – those two clubs meet each other in a rearranged fixture in the new year.   Funny how that works out!

Women’s AIL

League final

Blackrock College 27-7 Railway Union

Men’s AIL

Round 9

Sat Dec 17

Lansdowne 31-41 Shannon

Sat Jan 7

Ballynahinch v UCD

Dublin University v Cork Con

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Christmas week is upon us, although we’re not done harpin’ yet before the big day as the Leinster team to play in Thomond Park will be named at Friday lunchtime so I’ll be recording the preview show with Keego shortly after that, with our wrap pod moving to Tuesday from the usual Sunday, when I reckon I might be busy doing other things.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your festive rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : 200 pods, HCC format, Sevens update

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

WRAP OF A WRAP

As it got closer to kickoff time I was getting more and more concerned that Leinster’s Heineken Champions Cup opener against Racing 92 wouldn’t go the way I hoped.  That may sound odd to a non-Leinster fan given our record this season but actually that’s more than likely the reality for most fans of any team no matter how successful.  But especially so in this age where a red card can make a difference to a contest, although of course even that didn’t hurt us last week!

But as it turned out, I needn’t have worried because much like last year we appear to be kicking off our European campaign in determined mood, yes I know we were helped a lot by Racing’s own disciplinary issues but still we were solid especially on set piece as you can see by the numbers.  

One teeny tiny final point I’d like to make, when it came to “Star of the Match”, I’d have gone for JVDF over Doris – that’s nothing against the latter he certainly had some key involvements yet he did ship a couple of penalties as well, one at a breakdown I was sure he’d get carded for, so while I don’t believe in simply giving the gong to the guy who got the most tries on the day, I reckon we all know Josh does way more than that, right?   Again it’s not crucial but hey it’s my opinion and sharing it is kinda what this column is for.

It was another match which was a pleasure to wrap up on our Sunday pod, with super contributions as always by Messrs Jackson & Mifsud, plus a “roving report” by Tom Coleman.  If you missed it, check it out here or on most major platforms.

HARPIN’ ON…THAT RINGROSE TRY

If you haven’t listened to our weekly wrap pod yet, first of all, why the hell not????  Especially if you’re reading this column!!!  Seriously though…what we do is harp our way through the timeline of the match from start to finish, focusing on the major incidents of course, but also pointing out the minor ones as well that the pundits may have missed like the ref giving out to Leinster’s players for celebrating a knock on!!!

For this week’s YouTube clip I used Mark’s analysis of the Garry Ringrose try, although personally I was equally impressed by the one that came before it because it had three components to it which were world class yet things we take for granted from the players in question…JGP finding the final lock picking pass, Dan Sheehan lurking in the wide channel and being able to force his way over the line, and finally Ross “Mr Touchline” Byrne popping over the most difficult placekick for a right-footer like it was nothing to him.

If you’re playing the clip above maybe pop over and subscribe to the channel too?  That’s where we post our Preview Show as well as other content throughout the week.

200 UP

You may have noticed that our wrap pod was episode 199 which means the next one is a milestone so to mark it I asked three of the contributors to join me for a “season so far” quiz where I tested their knowledge of the twelve matches we have covered this season before the Champions Cup kicked off.  

During the week I’ll publish the episode in such a way as you the listener can have a go at the questions as well, see how many you can get!

IN DEFENCE OF THE HCC FORMAT

Now I want to be careful how I word this point so that I’m absolutely clear on where I stand.  A lot of people have complained about the format for the Champions Cup and I want to push back, however this does not mean I am totally in favour of it.  Let me explain.

If you offered me just two choices for how the Champions Cup pool stage can be run, (1) the current way, or (2) the old way with pools of 4 playing home and away leading to quarterfinals, I would always always choose 2.

However, while the backlash against the current way seems to be 100% by most people, I’d probably put mine around the 70-80% mark, because I can actually see some benefits in the current way, while also some of the drawbacks maybe aren’t as bad as many point out.

First we should have a go at explaining the system.  There are 24 qualifiers, 8 from each league.  They are drawn into 2 pools of 12, everyone plays four matches, and the top 8 on each table go through to the knockout phase.

For starters, I’m not, nor have I ever been, totally committed to the “everyone must play everyone” concept to a league competition.  In an ideal world yes, but in reality we have to be open to alternatives due to time and travel constraints, and if a competition is ultimately decided by knockout rounds, then that should allow for anyone who got lucky with the schedule to be “found out”.

And to balance out the smaller amount of matches, with the extra round of 16 it’s actually easier to advance out of the pool phase, meaning rather than rounds 5 and 6 in the past when you’d have many “dead rubbers”, you now have a round 5 which is completely cup rugby, although of course the 6th match is gone altogether.

I also must admit I do like the symmetry of this system.  Maybe every team has different opponents but they are definitely not chosen by random.  Last season, when Leinster were Pro14 champions, we got a schedule that had teams finishing 7th or 8th in the Top14 and Premiership.   So our domestic record was duly rewarded. 

This season, since we failed to reach the 21/22 URC final, things were a bit tougher as we were pitted against teams finishing 5th and 6th at home.  And despite the result last weekend, Racing are still doing well this season as are Gloucester.

One more positive about the fixtures is that with this system you are always playing a team from a different league in the pool phase, which is kind of what the competition is meant to be all about.  Often under the old format you’d be playing home and away against a team you’re already down to face twice in your domestic league.

Finally in defence of the four-match system, while many think it was done this way purely because of COVID so why keep it now, I think it also helps to facilitate the introduction of the South African clubs.  Under the old system with three blocks of two matches each home and away, that would inflict a hell of a lot of travelling on everyone, so doing it this way means anyone travelling after round 4 at least knows it’s at the business end of the competition and thus is easier to market.  Having to fly thousands of miles for a dead rubber should be avoided at all costs.

Also, one thing about the “old way” that always grated with me a lot was the “best runnersup” system where three teams got knockout rugby often because they got a much easier draw.  That said, I did really, really, like rounds 3 and 4 with the home and away fixtures in December, that always gave the return matches a bit of extra edge.  And when they had the two-legged round of 16 last season I thought that was a way of holding onto that so in a way it’s a shame they have taken even that away this season.

Right that’s enough of that, I reckon that’s enough pushback but like I said, I would hardly grumble if we changed back, although if it were down to me I’d ditch both for something else altogether, best leave that for another week’s column!!!

UNFORGETTABLE SEVENS

Another interesting weekend for the Irish Sevens programmes, with the women doing better this time around, getting all the way to the semifinals where they were outclassed by New Zealand.  Although we didn’t get a medal from the event, the points were enough to move us up to 5th on the overall table.

Meanwhile in the men’s draw, after a confident start we then had a nightmare against Uruguay, a team we should be beating handily, where a rush of blood to the head by Mark Roche saw him get a second yellow card, thus a red, in the first half which left us a man short (def not good with only 7 in total) and while we were actually doing ok for a while, a second yellow left us with 5 and no hope and the defeat put us down in the competition for 9th place so we failed to build on the silver medal in Dubai, dropping down to 9th on the overall table.

If you’d like to keep up of their progress when these tournaments are on, one thing you can do is go to this link and click the “Add To Calendar” button and make sure you specify it’s just Ireland’s matches you want, and you’ll need to do it separately for men’s and women’s.  Then you’ll get a 15m reminder before every match when you can decide whether or not you’re free to watch live on the World Rugby player.

Remember, the more we make it clear Irish fans are following the action, hopefully the more chance we have of getting a leg added to the tour for us to go and get pissed at enjoy.

Both series resume with the Canadian leg in the New Year.

INJURY REPORTS

Arguably the best injury report of the season!!!  Obviously not for those in the bottom list but definitely good to see the one above it being empty.  Even if Messrs Sexton & Furlong can’t get fit in time for Friday, I’m sure the RDS crowd would have no complaints welcoming back the 23 that did so well in Le Havre.

INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Charlie Ngatai: came through the game at the weekend against Racing 92 with no issues after his return from a shoulder injury

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Johnny Sexton: increased his training load towards the end of last week and will be further assessed this week for a calf injury ahead of a final decision later in the week

Tadhg Furlong: increased his training load towards the end of last week and will be further assessed this week for an ankle injury ahead of a final decision later in the week

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

N/A

There are no further updates on:

Robbie Henshaw (wrist), Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), Will Connors (bicep), James Tracy (neck), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

Such a shame the cold snap put paid to so many club fixtures at the weekend, most of all the women’s AIL final which was due to get exposure on TG4, although they did well to reschedule it so quickly while still retaining the coverage.  And added bonus might be that players like Beibhinn Parsons, who was of course in Cape Town with the 7s last weekend, might be able to take part, we’ll have to see.

Also in the women’s AIL there was the “Conference final” – this was a mini competition for teams finishing 5th through 8th so very much a consolation prize, but considering it was won by Wicklow RFC, who were being unfairly ridiculed last season for a couple of blow out results, that definitely makes this a worthwhile achievement to bring up on these pages.

Meanwhile over in the men’s, again the postponements were quickly rearranged as you can see below, but the weather couldn’t prevent Terenure College’s 100% start from coming to an end as they were downed 24-18 by Young Munster.  Fair play to the Cookies for not only the result but also for getting the match played.

As you can see there’s a fascinating tussle for the top four positions developing between three Leinster sides and two Munster ones, meaning pretty much every match in the second half of the campaign should have meaning.

Women’s AIL

Conference final

Wicklow RFC 22-17 Galwegians

Saturday, December 17

League final

Blackrock College v Railway Union 2pm

Men’s AIL

Round 9

Ballynahinch PPD UCD

Clontarf 36-10 Garryowen

Dublin University PPD Cork Con

Lansdowne PPD Shannon

Young Munster 24-18 Terenure

Sat Dec 17

Lansdowne v Shannon

Sat Jan 7

Ballynahinch v UCD

Dublin University v Cork Con

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Like I said we’ve a quiz edition of the podcast during the week to celebrate the 200th episode, why not have a listen to see how well you’ve been paying attention to Leinster & Ireland’s season so far.  Then we have Tom Coleman on episode 201 to tell us how he got on travelling to Le Havre and also to preview the visit of Gloucester, with of course the wrap of that match to do on Sunday, with all the usual features in between.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Lost time, Women’s AIL final & Club RWC

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone. 

WRAP OF A WRAP

Just after 8pm on Saturday evening I was pretty sure I’d have to prepare the first pod under our new format where the subject matter was a Leinster or Ireland defeat but we all know how that second half went and I reckon Tom & Conor did a bang up job harpin’ on all the relevant points from the classic top-of-the-table encounter.  If you missed it, check it out here or on most major platforms.

HARPIN’ ON…HEALY RED

Of course if you need a sample of the pod before you commit to clicking, here’s a taste when we harped on the red card which we thought at the time would be the deciding factor on the night – as you can see we were all incredibly one-eyed and fully agreed the decision was in fact a travesty…

TURNING BACK TIME

Before I move on from Saturday night’s classic, I’d like to expand on a point raised by Tom in the above clip.

When the Healy/Stewart collision happened, the clock read 17:58.  Yet when the referee finally ruled on the red card, it was at 20:35 and when the ball was finally back in play it was actually 20:56.

So basically, due to a decision that had to be referred to the TMO, three minutes of gameplay were lost.  And in actual fact they weren’t just lost, there was actually over two and a half minutes of rugby played in that time which was never going to count towards anything.

I have two points to make about this.

  1.  I’m pretty sure that once it’s decided that there was foul play, the clock should be moved back to the precise time when it happened.  This shouldn’t take much longer to do as the TMO can confirm it in the booth.  We may not notice those 3 minutes in this particular match but imagine if it happened in the 77th minute of a game where Ulster were within a converted try on the scoreboard?  The difference between having 3 minutes to take advantage from the penalty and having the clock automatically in the red is pretty big.
  2. This also links to the discussion over concussion safety.  Often the officials stop the game when they think there has been foul play and when the TMO finds nothing wrong, there is outcry from the same pundits & fans about holding up the game.  Well, those 2 plus minutes from Saturday are exactly why it’s important to err on the side of caution.  If an official thinks there may be something that needs looking at, they should absolutely stop play because IMO if there’s possibly anything worse than suffering a serious injury on a rugby pitch, then it’s suffering a serious injury on a rugby pitch in play that didn’t even count towards the final score.

CLUB RUGBY WORLD CUP 

I noticed a headline during the week about ongoing talks regarding the formation of a “Club Rugby World Cup”.  The more I see these articles, the more I’m convinced that it will eventually happen.

My thoughts are simple, of course it’s a super concept, who wouldn’t want to see a comp with fixtures like Leinster v Crusaders but the drawbacks are pretty obvious – 1) how the hell do you fit it into the calendar without altering it drastically (and harmfully if that’s a word), and 2) I hope I’d reading the room wrong here but I have a feeling there might be a temptation to stage this in a “neutral venue” like Dubai.

Both would seriously take the shine off what would otherwise be an illustrious event for the sport, although sadly I feel both are also very likely to happen anyway.

DUBAI SEVENS

So there I was, off with the family doing the first bout of Christmas shopping on Saturday when I was able to sneak away to a coffee shop and over a flat white I watched the Irish Men’s 7s take on the Blitzbokke in the final of the Dubai 7s.  Sadly it wasn’t to be for them as the South Africans made their experience tell for these occasions by running in three tries before we could land a punch, but it’s certainly all not disappointment for Ireland, this will stand to them down the line and having drawn one and lost one in the pool stages they did really well to get this far anyway.  

Getting to the final lifts us up to 4th on the overall series after 2 rounds, and over on the Women’s side although they went out at the quarterfinal stage they still managed a decent 6th place finish which is a decent start so hopefully both sides will be able to continue on their upwards curves when the circus rolls into Cape Town this coming weekend. 

Be sure to keep an eye out for all the kickoff times and support them on social media as much as you can.  Remember – we’re trying to let the organisers know we’re ready willing and able to host a leg on these shores!!!

EUROWATCH

We neglected our TikTok account for a while there in November, but with the Champions Cup starting next weekend we had to bring back our EuroWatch feature with brief “Reeling In The Years”-style presentation of the latest matches from Leinster’s upcoming HCC opposition.  Below you see last week’s Racing offering and we’ll have more later during the week just subscribe to our account.

@harpinonrugby

Much more exciting #Eurowatch than our latest Premiership one!

♬ Furious Offroad Racing – Morgan Sansous & Sham Makdessi

WARREN & EDDIE

Everyone’s harpin’ on this at the moment so I have to include it I suppose, but to be honest both dismissals have been in the “worst kept secret” category for a while now so there’s not a whole lot more I can add except to say that while both nations might be in turmoil on and off the pitch right now, it often doesn’t take much to turn their fortunes around in the short term, especially with the quality they have on offer, so I reckon Wales v Ireland to open the 2023 Six Nations could be very interesting indeed. 

I will also add this meme from Cian “RugbyKino” O’Muilleoir which nails the Welsh decision on the head.

INJURY REPORTS

Actually one thing I did miss in all the excitement from the match on Saturday was Tadhg Furlong going off and hopefully this was just a precaution.  And as well as Jamie Osborne did in the 12 role, it’s still really good news for Leinster that Charlie Ngatai is meant to be back training with the squad this week as we’ll need every ounce of his European experience at the weekend.  That doesn’t rule out Jamie altogether of course and actually I reckon he’d be perfect for this match against Racing in the 23 jersey given he has had four starts for Leinster this season, all in different positions.

For what it’s worth here is my ideal 23 for Saturday…

Pagano’s 23 : Keenan, J O’Brien, Ringrose, Ngatai, Lowe, Sexton, JGP.

Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, Jenkins, Ryan, Baird, JVDF, Doris.

Kelleher, E Byrne, Ala’alatoa, Molony, Conan, McGrath, R Byrne, Osborne.

INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

James Lowe: came through the game at the weekend against Ulster Rugby with no issues after his return from a calf injury

Charlie Ngatai: is expected to train fully with the team this week after his recovery from a shoulder injury

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Johnny Sexton: will be further assessed this week for a calf injury ahead of a final decision later in the week

Tadhg Furlong: will be further assessed this week for an ankle injury picked up against Ulster Rugby ahead of a final decision later in the week

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

There were no further injuries from the game at the weekend.

There are no further updates on:

Robbie Henshaw (wrist), Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), Will Connors (bicep), James Tracy (neck), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

Friday night is a massive night for Women’s rugby on these shores as the AIL final between Blackrock and Railway Union is to be broadcast live on terrestrial TV for the first time as TG4 are carrying the broadcast, and especially since there are no Irish men’s provinces involved in European action on the same night, I really think it’s important for rugby fans to get involved by watching and sharing comments throughout on social media.

Remember – women’s club rugby is different to the men’s in that it always features current and former test players, and this final should be no exception with the likes of Enya Breen, Maeve Óg O’Leary, Hannah O’Connor, Nikki Caughey and Lindsay Peat all likely to be involved so be sure to tune in or better still, head along to Energia Park in Donnybrook yourself on the night, kickoff is at 7:45pm

Meanwhile over on the men’s side of things, Terenure had a “slip up” of sorts as for the first time in 9 rounds they failed to get the try bonus point, though of course their win over Trinity keeps their 100% start going.  Tarf moved up to second with a tough win down at Cork Con while Young Munster continued their run of form with a win at Shannon and will be more than ready for the visit of Nure this coming weekend.  The league then takes a break until the new year.

Women’s AIL

Dec  3

SEMIFINALS

Blackrock 13 – 8 UL Bohemians

Railway Union 34 – 19 Old Belvedere

Fri Dec 9

League final

Blackrock College v Railway Union

Men’s AIL

Sat Dec 3

Cork Con 22 – 29 Clontarf

Garryowen 10 – 28 Ballynahinch

Terenure 23 – 21 Dublin University

UCD 27 – 26 Lansdowne

Shannon 3 – 32 Young Munster

Sat Dec 10

Ballynahinch v UCD

Clontarf v Garryowen

Dublin University v Cork Con

Lansdowne v Shannon

Young Munster v Terenure

AI RUGBY

What the hell is this? You may well ask. Well, I’ve been playing around with one of those AI image generators lately, so I figured I’d share something here with it each week for a while, here’s what came up using the words “Leinster Rugby” in “Comic Book” mode. At least they got the colours right I guess? More to come.

HARPIN’ PREDICTION LEAGUE

Highlight of Round 9 for me prediction wise was my last-second change of my forecast for Connacht v Benetton – I saw a tweet from a western based fan who said he felt in his bones that they’d win by 20 so I switched my margin from 9 to 19 and sure enough it came up trumps.  Kristian Ross had an even better round although I’m still closing the gap on Kino at the top of the league while Keego’s grip on both the wooden spoon and the Jersey of Shame seems to be getting even tighter…

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Next up it’s the Heineken Champions Cup and Leinster’s first assignment is certainly a tough one with an away trip to Racing 92 definitely set to be a challenge.  Of course we’re giving it the full Harpin treatment with Illtud Daffyd, who briefed us on Montpellier last season, returning for an “Opposition View” pod on Wednesday before Keego has another appearance on Friday’s Preview Show and then it’s wrap up time on Sunday evening , with all the usual other features in between. 

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Doddie’s legacy, TMO suggestion & Sevens’ return

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

WRAP OF A WRAP

All due respect to the Glasgow Warriors, but let’s just say Leinster’s win last Saturday is not one that will go down in the memory. Or at least not one that will inspire the province to bring out the available players who took part at half time in a match 10 years down the road, like Leinster did with the 2011/12 HCup winning teams!

Despite the comparative lack of importance, I still think the lads did a really good job describing the action in our Sunday pod, each of them providing their own expertise with Keego bringing the witty references and Mark the coaching expertise, just goes to show what a wide variety of Leinster fans are out there and while I have said it before I’m happy to say again that I’m lucky to have such an awesome set of contributors.

I also consider myself lucky to be able to go to these matches at the RDS since no matter what the overall importance of the occasion I never fail to enjoy being there on matchday.

Follow us on Instagram @harpinonrugby

HARPIN’ ON LEINSTER’S DEFENCE V GLASGOW

Our extra chat this week was on Leinster’s defence, we have harped on it before but as we continue to remain this consistent without the ball no matter what the lineup, I’ll feel like bringing it up again and again on these pages until the standards start to slip. And as I bring up the near perfection I see week in week out, it’s always good to have fellow fans to bring me at least a little bit back down to earth as you can see in the clip below.

Mark’s point that Glasgow didn’t really challenge us and Keego’s that we need to be wary of relying too much on it are both well made, in fact that all comes into play in last season’s Champions Cup final. We not only found out that keeping the opposition’s score down isn’t worth much if you can’t find the tries yourself, but also if anything our defending was TOO perfect in those closing minutes – ironically if we had let La Rochelle score much earlier in their late seige we would have at least had time left to respond! Anyway, here’s the chat…have a listen for yourself and maybe subscribe to the channel too if the mood takes you…

DODDIE WEIR

A Lions Tour, 61 caps for Scotland where he scored 19 points from four tries (one under the old money of four points) and starring for both Newcastle Falcons and Border Reivers as the sport was just turning professional is a brief summary of Doddie Weir’s achievements on the pitch, but it’s what happened after his retirement for which he will be most remembered. Of course I don’t just mean the tragic ailment of MND but of course the lengths to which he went to help raise awareness through the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation. Here’s the opening couple of paragraphs from their post from Monday, click here for the full article and by all means feel free to contribute if you can.

Instantly recognised as an outstanding rugby player, Doddie was diagnosed with MND just two days before Christmas in 2016, eventually going public with the news the following summer on what was Motor Neuron Disease Awareness Day.

Since making his condition known, Doddie has championed the campaign for more to be done for sufferers of the disease, both in terms of finding a possible cure, and with the treatment and welfare of patients and their carers.

My Name’5 Doddie Foundation

@IRISHWOMENS

We have interviewed the owner of the @IrishWomens account a few times for the pod, but understandably they wish to remain anonymous as their aim is to further the cause of the women’s game throughout the four provinces. We’re very sorry, if not entirely surprised, to learn that they have received a good bit of abuse on social media, especially recently and I hope my readers would join me in offering them and indeed anyone encountering such treatment online our full support.

I was glad to see this particular situation was resolved and I hope it doesn’t happen again although unfortunately I fear there are more bad faith actors than this one so we need to look out for each other and call it out when we see it.

Meanwhile those of us with a genuine interest in full inclusivity in the sport can go on having our rational adult discussions.

TMO ANGLES

Rob Russell’s 1st try for Leinster on Saturday, coming as it did after an out-of-this-world offload by Charlie Ngatai, reminded me of technology I have seen in rugby league which could really be used in union.

Thankfully for the boys in blue the try I mention above was clear cut after a couple of looks on the replay, but often in tries in the corner it is difficult to see whether the grounding was made before or after a trailing foot drags into touch. Or at least it’s difficult when you only see one angle at a time.

I have to admit I don’t watch a whole lot of rugby league but I am pretty sure I have seen a feature used where your can watch four different angles at once played simultaneously so everyone can see exactly what they need to see to make a decision. Baffles me how something as helpful as that can’t be brought into Union. We often complain about TMOs for wasting time but sometimes maybe they can be improved.

SEVENS ARE BACK

Unfortunately for all I have said on these pages about football being played in Qatar, Dubai isn’t a whole lot better when it comes to human rights and after the final RWC2023 qualifiers taking place there over the past few weeks, it’s now time for the Sevens circuit to pass through with both Ireland’s Women’s and Men’s teams taking part.

Both squads will be looking to improve on their respective 7th place finishes in Hong Kong in the first round, and the action is all being streamed on the World Rugby website from 5am (Irish time) on Friday.

INJURY REPORTS

Delighted to see Messrs Larmour & Lowe continuing to move up the list and it would be great to see one or both of them involved against Ulster at the weekend. The news is not so great for Robbie Henshaw however and I doubt we’ll see him before the start of the 2023 Six Nations. That also means of course it would be extra beneficial for Leinster if Charlie Ngatai’s injury isn’t as bad as it looked when he was removed at halftime last Saturday, especially as he was playing so well.

INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Harry Byrne and Rónan Kelleher: came through the game at the weekend against Glasgow Warriors with no issues after their return from hamstring injuries

Ryan Baird: came through the game at the weekend with no issues following his return from the Graduated Return to Play Protocols

Jordan Larmour: will train fully with the squad this week after his recovery from a foot injury

James Lowe: will train fully with the squad this week after his recovery from a calf injury

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Johnny Sexton: will be further assessed as the week goes on for a calf injury before a final decision is made on his availability

Charlie Ngatai: will be further assessed as the week goes on for a shoulder injury before a final decision is made on his availability

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Robbie Henshaw: had a procedure on a wrist injury last week which will rule him out of action until early in the new year

There are no further updates on:

Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), Will Connors (bicep), James Tracy (neck), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

The Women’s AIL plays to a finish before Christmas with teams vying for a place in the final which will be screened live on TG4 on Dec 9. This weekend sees the semifinals with 1st seed Rock hosting UL Bohs in one while the other is a Dublin derby between Railway Union and Belvo.

Meanwhile in the men’s version they are at round 7 of 18 with Terenure continuing their perfectly perfect start with 35 points out of 35 although Clontarf did stay close enough to them in the round’s biggest clash for a losing bonus. The Nure have another 1st v 2nd clash in the next round when they host Trinity at Lakelands.

It was a good weekend for most of the Munster clubs in Div 1A with Shannon and Young Munster both defeating Dublin opposition while Cork Con stayed in touch at the top thanks in part to the ridiculously long penalty by George Coomber you see in the clip below.

Women’s AIL

Dec  3

SEMIFINALS

Blackrock v UL Bohemians

Railway Union v Old Belvedere

Men’s AIL

Sat Nov 26

Shannon 36-24 UCD

Ballynahinch 13-20 Cork Con

Clontarf 24-29 Terenure

Dublin University 24-25 Young Munster

Lansdowne 47-28 Garryowen

Sat Dec 3

Cork Con v Clontarf

Garryowen v Ballynahinch

Terenure v Dublin University

UCD v Lansdowne

Shannon v Young Munster

HARPIN’ PREDICTION LEAGUE

The return of the URC also means the return of the Harpin’ Prediction League and the good news for me this week is that I made up a lot of ground on Kino who was getting a little too comfortable at the top. However the bad news for me was that I’d be an extra point closer if only I had remembered to get my prediction for Stormers and Scarlets in on time!!! Still though, at least the Ospreys came through for me this weekend, while the URC’s 2 upset results, namely Benetton beating Embra and Cardiff’s shock whitewash of the Sharks, not being forecast by any of us. Down at the bottom of the table as you can see, it’s not looking good for Keego who may have to don The Jersey Of Shame at season’s end.

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Ulster up next at the RDS so we’ll have Ian Frizzell back on the pod to offer an opposition view on Wednesday, Keego will be helping me with the preview and then for the wrap on Saturday it will be Conor Cronin and Tom Coleman on duty. Also we’ll have all the usual features including the return of Eurowatch with some TikTok videos showing how Leinster’s Champions Cup opponents are getting on in their domestic competitions.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Josh & Terry, Justin & James, Nic & Matt

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

WRAP OF A WRAP

Was happy to have Ian Frizzell and Stephen “Master Of None” Murphy on the pod this week to harp on the narrow win over Australia, always good to get a perspective from outside Leinster although we pretty much agreed on most of what went on, ICYMI you can check it out by clicking this link.

HARPIN’ ON NIC WHITE’S HIA

As often happens with our Sunday pods, while we have a tight schedule of topics for the show itself to keep it under the hour, sometimes the conversations do go on and I’m happy to let them – even if they get cut I can always produce videos for the YouTube channel and this week we had two such clips.

First up we have the chat over Nic White’s HIA which was the focus of a post match discussion on Virgin Media with Matt Williams’ poor attempt at defending the decision. I’ve seen some opinion out there that we shouldn’t attack him so much as the officials but IMO it’s about much more than this one incident. A lot of people watching what these pundits say will likely be involved one day in making important decisions way below test level and I believe we should all be on the same page with the message “if in doubt sit ’em out”.

HARPIN’ ON JACK CROWLEY

We had another good chat about Jack Crowley’s start and for me it was a good chat to have because we had opinions from three non-Munster provinces and all were positive, check for yourself…

LEINSTER 40-3 CHILE WRITEUP 

One feature of this season is that assuming there are no COVID-style interruptions to the calendar, Leinster & Ireland aren’t scheduled to clash on the same weekend, which is really good news for fans of both who are watching their pockets.

But if there absolutely had to be a clash, this match at Energia Park in Donnybrook is almost exactly what makes a good exception to that rule, I say almost because of the 2pm Friday kickoff which would have been a struggle for many, although they did allow for that by offering both free admission plus live streaming on YouTube (it’s still up if you didn’t get to watch just click this link).

Meanwhile here at Harpin’ Manor although I have enjoyed the switch from article writeups to podcast wrapups, I do miss the old way so maybe matches like this one can be an opportunity to briefly go back to the “old way”.

Actually myself and Tom Coleman did do some brief harping on the match in last Friday’s Preview Show, although that recording was not long after the match finished and now I’ve had a chance to watch over it again, I do have a few headings under which I’d like to share some thoughts…

DEFENCE – One observation I made on the preview show was that “this match reminded me of the old British & Irish Cup matches down in Donnybrook where it was Boys vs Men and the boys winning handily”. I still believe this to an extent, but I should probably add a caveat because Chile were clearly a much better outfit than some of the sides Leinster A faced back in the day.

They definitely came to play but not for the first time a Leinster side has posted a scoreline like this where I’m much more impressed by the “3” in the scoreline than I am by the “40”. From the first minute to the last while “Los Cóndores” did everything they could to add some five-pointers to the penalty they converted in the sixth minute to take the lead, they just could not break down the home side’s defensive organisation which is yet another clear indicator that it matters not if it’s the elite XV or a side like this with mostly academy and club hopefuls, the standards without the ball seem to run right through the squad.

I’ll mention individuals in a later point but for this one it would be unfair to single people out as there did not seem to be a weak link in the chain and even on the rare occasions there was a line break it was always snuffed out by excellent scrambling. Not a bad quality for a trophy-chasing club to be able to rely on.

SIX TRIES – But of course no matter how well you’re defending you also have to put points on the board and after settling in with a couple of “penalty-lineout-maul-Lee Barron try” scores, our third was an amazing tap n go penalty by Cormac Foley where he started 10m in his own half, jinked around 3 forwards like they weren’t there and then accelerated through the backfield sevens-style for the score.

The “bonus point” try came with the visitors being a man down as this the set move of an attacking lineout went through the backs where Andrew Smith, who overall didn’t have the best day with a few missed chances, made no mistake here with a neat in-out step to get around the final tackler.

Early in the second half right at the end of the sin bin period skipper for the day Liam Turner ran a lovely line to take a pass breaking through under the posts to make it 33-3 while on 49 minutes we got our 6th and final try when number 8 Sean O’Brien took an offload after a Nick McCarthy snipe to go over.

Being the defensive nerd that I am I actually didn’t mind the lack of tries in the final half hour as Chile really did all they could to get their side of the scoreboard working again only to be denied even after we went heavily into our bench. For me, that kind of defiance is as good as a seven pointer.

STANDOUT PLAYERS – Charlie Tector got PotM yet while I do think he played well and seems to be progressing nicely after his U20 Six Nations heroics earlier in the year, if Cormac Foley had played the full 80 (he left the action on 44m although did come back on briefly for McCarthy later) I’d have gone for him, not only for the “worldy” try, but also for his over distribution and decision making which was mostly at the heart of everything positive for our attack.

Others that stood out for me were second row pairing Brian Deeny & Cormac Foley, and back rowers Conall Boomer and Seán O’Brien. Also having already harped on the team defending, there was an amazing individual effort from Liam Turner in stopping a certain try with a last-ditch tackle in the corner, his stock is definitely rising in a Leinster set up already well stocked with quality centres.

JUSTIN & JAMES – I remember a Leinster match back in the old Pro 14 (though not the opposition sadly) when the TV commentators were Reggie Corrigan and Bernard Jackman and I remarked that they would be perfect for ALL Leinster matches, even if just as a red button option if that could be organised.

But I reckon Justin Middleton & James Lowe did a decent job putting themselves forward for such a role on this match, not only did they describe the action perfectly but we also got to know some of the lads’ nicknames, like Rob Russell “The TikTok Dancer”, Tom Clarkson “The Italian Stallion”, and also according to JLowe it seems Michael Milne is a bit of a grumpy sod!

Imagine people with accents that are definitely not Irish banging on about Leinster Rugby like that? I doubt anyone else would dare giving it a go…

FINAL THOUGHTS – All in all a good run out for all involved and a decent bonus to have on the calendar to help get us back into the URC mindset after the Autumn internationals. And I’m pretty sure the occasion helped greatly in Chile’s World Cup preparations, too. The mini-bustup at the end (or dare I call it a “mini-Donnybrook”?) shows just how seriously both sides were taking it.

JVDF & TK = 🌎 POTY

“And when Irish Men’s Rugby saw the breadth of its domain, it wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

Obviously that’s tongue in cheek but whatever happens in the future we can always say we remember a time when Ireland’s XVs team were ranked number 1, we had the best XVs player in the world, the best 7s player in the world, plus of course a World Cup 7s bronze after only taking the discipline seriously a few years ago.

Absolutely delighted for Josh & Terry on their much-deserved awards, obviously there are many out there who will highlight the case for others to have gotten them but just let them grumble.

Next up, as well as keeping the men’s standards where they are heading to RWC2023, we can also aspire to bringing the women’s game up to those levels as well.

RAS-TOO-FAR-IAN

Ugh. I’m sick and tired of harpin’ on f**kin’ Rassie. But he gives me no choice. I do my best to stay level headed on the social media as others seem to find themselves all too easily “triggered”, but when he posted last week about his spate of tweets and videos after the Boks lost to both Ireland & France in successive weeks, suggesting that the posts were “not aimed at the officials,but to our fans on what we should do better”, I’d had enough of the BS and had to respond.

Not surprisingly a lot of South African fans replied with not too kind suggestions as to what I could do for steps 5, 6 and sometimes even 7, but I realise I did kind of leave myself open to that with the framing and I certainly don’t regret posting the tweet at all.

It later emerged that he had been banned for two more games by World Rugby [very weak sauce IMO given his previous but at least it was something] so I’m assuming his tweet was done having found out about the sanction before us.

Whatever the reality behind the scenes, the guy really needs to stay in his lane.

A BRIDGE TOO QATAR

I’m definitely not “one of those” rugby fans who likes to turn up his nose at football, but when it comes to the 2022 World Cup that just started last weekend, I’m definitely a rugby fan who is happy to turn his back on it for a few weeks. Plenty of URC & Heineken Cup action to satisfy my sporting taste buds in that time.

Sadly, as I have said before on these pages, with Qatar Airways sneaking on to the URC officials jerseys and the final RWC qualifiers taking place in Dubai of all places, I fear our own sport might be tempted down a similar road.

PARABÉNS PORTUGAL!!!

I don’t know very much about my Portuguese heritage on my father’s side, but after their dramatic last-gasp penalty to clinch a draw against the USA which was enough to get them to RWC2023, I might find out a bit more so I can get behind them as my second team when the tournament comes around. Massive achievement for them although I reckon Francisco Issac, who appeared on our pod talking about the Rugby Europe Super Cup a few weeks ago, explains their journey a whole lot better in this Squidge-esque video…

INJURY REPORTS

Biggest news in this week’s Leinster list is Rónan Kelleher reaching the “Available for selection” portion although of course it’s great to see Ryan & Harry there too. As great and all as it has been to see Dan Sheehan tearing it up this season, it won’t hurt to have Rónan back to his best as well and he must be chomping at the bit to get out there.

Meanwhile down in the dreaded “no further update” portion it’s not good to see Henshaw in there for sure, although it is definitely good news to see James Lowe move out of there, as much as I enjoyed his commentary I’d enjoy seeing him in a Leinster jersey a whole lot more.

INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Harry Byrne: will be available to train this week following his return from a hamstring injury  

Ryan Baird: has completed the Graduated Return to Play Protocols and will return to full training this week

Rónan Kelleher: will be available to train this week following his return from a hamstring injury

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Jordan Larmour and James Lowe: will again step up their rehabilitation this week as they return from foot and calf injuries respectively   

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Johnny Sexton: will be assessed this week for a calf injury sustained in the build-up to the Australia game on Saturday

There are no further updates on:

Martin Moloney (knee), Ciarán Frawley (knee), Will Connors (bicep), Robbie Henshaw (hamstring), James Tracy (neck), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

The round robin portion of the Women’s AIL came to a close last weekend with UL Bohs clinching their spot in the semifinals with a home win over Galwegians, although their chances of progressing further look slim as they have to travel to play 100% Blackrock College, who just put the 79 points on Suttonians. The other semi looks to be a lot closer as Railway Union’s 22-5 win in Wicklow meant they will host Belvo for a place in the final on Dec 9, which will be televised on TG4.

Over in the men’s they had the weekend off and they are back in action this weekend with the big match in Division 1A being 100% 1st place Terenure travelling to Castle Avenue to play 3rd place Clontarf, a match which should feature several of the players who did so well in Leinster blue against Chile last Friday.

Women’s AIL

Ballincollig 15-3 Cooke

Blackrock College 79-0 Suttonians

UL Bohemian 13-7 Galwegians

Wicklow RFC 5-22 Railway Union

Men’s AIL

Sat Nov 26

Shannon v UCD

Ballynahinch v Cork Con

Clontarf v Terenure

Dublin University v Young Munster

Lansdowne v Garryowen

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

The Best League aka the URC is back in action this week, and Leinster hope to continue their unbeaten start to the season by hosting Glasgow at the RDS on Saturday afternoon. I’ll be speaking to Warriors fan David Arnott on Wednesday for a bonus pod to see how their season has gone so look out for that, then on Friday Keego will join me for the Preview Show, with the wrap as always getting recorded on Sunday evening.

Also there will be the usual features on our various social media channels, including Mastodon which seems to be attracting more and more rugby fans each day so why not check it out if you haven’t already.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Sportsmanship – some good on the pitch, some bad off it

Welcome to my 80+ column, a weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

A WRAP OF A WRAP

With all due respect to Fiji, matches against them and others like Georgia are meant to be the “off” weekend in November but to us rugby nerds in particular they can be just as fascinating as the marquee matches.

Maybe last Saturday’s match wasn’t the best example of this but still on the Sunday pod (can’t believe it’s already the 3th under the new format) I was joined by Rich Mifsud and Caolán Scully to look back over the match as well as a few other bits and pieces from the rugby world, and between us I reckon we did a decent job making some points out of it, why not check it out yourself by clicking this link.

On the pod we follow a rigid enough structure to keep the whole recording under the hour so normally only one of us will get to harp on a particular topic before we move on, but my guests are encouraged to jump in if they want to prolong a conversation because even if it’s cut from the pod I can always release it separately and as you can see below there was one subject in particular we wanted to go into bit more detail on.

Hey, if he can make videos when something pisses him off why can’t we?

MARTIN SCOR-RASSIE

So below you can see the chat we had on the pod surrounding Rassie, and here is a comment I got on our YouTube channel, along with my reply.

Albert Van den berg OK. Help me. The things that he shows on video, that is true. What will you do when it’s your team. And world rugby don’t do anything? What’s the use to play rugby. And the ref does not blow right. Please help me understand.

Harpin’ On Rugby Happy to help.

1) a few selected clips do not reflect the overall context of a rugby match. Does it confirm the same incident didn’t happen the other way?

2) You and I should of course be free to post all the videos we want on social media, that’s what it’s for. But a DoR of a top tier nations who has already been banned for the same thing? Absolutely not. There are mechanisms in place for him to make his concerns known and he should stick to them.

3) Rassie (who I admire as a coach, earned all of his success to date) knows all of the above yet still persists in dealing with what can only be called “referee coercion”.

WORLD POTY

You don’t need me to tell you that I’m a big fan of both Messrs Sexton & van der Flier but even I have to admit I was surprised to see both in the four-man shortlist for World Player of the Year, and naturally there was a flurry of tweets suggesting those who were left out. Some referred to the national imbalance (France had a more successful year) while others put forward individual names they thought were missing.

Now I’m not suggesting this solution would prevent the whinging, because nothing will ever do that, but I do think it’s possible to maybe make that list a little longer.

Whatever about the fans’ opinion, going by the official graphic only the Irish lads are happy about being nominated…

BUNDEE’S BACK

I love Bundee Aki as a player and I do think he should play a part in Ireland’s RWC preparations, so I do get why he’s in the frame for selection this weekend against the Wallabies, plus we’re down a couple of leading centers to injury, but still…given the recent ban was not his first I don’t think it would have been the worst idea to leave him out of the Irish squad for November.

Watch him get the winning try on Saturday after me saying that.

CHIN UP MATE

Lot of talk about bad sportsmanship in rugby this week so how about a view of the other side…right after Ben Donaldson (on his test debut) missed the crucial kick at the end of #ITAvAUS not only did his team mates not hesitate to go console him but so did Italian 10 Tomasso Allan who chose to take the time to do likewise before celebrating. Awesome to see.

ANGRY BIRDS

I recently saw someone describe Twitter as a “cess pit”, ironically in a tweet.

That narrative really, really bugs me because from my experience Twitter has enhanced my experience of rugby by a factor of infinity. Yes, there are those who either have no idea where “the line” is or worse, know full well and happily leap over it, but that’s what the mute, block and report buttons are for. Those muppets are far outnumbered by decent people who know how to have a conversation with dignity and this should never be forgotten.

And yes, I know Elon is there doing whatever it is that he’s doing so the censoring may not always work, but it should never prevent us from keeping the discussion going. A recent exchange on twitter involving someone I have a lot of respect for (without always agreeing, that’s how it’s supposed to work) was particularly annoying.

TRANSGENDER AWARENESS WEEK

It’s Transgender Awareness Week from Nov 13-19, click here for more information. I have harped on the trans rugby issue before in this column so all I’ll do is repost it below.

You may recall over the summer there was a pretty intense discussion over transgender participation in rugby. My position was, well, let’s just say, complicated, and I struggled to explain it the way I wanted to in the ruggersphere.

What I was trying to say was that as much as we want to leave politics out of sport, in areas like this we have to acknowledge the wider topic because it can often lead to abuse from verbal all the way to physical.

Essentially the argument of needing an outright ban simply because we’re imagining a grown man posing as a woman just to play rugby and the dangers that entails falls way short of the conversation that needs to be had on the matter.

Thankfully John Oliver did a decent job laying out the wider issue IMO so here’s his recent (NSFW) piece on it…

INJURY REPORTS

With the URC returning the weekend after next we got two injury reports and unfortunately there was not a lot of good news, especially for Ciarán Frawley who just can’t string a run of games together at all.

There’s also a lot of concern over the “no further updates” list, that’s usually where my eyes go first.

IRISH REPORT

Joey Carbery will complete the return to play protocols at Munster following his removal on Saturday for a HIA. Robbie Henshaw’s hamstring issue will rule him out of this week’s game against Australia, and he will continue his rehab at Leinster.

Jimmy O’Brien will complete the HIA process today and is expected to be available to train tomorrow.

The players who picked up knocks against South Africa – Johnny Sexton, James Ryan, Andrew Porter, Josh van der Flier and Hugo Keenan – will be monitored across the early part of the week and re-integrated into training according to their individual management plans.

Joe McCarthy returns to the squad having completed his return to play protocols.

Bundee Aki, who has trained with the squad for the past few weeks, is now available for selection having completed his suspension and the coaching intervention programme.

LEINSTER REPORT

INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Joe McCarthy: will be available to train this week following his return from the Graduated Return to Play Protocols and has joined up with the Ireland squad

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Harry Byrne, Jordan Larmour and Rónan Kelleher: will step up their rehabilitation this week as they return from hamstring, foot and a hamstring injury respectively

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Martin Moloney: injured his ACL in the game against Scarlets and has had a procedure. He will be unavailable for the rest of the season.

Ciarán Frawley: will have a procedure tomorrow for a knee injury and will be unavailable for a number of months.

Robbie Henshaw: has returned to Leinster Rugby where he will be assessed for a hamstring injury

There are no further updates on:

Ryan Baird (concussion), Will Connors (bicep), James Lowe (calf), James Tracy (neck), Charlie Ryan (knee) and Tommy O’Brien (knee)

AIL UPDATE

The Women’s AIL is nearing its conclusion with just one more round of matches before the top four go into the semifinals. Rock ensured they will be at home with their 19-17 top of the table win at Railway Union ensures both clubs will be at home in the playoffs, with Belvo having already clinched their place. The fourth and final spot is up for grabs this weekend and two of the teams in contention UL Bohs and Galwaegians play each other while Wicklow have a tougher task against RU.

One extra thing about Wicklow RFC, it’s quite something to see them in contention for the final four this season after receiving much ridicule from some quarters (and not just them but the women’s game in general) following a series of heavy defeats.

Meanwhile over on the men’s side of things Terenure’s perfect start continued, with a 38-21 win over Hinch at Lakelands keeping them top, can’t do better than 30 points from 30! They travel to Castle Avenue to play Tarf next in what’s clearly the tie of the round although that’s not until the weekend of the 26th.

Women’s AIL

Suttonians 24-12 Ballincollig

Cooke 12-55 UL Bohemian

Old Belvedere 17-8 Wicklow

Railway Union 17-19 Blackrock College

Sat Nov 19

Ballincollig v Cooke

Blackrock College v Suttonians

UL Bohemian v Galwegians

Wicklow RFC v Railway Union

Men’s AIL

Cork Con 36-25 Lansdowne

Dublin University 34-28 Shannon

Garryowen 22-47 UCD

Terenure 38-21 Ballynahinch

Young Munster 24-19 Clontarf

Sat Nov 26

Shannon v UCD

Ballynahinch v Cork Con

Clontarf v Terenure

Dublin University v Young Munster

Lansdowne v Garryowen

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

All about the Wallabies this weekend, with Tom Coleman joining me on Friday evening for a preview pod, while after having Munster representation for the wrap last Sunday, there will be harpin’ from Ulster and Connacht as Ian Frizzell and Stephen Murphy this time around. Plus of course there will be all the regular features to stay tuned to our social media channels, including Mastodon where we having been posting first of late.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Grateful host, new platform, fan qualms

Welcome to my 80+ column, a new weekly post featuring final thoughts from the week of rugby just gone.  

A WRAP OF A WRAP

I can’t even begin to say how grateful I am for my contributors to all of the Harpin pods.  If you’re new to the site, while we’ve been harpin’ overall since 2008, this is only the fourth season of the podcast and for the first three we’d only do one per week but now it’s 2-3 as it has become our main platform which of course means I need my group of contributors more than ever.

And during what has been a very experimental (and also just plain mental) first few months they have all been absolutely amazing giving up their time, not just spent on the Zoom calls themselves, but also in what is clearly excellent preparation, so it goes without saying this will not be the last time I thank Tom & Mark this week, and also Keego, Conor, Rich & Kino from the “core Leinster crew” and also Michelle, Ian & Padraig on whom I usually call for a view from the other provinces, plus all the others who gave joined me for a chat over the past while.  All truly awesome fellow rugby nerds/nuts.

This latest wrap pod went really well I thought, why not listen for yourself, and when recording was finished it dawned on me that we have yet to do a show under the new format which covered a Leinster & Ireland defeat.  Then I said that out loud so if you’re worried about my jinxing it by writing it here I’m afraid that train has already left the station!

OTHER TESTS

On the main weekly pod we do a feature called “Front Five” where we offer quick thoughts on issues from around the ruggersphere – normally I would have used all five for other tests from the weekend but there were some areas I thought deserved more spotlight (IRE A, IRE 7s & Women’s RWC) so we just looked at the two matches which finished 30-29, Fra over Aus because we play the Wallabies in a couple of weeks, and Arg over Eng because, well, do I need to explain that one?

To turn the spotlight on the others briefly, I also got to see our other November opponents Fiji playing at Murrayfield and I have to say it will be very interesting to see hat kind of team we name because although the Scots did put them to the sword, it took them a while to get in control and seeing how we’re likely to name a 23 closer to the A than the elite, we’re probably going to need our boys to gel quickly because if you open the door to these Fijians to play their way just a bit, they can really hurt you.

Then there’s Wales – to be fair they had a few flashes of good rugby but were really overpowered by an All Black set up clearly still hurting from results earlier in the year and not at all content with the 2022 Rugby Championship crown.  For me the main highlight of this match was the duel between two of the top number 8s on the planet right now, Toby Faletau and Ardie Savea – obvs the latter doesn’t always play there but it helps my narrative to put it this way!

On a side note, fair play to not only the guy who typed this on his Guardian live blog feed, but also the newspaper itself for leaving it there.  I know some take issue with the sentiment, using the whole “Why not give them a second chance” argument, but those same pearl-clutchers are often the very ones complaining about the right to free speech and “being cancelled” so maybe they’re not quite sure what they really want.

RWC2023 QUALIFIERS

With the Women’s RWC final next Saturday and the corruptly-hosted mens football version starting shortly afterwards, I suppose you could say it’s easy to forget the men’s RWC in France which isn’t until September, although of course Ireland’s win over RSA was a dress rehearsal for our Pool B encounter.

However I’m still a bit disappointed that the final qualifying tournament isn’t getting more coverage.  Maybe given what I said about corruption in the last paragraph, it’s a little disconcerting that it is taking place in Dubai, which together with the words “Qatar Airways” appearing on URC officials jerseys suggests our own powers that be are also having their heads turned by that corner of the world.

Still, when it comes to the rugby on the pitch, there’s one spot left up for grabs between USA, Portugal, Kenya & Hong Kong with the winner taking their place in Pool C alongside Wales, Australia, Fiji & Georgia.  The first round of matches saw USA & Portugal registering wins, and with them also avoiding each other this weekend it could set up a winner takes all match up which I’d hope would attract a decent amount of attention in the ruggersphere.

FROM MUSK TO NEW (MASTO)DAWN

I have been contemplating a ‘blue tick’ on the twitter for a few years now but let’s just say that is definitely not happening now!  Doesn’t mean I’ll ditch the platform altogether, I still think it is a decent one for rugby the way things stand, but with all the hullabaloo over this new thing Mastodon, I could hardly not join the crowd setting up over there so if you are also partaking, by all means follow me > LINK HERE

For now I’ll keep an eye on how things are progressing there when I can although the main conversation still has to be with the little bird as things stand.  Replacing it completely with similar numbers is definitely a mammoth task, pun fully intended, of course.

MUSIC AT MATCHES

Since we are primarily a site for fan opinion, I guess I really should weigh in on a number of issues that have cropped up ahead of the internationals, especially since my view seems to differ in many cases to that of the majority if social media posts are anything to go by.

At both the RDS on Friday and the Aviva on Saturday, they tried out playing little bursts of music during breaks in play.  It did not seem to go over well at all.  Since I wasn’t physically there either time, I can’t speak for the volume which may have been too loud but once they tone it down I have to say I can’t see it bothering me too much, sorry, I guess we can’t agree on everything!

I did particularly like the use of U2’s Vertigo after Mack Hansens try, really gives the celebrations a good little boost, although one wrinkle is that there’s always the possibility of it being called back by the TMO.  Going by the crickets I heard after tweeting about this on Sunday, I guess I’m on my own here too!!!

JERSEY CLASHES

I remember the kerfuffle the last time we hosted the All Blacks in 2017, we wore the Jersey with the “anthracite” colour.  I actually have that one (tho I didn’t buy it, got it in a Canterbury promotion) and I still wear it because it reminds me of the 2018 Grand Slam.

My complaint about what we wore on Saturday, however, has nothing to do with the possibility of a clash with our opposition.  It just doesn’t look at all like a test jersey.  And by that I don’t even mean the lack of collar (although I am quite partial to the old fashioned rugby jersey look) no, I mean the design would be fine if it was part of the kit they were warming up in, just not the one they actually play in.

Keep the alternate ones mostly white with green trim, I say.

ANTHEMS

My policy on anthems has been consistent over the years but these 80+ columns are relatively new so I’ll lay it out once more here.

Ireland’s Call may not get the pulse racing like Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau or La Marseillaise, but the constant complaining about it from the same people, many of whom I respect and agree with on virtually everything else to do with rugby, is something I find disappointing.  Some try to cop out by saying they just don’t like it because it’s a poor song but I reckon they wouldn’t be happy whatever the tune.

There’s a very specific reason we add it to Amhran na bhFian at home, and sing it on its own while away.  And it also happens to be a very good reason in my book, and once more I apologise if others disagree.  

Plus it seemed like the Aviva crowd were giving both songs a really good airing on Saturday, although that may have been the positioning of the microphones.

LATE ARRIVALS

This one I’m actually in agreement with the majority on, if you can’t make it to your seat before a half kicks off then you can wait.  Stewards can maybe look for a break in play to allow people in but that would be at their discretion and as they have many other roles, the stragglers need to be prepared to wait.

INJURY REPORT

Despite the fact that for the second week in a row the official report begins with the word “unfortunately”, I would call this a positive report, although not so much for Conor Murray who defied his critics with a good showing for his 100th cap before being forced off.  Hopefully he’ll be back soon for Munster at least because they definitely need him.

Elsewhere I’m delighted for Stu McCloskey and Tadhg Furlong because especially the former did not look good leaving the pitch on Saturday and definitely earned the right to feature again in this series.  Personally while I’d like to see Bundee back fighting fo his place in the future, whether or not he is available to face the Wallabies I don’t think he should unless it is absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile it’s more bad news on the injury front for Ciaran Frawley he really needs a decent run of games under his belt yet keeps getting denied, he’s getting into Carbery territory at this stage.

Unfortunately, Ireland’s latest centurion Conor Murray has been ruled out of the rest of the Series with a groin strain and will commence his rehab at Munster.

Robbie Henshaw, who missed out on Saturday’s game due to a hamstring issue, will reintegrate to training this week. Stuart McCloskey is recovering quickly from the arm issue that forced him off early against South Africa and will train this week.

Tadhg Furlong (ankle) is expected to take part in training this week while Ireland captain Johnny Sexton is recovering well from a dead leg.

From Friday night’s A game against the All Black XV, Ciaran Frawley suffered a twisted knee and will continue his rehab at Leinster. Joe McCarthy and Ryan Baird will continue their return to play protocols at Leinster.

Michael Milne, who featured against both the Pumas and the Cheetahs for Emerging Ireland in Bloemfontein, will train with the Ireland squad this week.

AIL UPDATE

There were top of the table clashes in both Women’s and Men’s top divisions last weekend, and by all accounts both were thrillers. It took a late try from Aoife O’Shaughnessy to clinch victory for Railway Union over Belvo, and for the second weekend in a row they will host a fellow 100% team when they host Blackrock College.

Meanwhile in the men’s top division it was another comeback as Clontarf reversed a 16-point deficit to overpower Dublin University although while they are still 100% their game in hand has them second behind Terenure who won convincingly at Lansdowne and host Ballynahinch next weekend while Tarf travel to play Young Munster.

Women’s AIL

Blackrock 71-7 Ballincollig

Railway Union 15-11 Old Belvedere

Wicklow 16-14 Galwegians

UL Bohemian 43-5 Suttonians

Sat Nov 12

Suttonians v Ballincollig

Cooke v UL Bohemian

Old Belvedere v Wicklow

Railway Union v Blackrock College

Men’s AIL

Round 5

Shannon 30-19 Garryowen

Lansdowne 12-32 Terenure

Ballynahinch 25-20 Young Munster

Clontarf 38-33 Dublin University

UCD 31-36 Cork Constitution

Sat Nov 12

Cork Con v Lansdowne

Dublin University v Shannon

Garryowen v UCD

Terenure v Ballynahinch

Young Munster v Clontarf

THE NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

I’ve been neglecting the TikTok account of late unfortunately, haven’t had the time if truth be told, but will get back to it soon.  Definitely happening this week will be giving the match against Fiji the full Harpin treatment, with Mark Jackson returning for the preview on Friday, then Caolan Scully and Rich Mifsud pencilled in to do the wrap on Sunday.  Other regular features like Rugby On TV will still be posted as well so as always, stay tuned to all our regular social media channels, and also our new one on Mastodon if you dare.

In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP