For the foreseeable future, the 80+ column will appear on the Harpin’ Substack page just subscribe for free over there to receive it every week.
I’ll post a couple of the Front 5 articles plus the bonus clip here for this week but from next week on, it will be exclusively on Substack.
WRAP OF A WRAP
I needed a late substitute this week and although he had already done the preview show to make his 200th overall Harpin contribution, Ciarán Duffy was also on hand to do #201 along with Conor Cronin. It was the second week of our new pod format going with topics rather than a timeline approach. I still personally like the ‘old way’ myself as it was a throwback to the pre-podcast day when I’d do a match writeup but I reckon for the pod genre of content this way is better suited.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
THE LION’S SHARE
Unlike other years, all players will be paid the same amount for their contributions on tour – whether they feature in all three Tests or merely figure for minutes off the bench.
The headline looks like it has been designed to ragebait the ABL crowd, but you won’t be surprised to learn that my personal response is “proper order!” Whatever your opinion on the amount of Leinster players in the squad, when there’s as many as 12, why shouldn’t the province benefit, especially when there has been what I call a “Leinster tariff” imposed on it which is to benefit the other provinces (which I approve up FWIW in case I’m misunderstood).
DAY OF REIKO-NING
“I’ve spoken closely with [Leinster head coach] Leo [Cullen] over there and they have a plan…I’m sure they’ll look after me well and everything will be good.”
Yeah, I get the whole 50/50 thing I guess, but if he puts in the effort when he’s here, the Leinster fans will take to him. Actually if he has half the impact Jordie has brought he’ll be doing well in my book.
HARPIN ON…THE LIONS SQUAD
LEAD-IN : Well with all that happened last weekend against Northampton including the tragic news about Caelan Doris’ surgery, despite there being so many Leinster and Ireland players involved, we weren’t exactly all that excited about the Lions selection during the week so we didn’t respond right away, which means it’s about time we did and I have asked the panel to go over the squad and maybe select a XV for the first test between them.
Ugh. Didn’t really fancy producing any content this week if I’m honest, but the show must go on as they say.
If nothing else, one positive from last weekend was that it gave me the chance to try out a new format for the wrap pods. Up to now we have used a “timeline” method whereby one contributor talks through the match while myself and the other comments. I had been doing this because (a) I thought it was a bit different to other pods (b) it helped capture the different points of the match and (c) it was part of the transition from the old Harpin match writeups which I did in a similar way.
Let’s just say that myself, Rich and Hugo were unanimous in agreement that we did not want to go through the sequence of that semifinal, especially when a rewatch was involved. So instead I went with a format I had been planning to trial for the Lions test series, and I reckon it worked pretty well. Between the three of us we chose 8 talking points from the match, then the lads had a “draft” of sorts in selecting them and we got to harpin’ that way.
It also meant I could hold a couple of topics back for the “bonus chat” and FWIW I may just stick with it until the end of the season and see how I get on.
More Harpin’ admin news… I’m thinking of making permanent is cutting out the Front 5 videos…I really enjoyed doing them (I had made a pledge this season to get more comfortable doing “talking to camera” videos and it was good practice) but the editing takes too long so instead I’ll go back to scribbling some thoughts after each link.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
INEVITABLE ARTICLES
“Would Leinster have been happy going to extra-time in a game where they trailed by 10 points, early in the final quarter? You would have thought so at the time.”
I’m leading with this offering from Brendan not because of this particular article itself, rather because it represents the type of article we always see the week following a consequential Leinster or Ireland defeat, and knowing these are on the horizon serves to amplify the post-defeat disappointment. To be clear – that doesn’t mean I disagree with the points made in them, it’s just I’m a fan and don’t like reading them!!! We’ve all been there.
DORIS OUT
‘The full extent of the injury, and implications for the summer, won’t be known until after the procedure’
We spoke about this ‘try’ on the bonus video below, one of those cases where two things can be true at the same time – should have been a try? possibly so. Does that mean Leinster deserved to win? probably not. Anyway in articles like this you get the nuts and bolts of other people’s interpretations of the decision.
WELSH RUGBY UPDATE
…there’s a realisation the stalemate that has now gone on for months cannot continue.
Latest news in the Welsh saga…if I was cynical I’d say it was all amusing, but if I’m being honest I just wish they’d settle on something that works soon. I really truly don’t enjoy seeing things this bad over there, I want the regions to be competing so I can be giving out about losses like Leinster’s to the Scarlets recently more often, if that makes sense!!!
SUPER RUGBY USA
World Rugby’s interest has been piqued if one or two teams can follow in the footsteps of the Drua or Jaguares, who were backed by the governing body
I’d love to see this happen, but only if it’s done right. LA might be a good fit geographically but I’m pretty sure they’d need the team to appeal to a wider fan base. For me, the ideal solution would be to let the US Eagles play, but as with all sports of European origin, that club/country barrier is impenetrable.
HARPIN ON…THE ANNUAL CULLENOSCOPY
For this video we harped on a couple of bonus topics, here are the lead-in questions..
“…we’re going to start with Rich who is going to look at the officiating from Saturday…was it an issue or should fans be focusing on that at all?”
“…now Hugo is going to answer a question that I have to say more and more people have been asking each year as our European campaigns have ended, should Leo go? What do you think?”
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
On the Harpin’ WhatsApp & Discord we’ve been debating Leinster’s selection policy after the Northampton result, particularly for this weekend against Zebre, who’s season is effectively over (their 29pts is more than their last two campaigns combined, yet with two matches left they still can’t reach top 8).
Do we (a) bring out the cotton wool, (b) go ‘full throttle’ or (c) bit of both?
The consensus among the groups was overwhelmingly (b) so that would mean a team this weekend very similar to last. But just to play devil’s advocate, I have chosen to go for a 23 that leans heavily in the other direction, going with the premise that it will give the next in line for each position one more run out just in case they are needed in the knockouts, we can then go full throttle against Glasgow the following week.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V ZEBRE
15 J Osborne 14 J O’Brien 13 H Cooney 12 C Tector 11 A Osborne 10 C Frawley 9 L McGrath (c)
1 J Boyle 2 G McCarthy 3 R Slimani 4 B Deeny 5 D Mangan 6 R Baird 7 S Penny 8 J Culhane
16 J McKee 17 C Healy 18 R McGuire 19 J Ryan 20 A Soroka 21 C Foley 22 R Byrne 23 R Russell
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
OFFICIAL UPDATE posted Monday
AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Rob Russell and James Ryan: have returned to full training having recovered from injury.
NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Caelan Doris: will have a procedure this week on a shoulder injury and a further assessment will be carried out afterwards.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Jordan Larmour, Will Connors and Brian Deeny.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
On my last ‘Broken Play’ article on Substack (head over and subscribe for free if you can) I spoke about how important banter is in sport once it doesn’t cross a line and I referenced a particular social media commentator called Edward Jenkins or ‘Ed Jenx’ and while Leinster & Ireland are frequent targets of his, he definitely falls into the category and we need to be able to take it as well as give it.
A lot of it can still be called “trolling” though, so this post makes him our latest detainee, however appropriate his comparison might be.
Irish Shield
SVNS
LOS ANGELES 7s
RELEGATION PLAYOFFS
IREW7s
L V RSA 7-12
L V ARG 12-20
L V CHN 15-19
IREM7s
L V GER 0-15
L V CAN 12-19
L V URU 12-27
Note – they announced changes to the Svns circuit for next season, reducing the top tier to just 8 nations so Ireland would probably have been excluded from that in both genders regardless of results from the weekend. We will see how the new system works out for next season but it looks like it will be a long road back to the top, especially if we continue to send weaker squads as we did this season.
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
Follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare although Mark does seem to be gaining on him… meanwhile down at the foot of the table, a mini fightback from David is the bookies favourite to take ownership of TJOS but in an official statement he claims to continue his strategy of making his selections based solely on “vibes”.
We’re very much creatures of habit here at Harpin Manor but the past week has been crazy. Normally we have fixed content production for particular days of the week yet life has a canny knack of getting in the way eh?
So first of all the wrap pod was just myself and Conor Cronin – I reckon we did an ok job of summarizing the match all things considered, had a bit of banter online with some Scarlets fans about it. Didn’t have time to do either the “final thoughts” or the “bonus chat” videos this week unfortunately, although I am seriously thinking aboyt scaling back the weekly content anyway as my routine involves.
One thing is for sure, with two matches per week on the Lions Tour coming up, for that period alone there will need to be a massive re-think! Anyway, we’ll cross that when we get to it.
Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t have time to make the usual video and I wasn’t going to comment on my Front 5 choices either but I had to make an exception for this one.
Over the weekend there was a post on BlueSky that shed a completely new light over what should have been a story about the Women’s Six Nations clash between Scotland and Ireland.
Apparently there was to be a trophy awarded to the winner to honour the memory of Siobhán Cattigan, and this seemed to be a perfectly fitting tribute until, well, there was an intervention and her poor family were left rightly confused and heartbroken.
It has apparently since been resolved but the whole thing just served to sully further what was already a very bad show by the SRU.
Hat-tip to Ailbhe from the excellent MudderRucker podcast for helping me find the one and only article in the press about this, and indeed it was excellent gumshoe journalism by David Walsh from the Times who has followed the story since Siobhan’s tragic passing.
The article is behind a paywall and I want to respect that so I won’t go into more detail but I definitely recommend reading the full story if you can and I’m looking forward to watching the SIobhán Cattigan Trophy (or something similar, I don’t think the name has been confirmed) be awarded in the near future.
WAS FEATURE NOW BUG
Other competitions, such as cricket’s Hundred, have found a lucrative market for stakes in franchise teams free from the threat of relegation.
I think I need to write something here as well, I just discovered this article as I was putting together the column! Nice to see the Premiership have finally admitted that theirs was a failed business model after years of claiming relegation was actually the main feature.
WALL SIDELINED
The news comes a week after flanker Erin King was ruled out of the World Cup following a serious knee injury.
Major blow for Ireland as injury rules Dorothy Wall out of Women’s World Cup
Ciarán Kennedy – The42.ie
Devastating blow for Dorothy personally of course but also the full Irish squad.
SEALED WITH A KISS
They also get the reassurance of current coach Joe Schmidt continuing after the British & Irish Lions tour this winter and the Rugby Championship Tests in Spring.
“Hogg had been thriving in his new life in the south of France, operating in a surprise new position at fly-half.”
Stuart Hogg ruled out of rugby until 2026 after devastating setback
Steven S – Ruck.co.uk
While I’d never be happy about an injury to anyone, let’s just say I am a lot less gutted about this Achilles injury than I am Dorothy Wall’s. Regular Harpin readers will know the Front Five column has been following Hogg’s off-field story closely over the past while, although to read this particular story you’d think it never happened. I guess that’s their editorial choice, but I would have included a line like “Hogg, who was sentenced in January 2025 for abusing his estranged wife”, as I have here.
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
Excellent news on James Ryan and Rob Russell but I very much doubt the former will be ready in time for Saturday’s semifinal so for my selection I have tried to reward those who have impressed in recent weeks for the tight decisions. Tommy O’Brien, Jack Deegan, Diarmuid Mangan and Max Deegan all fall into this category.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V NORTHAMPTON
15 H Keenan 14 T O’Brien 13 G Ringrose 12 J Barrett 11 J Lowe 10 S Prendergast 9 J Gibson-Park
1 A Porter 2 D Sheehan 3 T Furlong 4 J McCarthy 5 RG Snyman 6 J Conan 7 J vd Flier 8 C Doris (c)
16 R Kelleher 17 J Boyle 18 R Slimani 19 D Mangan 20 M Deegan 21 L McGrath 22 R Byrne 23 R Henshaw
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
OFFICIAL UPDATE posted Monday
AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
RG Snyman: has returned to full training having recovered from injury.
Ryan Baird: came through the game at the weekend with no issues after his return from injury.
FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Rob Russell: will look to increase his training load this week as he continues his recovery from injury and will be further assessed as the week goes on.
James Ryan: will look to increase his training load this week as he continues his recovery from injury and will be further assessed as the week goes on.
NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Brian Deeny: will have a procedure this week on a knee injury which will keep him out of action for the rest of the season.
Will Connors: is unavailable for selection with an arm injury and will be further assessed this week.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Jordan Larmour.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
Hat-tip to Rugby Kino for spotting this perfect follow up to last week’s Troll Patrol detainee, James has done it again as for the second week in a row, a player loaned by Leinster to Munster has ended up on the losing side, so he just reworked the same message at the same time, with a photo added for maximum effect.
I just hope the Munster fans don’t respond by finding some kind of correlation between the Leinster players’ involvement and the results…..
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
Follow this linkto see how the Road to Australia is progressing, Ciarán has the April update there now.
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare although Mark does seem to be gaining on him… meanwhile down at the foot of the table, a mini fightback from David sees the Jersey race up for grabs again.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting, and congrats to Conor Cronin for defeating, well, me in the final last weekend. Ironically for a Leinster-based site, it was Conor’s complete lack of faith in Munster winning in Cardiff which proved the difference, that match gave him a 1.5 point swing.
Considering Leinster conceded more points in the first 8 minutes v Ulster (3) than the previous 160+, there was a lot more to harp on for this week’s wrap – that said I decided to try and stick to the reduced timeframe we had used over the past two weeks and I think it worked out pretty well, with Ciarán Duffy and David Cordial providing the bulk of the wrapping between them Ciarán now sits on 199 overall contributions to Harpin’ On Rugby over the years so plans are afoot at Harpin’ Manor to properly commemorate the upcoming milestone.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
THINKING INSIDE THE BOX
MURPHY’S LAW
I’M STEVE
WHOLE NEW WORLD
DIVINE INTERVENTION
HARPIN ON…LEINSTER PLAYER PROFILES (PART 1)
lead-in question :
“Last week we honoured Jordie Barrett’s excellent display by looking at Leinster’s greatest imports so I suppose with the business end of the season upon us it might be a good time to turn the spotlight on the current crop of boys in blue. I have asked the panel to select a player each to harp on, starting with David who wants to feature Saturday night’s player of the match…”
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
Last week when I put together my predicted Leinster 23 I failed to take two things into consideration – first, Leinster’s willingness to field much stronger URC squads even at this time of year. I wonder if Richie Murphy & co even suspected to be facing both Messrs Henshaw and Ringrose together for example. But I also forgot about the All Ireland League semifinals, which last weekend featured the names who could have played the interpro like Hugh Cooney, Charlie Tector and Cormac Foley. Since Tarf came out on top at Castle Avenue (see updates below), Tector and Foley could well be in the reckoning for Llanelli, because I have to assume there will be a lot more cotton wool used this time around.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V SCARLETS
15 H McErlean 14 J Osborne 13 L Turner 12 C Tector 11 J O’Brien 10 C Frawley 9 F Gunne
1 J Boyle 2 G McCarthy 3 T Clarkson 4 D Mangan 5 B Deeny 6 A Soroka 7 W Connors 8 M Deegan (c)
16 J McKee 17 C Healy 18 R Maguire 19 A Spicer 20 S Penny 21 C Foley 22 R Byrne 23 A Osborne
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
OFFICIAL UPDATE posted Tuesday
AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Paddy McCarthy and Will Connors: have returned to full training this week having recovered from injury.
FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Ryan Baird: will be further assessed this week for a calf injury and a final decision will be made on his involvement later this week.
RG Snyman: will be further assessed this week following a dead leg against Ulster and a final decision on his involvement will be made later in the week.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Jordan Larmour, Rob Russell and James Ryan.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
Ah, James. Very bold Leinster on Munster trolling that thoroughly deserves this week’s detention. And it’s not just the comment itself, but also the timing…right after the Bulls pinched a win at Thomond Park. Naturally we here at Harpin Monor couldn’t possibly condone such online behaviour…
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
Follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare although Mark does seem to be gaining on him… meanwhile down at the foot of the table, a mini fightback from David sees the Jersey race up for grabs again.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting, with Conor pipping Tom in the second semifinal to join some guy called Jeff in the final this weekend.
Similar Leinster result to the previous weekend meant a similar Harpin wrap pod only this time it was Tom Coleman & Rich Mifsud providing the concise, commendable coverage on Sunday evening.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
BRIDGING THE GAP
PROVINCIAL TARIFF
A LOAN IT STANDS
FLAWED STRUCTURE
URC ON GEORGIA’S MIND
HARPIN ON…LEINSTER’S BEST IMPORTS
Here’s the lead-in question :
“After Jordie Barrett’s out of this world display for Leinster at the Aviva Stadium on Friday evening, I thought for this week’s bonus topic we could take a look back at some of our top imports over the years. I have asked the lads to choose two of their favourites each and I might even chip in with one of my own when they’re done. We’re going to kick things off with Rich, on whom have you chosen to harp?”
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
Thought I was being super efficient having my predicted lineup done straight after the injury report came out but then the Milne/Barron news broke so I had to have another crack. Still think we’ll have a decent 23 for the visit of the Ulstermen on Saturday.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V ULSTER
15 H McErlean 14 J Osborne 13 H Cooney 12 C Tector 11 J O’Brien 10 C Frawley 9 F Gunne
1 J Boyle 2 G McCarthy 3 T Clarkson 4 D Mangan 5 B Deeny 6 A Soroka 7 W Connors 8 J Culhane
16 J McKee 17 M Milne 18 R Maguire 19 A Spicer 20 S Penny 21 C Foley 22 R Byrne 23 A Osborne
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
OFFICIAL UPDATE posted Monday
AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Rónan Kelleher: came through the game at the weekend with no issues following his return from a neck injury.
FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Jack Conan: will be further assessed this week for a minor shoulder injury and a final decision will be made on his involvement later this week.
Ryan Baird: will be further assessed this week for a minor calf injury and a final decision will be made on his involvement later this week.
Paddy McCarthy, Rob Russell and Will Connors: will all step up their respective rehabilitation programmes and a final decision will be made on their involvement later this week.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Jordan Larmour and James Ryan
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
This week’s Troll Patrol detainee claims to be a Leinster fan and his post touches on a topic I’m planning to cover for my Broken Play article on Substack this Saturday morning so stay tuned…
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
Follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare but down at the foot of the table, an impressive couple of rounds has seen Keego move of the bottom for the first time in two years.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting, and after this weekend we’ll know who gets to join some guy named Jeff in next week’s final, with Tom and Conor going head to head for the privilege.
I really don’t think even my most loyal listeners would have wanted to endure an hour long pod about a 62-point whitewash and fair play to both Ciarán & Hugo for both keeping it brief and covering all the action.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
CAPITAL LOSSES
RE-COUPE DU MONDE?
7/1 ODDS
TACKLING TACKLES
CLICKBAIT OF THE WEEK
HARPIN ON…EUROPEAN QFS PREVIEW
Here’s the lead-in question :
“Now that the European fields has been whittled down to just eight teams, it’s time to focus on the contenders for the final in Cardiff, or should I say fi-NALS, as Connucked are also in serious contention for a spot in the Challenge Cup decider. So while we will of course be harpin’ on Leinster v Glasgow towards the end of the coming week, our panel are first going to have a quick look at some of the other quarterfinals, starting with Hugo who is going to cover Bordeaux v Munster & Northampton v Castres! [Ciarán looked at Toulon v Toulouse & Connacht v Racing 92]”
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
I have a feeling Leinster won’t stray TOO far from last week’s selection but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a couple of swaps from starter to bench like Slimani/Furlong or Henshaw/Barrett although Robbie is the only Leinster player to have been on the pitch for all of our Champions Cup minutes so far.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V GLASGOW WARRIORS
15 H Keenan 14 J O’Brien 13 G Ringrose 12 J Barrett 11 J Lowe 10 S Prendergast 9 J Gibson-Park
1 A Porter 2 D Sheehan 3 T Furlong 4 J McCarthy 5 RG Snyman 6 J Conan 7 J van der Flier 8 C Doris (c)
16 R Kelleher 17 J Boyle 18 R Slimani 19 R Baird 20 M Deegan 21 L McGrath 22 R Byrne 23 R Henshaw
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
OFFICIAL UPDATE posted Monday
AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
James Culhane: has come through the Graduated Return to Play Protocols and will be available for selection this weekend.
Rónan Kelleher: has recovered from a neck injury and will be available for selection this weekend.
NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
James Ryan: is unavailable for selection after injuring his calf at training last week.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Jordan Larmour, Paddy McCarthy, Rob Russell, Alex Soroka and Will Connors.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
Obviously for the most part trolling is a bad thing, but I wouldn’t want you thinking I was an absolute angel all the time myself, and I couldn’t resist this shortly after the full time whistle when Munster scored an impressive knockout win in the “ROG derby”. I mean, it’s a mild troll when you think of it, I did say “seriously” for the next bit…
Women’s Six Nations
All Ireland Leagues
WOMEN’S AIL
The fixture details for the Women’s Energia All-Ireland League semi-finals have been confirmed, promising an exciting weekend of club rugby action.
Two high-stakes clashes are scheduled for this Sunday, April 13. Railway Union will host Old Belvedere at 12:30pm, while UL Bohemian take on Blackrock College at 2:30pm. Both Railway and UL Bohemian will be looking to capitalise on home advantage as they aim to secure a place in the 2025 final. Both semi-finals will be streamed Live on IrishRugby+.
Women’s Division Semi-Finals – Sunday, April 13
Railway Union vs Old Belvedere – 12:30 PM, in Park Avenue
UL Bohemian vs Blackrock College – 2:30 PM, in Annacotty
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
Follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare but down at the foot of the table, an impressive couple of rounds has seen Keego move of the bottom for the first time in two years.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting, and partly thanks to my prediction of Leinster to win in Durban, I just about edged HPL runaway leader Kino to reach the first ever Harpin’ Mug Final where I’ll play the winner of Tom v Conor in the next round.
“Dunno about you lads but this could be the most enjoyable wrap of the season so far”
“My take: very poor match to watch. One of the worst in a long time. We were poor and they were brutal!”
It may seem strange that those two comments both refer to the same match but in a way I’m not surprised. The first was from me on WhatsApp to this week’s contributors Conor Cronin & David Cordial. The second was from a Harpin follower “bashbranagan” on BlueSky. It was that kind of match but I was coming from a place where literally any kind of a win from the two matches in SA would be a good result, and for the most part CC & DC agreed as they did their usual excellent job going back over the action.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
ITALIAN JOB
WHERE THERE’S A WILLEMSE
ROG V MUNSTER
BILLY BARRY
CHEETAHS AND FOOLS
HARPIN ON…LEINSTER’S CHAMPIONS CUP 23
Here’s the lead-in question :
“After a successful enough South African tour, Leinster now turn their attention back to the Champions Cup with Harlequins coming to Croke Park next weekend and all going well for the boys in blue, there might be a quarterfinal the following week as well – that’s as optimistic as my uber-superstitious nature will allow me to be. So after 18 matches this season looking at over 50 different players, what do we now think is our best matchday squad going into the business end of the season? Not for the first time we’re using the worst possible method of selecting a squad – I’ll be nominating a bench, Conor will take the pack and first up we have David who is going to give us his ideal backline…”
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
Slightly different this week…rather than post my predicted 23 I’m going to make you watch the bonus clip where our wrap panel picked one just a few days ago. That was without the benefit of the injury report but it turned out ok for what we selected anyway.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V HARLEQUINS
[SEE THE ABOVE VIDEO]
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
OFFICIAL UPDATE posted Monday
FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Rónan Kelleher: will step up his rehabilitation from a neck injury this week and a final call will be made on his availability towards the end of the week.
Alex Soroka: has entered the Graduated Return to Play Protocols and will be assessed over the course of the week.
NOT AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Will Connors: is unavailable for selection after injuring his shoulder against the Sharks at the weekend.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Jordan Larmour, Paddy McCarthy, Rob Russell and James Culhane.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
Leinster & Ireland get plenty of stick on the socials from the South Africans which is mostly why Kino felt moved to clap back with this shark-related burn…
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
A new update has dropped this week – follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare but down at the foot of the table, an impressive couple of rounds has seen Keego move of the bottom for the first time in two years.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting, and partly thanks to my prediction of Leinster to win in Durban, I just about edged HPL runaway leader Kino to reach the first ever Harpin’ Mug Final where I’ll play the winner of Tom v Conor in the next round.
I was busy last Saturday which meant I had to miss Bulls v Leinster live, had to pull over in a car park on the way home to watch it and needless to say I wasn’t too happy!!! But somehow the rewatch for the pod made me see some positives and as ever Tom & Rich did excellent work going through the action.
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
DON’T KNOW JACK
SAM SIGNS
LION KINGS
AOIFE WAFER
PUTTIN’ ON THE BIARRITZ
HARPIN ON…THE URC’S SOUTH AFRICA TOURS
Here’s the lead-in question :
“A timely enough topic for this week, the 2-match provincial tours to South Africa in the URC. We had some experience of them in the old Pro 14 when the Cheetahs and Southern Kings were involved but the addition of the Bulls, Stormers, Sharks and Lions have added a whole new dynamic to the league and when the URC fixtures were released early in May 2024, the first thing I noticed was that for the 4th season in a row, Leinster’s matches were scheduled for just after the Six Nations. How has this portion of the season affected the provinces overall and does it go anywhere near evening out the travelling the South Africans must do?”
NOTE : A funny thing happened with this video…naturally we recorded it as an extra part of our wrap pod on Sunday evening, yet on Tuesday morning there was this tweet from Rugby Kino…
…so either it’s a humble coincidence or they actually got wind of our ranting, I’d prefer to assume the latter FWIW!!! Either way here’s hoping it actually happens.
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
Assuming both Messrs Culhane & Deegan are unavailable due to protocols, I had a real struggle putting together a matchday 23 to play the Sharks, especially in the back row if we’re to go for another 6/2 split. Cian Healy was pictured training with the squad but I’m wondering/hoping that’s not the only returnee from the 6N squad we get, I can’t see how we can go without at least Ryan Baird as well, and even with that we may need to give a debut to someone like Liam Molony, which could make for quite a baptism of fire in the last quarter in Durban if things go the way we expect. Otherwise I wouldn’t make too many changes from Pretoria.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V SHARKS
J O’Brien, T O’Brien, Cooney, Barrett, A Osborne, R Byrne, L McGrath
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
A new update has dropped this week – follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare but down at the foot of the table, an impressive couple of rounds has seen Keego move of the bottom for the first time in two years.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting, and we’ve reached the semifinals stage with Kino playing Jeff this coming weekend.
This week’s wrap wasn’t quite the struggle from the previous one, yet it still wasn’t pretty and Jay and David battled through it bravely as ever. Our run of two successive M6N titles since we switched to a pod-based format couldn’t last forever, right?
A selection of eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the rugby media landscape
MUDDER RUCKERS
In this segment I mention Ailbhe & Kino’s upcoming W6N pod “MudderRuckers – The Irish Wonen’s Rugby Podcast”
here’s their promo, please check it out and be sure to subscribe
ROCK SOLID D
LET ME BE BRIVE
JUST THE TICKET
CURIOUS GEORGIA
HARPIN ON…IRELAND’S DEPTH CHART
Here’s the lead-in question :
“Well we’ve reached the end of another Six Nations campaign, one that started brightly enough for Ireland with a Triple Crown but ended with much disappointment in the final two weeks. But all we can do now is look forward and with the retirement of three legends in Messrs O’Mahony, Murray and Healy this is a good opportunity to look across the 15 positions to see what kind of options Ireland have with a summer tour plus some big tests against the southern hemisphere nations to come later in the year. We’re going to start with David who is going to focus on the backs for us!”
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
Couldn’t see an official injury report, nor even a list of what players travelled. Trying to cobble together info from various sources around the ruggersphere and from what I can gather it does seem Leinster’s 3 NIQs made the journey, and there’s even talk of some involved with 6N squad joining in time for our 2nd match in Durban. Suggests we’re really going for some points down there. I have chosen a 23 based on a 6/2 bench, and we’re calling the “The Max Deegan All-Stars” in the Harpin’ WhatsApp group.
HARPIN’ POSSIBLE MATCHDAY 23 V BULLS
Frawley, T O’Brien, J Osborne, Barrett, J O’Brien, R Byrne, L McGrath
G McCarthy, Healy, Clarkson, Mangan, Soroka, Penny, Gunne, Tector
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
Clearly not content with another quality Harpin wrap pod appearance, Jay Long had to also steal the show for our latest Troll Patrol with a turducken of shithousery. ‘Scotland are shit’ burn wrapped in an ‘Ireland are one-dimensional’ burn inside a ‘Sexton is coaching and I don’t like it’ burn.
Absolute class. Nothing beats a troll quite like a superb counter-troll.
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
Follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare but down at the foot of the table, the race to avoid the JoS is hotting up with Keego winning Round 12 and making the two above him anxiously look over their shoulders.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting. Still one quarterfinal to play, the Westmeath/Meath derby between Mark and Tom this weekend.
Hello and welcome to our latest 80+ column where I generally harp on things outside our normal remit, namely the latest match involving the Leinster/Ireland men’s team.
It may have been only the second defeat of the season for “my team” in our featured match, but that certainly did not make the pod any easier to record, especially given the nature of the defeat. Still, fair play to both Kino and Hugo for taking a half each to harp on (Hugo got the thinner end of that wedge by a tad) and I reckon between us we covered the 80 minutes fairly.
I thought it best not to subject Kino & Hugo to a bonus chat topic this week, they had done more than enough harpin’ on what happened last Saturday as it was. However, Keego was willing to come on and expand on the tweet he posted shortly after the full-time whistle, so after one major recording SNAFU on my part we eventually put together this video.
Here’s the lead-in question :
“Keego I’ll tell you what, it’s still just over a day since myself, Kino and Hugo wrapped the France match so I hope you don’t mind I won’t ask for your thoughts on that just yet because I’ve harped on it enough but what I would like to ask you about is your tweet from shortly after the full time whistle on Saturday: ‘IRFU we love you but when you price us out of the game, you do not get the noise you need. Every couch in the nation was there for the team, same in every pub. but we couldn’t afford to be there. You really need to revisit the pricing policy. Let us into the stadium.’ – just thought I’d give you the opportunity to expand on that?”
IRELAND SQUAD UPDATE
I know I’ll stand accused of blue goggles here but I think Sam should start against Italy, if giving him the 10 jersey throughout this tournament was designed to give him confidence then IMO dropping him now, essentially implying that the result last weekend was his fault, would destroy that. But to be clear, I have absolutely nothing against Crowley and if you look back at previous 80+ columns you’ll see I’ve selected him at 10 more than once in this segment. You may also notice I’ve left out Peter O’Mahony in favour of Baird, again that sounds like a Leinster-centric call but to be honest I’d just as soon have Cian P or Izzy off the bench at a time we’ll be hoping to have opportunities to rack up a decent score.
Porter, Sheehan, Bealham, J McCarthy, Beirne, Conan, van der Flier, Doris (c)
G McCarthy/Kelleher, Healy, Furlong, Ryan, Baird, Murray, Crowley, Henshaw
caveat : I have no “ITK” a la Thornley
OFFICIAL UPDATE posted Monday
Tadhg Furlong, Mack Hansen and Garry Ringrose are all set to return. James Lowe (back) is being monitored but has shown improvement since Saturday, and the same applies for Rónan Kelleher. A decision on their availability will be made later this week.
TROLL PATROL
Now it’s time for Troll Patrol where we ‘detain’ a social media commentator and charge them with gaslightery and general online mayhem.
It would surely take an amazing level of trolling for the same message to feature in this section twice but for the week that’s in it I reckon this one, previously in our Feb 12 column, makes the grade.
Let’s just say I hope she really was so, so happy.
Qualifying finals – 1 v 6, 2 v 5, 3 v 4 with the top-ranked team hosting
Semi-Finals – three qualifying winners plus highest ranked loser: Teams re-ranked with 1 v 4 and 2 v 3
Final – top-ranked semi-final winner hosts the other semi-final winner.
RWC2027 QUALIFIERS
The RWC2027 tournament has expanded to 24 nations so with four extra spots up for grabs it makes for a fascinating qualifying process.
Rather than post the latest results and fixtures here however, I’d like to defer to the excellent work of frequent Harpin’ contributor Ciarán Duffy who has been keeping close tabs on the qualifying process over at his own site Post to Post Sport.
Follow this link to see how the Road to Australia is progressing..
Japan League One
Major League Rugby
Harpin Prediction League
This is the 4th season of our Superbru prediction league among Harpin’ pod contributors.
Kristian is the reigning champion, but the real competition is in avoiding finishing last, which means you must wear The Jersey of Shame. I had to wear it the first year, while Keego has had the honour the past two seasons.
As you can see our resident stats expert Rugby Kino is leading the way with room to spare but down at the foot of the table, the race to avoid the JoS is hotting up with Keego winning Round 12 and making the two above him anxiously looking over their shoulders.
We’ve also added a Cup (or Mug) competition to make things interesting. Kino forgot to make his prediction for the final match in Round 12 but by Superbru rules he still picked up a point to edge Kristian out where he’ll face me in the seimifinals! Still one quarterfinal to play however, the Westmeath/Meath derby between Mark and Tom.
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 