Keego usually does the previews so just to mix things up I asked him to do the wraps over Christmas with a much simpler format than usual we essentially just harped on the match itself though despite the low scoring there was much to go over.
If you didn’t catch the wrap pod itself, here’s a link to Spotify and we’re also on Apple and most major platforms.
HARPIN’ ON…LEINSTER & IRELAND 2023
For the bonus clip myself & Keego went back over the rollercoaster of results from the year.
THE HARPIN ‘WITHOUT WHOM’ DEPARTMENT
As I say in the TikTok, thanking my contributors is the very, very least I can do. To a man they all go above and beyond preparing for our chats as well as giving up their time to actually record them. Here is the actual list of 2023 caps…
Keego 31
Tom Coleman 20
Conor Cronin 20
Mark Jackson 18
RugbyKino 15
Rich Mifsud 11
Jay Long 8
Ciarán Duffy 5
Nathan Johns 3
Stephen Murphy 2
Pádraig Kelly 2
Peter Lockhart 2
Francisco Isaac 1
Ian Frizzell 1
Justin Middleton 1
Bryan Moylett 1
Ball handling Hooker 1
Thala Msutu 1
Also my apologies for Thala Msutu for pronouncing his name wrong in the video!
Fingers crossed the JGP injury wasnt too bad sounded like a precaution. That really does lookk like the lightest injury update we have seen in quite a while although I reckon a good few will still be held back for the visit of Ulster with Europe & 6N on the horizon, although there is an off week to come which will help.
Normally I post a predicted team here but since this is posting on Friday rather than the usual Tuesday I can go one better by posting the team itself.
Available for Selection:
Luke McGrath: came through the game at the weekend with no issues after returning from a knee injury
Harry Byrne: came through the game at the weekend with no issues after returning from the Graduated Return to Play Protocols
John McKee: has returned to full training after recovering from a hamstring injury
Further Assessment Required:
Jamison Gibson-Park: was withdrawn before the game against Munster Rugby as a precaution and will be further assessed this week
No Further Updates:
Charlie Ngatai (calf), Cormac Foley (shoulder), Ross Byrne (arm) and Jamie Osborne (shoulder)
UPCOMING RUGBY ON IRISH TV
We normally do this as a separate post but just this once I’ll include it here.
FRIDAY DECEMBER 29
4PM – WOLFHOUNDS V CLOVERS – CELTIC CHALLENGE – RUGBYPASS.TV
3PM – CONNACHT V MUNSTER – URC – TG4, PREMIER SPORTS 1, URC.TV*
3PM – OSPREYS V CARDIFF – URC – BBC1 WALES, PREMIER SPORTS 2, URC.TV*
5:15PM – DRAGONS V SCARLETS – URC – S4C, PREMIER SPORTS 1, URC.TV*
5:15PM – LEINSTER V ULSTER – URC – RTÉ2, PREMIER SPORTS 2.
URC IRISH SHIELD UPDATE
Obviously the Leinster fan in me wants to point to the top of this table but actually I’d rather draw attention to the full collection of results between the provinces so far, all of which have been decided by 7 points or less which speaks volumes. Leinster v Ulster on New Year’s Day will obviously go a long way towards deciding the destination of the shield.
NOV 4 CONNACHT 22-20 ULSTER
NOV 10 ULSTER 21-14 MUNSTER
NOV 25 LEINSTER 21-16 MUNSTER
DEC 2 CONNACHT 22-24 LEINSTER
DEC 22 ULSTER 20-19 CONNACHT
DEC 26 MUNSTER 3-9 LEINSTER
JAN 1 CONNACHT V MUNSTER
JAN 1 LEINSTER V ULSTER
MAY 11 MUNSTER V CONNACHT
MAY 18 ULSTER V LEINSTER
MAY 31 LEINSTER V CONNACHT
JUNE 1 MUNSTER V ULSTER
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
I suppose it’s natural these days for a Leinster fan to be drawn to La Rochelle in this portion for all the obvious reasons but even without that their Round 10 defeat to Stade (whom we play next in Europe) plus their Round 11 date with Toulouse (repeat of last year’s Brennus decider) are easily the standout matches. Racing still top the league after a 60-burger on Oyonnax.
Round 10
PERPIGNAN 36-10 BAYONNE
BORDEAUX 46-10 LYON
MONTPELLIER 30-21 CASTRES
RACING 92 66-10 OYONNAX
PAU 22-11 CLÉRMONT
STADE FRANCAIS 18-13 LA ROCHELLE
TOULOUSE 25-17 TOULON
Round 11
FRI DEC 29
OYONNAX V PAU
CLÉRMONT V BORDEAUX
SAT DEC 30
LYON V MONTPELLIER
BAYONNE V RACING 92
TOULON V STADE FRANCAIS
LA ROCHELLE V TOULOUSE
CASTRES V PERPIGNAN
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
Sale Sharks bounced back from their Dublin defeat to overcome Sarries and they have the most wins at the halfway stage of the Premiership but Bath pip them to top spot at this stage thanks to their bonus points. Their visit to Leicester will be a tricky one in round 10 while there’s a 3rd v 2nd clash at Franklins Gardens.
ROUND 9
NEWCASTLE 13-21 BRISTOL
SALE SHARKS 22-20 SARACENS
EXETER 29-10 LEICESTER
GLOUCESTER 29-31 NORTHAMPTON
BATH 25-17 HARLEQUINS
ROUND 10
FRI DEC 29
BRISTOL V EXETER
SAT DEC 30
SARACENS V NEWCASTLE
NORTHAMPTON V SALE SHARKS
HARLEQUINS V GLOUCESTER
SUN DEC 31
LEICESTER TIGERS V BATH
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
I was kicking myself after missing my prediction for the Zebre v Benetton match (or as we call it in our Harpin WhatsApp group “doing a Keego”) but I recovered pretty well the rest of the round to stretch my lead at the top of the HPL. True story of the round was Kristian Ross who got the yellow cap to leap frog Conor and Kino into 2nd.
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
That’s it for 2023, next there’s the Ulster preview which will be ready by Saturday morning, the wrap pod will record Tuesday night and with an off week to follow we’ll be taking things easy-ish though keep up with our usual social media channels we’ll be doing the odd post here and there.
And as ever, be sure to enjoy your seasonal rugby wherever you are. JLP
First things first….not one but TWO Harpin contributors have had milestone birthdays in the last week, best wishes to both Tom Coleman and Conor Cronin I hope the celebrations went well!
Well that match certainly didn’t go like we thought it would, did it? On the preview with Keego, we were trying to be nice about the Sale lineup but truth be told it really did look like a comprehensive Leinster win was on the cards but although we did get the bonus point win, this Sale squad really put it to us and both Tom and Kino made this point perfectly clear as they wrapped the 80 minutes.
If you didn’t catch the wrap pod itself, here’s a link to Spotify and we’re also on Apple and most major platforms.
HARPIN’ ON…ANDY FARRELL APPRECIATION
After skipping the bonus clip the previous week, we recorded one to honour Andy Farrell’s much-deserved gong at the RTÉ Sports Awards.
CHALLENGES FACING IRISH WOMEN’S RUGBY
It’s pretty clear the point I’m making with the editing wizardry in the TikTok below but I’m still actually saying stuff in the speeded up bits so here is a transcript…
CLUB RUGBY We start with club rugby. The principal club competition is of course the Women’s AIL which for the past couple of seasons has consisted of a ringfenced top division of 9 clubs. Last year the league was done and dusted by this stage of the season in mid-December so now they’ve increased it to a home and away schedule extending the regular season to April. Problems still remain at this level however and just one look at the league table shows that in reality there are only four clubs in real contention for the title, with the other five sometimes struggling to put a team out like Wicklow in the last round who had to concede a walkover due to injuries, something that really should not be happening at senior level, and just to be perfectly clear, I certainly would not lay a whole lot of blame at the door of the club in question.
INTERPROS Next we have the interprovincial championship, where the women’s game surely has much scope to resonate with Irish rugby fans already well used to cheering for one of the four provinces. The problem with this level is that like the clubs they also are badly in need of more games and this season’s title had already been won by Leinster before the men’s World Cup had even kicked off.
THE CELTIC CHALLENGE Then we have the Celtic Challenge, a new competition along the lines of the original men’s Celtic League with teams from Ireland Scotland and Wales competing for the prize. They started last season with one team from each nation and have expanded to two each this year with Ireland fielding newly formed clubs called the Clovers who represent Munster and Connacht, and the Wolfhounds who will draw players from Leinster and Ulster and the two will meet each other in the opening round at Musgrave Park on December 29. It would of course be awesome for this level to succeed but from an Irish perspective I can’t really see these manufactured teams capturing much attention, so hopefully it won’t be long before all four provinces can afford to field teams and the competition can find a sustainable place on the rugby calendar.
SEVENS This brings us to sevens rugby, and this year the World Series has rebranded itself to make sure both men and women play the same amount of rugby at all of the events. However for the Irish programme there is still a profound difference between the genders in that the men can field a dedicated sevens squad while the women need to draw many of the best players out of the XVs pool, a decision which has certainly brought rewards like qualification for the Paris Olympics, but also which can’t avoid hurting the chances for the full test team in the process, for example the Hong Kong Sevens event takes place right in the middle of the Women’s Six Nations.
TEST RUGBY Which of course brings us to the test team itself. Whatever we say about the levels below, if there is to be significant fan engagement it is critical that the Irish women’s programme finds a way to drastically improve on their disastrous last place finish in the 2023 Six Nations. Victory in the 3rd tier of the new WXV competition is definitely a start but there is still a long way to go, and like I already said losing key players like Beibhinn Parsons to the sevens programme certainly doesn’t help, nor does a reliance solely on players who are able to be on call for training and such in and around the greater Dublin area. It surely would be much easier to attract our top female athletes to the sport if there were at the very least proper training bases at each of the four provinces.
WHAT CAN FANS DO Finally, there’s the issue of what we can do as fans. At a practical level offering financial or volunteer support to your local club is one of the best ways to help out but actual engagement with the top teams is also critical. Ironically one of the most important things you can do in that regard is not listen to me! While we’d encourage you to keep up with the IRFU site for latest news and fixtures and such, I’d also suggest following dedicated websites like Scrumqueens and twitter accounts like @IrishWomens and @JC200022 to get a sense of what more needs to be done.
Update didn’t arrive until Wednesday afternoon this week, it looks like the news on Charlie Ngatai isn’t as bad as we first feared, fingers crossed. As you can see from my 23 I’m holding out hope we’ll see James Lowe back for the trip to Thomond but he can of course take as long as he feels he needs…
NB : the above matchday 23 is completely from my own mind, I’m certainly not suggesting I have any ITK a la Thornley
INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Luke McGrath: has returned to full training after returning from a knee injury
Tommy O’Brien: has returned to full training after returning from an ankle injury
INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Harry Byrne: will be further assessed this week as part of the Graduated Return to Play Protocols
Jason Jenkins: was withdrawn at half-time against Sale Sharks with a minor back issue and will be further assessed this week
INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Charlie Ngatai: picked up a calf injury against Sale Sharks and will be unavailable for selection this week
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Cormac Foley (shoulder), Ross Byrne (arm), Jamie Osborne (shoulder) and John McKee (hamstring)
NO TO CO CAPTAINS
When Leinster are losing there are many who take great pleasure from pointing out what we’re doing wrong, but when that stick isn’t there to beat us with, the scramble to find an alternative can be entertainment in itself.
This latest one is more twig than stick but still it has to be said that the “co-captain” experiment hasn’t gotten off to an ideal start at the province, and judging by the feedback from refs in the opening two weeks in Europe, we might have to rethink the policy very soon.
My completely hot take is that this was a decision made to appease their respective agents? Having the Leinster captain on your books would be quite the feather in the cap so (remember I have ZERO info on this, all speculation) I can imagine a situation where pressure is exerted from representatives for both players with this being a compromise. If so, or indeed whatever led to the decision, here’s hoping they can quickly go back to the drawing board because one captain at a time is definitely the way to go.
SEXTON AS COACH
Really mischievous headline here “IRFU Don’t Rule Out Possible Ireland Return For Johnny Sexton” and I suppose I can’t blame the media for cranking up the old outrage-baiting headline generator for this one. And to be honest, if anyone who has ever played the game could make the difficult transition from player to coach work quickly, it’s Johnny since I’d argue that he has essentially been an extra coach most his career. But even with that, I very much doubt there’s much chance of him going straight to the Irish job replacing Mike Catt. Right now I reckon Mike Prendergast looks a good fit FWIW.
LOS PUMAS TURN TO DR. PHIL
Monday was a “fast news day” for sure, including the announcement that Felipe Contepomi had been appointed to head coach of the Pumas, which of course means it’s more than likely he’ll be leading them when they come to play the Lions at the Aviva Stadium in 2025. It goes without saying that we wish him every success unless it’s against us at a World Cup!!!!
TOP SHELF IRISH WHISKEY
Have to admit I didn’t even know this was on the cards but I’m delighted to learn that Jamison Gibson-Park has earned his Irish citizenship, great news for him, and of course for both Leinster & Ireland rugby. I always got the sense when he started playing at the province that he wasn’t wild about the kicking game and when Andy Farrell opted for a more pass-focused high-tempo style that was when he came into his own and fingers crossed he has many seasons left to do it.
No harm leaving this in the column with the interpros on the horizon…
NOV 4 CONNACHT 22-20 ULSTER
NOV 10 ULSTER 21-14 MUNSTER
NOV 25 LEINSTER 21-16 MUNSTER
DEC 2 CONNACHT 22-24 LEINSTER
DEC 22 ULSTER V CONNACHT
DEC 26 MUNSTER V LEINSTER
JAN 1 CONNACHT V MUNSTER
JAN 1 LEINSTER V ULSTER
MAY 11 MUNSTER V CONNACHT
MAY 18 ULSTER V LEINSTER
MAY 31 LEINSTER V CONNACHT
JUNE 1 MUNSTER V ULSTER
AIL UPDATE
No action at AIL level for the women this week, though as you see in the TikTok rnt segment I had a comment or two to make there.
Over on the men’s side there were some close derbies as UCD out scored Lansdowne in a 44-40 shootout at Belfield Bowl and the Cookies edged out Cork Con, and that result allowed Clontarf to extend their lead at the top after dispatching Shannon at Castle Ave. In the other two local tussles Hinch won at Armagh while Terenure heaped more misery on Trinity. Division 1A is now at its halfway stage and Round 9 fixtures get reversed for the next round in mid January.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND
Round 11
SAT FEB 10
SUTTONIANS V BALLINCOLLIG
COOKE V RAILWAY UNION
GALWEGIANS V UL BOHS
WICKLOW V BELVO
MEN’S AIL
ROUND 9
UCD 44-40 LANSDOWNE
CITY OF ARMAGH 18-29 BALLYNAHINCH
CLONTARF 38-21 SHANNON
DUBLIN UNIV 14-31 TERENURE
YOUNG MUNSTER 22-21 CORK CON
ROUND 10
FRI JAN 12
LANSDOWNE V UCD
SAT DEC 16
BALLYNAHINCH V CITY OF ARMAGH
SHANNON V CLONTARF
TERENURE V DUBLIN UNIV
CORK CON V YOUNG MUNSTER
CHALLENGE CUP UPDATE
Obviously Black Lion stole the headlines in the Challenge Cup but Tom harped on that for the pod. 4 of the 18 teams have gotten off to perfect starts including two from SA, the Lions and the Cheetahs, who overcame the Sharks in the local encounter. From the Round 3 schedule you’d have to pick out Black Lion who will have no fear travelling to Castres as the home side could well have one eye on their domestic standing, but I also wouldn’t mind checking out Embra v Glaws could be a decent contest.
ROUND 2
SCARLETS 7-23 BLACK LION
GLOUCESTER 28-17 CLÉRMONT
OYONNAX 14-21 ZEBRE
EDINBURGH 34-21 CASTRES
BENETTON 29-7 PERPIGNAN
LIONS 35-13 NEWCASTLE
PAU 24-21 DRAGONS
CHEETAHS 32-29 SHARKS
MONTPELLIER 38-5 OSPREYS
ROUND 3
FRI JAN 12
NEWCASTLE V BENETTON
SAT JAN 13
OSPREYS V PERPIGNAN
SHARKS V OYONNAX
CLÉRMONT V SCARLETS
ZEBRE V DRAGONS
CASTRES V BLACK LION
EDINBURGH V GLOUCESTER
MONTPELLIER V LIONS
SUN JAN 14
CHEETAHS V PAU
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
Still in first, so still going to include here. All will likely change over the festive interpros!!!
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Right – that’s it, will give this column a well earned break until after the holiers. We will of course be covering Leinster’s matches against Munster & Ulster, stay tuned to the social media channels for more details.
And as ever, be sure to enjoy your seasonal rugby wherever you are. JLP
We had already decided long before kickoff that our wrap pod recording would be moved 24 hours later to Monday evening to allow for maximum time to prepare after the Sunday afternoon fixture, but given the way it worked out we were even more glad of the extra time.
Unfortunately RugbyKino was unable to join us as planned with him having a sore throat but thankfully Tom Coleman was able to come on from the bench to join Rich and as it turned out we had so much to harp on from this epic encounter that I had to completely alter how I present the pod.
Normally we record an extra “bonus clip” on an extra topic but our chat went on so long I decided to ditch it for this week, and when I went to edit I realised that there really wasnt anything worth cutting from what the lads had to so as you can see below the “Front Five” and “Final Thoughts” portions went to our YouTube channel, all to keep the actual wrap pod under an hour, but as ever I reckon it’s all well worth the listen.
If you didn’t catch the wrap pod itself, here’s a link to Spotify and we’re also on Apple and most major platforms.
LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE
Mixed news from the report especially on the dreaded bottom line…we already knew Ross Byrne would be there but seeing Jamie Osborne’s name is also worrying…and also Cormac Foley being out for months is a blow for him and the team, he was progressing really well.
Also any squad would miss names like Conan and Furlong hopefully they are both minor issues while we will probably be without Harry Byrne for the visit of Sale.
On the plus side it’s great to see both Tommy O’Brien and Luke McGrath at least moving their way up the list.
On my selection for Saturday, while I am with what seems to be a majority of Leinster fans who want to see Frawley get a run at 10, I may have put him there in my selection but I still appreciate that if we feel we have to go for a 6/2 bench he may need to be on the bench.
We all of course wish James Lowe to only come back when he’s ready, would love to see him at least at 23 to ease him back in but then again Charlie Ngatai is having an amazing season himself so he makes my 23.
NB : the above matchday 23 is completely from my own mind, I’m certainly not suggesting I have any ITK a la Thornley
INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Michael Milne: has returned to full training after returning from a shoulder injury.
INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Jack Conan: will look to increase his training load this week as he returns from a minor injury and will be further assessed later in the week ahead of selection.
Tadhg Furlong: will look to increase his training load this week as he returns from a minor injury and will be further assessed later in the week ahead of selection.
Tommy O’Brien: will look to increase his rehabilitation programme further this week as he nears a return from an ankle injury.
Luke McGrath: will look to increase his rehabilitation programme further this week as he nears a return from a knee injury.
INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Cormac Foley: picked up a shoulder injury in training last week and will have a procedure this week. He will be unavailable for selection for the next few months.
Harry Byrne: was withdrawn for a Head Injury Assessment at the weekend and has now entered the Graduated Return to Play Protocols.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Ross Byrne (arm), Jamie Osborne (shoulder) and John McKee (hamstring).
My view is pretty simple – when the matches and tours are on, I love them as a fan of top level rugby. Who wouldn’t love to see a combined team from four of the Six Nations take on the best of the Southern hemisphere in a test series, and having a test happen in Dublin is long overdue and would be on its own a great occasion for Irish rugby in particular.
However this obviously goes out the window when there’s even a suggestion of too much rugby on the calendar and there’s also my wish for there to be more opportunities for the “Tier 2” nations to play rugby. And when a Lions squad assembles every four years, it automatically takes FIVE Tier 1 nations out of the equation when it comes to arranging matches and for me if it’s a case of “something has to give”, and I really think it is, then consigning the Lions tours to the history books wouldn’t be the worst thing for the sport.
I’ll look to bring it up in a future pod when I can to try and get some views from other Harpin panellists.
CHAMPIONS CUP FORMAT
No, the headline doesn’t mean I intend to moan about the format, in fact if anything I’m sick of all that moaning. Actually all I want to do here is point out how the knockout phase is organised for this year’s competition as I only learned it myself since last week’s 80+ column.
As you probably know there are four pools of six with two from each league in each pool and everyone plays four matches, avoiding only the team that comes from the same league.
The top four in each pool go forward to the last 16 and the seedings are very straightforward, the pool winners get 1-4 (ranked by pool performance), runnersup are 5-8, 3rd place teams 9-12 and finally 4th placed teams 13-16. For the last 16 round, the pairings are set as follows…1v16, 2v15, 3v14, 4v13, 5v12, 6v11, 7v10, 8v9.
What this means is that it is very possible (1 in 4 chance to be precise) that teams from the same pool can meet each other in the last 16. For example, not completely out of the question that Leinster play La Rochelle again!!!!
This isn’t a new thing by the way…in the format most people wish we could return to, with 6 pools of 4 producing 8 quarterfinallists, it has often happened that one of the two best runnersup faced a team they already faced in the pool phase.
I can’t say I’m a fan of this and would rather they kept the pools apart at least for that first knockout round, but I certainly wouldn’t dwell on it too much since that would itself be moaning!!! I’ll stick to hoping Leinster get as high a seeding as we can possibly get.
GUINNESS AS WOMEN’S 6N SPONSOR
On the surface this looks like good news, since the women’s game in particular will always need sponsorship, but I still have reservations.
It wasn’t so long ago that the league formerly known as the “Pro12/14” went a long time with having a sponsor before Guinness stepped in at virtually the 11th hour, and the same thing happened to the men’s Six Nations as the famous Irish stout was only announced to be offering its name to the 2019 tournament in December of 2018. Pretty sure these deals are ideally done and dusted much longer in advance of the competitions kicking off.
This leads me to think that Guinness may well be something of a “sponsor of last resort” for rugby and if so this could mean that it may not be as lucrative for the competition as it could be. I really, really hope I’m wrong but it does seem to make sense that a deal negotiated with a different company would bear more fruit.
ANOTHER MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY FOLDS
Absolutely devastating news from the USA, with Toronto Arrows already pulling out of Major League Rugby for 2024, now even New York can’t hold down a team with the Ironworkers also folding. With the Miami Sharks joining this season, that leaves them with just ten for this season and surely there must be more teams struggling as well.
It’s very important for the sport that they get a foothold in the US, but it really looks like trying to model their product on the MLS isn’t the way to go, which is ironic because the reason it took soccer so long to take off over there was that they originally modelled themselves too much on the “established” American sports.
Looks like rugby there is going to have to find its own way forward.
UPDATE – since publishing I have learned that the league plans to expand into Mexico for 2025. Sounds like the plans aren’t finalised so I guess they figured they needed to get this news out there asap to push back on all the Toronto/NY negativity. Interesting move with Mexico hardly a rugby hotbed but we’ll see how it pans out.
EDDIE JONES
I really, really, REALLY don’t want to devote too many words to this guy, and Paul Williams sums up my feeling pretty well in the tweet below. But one thing I will say is that as much as I say in the previous segment how much I want the game to flourish in the USA, the same goes for Japan. We really need a strong foothold in both markets. Sadly now I can’t help but wish for EJ to be a flop out there which if it were to happen would probably set the game back further.
Now for the “Update” portion of the column and while there were obviously no URC games to update this table I might as well leave it here anyway.
NOV 4 CONNACHT 22-20 ULSTER
NOV 10 ULSTER 21-14 MUNSTER
NOV 25 LEINSTER 21-16 MUNSTER
DEC 2 CONNACHT 22-24 LEINSTER
DEC 22 ULSTER V CONNACHT
DEC 26 MUNSTER V LEINSTER
JAN 1 CONNACHT V MUNSTER
JAN 1 LEINSTER V ULSTER
MAY 11 MUNSTER V CONNACHT
MAY 18 ULSTER V LEINSTER
MAY 31 LEINSTER V CONNACHT
JUNE 1 MUNSTER V ULSTER
“SVNS” UPDATE
For the second week in a row I’m simply going to paste in my copy from the pod (actually it’s in the first YouTube clip above) as it pretty much says all I have to say on the sevens…
I’ll start with the women – because while a seventh place finish is one down from the previous weekend in Dubai, there were still some fine performances, arguably the best of which was one they lost against Australia, as a brace of Bebhinn Parsons tries kept the eventual tournament winners honest and 14-24 was a very respectable result all things considered. They also ended the competition on a high defeating Great Britain avenging an earlier defeat in the pool stages to finish 7th which is also where they sit in the overall standings after two rounds.
Meanwhile the men had a better time of it – any Irish rugby team defeating New Zealand in a quarterfinal would make headlines but this was also not only our first ever win over them in 7s but also the first time they had lost at this stage of the competition since 2015. And it’s not like it was a fluke, not only was it a comprehensive 36-21 victory that included a Terry Kennedy hat-trick, but it came after an equally impressive win over the hosts at the end of Day 1, with the Irish men often deploying absolutely suffocating defensive sets that made it look like we had 15 out there not 7.
However those levels of physicality can take their toll and having reached the final four we finally came unstuck against eventual tournament winners Argentina in the semifinals and also against Fiji in the playoff which meant a fourth place finish that keeps us in 5th on the series table.
I said last week both squads can definitely get higher finishes and I still believe this to be the case. The series now moves on to Perth for a 3-day event from January 26th to 28th, make a note in your diaries and try to catch as much of the action as you can it is generally streamed live for free on rugbypass.tv
CAPE TOWN 7s
#IRLW7s
POOL
IRELAND 39-14 BRAZIL
IRELAND 15-19 GREAT BRITAIN
IRELAND 7-33 NEW ZEALAND
QF
IRELAND 14-24 AUSTRALIA
7TH PLACE PLAYOFF
IRELAND 17-5 GREAT BRITAIN
#IRLM7s
POOL
IRELAND 31-0 USA
IRELAND 19-14 GREAT BRITAIN
IRELAND 14-12 SOUTH AFRICA
QF
IRELAND 36-21 NEW ZEALAND
SF
IRELAND 19-26 ARGENTINA
3RD PLACE PLAYOFF
IRELAND 7-14 FIJI
NEXT IN THE SERIES…
PERTH JAN 26-28
VANCOUVER FEB 23-25
LOS ANGELES MAR 2-3
HONG KONG APR 5-7
SINGAPORE MAY 3-5
MADRID MAY 31-JUN 2
AIL UPDATE
“Match conceded by Wicklow due to injuries” is not a sentence we want to see in any level of senior rugby in 2023, especially when the top league in the country has only 9 teams so for any to be unable to put a matchday squad together it shows the game is still in major trouble.
And going on history, the 28-0 scoreline which was awarded to league leaders UL Bohs was something of a blessing for Wicklow – I have to admit I winced before looking at the scoreline and would not have blinked if it was in triple figures. That’s in no way an indictment of the rugby club itself by the way, rather the continued poor investment in the club game in general.
The league may have nine clubs officially, but actually there are only four with any real chance of winning it with three of them based in Dublin and surely there must be more talent available across the island that we can get playing the sport on a regular basis.
The league now takes a break until February 10, while in the meantime there will be the new “Celtic Challenge” competition including two new Irish franchises, the Wolfhounds and the Clovers who will play each other in Round 1 on December 29.
Meanwhile on the men’s side of things, Clontarf earned a win away to Lansdowne in round 8 to stay top while Cork Con stayed in touch by defeating UCD. Champions Terenure continued their recent form by sneaking into the top 4 thanks to a 29-17 win over City of Armagh, who have an Ulster derby to look forward to next weekend as they host Ballynahinch, although the tie of the round would seem to be the all Munster affair when Young Munsters host Cork Con.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 10
SAT DEC 9
GALWEGIANS 10-34 COOKE
BELVO 37-14 BLACKROCK
RAILWAY UNION 88-19 SUTTONIANS
[WICKLOW 0-28 UL BOHS]
Match conceded by Wicklow due to injuries.
Five match points awarded to UL Bohemians along with a 28-0 scoreline
Wicklow are deducted five points for conceding
Round 11
SAT FEB 10
SUTTONIANS V BALLINCOLLIG
COOKE V RAILWAY UNION
GALWEGIANS V UL BOHS
WICKLOW V BELVO
MEN’S AIL
ROUND 8
BALLYNAHINCH 13-16 YOUNG MUNSTER
CORK CON 38-25 UCD
LANSDOWNE 27-31 CLONTARF
SHANNON 14-13 DUBLIN UNIV
TERENURE 29-17 CITY OF ARMAGH
ROUND 9
FRI DEC 15
UCD V LANSDOWNE
SAT DEC 16
CITY OF ARMAGH V BALLYNAHINCH
CLONTARF V SHANNON
DUBLIN UNIV V TERENURE
YOUNG MUNSTER V CORK CON
CHALLENGE CUP UPDATE
All Irish provinces may be in the main competition but the Challenge Cup is still worth updating here, partly because it’s possible a province or two may end up dropping down into its knockout stage, but also as there are some interesting entrants in this years pool stage, not least of which is Black Lion from Georgia.
It wasn’t the worst debut for them either as although they lost to Premiership side Gloucester, it was only by a respectable 10-15 result to give them their first match point in European rugby. Elsewhere there were wins for the Sharks and Castres, two of the sides who may be fancied to be there or thereabouts in the latter stages, and also for the Dragons, who surely won’t care how little Oyonnax put into their fixture as they needed any kind of win they could get!
The South African derby between Cheetahs and Sharks seems to be the pick of round 2, although Black Lion will fancy having a go at the Scarlets given how things went the last team a Georgian side played in Wales.
ROUND 1
NEWCASTLE 19-24 MONTPELLIER
PERPIGNAN 12-28 LIONS
DRAGONS 24-7 OYONNAX
OSPREYS 43-34 BENETTON
SHARKS 45-5 PAU
CASTRES 34-16 SCARLETS
BLACK LION 10-15 GLOUCESTER
ZEBRE 15-33 CHEETAHS
CLÉRMONT 31-18 EDINBURGH
ROUND 2
FRI DEC 15
SCARLETS V BLACK LION
GLOUCESTER V CLÉRMONT
SAT DEC 16
OYONNAX V ZEBRE
EDINBURGH V CASTRES
BENETTON V PERPIGNAN
LIONS V NEWCASTLE
PAU V DRAGONS
SUN DEC 17
CHEETAHS V SHARKS
MONTPELLIER V OSPREYS
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
Yeah I know this league is for the URC only and there were no matches last weekend but hey, I’m top of the league so Imma gonna keep posting the standings every chance I get!!!
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Premiership leaders Sale Sharks come to the RDS on Saturday evening, we’ll have a preview with Keego on Friday while Tom Coleman and RugbyKino are slated to help with the wrap which will be back in its Sunday evening recording slot. Be sure to keep in touch with all our social media channels and offer your own thoughts where you can.
And as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
Hello there and welcome to our latest 80+ column…every weekend we focus on the 80 minutes of rugby played by Leinster and/or Ireland, and here is where we keep tabs on pretty much everything else.
For our latest wrap myself and Conor Cronin harped on Leinster’s robbery victory in Galway on Saturday evening, normally I have two contributors but one had to pull out (the cheek of these people having actual lives!) so I took up the slack myself and prepared some extra chat and while my voice only barely held up (made a lot of use of both the cough button and the editing software) I reckon we did a decent job going over the match between us.
And one thing I keep forgetting to do in these columns is give a shout out to our preview show – it generally goes live 24 hours ahead of kickoff and I guess the reason I forget it is the “mootness” of the previews once the match is actually played, but I am of course grateful to Keego (and the others who occasionally step in) for sitting with me for a quick recording once each matchday squad is named.
HARPIN ON…CHANGES WE’D MAKE TO RUGBY
Last week I mentioned that I had abandoned Mastodon in favour of Blue Sky as I can only handle one Musk alternative at a time. Engagement has been pretty good there so far so I threw out a general question to see what kind of responses I’d get. It helped give us a decent topic for our bonus chat on Sunday, where Conor and myself read out some of the top responses as well as offering a few of our own.
As you can see I have included more of the answers below.
ORIGINAL QUESTION : OK time throw a topic out there see how it flies in the BlueSky….You are put in charge of the entire sport of rugby union for long enough to make just ONE (realistic) change that will be permanent. What’s it gonna be.
Dr Harley Worthy – Lifetime ban for anyone using the phrase “bring back rucking”, you can still ruck the ball backwards with your foot. You just miss people being given a shoeing
Andrew Byrne – If it’s only one thing then it’s….Global Season…. #GoBigOrGoHome
Brian Donnelly – Put the right level of funding, structures and support into the process of creating a panel of consistently competent top level referees. It’s too haphazard at moment.
Sei Williams – I would invent a time machine, go back to 1995 and do Welsh professional rugby properly. Thanks.
Edward Jenkins – Ban union ownership of non-test pro teams.
Cian Ó Muilleoir – Ban private ownership of non-test pro teams.
Stephen Murphy (Master Of None Pod) – Appoint me as the Rugby Czar and I will review every red card individually and dish out appropriate punishments.
Cian Ó Muilleoir – My actual real and genuine suggestion is that if a try is scored with a penalty advantage still accrued the advantage is carried to a penalty kick for the restart.
Kevin Beirne – If you score a try under penalty advantage you can choose take the conversion from the location of the penalty
Caolán Scully – All outside backs must their hair cut by a team barber, and oblige to a style that suits their position
Richard Mifsud – My realistic one is one I’ve often mentioned, you only get a try bonus with three clear tries à la Top14
David O’Crampeasy – Scrum reset/free kick/penalties better, I don’t know how, just better. Much better scrum/lineout commentary talk about the power/mass/height involved, celebrate the technicalities of the game rather than try to hide them
James Gotoshay – All games, URC,Champions cup,internationals and all other leagues including southern hemisphere leagues and summer tours are available in one subscription pack.
Sarah Lennon – Crouch, touch, pause, engage.
Bill Byrne – Properly addressing media rights and new media issues. Low key massive issue. Needs to be comprehensively addressed.
Cian Ormond – Establish a women’s touring team akin to the B&I Lions, but not just copying what already exists. Realistically, a current B&I womens team would be all England. Perhaps England could be one of the big opponents for an Irish-Scottish-Welsh team (for example), establishing a new and unique brand.
Rob Gardner – If a technical infringement doesn’t materially impact the game state then it is to be ignored. Example: if a lineout throw isn’t straight but opposition didn’t put a man in the air they are deemed to have conceded possession and it’s play on.
Sale Ben – Rucking. If you’re on the wrong side it’s your responsibility to get out of there. Would speed up the game and reduce head contact at the ruck with players flying in to clear the ruck zone of debris
Peel – pump money into Unions that need/deserve it (Madagascar would be a big one, they bloody love rugby)
Maz McMillan – Tier 1 nations must play at least one tier 2 nation every year. I dislike the word “tier” but you know what I mean
Ross Rugby Ref – Rewrite the laws to the game we want, if crooked scrum feeds are ok, then write laws that way – give us community refs a chance!
LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE
The news on Ross Byrne was pretty much expected but Jamie Osborne as well…I actually had him in my team before the injury report was released but now I’m hoping James Lowe is available. I understand he has been back in Dublin after some compassionate leave and although it would be asking a lot to expect him to dive into the deep end against La Rochelle if anyone could do it, he can. If he’s not in the frame I’d be more than happy to see Rob Russell get the nod.
NB : the above matchday 23 is completely from my own mind, I’m certainly not suggesting I have any ITK a la Thornley
INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Cormac Foley: came through the game at the weekend with no issues after his return from a shoulder injury.
Cian Healy: came through the game at the weekend with no issues after his return from a shoulder injury.
Alex Soroka: has returned to full training after recovering from a foot injury.
INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Michael Milne: will be further assessed later this week as he continues his return from a shoulder injury.
INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Ross Byrne: had a procedure on an arm injury last week and will be unavailable until the new year.
Jamie Osborne: picked up a shoulder injury in the win over Connacht and is having a procedure this week and will be unavailable for selection as a result.
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Tommy O’Brien (ankle), Luke McGrath (knee) and John McKee (hamstring)
WHAT THE FOCAL?
Might have stepped in a minefield here but more often than not I find my view to be right in the middle of two extremes so I’ve decided to address it in my latest TikTok vid. Apologies if my Irish and Welsh pronunciations aren’t what they should be but I couldn’t do this bit without at least having a go!
That headline is about as “IYKYK” as you can get!!! Although I very much doubt that if you love rugby enough to be reading these pages, you haven’t also heard of Squidge!
Having been denied the chance to offer his trademark takes from the World Cup, as well as being denied a decent explanation, all Irish fans will be glad he turned his attention to the career of Johnny Sexton, and this time he reproduces all his hilarious various on the name, and you have to say he left the best until last.
I can’t leave out the fact that both “Rathgar” and “Bective” get mispronounced at the start (though it could be intentional given the running gag on his name) but trust me…as the video goes on all of that ceases to matter and even though I’ve been running this site for pretty much the length of th guy’s career, even I learned a few things.
So just in case you haven’t see in yet, here’s a link.
WELSH RUGBY – WHAT WENT WRONG?
That’s a question that most rugby fans around the world would like answered and thankfully someone has literally written the book on it.
Seimon Williams is the author and I am delighted to say he has agreed to come on the pod for a chat – I reckon the best time to do this will be just before Ireland play Wales in the Six Nations (with Leinster playing Cardiff the following weekend) so it’s a bit down the line but with Christmas “around the corner” I thought I’d get in an early mention, this link is for Amazon but it’s available in several different places.
Here’s the official blurb…
The 2022-23 season may just be the bleakest in Welsh rugby history. Accusations of misogyny, sexism, racism and homophobia against the Welsh Rugby Union led to resignations, independent inquiries, Senedd intervention and rushed governance reform. Budget cuts, strike threats, uncertainty for players, embarrassing defeats and the dismissal of the national coach presaged another poor Six Nations campaign.
This book looks at the issues which have seen Welsh rugby stumble from crisis to crisis over the past 40 years. At how a nation which led the rugby world in the 1970s declined into the fractured, riven, divided rugby nation of today. At how occasional successes at club, regional and Test level were achieved despite the system, not because of it, and did little more than paper over the cracks. At, fundamentally, what went wrong.
FAZ BREAK
Keego touched on this for the preview pod but I’d just like to add my two cents, totally in agreement with him that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a player taking a break from the game for whatever reason.
The schedule can be hectic, particularly if you are captain for both club and country with all the extra media responsibilities, and although we might have a go at him now and again on these pages, I really do hope none of it is considered anywhere near the kind of treatment that has led to this break.
We all want our teams to win, but we also want them to do it against the top players available and he is of course right up there on that list so here’s to a speedy return for him.
URC IRISH SHIELD UPDATE
I can’t believe the mainstream media never made anything out of the fact that Ciaran Frawley’s late try catapulted Leinster to the top of the Irish Shield!!! All of course could change over the Christmas schedule…
NOV 4 CONNACHT 22-20 ULSTER
NOV 10 ULSTER 21-14 MUNSTER
NOV 25 LEINSTER 21-16 MUNSTER
DEC 2 CONNACHT 22-24 LEINSTER
DEC 22 ULSTER V CONNACHT
DEC 26 MUNSTER V LEINSTER
JAN 1 CONNACHT V MUNSTER
JAN 1 LEINSTER V ULSTER
MAY 11 MUNSTER V CONNACHT
MAY 18 ULSTER V LEINSTER
MAY 31 LEINSTER V CONNACHT
JUNE 1 MUNSTER V ULSTER
“SVNS” UPDATE
Since I covered the 7s kickoff on the main pod I’ll just copy my piece here…some may call that lazy but I prefer to see it as “eco-friendly recycling”…
I’d like to take a quick look at Ireland’s involvement in the World Series Sevens, or “SVNS” as it’s called now since they removed the e’s. Sure who needs vowels anyway, amirite?
Anyway…changing the name wasn’t the only rebrand, and probably the most significant new feature is that they have brought equity to the genders by not only ensuring that every leg has both a men’s and women’s event, but also they reduced the number of men’s teams from 16 to 12 same as the women.
Both Irish teams have been doing reasonably well since we finally invested in the code with qualification for the Paris Olympics something to look forward to later in the year, but over the weekend the new SVNS series kicked off in Dubai and Ireland got off to flying starts with the women defeating Japan and Brazil and the men overcoming Australia and Spain.
Three matches in one day in that Dubai heat proved too much for us in the third pool matches, however, with the women falling to Australia and the men against Argentina, and this left our task in the cup quarterfinals that little bit tougher.
The Irish women were up against a Canadian side which had already caused an upset on Day 1 by defeating the USA but although we were down by 7pts with less than a minute left on the clock we were perhaps too impatient with an extra player as Aimee Leigh Murphy Crowe went over in the corner making the conversion too much meaning Canada went through.
Meanwhile over on the men’s side there was a crazy quarterfinal as Ireland’s only involvement in the first half was one overthrown lineout as Fiji ran in five tries to be 29-0 up at the break before Ireland responded with four unanswered tries of their own until Mark Roche tried to be a bit too clever with an attempted restart to himself, knocking on in the process and leaving the Flying Fijians as the winners 29-24
This dropped both sides into the playoffs for placings but still every point counts in the series and the teams had mixed fortunes as the women fell 19-24 to Fiji to finish in 6th place while the men overcame Samoa to end up 5th. Ending up in the top half in both competitions wasn’t the worst result for Ireland but you still feel our ceiling is a little bit higher.
When it came to the tournament winners in Dubai, Australia took the women’s title beating New Zealand 26-19 in the final while the South African Blitzbokke defeated Argentina 12-7 on the men’s side. The series now moves on to Cape Town next weekend, with the remaining destinations being Perth, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Singapore and finally Madrid at the end of next May. As ever we live in hope that one day a venue in Ireland might be added to that list.
#IRLW7s
POOL
IRELAND 35-7 JAPAN
IRELAND 19-14 BRAZIL
AUSTRALIA 33-5 IRELAND
QF
IRELAND 12-14 CANADA
5TH PLACE PLAYOFF
IRELAND 19-24 FIJI
#IRLM7s
POOL
AUSTRALIA 12-19 IRELAND
IRELAND 35-10 SPAIN
ARGENTINA 17-7 IRELAND
QF
IRELAND 24-29 FIJI
5TH PLACE PLAYOFF
IRELAND 28-7 SAMOA
NEXT IN THE SERIES…
CAPE TOWN DEC 9-10
Cape Town pools –
Women: Pool B: New Zealand, Ireland, Brazil, Great Britain
Men: Pool A: South Africa, Ireland, USA, Great Britain
PERTH JAN 26-28
VANCOUVER FEB 23-25
LOS ANGELES MAR 2-3
HONG KONG APR 5-7
SINGAPORE MAY 3-5
MADRID MAY 31-JUN 2
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
All Leinster eyes of course will have been on La Rochelle, and it was interesting to see the tables turned for once as while we were the ones grinding out a victory, it was the CC holders who had the run of the mill BP home win against a side at the bottom of the table! Have a feeling the lineups on Sunday will be very different…
We should also keep an eye on Stade who we play after Christmas, they returned to winning ways with a decent result against the Brennus holders Toulouse, and with La Rochelle next on the list for them in round 10, their task does not get easier.
Stu Lancaster’s Racing are top going into the Champions Cup kickoff.
Round 9
TOULON 36-13 PAU
BAYONNE 34-19 MONTPELLIER
OYONNAX 23-29 BORDEAUX
CASTRES 29-14 LYON
LA ROCHELLE 35-6 PERPIGNAN
CLÉRMONT 23-18 RACING 92
STADE FRANCAIS 27-12 TOULOUSE
Round 10
FRI DEC 22
PERPIGNAN V BAYONNE
BORDEAUX V LYON
SAT DEC 23
MONTPELLIER V CASTRES
RACING 92 V OYONNAX
PAU V CLÉRMONT
STADE FRANCAIS V LA ROCHELLE
TOULOUSE V TOULON
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
Getting thumped 3-36 and remaining top of the league isn’t easy to do but Leinster’s Champions Cup opponents Sale Sharks managed it this week, although it has become very tight in the Premiership with just the four points separating the top six in the ten-team league. I wonder when they play Leinster at the RDS will they have half a mind on the visit of Saracens to their ground the following week…
Leicester Tigers probably didn’t learn too much from thumping lowly Newcastle but I’m pretty sure a trip to Sandy Park after the European matches will offer a decent education.
ROUND 8
HARLEQUINS 36-3 SALE SHARKS
BRISTOL 51-26 GLOUCESTER
BATH 41-24 EXETER
SARACENS 12-18 NORTHAMPTON SAINTS
LEICESTER TIGERS 47-3 NEWCASTLE
ROUND 9
FRI DEC 22
NEWCASTLE V BRISTOL
SALE SHARKS V SARACENS
SAT DEC 23
EXETER V LEICESTER
GLOUCESTER V NORTHAMPTON
BATH V HARLEQUINS
AIL UPDATE
Absolutely no doubt that UL Bohs are hot favourites to lift the Women’s AIL title…their 20-15 at Belvo made it 8 wins from 8 in the first half of the season, and in a league that has already seen a lot of big scorelines, you almost fear for the fate of Wicklow RFC when they travel to Limerick in the next round. The three Leinster clubs remain hot in pursuit with Belvo hosting Rock in the pick of the ties in the next round.
Before I move on from the Women’s league, the composition of the teams for the Celtic Challenge, a potential precursor to a Celtic League equivalent, has been announced. Leinster and Ulster will combine to play as the Wolfhounds, while Munster and Connacht will be the Clovers. More details plus the fixture list to be found here.
Meanwhile on the men’s side, Clontarf won the big top of the table clash holding off Cork Con while Lansdowne overcame lowly Trinity to go stay 3rd and Hinch had a great win at Belfield Bowl to remain in the playoff places. Terenure sent a message to the rest of the league that they’re not ready to give up their crown just yet as they thumped Shannon at Lakelands. The Dublin derby between Lansdowne and Tarf seems to be the pick of round 8.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 9
SUTTONIANS 45-12 WICKLOW
BALLINCOLLIG 14-21 GALWEGIANS
RAILWAY UNION 38-22 BLACKROCK COLLEGE
BELVO 15-20 UL BOHS
Round 10
SAT DEC 9
GALWEGIANS V COOKE
BELVO V BLACKROCK
RAILWAY UNION V SUTTONIANS
UL BOHS V WICKLOW
MEN’S AIL
ROUND 7
CLONTARF 30-26 CORK CON
DUBLIN UNIV 3-17 LANSDOWNE
TERENURE 58-7 SHANNON
UCD 17-31 BALLYNAHINCH
YOUNG MUNSTER 32-17 CITY OF ARMAGH
ROUND 8
SAT DEC 9
BALLYNAHINCH V YOUNG MUNSTER
CORK CON V UCD
LANSDOWNE V CLONTARF
SHANNON V DUBLIN UNIV
TERENURE V CITY OF ARMAGH
RE SUPER CUP UPDATE
The predicted final matchup between Black Lion and Tel Aviv Heat has come to pass as both comfortably got through their semifinals, but now the timing is an issue as it was meant to be played on Dec 16 but the Georgian side kind of have other things to worry about like a trip to Llanelli for a Challenge Cup fixture. They begin their historic involvement in European cup rugby this weekend by hosting Gloucester.
SEMIFINALS
BLACK LION 41-0 CASTILLA
TEL-AVIV HEAT 31-6 ROMANIAN WOLVES
5TH-8TH PLACE SEMIFINALS
BRUSSELS DEVILS 44-10 BOHEMIAN WARRIORS
DELTA 8-53 LUSITANOS
SAT DEC 16
RE SUPER CUP FINAL
BLACK LION V TEL AVIV*
PLAYOFF FINALS
3RD – CASTILLA V ROMANIAN WOLVES
5TH – LUSITANOS V BRUSSELS DEVILS
7TH – DELTA V BOHEMIA WARRIORS
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
Wait – who’s that at the top of the league? Is that really me??? And what’s more I actually have that late Frawley try to thank for it as well. having dropped to 4th a few weeks ago it’s great to see my name back up there but as you can see it’s very close and there are bound to be a lot more changes before this league is done.
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
So that’s it for another week. La Rochelle are up next, we’ll have a preview on Friday as usual, but with the match on Sunday, we won’t record the wrap until Monday night so keep an eye out for it on the Tuesday morning. Please do keep in touch on all the usual social media channels in the meantime.
And as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
I give a shout out to Mark Jackson on the pod but I’d just like to give another one here, hope things are better after that weekend and that we can have you back on the pod soon.
Normally I try to avoid having contributors on the pod for two weeks in a row…whether that’s because I have so many who are keen to chat to me or because they generally need a break after chatting to me I’ll leave to your imagination!
Anyway Tom Coleman was thankfully willing to return for a second week in a row along with Irish Times columnist Nathan Johns and they combined to bring a top notch perspective to Saturday. When this was an article based site back in the day my writeups were totally coming from my own point of view but now the pods offer a much broader perspective thanks to my team of fellow fans volunteering their time and expertise.
For this week’s bonus clip for YouTube my pod guests offered some insights to the teams Leinster must overcome to qualify from Champions Cup pool 4. Tom looked at our first two opponents La Rochelle and Sale, Nathan covered Stade Francais and Leicester whom we face in January and finally I harped on the Stormers who we avoid playing yet still mustn’t ignore altogether.
Definitely worth a look between now and the tournament kickoff in over a week, and sure while you’re there why not subscribe as well we often put up other videos including match previews there.
LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE
Some very interesting choices to be made for Leinster’s impending trip to Galway. Far from a match we can afford to take for granted, especially with them hurting from defeat in Pretoria and also likely to have the Akis and the Hansens back in their lineup. That said, it’s hard to ignore the assignment at the Stade Marcel Deflandre eight days later.
The Ross Byrne injury makes our 10 selection the most crucial one. With Frawley seeming to be the best bet to be first receiver against La Rochelle does he need game time or cotton wool? The consensus in the Harpin WhatsApp group is, quite rightly when you think of it, to lean towards the latter by starting Harry Byrne or Sam Prendergast in Galway and give Frawley 20-30 minutes.
But since this column is where I give my own view, I’d rather push the risk v reward side of things, possibly drawing lessons from that URC semifinal, and give Frawley the 10 jersey so he can go the week preparing for a starting role and thus be ready for the following week. If the worst should happen injury-wise, then so be it.
Those are just my thoughts for that particular position, however. As you can see by the 23 below I have gone mostly for a conservative team, yet still one that could do a job in the Sportsground.
Barron, Porter, Clarkson, McCarthy, Doris, Gibson-Park, H Byrne, O’Brien J
NB : the above matchday 23 is completely from my own mind, I’m certainly not suggesting I have any ITK a la Thornley
INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
N/A
INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Michael Milne: will be further assessed later this week as he continues his return from a shoulder injury
Cian Healy: will step up his rehabilitation programme this week as he continues his return from a shoulder injury
INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Ross Byrne: will have further examination for an arm injury picked up at the weekend but has been ruled out of selection this week
Cormac Foley: will step up his rehabilitation programme this week as he looks to return from a shoulder injury
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Tommy O’Brien (ankle), Luke McGrath (knee), John McKee (hamstring) and Alex Soroka (foot)
BLUE SKY AHEAD
Don’t really have time for a Tik-Tok rant this week, they may only be around two minutes of actual content but they take over an hour to produce and I barely have that on “normal” weeks.
So instead I’ve decided to take the plunge and give another Musk-less Twitter alternative a go. I went big into Mastodon last year but I have to say the engagement was underwhelming and after resisting the move for a good while now I finally caved and set up an account at Blue Sky, thanks to long time friend of the pod and super Leinster/Ireland fan Catherine Kavanagh who hooked me up with an invite.
Liking it so far, the follower count after less than 24 hours is already a third of what I got at Masto in over a year. They still don’t publish videos and GIFs yet but no doubt that will come.
Anyway the main feature of my decision is that by starting a Blue Sky account I now must forget Mastodon completely, as my list of social media accounts had grown too large as it was.
Having Nathan Johns on the wrap pod every so often gives us a decent glimpse into the world of the “official” media and while often sources like to decry them for being “mainstream” the fact remains their access gives them insights which can’t be ignored.
After covering one of his own articles as part of our “Front Five” portion, he went on to pen this article on Monday which looked at the two times Jamison Gibson-Park was punished 10 metres for dissent after penalties were awarded to Munster at the Aviva Stadium.
Since it’s my own team involved I reckon it’s a good opportunity for me to point out that I agree that once the second rebuke happens there should be a further sanction and Whiskey was very lucky not to get sent to the naughty step. I certainly wouldn’t blame ref Chris Busby for having an attitude like “look, lads, you guys already have TWO captains, I certainly don’t need to be hearing from a third!”
I’ve always been in favour of a zero tolerance approach when it comes to awarding that extra 10 metres and it really can punish teams. Hopefully if there is to be more of it, we will see it done consistently.
…AND VICE VERSA
Now to the flip side – much has been made of this exchange between Owen Farrell and Luke Pearce in the Premiership over the weekend.
Look – it’s a top flight sporting contest. Adrenaline is pumping, tensions are high, and that’s just with the fans commenting on social media so I can only imagine what it’s like for the players and officials!!!
Obviously your opinion on this is going to greatly depend on your allegiance, whether it’s for or against Saracens, for or against Owen Farrell, maybe even for or against officials in general.
My first impression was that Faz’ response seemed a bit precious, with possibly an air of “do you not know who I am?” about it. Pearce was definitely being a smart-arse but I don’t know if it quite went as far as being “rude”…
Farrell: “That’s three at the maul.” Pearce: “Thanks, I can count.” Farrell: “Don’t be rude to me, there’s no need to be rude to me.”
Owen Farrell was not pleased with referee Luke Pearce's response during Saracens clash against Bristol Bears 😶 pic.twitter.com/v9zIBnqEuE
For the 40+ years I’ve lived in Ireland I have lived in several different addresses and all but one have been close to at least one of the two bus routes that crossed South Dublin without ever going near the City Centre, namely the 17 and 18. And for the years I have been Harpin’ when I’m planning on a beverage or two after the rugby it has been the 18 that always saw me safely home, but now the number has been retired with two different routes replaces it, an “S4” that goes near me but not to RDS and an “S2” that covers the other half.
It was always great to see the 18 full of Leinster fans on match days, and there would be plenty already on it having travelled through Ballyfermot/Drimnagh/Crumlin/Kimmage before it ever got to the likes Rathmines.
The only time I never enjoyed being on it was for Christmas fixtures when as well as the rugby fans there would also be legions of youngsters heading to Funderland in various states of inebriation!
But as the tweet below points out, the route will still be an institution long remembered.
We’ve harped a lot about the whole “get the likes of Georgia more top class rugby” over the years, hopefully this statement is just one point on the road to actually doing it.
Interesting press release from EPCR
• EPCR and the Georgia Rugby Marketing Hub announce a three-year partnership in the tourism sector with both the Investec Champions Cup and EPCR Challenge Cup
Before we leave what I call the “Middle Aisle” portion of the column and go into the “Updates”, some sad news from Major League Rugby, which I plan to include below for the 2024 season. Most professional sports in the US include at least one Canadian team but sadly it has transpired that the Toronto Arrows won’t be able to field a team for the coming season, and given neither country qualified for the 2023 World Cup the news does not bode well for things getting better in 2027.
At least there has been a team added from last season, with Miami Sharks joining for the coming season. No doubt eventually we’ll reach a stage where every league in the world has Sharks, and I’m not suggesting that’s a bad thing, once they don’t put mouthfuls like “Hollywoodbets” before the name, of course.
The Toronto Arrows will not compete in the 2024 MLR season.
MLR and the Arrows organization explored all avenues to maintain the club's presence in the League. After exhausting all options, Toronto was left with no choice but to voluntarily withdraw.
Saturday’s win in the Aviva was Leinster’s first match in defence of our Irish Shield title (you can’t see me but my tongue was definitely in my cheek while typing that). As you can see Ulster still lead the way but the winner of Saturday evening’s interpro at the Sportsground will lead the table after two matches. Munster haven’t started well although a pair of losing BPs definitely keeps them in the hunt.
NOV 4 CONNACHT 22-20 ULSTER
NOV 10 ULSTER 21-14 MUNSTER
NOV 25 LEINSTER 21-16 MUNSTER
DEC 2 CONNACHT V LEINSTER
DEC 22 ULSTER V CONNACHT
DEC 26 MUNSTER V LEINSTER
JAN 1 CONNACHT V MUNSTER
JAN 1 LEINSTER V ULSTER
MAY 11 MUNSTER V CONNACHT
MAY 18 ULSTER V LEINSTER
MAY 31 LEINSTER V CONNACHT
JUNE 1 MUNSTER V ULSTER
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
With Leinster & Munster battling on Saturday, it’s hard to avoid referencing the same rivalry 24 hours later when Stu Lancaster’s Racing faced ROG’s La Rochelle. A resounding win for the Paris-based club which sent them to the top of the table although Pau are the real story of the season so far as they are close behind them in 2nd after a similar scoreline against the other Parisiens whom Leinster play in January and now sit in 3rd. Stade v Toulouse seems to be the pick of Round 9.
Round 8
TOULON 31-10 CASTRES
BORDEAUX 46-22 PERPIGNAN
LYON 42-29 BAYONNE
MONTPELLIER 21-26 OYONNAX
PAU 30-6 STADE FRANCAIS
TOULOUSE 31-10 CLÉRMONT
RACING 92 32-10 LA ROCHELLE
Round 9
SAT DEC 2
TOULON V PAU
BAYONNE V MONTPELLIER
OYONNAX V BORDEAUX
CASTRES V LYON
LA ROCHELLE V PERPIGNAN
CLÉRMONT V RACING 92
SUN DEC 3
STADE FRANCAIS V TOULOUSE
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
Leinster’s Champions Cup pool mates Sale stay top of the pile here after grinding out a 11-9 with over Bath, while Leicester Tiger, also in Pool 4, crawled out of the bottom two with a big win at Kingsholm. Much like the 🔝🐱🐴 there’s a 3rd v 4th clash in the next round that catches the eye as Exeter travel to the Rec.
ROUND 7
NORTHAMPTON 36-33 HARLEQUINS
SALE SHARKS 11-9 BATH
GLOUCESTER 20-38 LEICESTER TIGERS
SARACENS 39-31 BRISTOL
NEWCASTLE 14-20 EXETER
ROUND 8
FRI DEC 1
HARLEQUINS V SALE SHARKS
SAT DEC 2
BRISTOL V GLOUCESTER
BATH V EXETER
SARACENS V NORTHAMPTON SAINTS
SUN DEC 3
LEICESTER TIGERS V NEWCASTLE
AIL UPDATE
Just the one rescheduled match in both genders last weekend, with the scoreline between Railway and Wicklow pretty much what you’d expect. Some big matchups coming up this weekend with the top four playing against each other which will bring the season to its halfway point.
Over on the men’s side the match of the round is an easy one to spot, with Clontarf, 1st place with 26pts, hosting Cork Con, 2nd with 25. UCD v Hinch also has top four implications while Trinity really need to start putting some points on the board when they host Lansdowne.
Also on the club scene it was announced that an Irish Club XV will travel to play a Portugal A side in March 2024.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 6 (rescheduled)
SAT NOV 25
WICKLOW 10-78 RAILWAY UNION
Round 9
SAT DEC 2
SUTTONIANS V WICKLOW
BALLINCOLLIG V GALWEGIANS
BLACKROCK V RAILWAY UNION
BELVO V UL BOHS
MEN’S AIL
NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND
ROUND 7
SAT DEC 2
CLONTARF V CORK CON
DUBLIN UNIV V LANSDOWNE
TERENURE V SHANNON
UCD V BALLYNAHINCH
YOUNG MUNSTER V CITY OF ARMAGH
RE SUPER CUP UPDATE
Semifinal time already in the Super Cup and expectations will be high for a Black Lion v Tel Aviv final, we’ll see if the Spaniards or Romanians can have something to say about that.
SEMIFINALS
SAT DEC 2
BLACK LION V CASTILLA
TEL-AVIV HEAT V ROMANIAN WOLVES
5TH-8TH PLACE SEMIFINALS
SAT DEC 2
BRUSSELS DEVILS V BOHEMIAN WARRIORS
SUN DEC 3
DELTA V LUSITANOS
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
The wins for Cardiff and Benetton on Friday night made it a bad start to the weekend for all of us, but the rest of the weekend went much much better for yours truly as I got my second “yellow cap” in three weeks to jump into 2nd spot in the table right behind Conor. Meanwhile “No Picks Keego” continues to live up to his name, he must really like that jersey…
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Connacht are up next for Leinster, I’ll be chatting to Stephen “Master Of None” Murphy for an Opposition View pod which will publish on Wednesday, then it’s the usual Friday preview and wrap pod on Sunday. Stay tuned to all the usual social media channels, plus the new one on Blue Sky of course, for all the latest harpin’.
And as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
As ever Tom & Rich did a bang up job wrapping Leinster’s win over the Scarlets. I’ve tried to simplify the format this season, where before I split each half into five segments for the guests to wrap they now just cover 20 minutes each per half. That can lead to a lot of harping so I’ve tried to jump in to help were I can but I still reckon this works as a better system.
Classic Harpin luck…less than 24 hours after we record a bonus clip about what Neinaber can bring to Leinster, the news breaks that he’s likely to be delayed arriving with the squad until after we play Munster. Still, as Tom says you can already see some of his influence in our play and no doubt there is some kind of Zoom-like communication going on. Anyway, the boys still did a good job harpin’ on what he will add to the province.
LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE
Would you believe I completely forgot about this 80+ feature this season until now? Well if you knew me you certainly would believe it! #scatterbrain
Anywho…while it is good news about Ed Byrne, and also that Messrs Milne & Healy are close to making it five, yes, count ‘em, FIVE quality loose head props available for selection, I reckon Jack Boyle’s form over the first five rounds should be enough to earn him a spot in our 23 for this Saturday at very least.
Obviously the names at the bottom of the list are concerning and we’d want them returning ASAP but overall it’s far from the worst injury report we’ve seen.
Harpin’ matchday 23 v Munster
Keenan, J O’Brien, Ringrose, Ngatai, Lowe, R Byrne, Gibson-Park.
Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, McCarthy, Ryan, Baird, van der Flier, Doris.
NB : the above matchday 23 is completely from my own mind, I’m certainly not suggesting I have any ITK a la Thornley
INJURY UPDATE – AVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
Ed Byrne: has returned to full training after recovering from his hamstring injury
INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:
Michael Milne: will be further assessed later this week as he continues his return from a shoulder injury
Cian Healy: will step up his rehabilitation programme this week as he continues his return from a shoulder injury
INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:
N/A
NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:
Tommy O’Brien (ankle), Cormac Foley (shoulder), John McKee (hamstring), Luke McGrath (knee) and Alex Soroka (foot)
WE STAND WITH UGO
Easy choice of topic for this week’s TikTok. Pretty much said my piece in the video but I will also add a relevant tweet from fellow Leinster fan Catherine Kavanagh on the matter.
In spring 2019 Leinster played Ulster in a HEC 1/4 final. Dan Leavy's last game. A Leinster fan, obstreperous and hammered, abused Ulster fans & players in sectarian terms. He got instantly shouted down by everyone, the Gardai marched him out. LR went after him too. Only way. https://t.co/Sm1t9LdmrL
I think I’ve finally settled on a structure with these 80+ columns…starting with a few segments on the wrap pod from last weekend, ending with updates from other competitions, and here we’re in what I call “The Middle Aisle” where I cover a few topics that caught my eye in the last week.
First we have the announcement of the squads for the two senior 7s teams which will be representing Ireland both in the rebranded “Svns” series which starts in Dubai on the weekend of December 2.
As you can see below, the biggest difference between the two groups is that the Women’s includes many who would be expected to featured in XVs, so clearly this continues to be a problem for the programme. Apparently the only actual clash with the 2024 Six Nations will be on the Hong Kong leg but realistically I’d expect there to be minimal back and forth between the versions.
On the men’s side, all the big names are there like Kennedy, Conroy, McNulty plus some new ones as well and they will really want to crack on from last season where they reached their first final yet disappointed in other events.
We’ll be covering the series on this column and eventually it will move to the Updates section starting next week.
Ireland Men’s Sevens – 2024 Squad: Niall Comerford, Jordan Conroy, Sean Cribbin, Billy Dardis, Ed Kelly, Jack Kelly, Terry Kennedy, JJ Kenny, Hugo Lennox, Matt McDonald, Harry McNulty, Bryan Mollen, Gavin Mullin, Chay Mullins, Dylan O’Grady, Aaron O’Sullivan, Connor O’Sullivan, Mark Roche, Zac Ward.
WOMEN’S CELTIC LEAGUE GETS CLOSER
Last season there was a new competition called “The Celtic Challenge” where Irish, Scottish and Welsh women’s teams competed to help prepare for the Six Nations – now it has been expanded to involve two teams from each nation so I assume it will be a round robin format.
As my headline suggests, this brings us ever closer to the formation of a proper Women’s Celtic League and it would be perfect if they could eventually include all four provinces.
One drawback however seems to be the fact that this expanded competition will run right into the also-expanded format of the Women’s AIL which switched to a home-and-away format this season.
I’m all for more women’s rugby but when the sevens, club, test and now this new level all clash at the same time it really looks like they are creating more problems than they are solving.
SIOBHÁN CATTIGAN
I’m not really in a position to comment too much on any Scottish rugby let alone the women’s game there but it was hard not to be moved by the tragic story of Siobhán Cattigan plus the horrible way in which the SRU handled the aftermath.
Hopefully the way the union has engaged with the family together with the apology has gone a way towards mending the fences. If they are happy with the sincerity of the apologies than so should we.
HOGGWASH
Not my intention to pick on Scottish rugby this week but I just have one thing to say about the whole Stuart Hogg thing…if the reports are true then he definitely does not sound like a good guy.
That said, if he goes on to stay out of rugby then there’s not much more for me to say about him on a platform dedicated to opinion on what happens within the game. And it certainly seems that Rugby Pass aren’t singing from the same hymn sheet.
I mean – if we want to focus on players who have wronged women, there are plenty of those still playing the sport now.
"I absolutely hated it… but there was method in the madness."
– Stuart Hogg, with Liam Heagney 👨💻, on being an ex-player, horse riding, @rugbyontnt TV punditry, and anguished last few months at Exeter. #GallagherPrem#EXEvGLO
Many have pointed out that the two Italian clubs are now above all four Welsh regions on the URC table, but I also noticed one other fact from the first five rounds of the season.
Last season, over the 18 regular season rounds of the URC, both Italian clubs lost in as many as 10 of them. This season so far, there have been ZERO. Maybe that includes a couple of draws but that is still certainly quite the improvement, and long may it continue. Except when they both play Leinster, of course…
MIKE AND THE PRE-MATCH MECHANICS
I covered Mike McCarthy’s pre-kickoff Viking clap routine on this column a few weeks ago for Leinster’s first match at the RDS, well they didn’t do it for the visit of Edinburgh yet brought it back last Saturday and this time I took a brief video for TikTok.
No Irish Shield action last weekend, rather four proud wins for the provinces, but the race resumes at the Aviva this Saturday as Leinster finally join the fray. I’ve revised the info below to include all the 12 matches and we’ll continue to track the table’s process throughout the season if the URC have yet to do it on their website.
NOV 4 CONNACHT 22-20 ULSTER
NOV 10 ULSTER 21-14 MUNSTER
ULSTER P 2 PTS 5
CONNACHT P 1 PTS 4
MUNSTER P 1 PTS 1
LEINSTER P 0 PTS 0
NOV 25 LEINSTER V MUNSTER
DEC 2 CONNACHT V LEINSTER
DEC 22 ULSTER V CONNACHT
DEC 26 MUNSTER V LEINSTER
JAN 1 CONNACHT V MUNSTER
JAN 1 LEINSTER V ULSTER
MAY 11 MUNSTER V CONNACHT
MAY 18 ULSTER V LEINSTER
MAY 31 LEINSTER V CONNACHT
JUNE 1 MUNSTER V ULSTER
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
Big win for Stu Lancaster’s Racing in the Parisien derby which moves them up to second place level on points with their capital city rivals with Castres also on 23pts and Pau just one behind. Things don’t exactly get easier for Racing as they host La Rochelle who seem to be getting their mojo back after a third win on the bounce saw them creep to the edge of the playoff picture.
Round 7
STADE FRANCAIS 9-13 RACING 92
BAYONNE 35-16 PAU
PERPIGNAN 26-13 MONTPELLIER
OYONNAX 38-20 LYON
CLÉRMONT 27-30 TOULON
CASTRES 31-23 TOULOUSE
LA ROCHELLE 25-21 BORDEAUX
Round 8
SAT NOV 25
TOULON V CASTRES
BORDEAUX V PERPIGNAN
LYON V BAYONNE
MONTPELLIER V OYONNAX
PAU V STADE FRANCAIS
TOULOUSE V CLÉRMONT
SUN NOV 26
RACING 92 V LA ROCHELLE
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
Leinster’s Euro opponents are heading in opposite directions these days – we play Sale in December and they went to the top of the table after their win over Newcastle while Quins got humbled at the Stoop by Saracens. Leicester did manage to win their derby against the Saints yet they remain in the bottom two.
ROUND 6
BATH 20-19 BRISTOL BEARS
SALE SHARKS 40-22 NEWCASTLE
LEICESTER 26-17 NORTHAMPTON
HARLEQUINS 10-38 SARACENS
EXETER 25-24 GLOUCESTER
ROUND 7
FRI NOV 24
NORTHAMPTON V HARLEQUINS
SALE SHARKS V BATH
SAT NOV 25
GLOUCESTER V LEICESTER TIGERS
SARACENS V BRISTOL
SUN NOV 26
NEWCASTLE V EXETER
AIL UPDATE
Round 8 of the Women’s AIL has once again highlighted the gap between the top 4 clubs and the rest, with the two matches involving sides from both ends of the table being blow outs and the two more evenly matched contests being close. UL Bohs held out Belvo to keep their 100% record intact, but their schedule doesn’t get any easier as they must travel to Belvo the weekend after next while another potential semifinal matchup between Rock and Railway takes place at the same time, and when those matches are complete the league will be at its halfway point.
Meanwhile on the men’s side, even though I am a blue jersey supporter I still have to admit it’s always good to see as many as three provinces represented in the top four of the AIL 1A.
Recent Leinster debutant Dylan Donnellan marked his return to the AIL with two tries but leaders Clontarf could only manage a draw away to Hinch although they still remain top. Cork Con’s demolition of lowly Trinity brought them to within a point of 1st while champions Terenure continue to struggle to stay in touch with the top 4 as they fell away to Young Munster.
The men’s clubs take a break this coming weekend with the big interpro derby at the Aviva but there’s to be another one in Round 7 when 1st place Tarf hosts 2nd place Con. Hopefully there will be a stream for that one, definitely worth a watch.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 8
BALLINCOLLIG 0-50 BELVO
COOKE 0-65 BLACKROCK
WICKLOW 5-12 GALWEGIANS
UL BOHS 10-7 RAILWAY UNION
Round 6
SAT NOV 25
WICKLOW V RAILWAY UNION
Round 9
SAT DEC 2
SUTTONIANS V WICKLOW
BALLINCOLLIG V GALWEGIANS
BLACKROCK V RAILWAY UNION
BELVO V UL BOHS
MEN’S AIL
ROUND 6
BALLYNAHINCH 24-24 CLONTARF
CITY OF ARMAGH 18-25 UCD
CORK CON 33-5 DUBLIN UNIV
LANSDOWNE 42-12 SHANNON
YOUNG MUNSTER 13-6 TERENURE
ROUND 7
SAT DEC 2
CLONTARF V CORK CON
DUBLIN UNIV V LANSDOWNE
TERENURE V SHANNON
UCD V BALLYNAHINCH
YOUNG MUNSTER V CITY OF ARMAGH
RE SUPER CUP UPDATE
The two decisive matches when it came to deciding on semi finalists each went different ways in the final round. The Romanian Wolves rolled over the Brussels Devils while the Iberian peninsula derby was a whole lot closer with Castilla holding out Lusitanos to join the Wolves in the final four. Meanwhile in what could very possibly be a rehearsal for the final, champions Black Lion edged Tel Aviv. At time of writing dates and times of the semifinals are yet to be decided.
ROUND 3
BOHEMIA WARRIORS 0-74 DELTA
TEL-AVIVA HEAT 27-29 BLACK LION
BRUSSELS DEVILS 5-60 ROMANIAN WOLVES
CASTILLA 18-13 LUSITANOS
SEMIFINALS (DATES TBD)
BLACK LION V CASTILLA
TEL-AVIV HEAT V ROMANIAN WOLVES
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
Bad week for me this time around, I tried backing Zebre again and although they didn’t lose, they didn’t win either and other results went against me meaning I was overtaken by Kino, who apparently is deploying a new system (and I’m not mocking it – he literally has a degree in this sort of thing) so we’ll see if I can keep in touch with himself, Kristian and Conor, the HPL rookie who this week jumped into the top slot. Will be very interesting to see what the predictions are for Leinster v Munster this Saturday given only Ulster fan Kristian has no skin in the game…will any of the other seven take a gamble and plump for red?
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Our Opposition View series of pod returns this week, although due to time restrictions I may only do them for interpros for the next while. Caolán Scully joins me for a chat, watch out for it on the feed around Wednesday morning. I may even give him a bit of time to gloat over their URC title, you never know.
But after that it’s down to business giving Saturday’s big one at the Aviva the full Harpin treatment with Keego joining me for the preview on Friday, then Mark & Nathan are due to help me with the wrap on Sunday so stay tuned to all the usual social media channels and get involved in the discussion in any way you can.
As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
Never thought something like Storm Debi could possibly affect our humble pod recording, though at least it wasn’t due to anyone coming to any harm. I had already pushed it to a Monday evening chat when Tom Coleman had to work late so thankfully Conor Cronin was able to step in and do his second wrap pod in as many weekends, with Jay Long also helping us look back over Leinster’s win over the Dragons.
But because everything has been pushed back a day, this week’s 80+ column will be a lot shorter than usual.
Selecting a matchday 23 is always a great discussion point so this chat was easy, although we came up with some calls we might not have considered not too long ago.
BUNKER MENTALITY
Although I’ve kept this 80+ column brief I enjoy doing those TikTok opinion vids so I found the time to do one on the TMO bunker system.
Here’s the transcript of my contribution to the “Front 5” feature on our wrap pod where we look at articles covering topics outside the latest Leinster/Ireland match…
Quote “…even though it was only for a couple of minutes, what a debut from young Rock boy Andrew Conway…with a try-producing offload at one end and a try-saving tackle at the other in his brief appearance, he is surely one to watch.” end quote
That was 2010. Now fast forward almost three years to January 25, 2013 when Conway was still considered to be one of Leinster’s top prospects so you’d have thought the announcement of his move to Munster of all places would send shockwaves throughout Irish rugby.
However the news came at exactly the same time as that of Johnny Sexton’s move to Racing, and with Isa Nacewa also leaving as the season came to a close and both stars featuring in Leinster’s win over Ulster in the Pro12 final, Conway’s exit went very much below the radar, even though he himself also started that same decider at the RDS.
Well the rest, as the saying goes, is history and Simon Lewis’ article does a great job of summarizing the facts of Conway’s spell at Munster, and I’d only add two points, the first being that before the horrible injury which ruled him out for 16 months, it was clear he was very much part of Andy Farrell’s plans for the 2023 World Cup, and indeed on outings like a preseason clash with Leinster down in Musgrave Park in September just gone, he showed he had lost none of his sharpness, particularly on the kick chase where he had become a master of the art.
But one other thing I’d like to add to all the much deserved plaudits he has received since his announcement is that if anyone’s career shows exactly how the reality of Irish rugby transcends all the Leinster/Munster bickering we see from fans of both provinces, myself included of course, then it’s Andrew Conway’s.
If you were to believe all the social media narrative and gaslighting, there’s absolutely no way a promising talent with a CV so Leinstery you’d swear it belonged to Ross O’Carroll Kelly himself would ever be allowed move down the N7, let alone be accepted and acclaimed as a hero by the Thomond Park faithful.
Yet despite the irony of the announcement of his retirement also coming around the same time as that of Sexton, there was no going under the radar this time, with tributes pouring in not just from Munster fans mostly sharing GIFs of THAT try against Toulon but also from throughout the other three provinces and beyond.
He could easily have earned more than 30 caps over his career but he rounds off his retirement statement with two words “forever grateful” and I’m pretty sure I speak for the vast majority of the rugby family when I say so are we, Andrew, and best of luck with your next adventure.
URC IRISH SHIELD UPDATE
Ulster’s win on Friday puts them to the top of the Irish Shield for now, although Leinster have yet to get underway on this table, a situation to be resolved by none other than the visit of Munster to Aviva the weekend after next. URC website still not posting the latest tables.
Match 2
ULSTER 21-14 MUNSTER
ULSTER P 2 PTS 5
CONNACHT P 1 PTS 4
MUNSTER P 1 PTS 1
LEINSTER P 0 PTS 0
Match 3
NOV 25
LEINSTER V MUNSTER
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
Both of Leinster’s Champions Cup pool opponents from the 🔝🐱🐴 had narrow victories in Round 6, with ROG’s lads needing a last gasp penalty to get them back to winning ways just as they’re feeding their internationals back into the squad before we play them. Meanwhile Stade remain top with a Parisien derby against Stu Lancaster’s Racing, possibly including Siya Kolisi, to come at the weekend.
Round 6
SAT NOV 11
TOULOUSE 43-34 PERPIGNAN
CASTRES 39-11 OYONNAX
LYON 32-36 STADE FRANCAIS
MONTPELLIER 17-20 CLÉRMONT
PAU 20-11 BORDEAUX
LA ROCHELLE 18-15 BAYONNE
TOULON 32-26 RACING 92
Round 7
SAT NOV 18
STADE FRANCAIS V RACING 92
BAYONNE V PAU
PERPIGNAN V MONTPELLIER
OYONNAX V LYON
CLÉRMONT V TOULON
CASTRES V TOULOUSE
SUN NOV 19
LA ROCHELLE V BORDEAUX
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
Mixed fortunes for Leinster’s Euro Prem opponents this week – Leicester fell at home which sent Quins to the top of the table while Sale Sharks move to second with a decent win away to Bristol. Finn Russell seemingly taunted the Gloucester crowd as Bath stayed in the playoff positions with a derby victory and Northampton round out the top 4 with a win over Exeter.
ROUND 5
GLOUCESTER 27-45 BATH
BRISTOL 13-27 SALE SHARKS
LEICESTER 25-29 HARLEQUINS
NEWCASTLE 12-50 SARACENS
NORTHAMPTON 34-19 EXETER
ROUND 6
FRI NOV 17
BATH V BRISTOL BEARS
SALE SHARKS V NEWCASTLE
SAT NOV 18
LEICESTER V NORTHAMPTON
HARLEQUINS V SARACENS
EXETER V GLOUCESTER
AIL UPDATE
Top match in the Women’s AIL was a low scoring thriller with Belvo holding out to win 6-3 at Railway Union, who’s schedule doesn’t get any easier as they now must travel to 100% league leaders UL Bohs in a match which will be livestreamed from Annacotty on the Irish Rugby YouTube channel, we’ll put a link in the Rugby on TV post on Thursday.
Meanwhile on the men’s side of things Clontarf stayed top after taking maximum points against City of Armagh but Cork Con stayed in touch with a comprehensive win at Shannon – next up they host Trinity who continue to struggle at the bottom with some daylight starting to appear between them and those above them.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 7
ROCK 48-0 BALLINCOLLIG
COOKE 14-17 WICKLOW
GALWEGIANS 5-12 SUTTONIANS
RAILWAY UNION 3-6 BELVO
Round 8
SAT NOV 18
BALLINCOLLIG V BELVO
COOKE V BLACKROCK
WICKLOW V GALWEGIANS
UL BOHS V RAILWAY UNION
MEN’S AIL
ROUND 5
CLONTARF 35-17 CITY OF ARMAGH
DUBLIN UNIV 15-21 BALLYNAHINCH
SHANNON 24-43 CORK CON
TERENURE 24-23 LANSDOWNE
UCD 26-24 YOUNG MUNSTER
ROUND 6
SAT NOV 18
BALLYNAHINCH V CLONTARF
CITY OF ARMAGH V UCD
CORK CON V DUBLIN UNIV
LANSDOWNE V SHANNON
YOUNG MUNSTER V TERENURE
RE SUPER CUP UPDATE
Whether intentional or not, this new Super Cup format has thrown up some fascinating clashes for the final round of the pool stage this weekend. Both the Castillas/Lusitanos Iberian derby and the Romanian Wolves/Brussels clash are virtually quarterfinals with Black Lion and the Heat already through to the final four.
ROUND 2
CASTILLA 20-38 TEL-AVIV HEAT
BOHEMIA WARRIORS 10-43 BRUSSELS DEVILS
LUSITANOS 0-22 BLACK LION
DELTA 5-31 ROMANIAN WOLVES
ROUND 3
THU NOV 16
BOHEMIA WARRIORS V DELTA
SAT NOV 18
TEL-AVIVA HEAT V BLACK LION
BRUSSELS DEVILS V ROMANIAN WOLVES
SUN NOV 19
CASTILLA V LUSITANOS
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
Although I’m still in third place I gained some ground by pinching the yellow cap this week for the highest score, mostly due to my somehow managing to predict Zebre’s historic win over the Sharks. I don’t know what came over me when I made the call, except for the fact that the Parma outfit had been doing well picking up bonus points so far this season while the Sharks were at the end of a long road trip so it was probably worth the punt.
Short but sweet column this time, hopefully next week will be more conventional. As ever we’ll be giving the visit of the Scarlets to the RDS the full Harpin treatment so stay tuned to all the usual social media channels and get involved in the discussion in any way you can.
As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
Another Sunday, another enjoyable wrap pod recording, this time joined by Conor & Kino, this time for the Front 5 I asked them to choose an article/topic themselves, not sure why I never thought of that before, I’ll definitely look to do that more often as the season wears on.
For our bonus clip to follow on from last week’s chat on the candidates for the Leinster 10 jersey after Sexton’s retirement, this time we looked at Leinster’s “leadership group” and how it should look when the Champions Cup rolls around.
COPY-WRONGED
If content creators’ statuses were represented by rugby competitions, Squidge would be the World Cup while Harpin would be Junior 4ths….meh, maybe that’s doing myself down a bit too much, how about we go with Junior 2nds instead 😜.
All which means I feel bad that I have actually used clips from rugby matches in TikTok videos in recent times – to be clear I never try to even come close to Squidge’s analysis and I certainly don’t put anywhere near as much time into my stuff as he does.
One thing I can vouch for is that even for a 15 minute video there is a MOUNTAIN of work to be done even with help. For example the simple two minute clip below took the guts of two hours altogether but definitely in this case it was worth it when it came to speaking out against the copyright enforcement.
As you can see I have included a link below to show the source of the stats on the Gen Z participation.
Again, seriously, CLIMBING????????????
After just a few hours up, the video has been taken down manually by an employee of World Rugby, and copyright strike given to the channel.
Some 60+ hours of work went into that one video, so rest assured we shall try our upmost to get it restored, but this is not in our hands. https://t.co/BSt9dZGfc4
Hat-tip to Harpin contributor Kristian Ross for drawing my attention to this article from the Ulster University site which is all about the science behind the “smart mouthguards” which are being used to gauge head injury impact in rugby.
“Dr Gregory Tierney, Lecturer in Biomechanics, Ulster University worked in partnership with World Rugby, Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby and Premiership Women’s Rugby to complete several studies using the smart mouthguard technology to better understand the level of impact players experience on the head during matches and training situations using g-forces as a measurement technique.”
I am far from a statistician but one thing I do know is that when researching a topic you can never have too much data, once it’s relevant and it really does sound like this is a near perfect way to gather data on the impact of head collisions in rugby. And another thing we find is that proper research rarely backs up our prejudices 100%.
Usually those pushing back against attempts to make the game safer are mostly motivated by a fear that the game will be “ruined” by sending off and long TMO delays. Personally I’d rather let the boffins do their thing and be open minded to seeing the results in the hope that the right alterations can be made.
The article offers some results from a paper published in 2021 after two years of extensive research…
“The ORCHID paper shows that in the men’s community game:
86 percent of forces measured are the same as or less than those experienced in other forms of exercise such as running, jumping or skipping
94 percent of forces are lower than those previously measured on people riding a rollercoaster
The large majority of events resulting in the highest measured forces are as a result of poor technique in the tackle and at the breakdown
Most contact events in elite rugby do not result in any significant force to the head.”
The poor tackle technique is the most significant part for me, and that leads me to believe that using sanctions to help promote proper technique is at very least one of the measures that we should pursue, whether some fans are annoyed by waiting a bit longer for TMO replays or not.
FEELING THE HEAT
Negative comments obviously come with the territory when you’re producing regular content and normally I brush them off but I have to admit I was annoyed by one I got after last week’s bonus pod which featured an interview with Francisco Isaac.
The plan was to talk to him about Portugal’s success at RWC2023, the proposed World League and finally the Rugby Europe Super Cup which kicked off last weekend.
Unfortunately one follower was of the opinion that since the Super Cup involves a team from Israel, then that means we should have discussed the current horrible events in that part of the world, with the implication that if we didn’t then I obviously don’t care about it.
Just to be clear…I do have strong feelings about that situation but you can be 100% guaranteed that I will not share them here or anywhere else in the Harpin social media space. Meanwhile, it has been a policy here to follow the RE Super Cup as we believe it is an invaluable mechanism for at least starting to bring up Europe’s tier 2 nations (Francisco even says as much on the pod).
To that end we will continue to cover the tournament, including adding them to our “update” section below as it unfolds over the coming weeks.
Click here to listen to the pod in question ICYMI, plus there’s a YouTube video with an extended version of the World League discussion as well.
THROWING THE BOOK BY WAYNE BARNES
I’ve always had respect for Wayne Barnes – I know a lot of people had issues with his refereeing, and so did I, but IMO we have to know where to draw the line and whatever we might think about the actual decisions, that is not all that maketh the ref and his overall comportment throughout his career has been commendable for sure and he was a more than worthy appointee for the 2023 final.
Pretty sure I’m not the only one who wishes him all the best with his future endeavours, including his new book…
I never thought a working class lad from the Forest of Dean would end up writing an autobiography! But then again, I never thought I’d referee 111 international rugby matches either. I am delighted to present Throwing The Book. pic.twitter.com/DKnpE9gtdQ
A major rugby bugbear of mine is intellectual snobbery, as in when some look down on others who don’t understand the Laws as well as they do. The way I see it if someone is looking for info we should give it. It’s a goddam complex sport that needs all the clued-in fans it can get.
Unless of course when I’m having a few pints in a crowded pub watching a match and people cop on that I know what’s going on and thus bombard me with questions for the remainder, they of course can FRO….but it doesn’t always go exactly the way the Grand Slam match back in March did…😁
Seriously though, social media should be an ideal way to help those who might not know certain terms yet are afraid to ask, and it’s always good to have tweets like this one from Sam Lerner to see people right…
Thread: A Map of Rugby
There's a lot of terminology in rugby that is taken for granted and isn't always explained. I thought I would try and help.
Different teams/countries will use different language so this isn't a dictionary. But should help you find the way!
As one tournament, namely the WXV, drops out of our expanded Update Section, it gets replaced by two more, and first we are going to keep a close eye on the race for the Irish Shield. Some may joke about it but starting this season it is to be awarded to the winner of a points table featuring ONLY the matches between the Irish provinces throughout the season, a really good idea IMO which needs support by regular coverage. Obviously Connacht’s victory over Ulster in the season’s first interpro has them top of the shield standings as well as the entire URC, we’ll see how things look after Munster visit the Kingspan on Friday.
Match 1
CONNACHT 22-20 ULSTER
CONNACHT P 1 PTS 4
ULSTER P 1 PTS 1
LEINSTER P 0 PTS 0
MUNSTER P 0 PTS 0
Match 2
FRI NOV 10
ULSTER V MUNSTER
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
Leinster’s first Champions Cup opponents are exactly the same as our last ones, but things haven’t been going too well for La Rochelle since that day in the Aviva, or at least since Ntamack broke their hearts in their quest for a first Brennus in July. They have now lost 4 out of 5 this season and are now flirting with the relegation zone, but as Kino pointed out on our pod, they will be getting the bulk of their internationals back well in time for our visit in December so will likely be a much different prospect then.
In January we host Stade Francais and they continue to do well as their 39-16 win over Castres kept them in a three-way tie at the top with Pau and Stu Lancaster’s Racing.
Toulon v Racing on Sunday evening seems to be the pick of the Round 6 matches and hopefully Dan Biggar’s back spasm isn’t too serious, that really, really looked nasty.
Round 5
OYONNAX 19-17 LA ROCHELLE
PERPIGNAN 26-22 TOULON
BORDEAUX 26-13 MONTPELLIER
CLÉRMONT 46-14 BAYONNE
STADE FRANCAIS 39-16 CASTRES
RACING 92 22-20 LYON
PAU 13-9 TOULOUSE
Round 6
SAT NOV 11
TOULOUSE V PERPIGNAN
CASTRES V OYONNAX
LYON V STADE FRANCAIS
MONTPELLIER V CLÉRMONT
PAU V BORDEAUX
LA ROCHELLE V BAYONNE
TOULON V RACING 92
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
Sale Sharks come to the RDS in December and their decent start to their Premiership campaign continued with a handy win over Glaws leaving them in 3rd place behind Exeter and Quins. Meanwhile Leicester Tigers, our fourth opponents, continue to struggle as they could not overcome Sarries. They could get things back on track in round 5 with a win over Quins but the standout tie of the round has to be the West Country derby at Kingsholm.
ROUND 4
SALE SHARKS 24-10 GLOUCESTER
HARLEQUINS 40-12 NEWCASTLE
NORTHAMPTON 24-18 BATH
SARACENS 32-17 LEICESTER TIGERS
EXETER CHIEFS 29-20 BRISTOL
ROUND 5
FRI NOV 10
GLOUCESTER V BATH
SAT NOV 11
BRISTOL V SALE SHARKS
LEICESTER V HARLEQUINS
SUN NOV 12
NEWCASTLE V SARACENS
NORTHAMPTON V EXETER
AIL UPDATE
Here’s a transcript of my piece for Front 5 on last Sunday’s wrap pod…
Every week on our 80+ column at harpinonrugby.com we round up the state of play in the Energia AIL but for once I thought I’d do it here on the main pod because, well, I keep harpin on how poor the overall coverage is of the next level down from provincial rugby so I should really practise what I preach.
I’ll start with the Women’s AIL which this season may not have added to its 9 clubs but at least it HAS gone to a full home and away calendar with Round 6 taking place at the weekend. And even though we’re only a third of the way through the schedule it’s pretty clear which teams are favoured to make the top 4 and with Rock, Belvo, Railway Union and leaders UL Bohs all avoiding each other in this round, meaning there wasn’t much change at the top with the only unpredicted outcome being Wicklow’s waterlogged pitch preventing them from hosting Railway, who themselves play Belvo next weekend in what is easily the match of Round 7.
Meanwhile on the men’s side of things, league leaders Lansdowne saw their perfect start to the season come to an end when they fell to Cork Con although the away losing bonus point wasn’t the worst result. This left Clontarf as the only unbeaten side in the top division after they overcame their own tough southern assignment and held off a strong fightback by Young Munster to win 44-39.
Back to the subject of media coverage, it’s still poor overall outside the individual club social media accounts, in fact some weeks it’s been difficult to find decent reporting on even the top AIL divisions as late as Tuesday morning, but there are definite exceptions to this rule, starting of course with the weekly Club Scene Podcast and also there is live streaming from the likes of the BF Sports Analysis YouTube channel where I watched reigning champions Terenure overcome UCD on Saturday afternoon – I’ll put a link in the programme notes. Unfortunately I couldn’t watch it live as it clashed with Leinster’s match at the RDS but it’s always available to replay and as ever is a great way of keeping tabs on those on the fringes of the Leinster squad like Chris Cosgrave and Conor O’Tighearnaigh.
So we’ll continue to keep tabs on the AIL throughout the season and for your own part please do what you can to get out and support your local club in any way you can.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 6
SAT NOV 4
BALLINCOLLIG 5-69 UL BOHS
BELVO 48-7 COOKE
SUTTONIANS 12-33 ROCK
WICKLOW [UNPLAYABLE PITCH] RAILWAY UNION
Round 7
SAT NOV 11
ROCK V BALLINCOLLIG
COOKE V WICKLOW
GALWEGIANS V SUTTONIANS
RAILWAY UNION V BELVO
MEN’S AIL
SAT NOV 4
BALLYNAHINCH 31-5 SHANNON
CITY OF ARMAGH 25-23 DUBLIN UNIV
CORK CON 23-17 LANSDOWNE
UCD 28-45 TERENURE
YOUNG MUNSTER 39-44 CLONTARF
ROUND 5
SAT NOV 11
CLONTARF V CITY OF ARMAGH
DUBLIN UNIV V BALLYNAHINCH
SHANNON V CORK CON
TERENURE V LANSDOWNE
UCD V YOUNG MUNSTER
RE SUPER CUP UPDATE
As discussed on the bonus pod linked earlier, the RE Super Cup has a slightly different format this season. The World Cup has shrunk it to a three-match pool phase and what’s more, the two pools are weighted with the four best in A with the next 4 in Pool B – the top three from A and the winner of B make the semifinals.
There is also a new nation joining the competition, with Bohemia Warriors from Czechia getting a baptism of fire courtesy of the Romanian Wolves in Round 1, while reigning champions Black Lion, who also take part in this seasons Challenge Cup don’t forget, started off with a comfortable enough win over Castilla. Pick of Round 2 has to be their trip to Portugal to face Lusitanos in a repeat of last year’s final.
ROUND 1
ROMANIAN WOLVES 76-7 BOHEMIA WARRIORS
BRUSSELS DEVILS 41-12 DELTA
LUSITANOS 23-31 TEL-AVIV HEAT
BLACK LION 39-19 CASTILLA
ROUND 2
FRI NOV 12
DELTA V ROMANIAN WOLVES
SAT NOV 11
BOHEMIA WARRIORS V BRUSSELS DEVILS
LUSITANOS V BLACK LION
SUN NOV 12
CASTILLA V TEL-AVIV HEAT
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
I’m still happy enough to be lurking in the bronze medal position after 3 rounds but Kristian and Conor are starting to open up a gap at the top. Meanwhile Keego, who to be fair was in New York last week so possibly wasn’t thinking too much about the URC, has dropped back down to the dreaded Jersey of Shame position.
AFTER RD 3
PTS
1
KRISTIAN
33.50
2
CONOR
33.00
3
JEFF
28.50
4
KINO
26.00
5
JAY
24.00
6
TOM
22.50
7
MARK
19.50
8
KEEGO
17.00
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Right, that’s it for another week’s 80+ column thanks for checking in. Next up there’s the Dragons, we’ll have the preview on Friday and even though we don’t play until Sunday afternoon, we’re still planning to record the wrap pod that evening at 8 o’clock, with all the other usual features all over our various social media channels as well.
As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
Leinster Rugby is back at the RDS and all’s right with the world…well apart from having to swim back to my car afterwards to make it home in time for the RWC final, it was great to get the home season underway, naturally the result helped with this as well. Mark Jackson & Ciarán Duffy joined me on the pod Sunday evening to offer their top insights.
For the bonus clip this week Mark & Ciarán helped me look at Leinster’s options to start the post-Sexton era for the Leinster 10 jersey.
PURE V PUKE? NEITHER. JUST RUGBY.
Kids are off school this week so little or no time to organise a TikTok rant (for a clip no longer than two minutes there’s a ton of work involved, though I do enjoy them and hope to get back to it after the midterm) but what I would have harped on was the way the sport of rugby was presented to the world over the past couple of months in the French festival.
You’re reading a blog about rugby and I’m writing one so it’s pretty clear we’re both massive fans who would not only watch every moment of most other tournaments as well on top of the 24/7 online content, but we all know that World Cups more than any other event are key for promoting the sport outside its bubble, aiming to convince non- and casual- fans to pay a lot more attention over the next four years.
I guess before analysing how RWC2023 did in this regard, we first must look at what we’re up against when it comes to people who are naturally inclined to be negative. Well first there’s a particular brand of Irish sports fan who for some reason feel it’s not enough to see competition within a particular code, but they also want to compare different codes with each other and thus only watch rugby so they can find the flaws to show how much better their sport is. Obviously we have those types in rugby as well (“rugby values”/“wouldn’t happen in our sport”) but my point is that no matter what you do you’ll never get that lot so it’s not worth even trying.
Next we have to rule out those who expect to be entertained to the fullest in every single sporting encounter. In rugby I guess that means that to these people the only type of game worth watching is one where there’s “free-flowing rugby” with tries raining in from end to end with a series of fancy offloads and miss-passes. Those people are never going to be happy, because they clearly forget that there are defensive coaches doing their level best to stop that happening.
I mean is it too much to expect people to appreciate that there’s plenty to entertain us even without that so-called “purist” style. Take the World Cup final itself. I’ve seen several articles from journalists from within and outside rugby trying to take the shine off of the Springboks’ historic victory by banging on about their approach. This is of course all clickbait garbage – whether you win a match by 1 point or 100, you still win and getting finicky about the style of play says more about the commenter than it does the subject matter.
But even if you weren’t fully clued in on the Laws of the game (and I give a TON of leeway to viewers for this because let’s face it, while it’s no cricket, there’s still a hell of a lot of jargon and conventions to get the hang of) if you couldn’t at least appreciate all the excitement before the match like the rivalry between two great rugby nations, all the passion and anticipation surrounding the anthems, the performance and reaction to the cultural challenge, during the match with the dozens of pivotal moments from the first minute to the last, and eventually after it the contrasting celebrations and disappointment of the two squads, then I reckon you should probably be looking for entertainment elsewhere.
And over the course of the eight weeks there actually was a lot of rugby that could be described as “worldie”, with several so-called YouTube moments with free flowing play and there were even some upsets; just Portugal’s pool stage adventure would make a decent feature film all on its own.
Overall I think there’s only so much a sport can do to make itself more appealing to the masses, at least when it comes to the brick and mortar of the Laws themselves. What you could do to help stimulate interest is try and spread it around the globe and encourage more nations to play to a higher standard, but that has me straying near a Nations League debate that is worthy of a rant all on its own.
I mean it’s not just rugby that tries to change, GAA makes rule changes every season, cricket gets so much shorter that eventually a match is going to be just one ball being bowled, and even soccer is tinkering with the format of its top competitions with both its World Cup and Champions League set to change.
For me anyway, the game is pretty much fine the way it is, maybe a few law tweaks here and there wouldn’t hurt but to be honest I’d much rather they focused on ways to make the game safer without altering the overall feel and flow we all tune in for.
The likes of Off The Ball and Pat Spillane can go do one.
PRE MATCH VIKING CLAP
Speaking of changes, I mentioned on the pod that Mike McCarthy came down to the pitch to get the Leinster fans revved up ahead of kickoff by encouraging them to do a Viking Clap, though I didn’t mention what I thought of it.
I can imagine a lot of people of my generation not being too happy with it but for my part, I’m all for it. I have said many times over the years harpin’ on these pages that the atmosphere at the RDS hasn’t always been what it could be. The lack of a proper chant/song has certainly contributed to that…”Allez les blues” is too French, “molly Malone” too Dublin centric, “Come on you boys in Blue” too generic, and as for the run of the mill “Lehhhhhhn-ster, Lehhhhhhn-ster”, well that’s fine once and a while but it’s hardly the go to option for every situation. And anyone remember “Leinster’s glory”? No? Exactly.
Now just to be clear I’m having a go more at the crowd rather than the organisers, they do a lot to create an atmosphere with the pre-match music and of course Leo the Lion but I thought Mike’s more direct challenge to the crowd was a much better way of getting them fully match ready and assuming it’s to become a regular thing, the “scenes” should get even more “absolute” down the line.
PLAYER OF THE MATCH
It happens quite a lot that I disagree with the decision for Player of the Match, and when it’s for Leinster or Ireland it’s a bit awkward making that disagreement known because it’s a bit like having to choose your favourite kid, but since I have this 80+ column I suppose that gives me a chance to express that opinion.
But I hope it doesn’t give the impression that I have anything against the person who got the award, and in Saturday’s case it was Max Deegan. He did have a great match overall, and I know it was the occasion of his 100th cap, but for me the standards are such at the province that when he drops a ball from the base on an attacking 5m scrum (again, very unlike him, and if it were me I’d drop it every time) we might look elsewhere this time and for me Tommy O’Brien was a much more worthy recipient.
One last time, to be perfectly clear, I am NOT having a go at him, nor at James Downey who made the call. Just saying I saw it differently that’s all.
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOKS
Congrats to all those honoured in World Rugby’s awards list, especially Andy Farrell who thoroughly deserved it.
And while I certainly wouldn’t hold a view like this from All Black fan and clearly sour grape-connosseiur Ben Smith about the Springboks’ success, I for one wasn’t that surprised that their players didn’t feature too heavily in the team of the tournament.
I could probably see Malherbe ahead of Furlong if I had to make one change but overall the selections seem sound to me.
Maybe, just maybe, RSA representation on the TOTY is low because other nations had better individuals while the Boks had the best team, hence three 1pt wins and the 🏆.
KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES
I have dedicated a column segment to mention the Eddie Jones news but I don’t see any point going too deep in the weeds on the topic because pretty much everything has been said about him. Literally none of the negative stories and opinions about him surprise me. Actually it’s just boring at this stage. He may have even climbed to my “least favourite Jones” chart ahead of journo Stephen, but even that’s just one article away from changing back.
B&I SUPER LEAGUE?
Once again this topic has crept into the headlines so once again I am forced to state my position.
I am 100% opposed to the suggestion of creating a “British & Irish Super League”.
However, I would be ok with the possibility of Premiership clubs JOINING the United Rugby Championship, once each one can prove financial viability throughout a campaign before preseason starts.
The URC has been through enough branding upheaval over the years and has finally found a form which may not suit everyone at the moment, but surely even the Welsh fans might come on board if they got some regular fixtures with the English.
But to create an entirely new identity just because the Premiership has been proven to be a failed business model just wouldn’t cut it for me.
W.XV UPDATE
I covered Ireland’s latest WXV match on the pod, here’s the transcript…
This is the story of an international rugby finale that could have gone either way right up to the final whistle but as you can probably tell I’m not talking about Saturday night’s battle in Paris.
After two extremely comfortable victories against Kazakhstan and Colombia, the Irish women had a much more formidable opponent in Las Leonas from Spain in their 3rd WXV3 encounter, and although Scott Bemand’s side enjoyed pretty much all the early territory and possession, we had to contend with an early spell with inspirational co-captain Edel McMahon in the sin bin plus an extremely stubborn Spanish defence which was not only difficult to break down but also was able to punish mistakes as outside-centre Claudia Peña Hidalgo pounced on a loose pass to put her side 7-0 up after just ten minutes.
Spain stretched their lead to 10 until a Dannah O’Brien penalty got Ireland on the board, but it was our own defence which needed to be strong before the break and although we managed to stop them from scoring after a prolonged visit to our 22, we did cough up another yellow card this time for Linda Djougang and the resulting penalty saw us go into the break both short handed and behind by 13 points to 3.
We still came out strongly for the 2nd half however, comfortably seeing out the sin bin period without Spain entering our 22 and we gradually wore down their resistance until a succession of penalties marched us into their 22 where a strong maul allowed Grace Moore to fall over the line and Dannah O’Brien added the extras to bring us within three.
Our dominance continued and although we only needed a draw to finish top of the pool, it was a brave decision to ignore the three points on offer from a kickable penalty, and we backed up that confidence with another series of mauls making the Spanish defence crack and this time it was Neve Jones getting the ball down to nudge Ireland in front for the first time.
But the match still had to be seen out and to their credit the Spaniards kept at it right to the 80th minute and beyond until a brilliant lineout steal from Eimear Corri saw us put the ball dead and secure the title and puts them in a good position to go up to the second tier for next season.
I talk a lot on the pod about the problems in Irish womens rugby but this is a time for celebration for a job well done in searing heat over three weeks in Dubai and hopefully the squad can bring these performances through to 2024. One thing I will say however is that the Spanish performance provided further evidence that the women shouldn’t follow the men’s Six Nations model and instead expand to include themselves and possibly more teams down the line.
As ever if you want to keep tabs on the women’s game I find the best sources are Scrumqueens.com and on Twitter or X follow accounts like @IrishWomens.
Round 3
KAZAKHSTAN 0-118 FIJI
KENYA 21-5 COLOMBIA
IRELAND 15-13 SPAIN
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
Not a great round for Leinster’s Champions Cup opposition, with our good friends La Rochelle falling at home to Castres making it three defeats out of four to start the season, while Stade Francais got knocked off top spot when they could only muster 3 points in Bayonne. Pau lead the way with Joe Simmonds helping to lead them to a hefty win at Perpignan, while also on 14 points at the top are Castres and Stu Lancaster’s Racing, soon to have a certain RWC winning captain join their ranks.
Leaders Pau v champions Toulouse would appear to be the pick of the Round 5 matchups, perfect for the marquee Sunday night slot.
Round 4
SUN OCT 29
BAYONNE 16-3 STADE FRANCAIS
PERPIGNAN 24-39 PAU
LYON 41-22 CLÉRMONT
MONTPELLIER 16-19 RACING 92
TOULON 41-7 OYONNAX
LA ROCHELLE 24-27 CASTRES
TOULOUSE 29-22 BORDEAUX
Round 5
SAT NOV 4
OYONNAX V LA ROCHELLE
PERPIGNAN V TOULON
BORDEAUX V MONTPELLIER
CLÉRMONT V BAYONNE
STADE FRANCAIS V CASTRES
RACING 92 V LYON
SUN NOV 5
PAU V TOULOUSE
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
A late Shillcock penalty gave Leicester a one-point win at the Rec although Bath still stay top since none of the 10 teams managed to win all of their opening 3 matches. Saracens finally put one in the win column while Sale Sharks got their fins handed to them by Exeter.
Saracens/Tigers would seem to be the pick of the ties from Round 4, with Leinster set to travel to play both of them in January (Sarries being a friendly).
ROUND 3
GLOUCESTER 3-24 SARACENS
BRISTOL 21-23 HARLEQUINS
EXETER CHIEFS 43-0 SALE SHARKS
BATH 24-25 LEICESTER
NEWCASTLE 14-16 NORTHAMPTON
ROUND 4
FRI NOV 3
SALE SHARKS V GLOUCESTER
SAT NOV 4
HARLEQUINS V NEWCASTLE
NORTHAMPTON V BATH
SARACENS V LEICESTER TIGERS
EXETER CHIEFS V BRISTOL
AIL UPDATE
Both genders AIL return to action after a weekend off, with the top four, all of whom seem destined to reach the semifinals at this stage, avoiding each other so I doubt there will be any real change to the table come next week.
Meanwhile in the men’s Div1A, Lansdowne will be hoping to keep their maximum points record going but certainly won’t have it easy away to Cork Con, who are fresh from toppline the reigning champions in round 3. As for Nure themselves, they’ll surely be looking to come away from Belfield Bowl with some points to get them away from just above the relegation places.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 6
SAT NOV 4
BALLINCOLLIG V UL BOHS
BELVO V COOKE
SUTTONIANS V ROCK
WICKLOW V RAILWAY UNION
MEN’S AIL
ROUND 4
SAT NOV 4
BALLYNAHINCH V SHANNON
CITY OF ARMAGH V DUBLIN UNIV
CORK CON V LANSDOWNE
UCD V TERENURE
YOUNG MUNSTER V CLONTARF
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
Happy enough to remain in 3rd place after 2 rounds although there was a change at the top as Kristian got this week’s yellow cap to leapfrog Conor. Meanwhile in the dreaded Jersey of Shame position down the bottom Tom dragged himself away leaving this week’s pod guest Mark to fall even below Keego.
Early days of course.
AFTER RD 2
PTS
1
KRISTIAN
23.00
2
CONOR
21.00
3
JEFF
19.50
4
KINO
17.00
5
JAY
15.00
6
TOM
14.00
7
KEEGO
13.00
8
MARK
11.00
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
A bonus pod for during the week, I’ll be chatting to Francisco Issac about Portugal, the proposed World League and also the RE Super Cup which kicks off next weekend. Then it’s full attention on the visit of Edinburgh to the RDS on Saturday with a preview before and a wrap pod on Sunday evening so stay tuned for all of that.
As ever, be sure to enjoy your Halloween rugby wherever you are. JLP
A WEEKLY COLUMN LOOKING AT TOPICS BEYOND THE SCOPE
OF OUR FEATURE MATCH OF THE WEEK
WRAP OF A WRAP
Sadly another defeat to harp on but still Messrs Mifsud & Long did a great job putting the match into perspective, even though with the Sunday kickoff we didn’t get to do a full rewatch before recording, although I’ not sure we really wanted to anyway!
The bonus clip is back this week and Rich, Jay and myself had a look an Leinster’s prospects for the coming season, especially when factoring all the changes in their leadership group.
STOP POLISHING THE 3RD
I harp on this every four years, this time I’m doing it in TikTok form.
For the record, here’s a list of the 3rd place playoffs there have been so far…
Needless to say this has taken a lot of oxygen on twitter since Saturday’s semifinal, and since there is an ongoing investigation I suppose I shouldn’t be throwing more fuel on the fire, but I do have queries…
“We can confirm that we are formally reviewing the allegation made by England’s Tom Curry’s in relation to the use of discriminatory language during the England versus South Africa Rugby World Cup 2023 semi-final on Saturday.”
So goes the World Rugby statement. HOWEVER…I think an important distinction needs to be made here. Does the word “allegation” mean just his question to the ref on the pitch that was picked up on the mic, or has he or England Rugby made a formal one since the match was over?
If it’s the latter, then to my mind things would be working as they should. BUT – if, as I suspect, this is only happening because the media picked up on something we just happened to overhear then we’re in a completely different territory.
Again, I have no idea what actually happened, and I freely admit that my on-pitch Springbok vernacular is more than rusty, but going by the information I have so far, AP Cronje’s suggestion seems a much more plausible explanation than that which the media is using to generate headlines and clicks.
Plus, as it turns out, in researching AP’s twitter timeline I have gotten an answer to my question above…
Whatever the outcome of the WR investigation (and from what I have seen I think the evidence is pretty clear), I think it’s important to remember two things:
1) Players should feel empowered to speak up if they feel they have been racially abused.
Speaking of Twitter/X, I got myself into a spot of bother last week.
With it being the first round of matches in this season’s URC, on Thursday and Friday we had the first round of matchday squad announcements from the 16 clubs. And one or two tried to get, let’s just say, maybe a little too creative with their graphic designs, Ospreys and Sharks in particular.
I can’t remember what exactly I was doing when I decided to give my opinion but whatever it was it clearly didn’t allow me to think clearly about how I was wording my response…
Dear club social media ppl…
Please. Just. List. The. Team.
No bells, no whistles, no patterns, no mad innovations…
There are plenty of other announcements to get creative with, here we just want the 23 names in a simple format so we can talk about that, not the graphic.
As you can see many agreed with me but still many others, mostly from AIL clubs (totally understandable they thought I was referring to them as I did not make it clear) took exception. And the most surprised to read my opinion was the Terenure College RFC social media folks, who must have wondered why I appeared to have done a 180 after praising their “Aertel” homage a few weeks ago.
Once more, this was all totally my fault for not making myself clear. Simply putting “URC” ahead of “clubs” would have avoided all the confusion. I must do better, and I mean that sincerely.
Just to be clear, I have ironically made a graphic of my own to show presentations I think are perfect and those I think are, well, not so much.
And going back to Terenure for a moment, I did like their response when they thought I was having a pop at them…
…just to be clear, I do know we’re only talking about graphics which is hardly the most important topic in the world but this column is for all kinds of topics that normally fall through the cracks when I focus mostly on Leinster & Ireland matches!!!!
LIONS DEN, AND NOW
With the World Cup almost over, the next rugby event on a 4-year cycle that is to start creeping into the headlines is of course the Lions, who go to Australia this time around.
Talk of banning or at least greatly reforming the tour has been going on for years and years now (at least a decade as this 2013 Harpin op-ed from @curates_egg shows) and while I always enjoy the debates and selections and matches when they happen, my views are pretty much in line with Hugh Gordon’s in his tweet below.
My vaguely controversial rugby take is that I think the B&I Lions tours, while fun, have had their day. It's a format that just entrenches playing the same teams all the time, many fans don't really feel much of a connection to it, and tbh I'd rather Ireland just do a summer tour
For me the best arguments in favour would be 1) it would be a shame to end the tours from the POV of the cross-border fan alliances that tend to travel, like the one that formed for the 2017 tour which had their adventures greatly described by Michelle Tobin here on Harpin, and also there’s an argument to be made that the game in Australia really needs this kind of exposure right now given all that is happening there on and off the pitch.
W.XV UPDATE
I covered Ireland’s latest WXV match on the pod, here’s the transcript…
When it comes to Ireland’s performance in this 64 to 3 win over Colombia, while the scoreline may not have reached the heights of last week’s century of points against Kazahstan, Scott Bemand’s side still dominated throughout with the back row of Grace Moore, Edel McMahon and Brittany Hogan particularly impressive as the ten tries were evenly spread throughout the team with only Neve Jones and Beibhinn Parsons getting more than one. As ever John Birch does an excellent job relating the particulars of the match for Scrumqueens.
And when it comes to Ireland’s standing in this WXV3 tournament in Dubai, while the two big wins certainly puts them in a strong position to finish 1st and earn promotion to the second tier for next year, they will surely find Spain a much bigger challenge in their final match next weekend.
But as ever is the case with the Irish women’s team of late, we still have to wonder about the broader picture and unfortunately even scoring over a point a minute in two matches raises at least many questions as it answers.
One of the top reasons for Ireland playing in the third tier of this competition is that we finished last in the 2023 Six Nations when many of our top players were sent to play Sevens instead, and while that did pay some dividends with Olympic Qualification plus a respectable 5th place finish in the World Series, you have to wonder if even that can generate as much interest in the women’s game as does putting out our strongest team in XVs.
And we’ll be in very much the same situation in 2024, with the Hong Kong Sevens falling right in the middle of the Six Nations, plus the decent chance of achieving a medal in the Paris Olympics, making for more big selection decisions to come.
But for now anyway, Ireland’s focus is only on that decider against Spain next weekend, it kicks off at 2pm on Saturday with free streaming available on RugbyPass.tv and hopefully the Irish rugby family will be able to give them our full support.
WXV3 – Round 2
KAZAKHSTAN 18-12 KENYA
SPAIN 26-19 FIJI
IRELAND 64-3 COLOMBIA
Round 3
FRI OCT 27
KAZAKHSTAN V FIJI
KENYA V COLOMBIA
SAT OCT 28
IRELAND V SPAIN (2PM IRISH TIME)
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
You certainly can’t blame the 🔝🐱🐴 for pushing a whole round of matches to the Sunday in the hope that there might be ongoing celebrations in the country from the night before, but alas like Ireland it was not to be for France so they return to their domestic programme after a quick burst of three matches towards the end of August.
Our “Eurowatch” series will return from next week where we keep an eye on all Leinster’s opponents and it’s different this year with the format change – instead of two we now have four teams to cover, and on the French side of things we certainly won’t have it easy against league leaders Stade Francais plus our old pals La Rochelle.
Round 4
SUN OCT 29
BAYONNE V STADE FRANCAIS
PERPIGNAN V PAU
LYON V CLÉRMONT
MONTPELLIER V RACING 92
TOULON V OYONNAX
LA ROCHELLE V CASTRES
TOULOUSE V BORDEAUX
PREMIERSHIP UPDATE
I was a bit hasty having a quiet chuckle about Saracens’ poor start to the season and rightly got what I deserved when Leinster went down in Glasgow (hopefully it isn’t some kind of Castore curse), still it is strange seeing them at the bottom of the Premiership even if it is only after two rounds.
Leinster’s Euro opponents played each other with Sale prevailing and things don’t get any easier for Leicester Tigers this week as they must go to the 100% leaders Bath.
ROUND 2
NEWCASTLE 14-18 GLOUCESTER
NORTHAMPTON 27-33 BRISTOL
SARACENS 16-25 BATH
LEICESTER 17-24 SALE
HARLEQUINS 22-14 EXETER
ROUND 3
FRI OCT 27
GLOUCESTER V SARACENS
SAT OCT 28
BRISTOL V HARLEQUINS
EXETER CHIEFS V SALE SHARKS
BATH V LEICESTER
SUN OCT 29
NEWCASTLE V NORTHAMPTON
AIL UPDATE
As of Tuesday morning the IrishRugby site was yet to update the AIL tables & results so I had to wing it a bit with the update this week, but for what I can gather the big winners in the Women’s AIL were UL Bohs, who overcame Champions Rock to stay top of the league, and Belvo, who despite having to play twice in just a few days managed a full 10 match points to climb into 3rd.
Meanwhile on the men’s side of things champions Terenure won’t be happy having been nilled at home by Cork Con while Lansdowne made it three 5-pointers out of 3 with a decent win at home over Hinch. And a very honourable mention must go to newly promoted City of Armagh who got themselves a fine first win in the top flight away to Shannon.
The Energia AILs take a weekend off before resuming on the weekend of November 4.
#SupportYourLocalClub
WOMEN’S AIL
Round 4
OLD BELVEDERE 31-5 SUTTONIANS
Round 5
UL BOHS 29-10 BLACKROCK
COOKE 0-44 SUTTONIANS
GALWEGIANS 19-33 OLD BELVEDERE
RAILWAY UNION 46-19 BALLINCOLLIG
UL BOHS P5 PTS19
RAILWAY UNION 4-20
BELVO 4-16
BLACKROCK 4-15
BALLINCOLLIG 5-15
SUTTONIANS 4-9
WICKLOW 4-1
COOKE 4-0
GALWEGIANS 5-0
Round 6
SAT NOV 4
BALLINCOLLIG V UL BOHS
BELVO V COOKE
SUTTONIANS V ROCK
WICKLOW V RAILWAY UNION
MEN’S AIL
ROUND 3
SHANNON 13-25 CITY OF ARMAGH
CLONTARF 43-19 UCD
DUBLIN UNIV 8-22 YOUNG MUNSTER
LANSDOWNE 45-19 BALLYNAHINCH
TERENURE 0-20 CORK CON
ROUND 4
SAT NOV 4
BALLYNAHINCH V SHANNON
CITY OF ARMAGH V DUBLIN UNIV
CORK CON V LANSDOWNE
UCD V TERENURE
YOUNG MUNSTER V CLONTARF
HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE
This year’s league expanded from 6 to 8 competitors as I defend my title and Keego hopes to get rid of The Jersey of Shame. And both “rookies” got the most results right in Round 1 of the URC with 7 out of 8 although it was Conor Cronin who’s margins were closer putting him in pole position to start the season.
After my earlier rant about 3rd place playoffs it is of course fitting that I find myself in the bronze medal position but I’m happy enough to sit there for the time being.
AFTER RD 1
1 CONOR 12.00
2 KRISTIAN 10.00
3 JEFF 9.00
4 KINO 8.50
5 JAY 8.00
6 MARK 6.50
7 KEEGO 6.00
8 TOM 4.00
WORLD LEAGUE
As I’m about to publish, news is just filtering through that World Rugby have decided to go ahead with the World League, complete with ringfencing in the top tier until 2030. A couple of weeks ago on this column I suggested they could at least allow relegation from the top tier from the start but it seems to elitism remains. We’ll harp more on this next week, and I have also booked Francisco Isaac for a bonus pod and I’m pretty sure it will come up so stay tuned!
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Leinster home opener this weekend!!!! The visit of the Sharks will of course be getting the full Harpin treatment with a preview on Friday, tweets and comment throughout and the wrap pod on Sunday evening. I’m also a guest on Caolán Scully’s pod recording on the Monday night.
As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 