Category: 80+ column

80+ column : Mar 19

On this week’s column…

🏉 A NEW DAY FOR 80+

🏉 THE SCHOOL OF HEAD KNOCKS

🏉 NOT THAT 20M🟥 AGAIN?

🏉 WOMEN’S 6N LAUNCH

🏉 BILLY ON THE MOVE

🏉 NIENABER WISDOM

🏉 WRAP OF A WRAP

🏉 WOMEN’S 6N LAUNCH (EXTRA)

🏉 A BONUS TALKING POINT

🏉 EURO REFS

🏉 POST TO POST NEW FEATURE

🏉 UPDATES [Incl AIL & Premiership] 

A NEW DAY FOR THE COLUMN… 

…literally.  In a bit of housekeeping news we’ve switched this column’s publication date from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning – the Quick Tap videos take so much time to produce we need the extra window to get it all together along with, of course, all the “real world” stuff.

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere, now including a few thoughts added by myself (JLP).

“The diagnosis of a young person with CTE is significant as it indicates how early in life the brain has been affected by head knocks.”

First professional rugby union player confirmed to have died with CTE

Michael Aylwin – The Guardian

JLP : I know it was the build up to the final round of Six Nations matches and this was a story from the southern hemisphere, but I really think the wider rugby community could have been more engaged with this story.  Unfortunately my second article from this week’s Front Five suggests we are instead moving in a different direction.

…a global red card trial where a carded player is removed for the duration of the match but may be replaced by another player after 20 minutes.

World Rugby reveals phased plan to enhance rugby’s global appeal

http://www.world.rugby

JLP : To be fair, this is but one of several changes being proposed and many of them look like they will genuinely help speed up the game (such as actual enforcement of the “use it” call) but effectively reversing the zero tolerance policy on dangerous tackling technique by allowing a player’s team to replace them after 20m is clearly going in the wrong direction and I hope this proposal falls off the sport’s radar for good.

“People are actually genuinely just excited to get going and see where we’re at with the rest of teams.”

McMahon Looks Forward To Opening Weekend

IrishRugby.ie

JLP : I firmly believe separating the men’s and women’s Six Nations was a good idea, but only if there is enough hype around the start of the women’s because the wider public have been trained over the years to switch off from rugby altogether once the men’s tournament is over, there has generally a drop off in engagement with the men’s provincial level anyway without a top women’s event vying for attention as well.

As for Ireland’s task over the coming weeks, well after a whitewash wooden spoon last season, relative success will be a low bar this time around but hopefully the WXV3 triumph together with the inclusion of some of the sevens players will inspire us to greater things.  Starting away to France isn’t the ideal start, however, and hopefully the media can succeed in realistically portraying our expectations over the coming weeks.  

Best wishes to Scott, Edel, Sam & all involved with the team.  There’s a bit more on the Women’s Six Nations further down the column.

Burns’ arrival at Munster will coincide with Joey Carbery’s move to France.

Billy Burns: Munster sign Ulster fly-half on one-year deal

BBC.com

JLP : One of Irish rugby’s poorest kept secrets this season, and if other rumours are to be believed, this isn’t the last out half provincial switch we’ll be reading about this season, with Leinster likely involved in the next announcement.  I’ve never had a problem with these moves, once the player and the teams involved are happy it makes sense that the pieces on the board be moved around once in a while to spread out the talent.

“Sometimes [fans]…are so used to Ireland winning that sometimes the way they win is maybe not what they want”

Jacques Nienaber: Opponents raised their game against Ireland

Michael Glennon – RTE.ie

JLP : I actually spotted this article after I recorded my TIkTok rant for this week, it’s like we’re of one mind, even if we do have different amount of RWC winners’ medals….

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A WRAP

Great to have Tom & Rich to help me go back over the Ireland/Scotland match, it might not have been a classic from an attacking standpoint but they did come up with some fascinating talking points from it, one which I actually had to cut out as part of my attempt to keep the whole thing around the hour mark, but FWIW I did post that little discussion on YouTube.

If you missed the wrap pod, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

QUICK TAP : DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY

I am always intrigued by the two extremes of rugby watchers, with us hyper-critical nerds at one end and the so-called “casual fans” at the other so I cover that in this week’s QT. 

@harpinonrugby

Enjoy the win, worry about the technical stuff later. #rugbytiktok #Irishtiktok #guinnesssixnations

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

Obviously the names Keenan and Ryan were not ones we wanted to see on the update although for right now it’s more that of the woefully unfortunate Tommy O’Brien that stands out the most as he most certainly would have featured in Parma at the weekend.

I reckon our 23 to play Zebre will be very similar to what we have seen over the Six Nations period.

Harpin’ matchday 23 v Zebre

McErlean, King, Turner, Osborne, Russell, R Byrne, McGrath

Milne, McKee, Clarkson, Molony, Jenkins, Connors, Penny (c), Deegan 

Barron, Boyle, Ala’alatoa, Deeny, Ruddock, Murphy, Prendergast, Brownlee

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:

Cormac Foley: will be further assessed this week as he nears a return from a shoulder injury

Ciarán Frawley: is continuing to follow the Graduated Return to Play Protocols having been released from Ireland camp last week and will be further assessed as the week progresses

Martin Moloney : will be further assessed this week as he nears a return from a bicep injury

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Hugo Keenan: was ruled out of the Ireland game at the weekend with a hip injury and will be assessed on his return to Leinster

James Ryan: had a procedure on an arm injury and will be assessed over the coming weeks regarding a return to play date

Tommy O’Brien: picked up a hamstring injury last week and will be unavailable for selection

NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:

Alex Soroka (foot), Charlie Ngatai (calf) and Jimmy O’Brien (Neck)

WOMEN’S SIX NATIONS LAUNCH INTERVIEW

After I had set up the Front Five segment at the top of this column, I got an email from the organisers of the Women’s Six Nations complete with free-to-use quotes & links from the tournament launch.

I was fascinated not just by the responses of coach Scott Bemand, but more so by the nature of the questions that were put to him and Edel McMahon – they covered some very pertinent issues that one would assume might not be covered in a high profile press conference like this one.

So here is what they released : 

Excited?

 Scott: Really exciting, a new challenge. We don’t shy away from what went on results wise last 6 Nations but we’ve done WXV, we’ve built some winning momentum and connections and hopefully now just excited to crack into this year’s 6 Nations.

 How much value is there in the Celtic Challenge?

 Scott: The Celtic Challenge is going to become bigger as we go through, as a preparation tool. It’s actually been hugely beneficial because of the training piece. The results have been pretty close, pretty competitive. The level of challenge has been appropriate. It’s a good way of bringing the group together albeit across two teams.

 Have you found it a challenge to have players further apart geographically?

 Scott: I don’t know if it’s more of a challenge. It’s a younger programme. With England, professionalism started a few years before so you would say the maturity of their programme is on a couple of years in terms of how people are developing within the programme.

 There’s a reasonable amount of touch points, w’ere going to continue to grow those touch points as we go through. I would say the challenges have always existed. But when you get back into camp, there’s a palpable level of excitement to get back in a room together.

 Disappointing Championship in 2023. What is outlook now?

 Edel: I was injured for the last 6 Nations so my mindset is a little bit different. A lot of girls have grown since that campaign to be senior players, stepping it up having been to a successful WXV. Like Scott was saying they’ve had an opportunity to play in the Celtic Challenge. We’ve seen where we’ve grown from those performances until now. I think people are excited to see where we’re at.

 What is target? 

 Edel: To qualify for the World Cup. We’ve spoken as a squad, that’s what we want to achieve.

 Lots of talk about 7s programme. Is it frustrating that you won’t have access to some of your best players throughout the Championship?

 Scott: There’s a strategic goal to do well at the Olympics, there’s a strategic goal to qualify for the World Cup. We’ve got some 7s girls in the programme going into the 6 Nations which will be a continued big part of our pool of players.

 Other nations have done it reasonably successfully. You look at New Zealand at the last World Cup with some of the 7s girls coming back into the XVs programme. It can be done.

 They’re great people. They add a bit to the environment as well. I think as we get more seamless with those transitions it’ll become smoother and smoother.

 When does it get to that next step where the programmes are independent?

 Where the game is in terms of playing numbers, that may be some years off. The challenge we face is to get better at transitioning and both succeeding. If we’re successful at an Olympics and a World Cup, that’s got to shine a great spotlight on women’s rugby in Ireland. That’s going to get more interest and traction and help us grow the game.

 On the Celtic Challenge, how much of a look-in have you seen to how it’s bridging the gap from the club game to international?

 It was coached by IRFU coaches, so it’s almost inside our circle. We had some great conversations. There’s a big piece about the development of coaches, how you can get enough training and support to improve on-pitch performance. There was Ireland coaches at every session. It was hand in hand.

 Playing France in France?

 Edel: I got to play there two years ago in Toulouse and that was a full crowd. We chat about our experiences on the pitch. I heard quite a lot of noise – from a line break, a big hit, a try score, a turnover of momentum. That was engulfed on the pitch. From an Irish perspective maybe they liked us a bit more than ye found them (to Scott). You kind of zone out of it. It’s an experience to relish.

 Sometimes they’ve turned on their own when they make a mistake but it’s a cool experience.

 Are you getting enough of a test from prior opponents through WXV or Celtic Challenge?

 Scott: It’s a fair point. WXV3 – putting 100 points on Kazakhstan, perhaps it’s not the level of challenge you need going into a 6 Nations. The things that we can control is the training piece. Had experience before about how you can make some quite big gains with how competitive you can make training. Players seem to buy into it as well instead of just drilling.

 Being able to try and win it in training. We’ve made it not about preparing a team but preparing a squad. That was one of the successes of WXV3. Girls that were either on the bench or not involved would have felt that they were being prepared and improved to attack training and show what they can do which breeds natural competition. The Spain game did give us a bit of physical nuance. Going into a France game, we know it’s going to be physical, we know what to expect.

 I’d like to think the levels of training would prepare us for that.

 What is the contracts scenario in Ireland?

 There’s currently 43 contracts which is a merge of the 7s and XVs. They got that going relatively not that long ago. So in terms of cycles, it’s in its first iteration. There’s real intent to grow that and to grow that quickly. Post 6 Nations we’ll review that and see where we stand with it – who is developing, progressing and which new players are coming into the market. Celtic Challenge has definitely shown some youngsters coming up through. 

 Have you spoken to Cliodhna Moloney?

Scott: I know Cli from being based in the UK. I’ve spoken to Cli informally just around wider stuff. There’ll be a time but at the moment it sits where it sits.

A BONUS TALKING POINT

I simply couldn’t resist getting my sarcasm on after France beat England in that final match, not to rub it in for the English fans rather those in their media who tried to push the narrative that should the results go another way and Ireland win the title on bonus points despite having fewer wins than England (a mathematical possibility that has always been possible in over two decades since we’ve had this method in rugby), it would somehow de-legitimize us winning the trophy.

Bottom line is that while this is not my ideal method for deciding a rugby tournament winner, the fact that everyone knows the rules as it kicks off means nobody should really complain about it afterwards.

EURO REFS

Teams of officials have been announced for the last 16 of the EPCR tournaments, Leinster’s is below, click here for the full list.

Leinster v Leicester Tigers

REFEREE : Matthew Carley (Eng)
AR1 : Hamish Smales (Eng)
AR2 : Paul Dix (Eng)
TMO : Andrew Jackson (Eng)

RUGBY BULLETS ON POST TO POST SPORT

Frequent Harpin contributor Ciarán Duffy hosts his own podcast Post To Post Sport which mostly covers Irish women’s football but also does much rugby and as well as updating his site and branding he has started a new feature known as “Rugby Bullets” please follow the link to check it out.

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

I was actually surprised the 🔝🐱🐴 was willing to take a week off even for the final round of Six Nations matches, but anyway it’s back this week and with just eight rounds left and the gap in match points between 6th (last playoff place) and 13th (top relegation place) just NINE, pretty much every match will be significant over the coming weeks.  Bordeaux v Toulouse seems to be the pick of Round 19.

NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND

Round 19

SAT MAR 23

TOULON V MONTPELLIER

OYONNAX V PERPIGNAN

CASTRES V RACING 92

CLÉRMONT V PAU

STADE FRANÇAIS V LYON

BAYONNE V LA ROCHELLE

SUN MAR 24

BORDEAUX V TOULOUSE

PREMIERSHIP UPDATE

After a super-long mid season break during which they played out the final matches in the Cup as well as had those money-spinning friendlies with Leinster & Munster, the Premiership kicks back into gear this weekend and has 6 rounds to go.  Northampton lead the way but it’s all to play for as only two of the ten clubs have a losing record.  Saracens v Quins seems to be the tie of the round.

NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND

ROUND 13

FRI MAR 22

BRISTOL V NORTHAMPTON

LEICESTER TIGERS V GLOUCESTER

SAT MAR 23

BATH V SALE SHARKS

EXETER CHIEFS V NEWCASTLE

SARACENS V HARLEQUINS

AIL UPDATE 

A rare upset in this league last weekend when Suttonians, outside the top 4, won convincingly away to Blackrock College, although with Ballincollig falling to runaway leaders UL Bohs the gap between the playoff places and the rest remains the same.  The league takes a break this weekend, presumedly to make way for the launch of the Women’s Six Nations.

Over in the men’s AIL, only three matches left in the regular season and easily the tie of the round is Ballynahinch hosting Lansdowne, more than likely the Ulster side’s last chance of staying in touch with the top four.  Cork Con hosting Terenure also looks tasty.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S AIL

Round 15

BLACKROCK 5-17 SUTTONIANS

RAILWAY UNION 72-12 WICKLOW

COOKE 5-67 OLD BELVEDERE

UL BOHS 41-7 BALLINCOLLIG

ROUND 16

SAT MAR 30

BALLINCOLLIG V BLACKROCK

OLD BELVEDERE V RAILWAY UNION

SUTTONIANS V GALWEGIANS

WICKLOW V COOKE

MEN’S AIL

NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND

ROUND 16

SAT MAR 23

BALLYNAHINCH V LANSDOWNE

CITY OF ARMAGH V SHANNON

CORK CON V TERENURE

UCD V CLONTARF

YOUNG MUNSTER V TRINITY

SUPER RUGBY PACIFIC UPDATE

Eh, do we need to talk about the Crusaders?  I mean, obviously with eight of the twelves teams making the playoffs there is still plenty of time for them to claw their way back and who among us would rule them out from securing their millionth SR title, but four defeats out of four to start the season?  Wowza.  I watched their defeat to the league leading Hurricanes last Friday and it certainly wasn’t the Saders I’ve been used to seeing.  Almost reminded me of Leinster’s Matt O’Connor years…anyway overall it’s good for this league to see Aussie teams with winning records plus Moana & the Drua picking up wins.  For me Blues v Crusaders is the standout match from the next round.

ROUND 4

CRUSADERS 10-14 HURRICANES

REBELS 26-53 REDS

WESTERN FORCE 14-22 MOANA PASIFIKA

HIGHLANDERS 21-27 BRUMBIES

CHIEFS 46-29 FIJIAN DRUA

WARATAHS 10-12 BLUES

ROUND 5

FRI MAR 22

HURRICANES V REBELS

BRUMBIES V MOANA PASIFIKA

SAT MAR 23

FIJIAN DRUA V WARATAHS

CHIEFS V HIGHLANDERS

BLUES V CRUSADERS

WESTERN FORCE V REDS

MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY UPDATE

Have to say I was disappointed to see that the MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY was in fact using the conference system this season, having only seen one league table over the first few weeks I thought maybe they had seen sense and gone for a model simpler to Super Rugby.  Anywho…after three rounds only Seattle and Houston are 100% and they play each other next weekend while my “adopted team” the Chicago Hounds have had a mixed opening three weeks so far and the visit of New England next time out will definitely be a challenge.

Round 3

NEW ENGLAND 27-21 NOLA GOLD

OLD GLORY 22-22 CHICAGO

HOUSTON 30-19 MIAMI

UTAH 13-23 SEATTLE

SAN DIEGO 19-18 LOS ANGELES

ANTHEM RC 28-68 DALLAS

ROUND 4

SEATTLE V HOUSTON

OLD GLORY V SAN DIEGO

MIAMI V ANTHEM RC

DALLAS V NOLA GOLD

CHICAGO V NEW ENGLAND

LOS ANGELES V UTAH

RUGBY EUROPE CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

No real surprise here with Georgia capturing another title and I have to say it was ironic that France chose to move their Six Nations fixtures away from Paris because of the Olympic preparations yet this final was held at the Stade Jean Bouin when maybe it could have enjoyed a better atmosphere in either Tblisi or Lisbon?  Anyway if you missed the highlights here they are…

HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE

Congrats to Kristian who convincingly won our Six Nations Superbru – he successfully predicted 12 of the 15 results, as did I although with nowhere near enough “margin accuracy” meaning I just about pipped Jay to 2nd spot.

Anyway now it’s back to the big prize, namely the Harpin URC Prediction League which of course resumes this weekend.  As you see I am in line to retain my title if I keep going as I have but there’s still a long way to go.

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

In my Quick Tap video I point out the contrast between a Six Nations title decider for Ireland in Dublin one week and a URC regular season fixture for Leinster in Parma the next, but here at Harpin Manor we will of course still be giving it the full Harpin treatment starting with a preview on Friday, as ever stay tuned to all our usual places in the ruggersphere for all our content.

Finally, as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Mar 12

On this week’s column…

🏉 FRISCHGATE

🏉 ALONE IT STANDS…AGAIN

🏉 THE LEADING LYNAGH

🏉 WORDLESS WARREN

🏉 CLIVE’S CLAIM

🏉 WRAP OF A WRAP

🏉 FOUR PROUD PROVINCES

🏉 UPDATES [Incl 🔝🐱🐴 & Super Rugby] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere, now including a few thoughts added by myself (JLP).

it remains to be seen if a France cap, which would render him a non-Irish qualified (NIQ) player, has any bearing on his future.

France call up Munster’s Irish-qualified centre Antoine Frisch to Six Nations squad

Nathan Johns – Irish Times

JLP : As much as I’d love to dive head first into the social media meleé over the past few days over this, I chose instead to harp on the wider topic in this week’s Quick Tap column which you’ll find further down the column.

Since the redevelopment of Thomond Park in 2008, Munster have hosted international opposition in the form of New Zealand, Australia, and the Māori All Blacks at the Limerick venue.

Munster To Play All Blacks XV In November

IrishRugby.ie

JLP : Now I know I said I’ve tried to stay out of Frischgate, but let’s just say this Tuesday morning story kind of pokes a hole in all the “Munster get nothing” narrative.

The Wallabies, two-time World Cup champions, now occupy 10th, meaning bragging rights in the Lynagh family reside firmly with Louis…

Italy overtake Australia in the men’s world rankings for the first time ever

Andy Wright – Rugby World

JLP : Quite the telling tale of rugby in the two jurisdictions, although I reckon a certain Mr Schmidt might have something to say about it very soon…

This left presenter Gabby Logan in an awkward position as she went to McLaughlan expecting Gatland to be there.

‘Incensed’ Gatland reportedly initially refuses post match interview

Phillip Bendon – Rugby World

JLP : Bad form of course, but also very in sync with all that sadly ails Welsh rugby right now.  I wonder if Warren got wind that Gabby had borrowed Sinead Kissane’s notes from her famous interview with Eddie O’Sullivan in 2007…

“I honestly believe that Borthwick’s players had read my pre-match column”

Ex-England boss Clive Woodward tries to take credit for epic win against Ireland

Rob O’Halloran – Extra.ie

JLP : Only one comment required…HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A WRAP

Many thanks to Pádrag for contributing on the wrap this week, it was only the second one dealing with an Irish defeat but I reckon we managed our way through it well enough all things considered.

If you missed the wrap pod, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

FOUR PROUD PROVINCES

This might come across a bit “kumbaya” but still I think it needs saying once in a while, not that it’s going to stop the rage even a bit of course…

@harpinonrugby

This Quick Tap video is taken from our latest 80+ column that posts every Tuesday afternoon at harpinonrugby.com

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

Wait.  La Rochelle are 3rd?  With a record of 9 wins, 9 losses?

THIRD??????????????????

We all know the home team tends to win in the 🔝🐱🐴 more often than most but these numbers are ridiculous IMO.  11 of the 14 clubs have a win-loss differential of ±2 or less!  I mean it’s great when it comes to drama and with just 8 rounds to go there’s a whole lot that can change, but it’s still nuts.

One thing is for sure, whatever about how close things might be, Racing badly needed that win over Toulon on Sunday night, they were getting close to freefall, although their trip to Castres in the next round will be far from easy.  Bordeaux v Toulouse on the Sunday seems to be tie of the round.

Round 18

LA ROCHELLE 23-3 STADE FRANÇAIS 

CLÉRMONT 15-15 OYONNAX

LYON 34-19 CASTRES

MONTPELLIER 10-3 BORDEAUX

PAU 42-40 BAYONNE

PERPIGNAN 27-17 TOULOUSE

RACING 20-6 TOULON

Round 19

SAT MAR 23

TOULON V MONTPELLIER

OYONNAX V PERPIGNAN

CASTRES V RACING 92

CLÉRMONT V PAU

STADE FRANÇAIS V LYON

BAYONNE V LA ROCHELLE

SUN MAR 24

BORDEAUX V TOULOUSE

AIL UPDATE 

UL Bohs go marching on, with their narrow win against Rock keeping their 100% record intact although the top four stays the same and they all avoid each other next week.

Men’s comp won’t be back until the following weekend.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S AIL

Round 14

BLACKROCK 15-17 UL BOHS

OLD BELVEDERE 72-12 GALWEGIANS

SUTTONIANS 24-3 COOKE

BALLINCOLLIG 10-63 RAILWAY UNION

Round 15

THU MAR 14

BLACKROCK V SUTTONIANS

FRI MAR 15

RAILWAY UNION V WICKLOW

SAT MAR 16

COOKE V OLD BELVEDERE

TUE MAR 19

UL BOHS V BALLINCOLLIG

MEN’S AIL

NO FIXTURES LAST WEEKEND

ROUND 16

SAT MAR 23

BALLYNAHINCH V LANSDOWNE

CITY OF ARMAGH V SHANNON

CORK CON V TERENURE

UCD V CLONTARF

YOUNG MUNSTER V TRINITY

SUPER RUGBY PACIFIC UPDATE

Do we need to talk about the Crusaders?  Nah – they’ll be fine, especially with 8 of Super rugby’s 12 making the knockouts you’d still be mad to write them off.  How bout instead we talk about their latest conquerors the Fijian Drua, what an amazing result for the game there and indeed the comp.  After Sevu Reece opened the scoring they responded with two converted tries and two penalties to move them up the ladder.

Tie of Round 4 is easy to spot, Crusaders hosting the 100% Hurricanes.

ROUND 3

MOANA PASIFIKA 23-29 REBELS

WARATAHS 21-23 HIGHLANDERS

FIJIAN DRUA 20-10 CRUSADERS

BRUMBIES 22-19 WESTERN FORCE

HURRICANES 29-21 BLUES

REDS 25-19 CHIEFS

ROUND 4

FRI MAR 15

CRUSADERS V HURRICANES

REBELS V REDS

WESTERN FORCE V MOANA PASIFIKA

SAT MAR 16

HIGHLANDERS V BRUMBIES

CHIEFS V FIJIAN DRUA

WARATAHS V BLUES

MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY UPDATE

No sign of Dave Kearney in Chicago’s lineups just yet, though Nick McCarthy has been starting as they fell to Utah.  NOLA (which in case you didn’t know stands for New Orleans, Louisiana), Houston and Seattle are the only two with 100% records after 2 rounds.

Round 2

NEW ENGLAND 34-35 OLD GLORY

NOLA 34-19 ANTHEM RC

UTAH 29-15 CHICAGO

SEATTLE 29-15 MIAMI

DALLAS 23-30 SAN DIEGO

LOS ANGELES 12-27 HOUSTON

Round 3

SAT MAR 16

NEW ENGLAND V NOLA GOLD

OLD GLORY V CHICAGO

SUN MAR 17

HOUSTON V MIAMI

UTAH V SEATTLE

SAN DIEGO V LOS ANGELES

ANTHEM RC V DALLAS

RUGBY EUROPE CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

Portugal can count themselves lucky to make the final and I will be very surprised if they manage to overturn the Lelos but we’ve seen bigger surprises than that in recent times so it should be a final worth watching on RugbyEurope.tv 

FINAL

SUN MAR 17

GEORGIA V PORTUGAL

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

That’s it for this week, now it’s time to gear up for Paddy’s Weekend/Super Saturday, we will of course be focusing on the Championship/Triple Crown decider with a preview on Friday and a wrap pod recording Sunday evening.

Finally, as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Mar 5

On this week’s column…

🏉 FILLING COLUMN INCHES

🏉 “LE RINGER”

🏉 FRAWLEY A WALLABY?

🏉 AVIVA DOUBLE HEADER

🏉 REF COOLS BOILING BONGI

🏉 WRAP OF A WRAP

🏉 THANK YOU ROSS MOLONY

🏉 UPDATES [Incl Super Rugby, MLR] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere, now including a few thoughts added by myself (JLP).

At the moment, England look like the fourth-best side in this year’s Six Nations. Say it out loud.

Accepting and moving on

Sam Roberts – Double Dummy Scissors

JLP : I don’t normally put these Front Five articles in any particular order, but still this one had to be first this week.  Two weeks can be an age in modern day media at the best of times, but when England have just failed to Scotland and have to wait before an even more daunting task in the next round even if it is at Twickenham, I’m not so sure that publications will get a whole lotta clicks if they fill their news cycles and column inches with doom and gloom for the duration.  So in a way I get why the English media might be tempted to think “outside the box” for narratives but in some cases, especially Oliver Brown’s if we’re being honest, I’m not sure there ever actually WAS a box.  Sam does a brilliant job here of calling them out.

…the men’s and women’s sevens (are) to be played at the Stade de France from Wednesday 24 July 2024 to Tuesday 30 July

Dupont effect and LA title sees France men as favourites for Olympic gold

Alan Dymock – Rugby World

JLP : More on the Sevens below but it’s hard for an Irish fan to avoid being even a little bit begrudging when your side has been eliminated for two tournaments in a row by someone I’m calling “Le Ringer” at least until the IRFU decides whether or not to use provincial players for the Olympics (and I hope we don’t FWIW).

“I knew there was interest from over there, but I was never going to go.”

Ciarán Frawley Reveals He Drew Interest From Wallabies Over International Switch

Jonathan Browne – Balls.ie

JLP : I’d say at this stage that it’s almost a non-story when we hear someone on the fringes of a successful test side attracts interest from another nation for which he is qualified.  But in Frawley’s case it’s still newsworthy as his future has been the focus of much speculation over the past year or so.

…the…double header (will) be played at Aviva Stadium, on Sunday 28, April. Both games will be broadcast live on TG4

Energia All Ireland League Finals Double Header in Aviva Stadium

IrishRugby.ie

JLP : Club rugby, particularly on the women’s side, is in serious need of a rethink, so while any kind of innovation to do with coverage is good news, hopefully it won’t end up papering over the cracks and that much more work will be done in the near future.  More on the AIL and who is likely to feature in those finals in the Updates section below.

“…we are on the same field so if you could show me the same respect that I show you, that would be very much appreciated.”

Ref cools boiling Bongi

SA RugbyMag

JLP : I thought she handled it perfectly.

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A WRAP

Many thanks to Conor & Ciarán for contributing on the wrap, I have decided to shelve the “Bonus Clip” feature for the next while which makes for a much more manageable recording and editing time, obviously.  I would like to encourage the lads to harp on more non-Leinster & Ireland topics but I’ll just have to find another way of doing it, possibly with more regular midweek bonus pods.

If you missed the wrap pod, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

THANK YOU ROSS

I have rebranded the TikTok videos as “Quick Taps” but in actual fact they have been getting longer as I try to say all I want to in the copy, however in this case I think it’s ok because the news of Ross Molony leaving at the end of the season left me with much to say.  His career has been a perfect example of how it’s possible to establish a decent reputation in the sport without actually playing at the highest level.  

Many try to compare rugby to the American football but in many many ways they are chalk and cheese, not least because rugby has the international element.  The NFL is basically the highest level you can play at in the sport (unless you distinguish between regular season and playoffs) so basically if you are one of the best 30 or so players in the sport, chances are you will be a starter for one of the franchises.  

That just cannot happen in rugby.   It’s not inconceivable for the second best outhalf on the planet to get only a handful of test caps simply because the best one plays for the same nation.  And apart from tweaking residency laws there’s no way to fix that, nor should there be btw.

Anyway, many, many thanks, Ross and I hope Leinster fans join me in giving you a proper send off.

@harpinonrugby

Thank you Ross Molony. Our latest Quick Tap video which is part of our 80+ column which posts every Tuesday afternoon at harpinonrugby.com

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

“SVNS” UPDATE

Technically the Women’s side improved on their 9th in Vancouver by finishing 8th in LA but having won in Perth we would have expected a lot more from the past couple of weeks, although the Aussies were clearly lying in wait for us in that first pool match having beaten them on their home turf.

Over in the men’s it was a case of double redemption because after losing to Spain and runaway series leaders Argentina in the pool phase, we overturned them both in the knockouts.  However…in between those bouts of revenge there was the small matter of facing Antoine “Le Ringer” Duponte in the semifinals on Sunday evening Irish time, and you could definitely make a case that he proved the difference.  

From my limited knowledge of this code I thought perhaps Terry Kennedy could have made an effort to make the conversion of his after-buzzer try a little easier for Billy Dardis but still, the win over Spain gave us another bronze finish to both keep us in 2nd position on the series table and draw us that little bit closer to Argentina.

There’s a break for a few weeks until the circus moves to Hong Kong.

LOS ANGELES 7S

IRELAND WOMEN

POOL STAGE

0-31 V AUS

5-21 V FRA

26-12 V JPN

QUARTERFINAL

12-36 V NZL

7TH PLACE

14-28 V BRZ

IRELAND MEN

POOL STAGE

17-0 V RSA

14-19 V ESP

26-14 V ARG

QUARTERFINAL

24-12 V ARG

SEMIFINAL

24-26 V FRA

3RD PLACE PLAYOFF

24-7 V ESP

NEXT IN THE SERIES…

HONG KONG APR 5-7

SINGAPORE MAY 3-5

MADRID MAY 31-JUN 2

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

Even more daylight now between Stade Français, Toulouse and the rest of the league making them likely candidates for home semifinals.  But again for me the headline makers have to be Racing after defeat in Bordeax means they have now lost more than they won although they are holding on to a top six spot by their fingernails.  On Sunday evening La Rochelle also badly needed a win and Clérmont duly obliged, although they will face a sterner test next weekend when the league leaders come to visit.  Why should the small matter of a Six Nations round stand in the way of more 🔝🐱🐴 fixtures eh?

Round 17

TOULOUSE 33-6 CASTRES

BAYONNE 39-10 LYON

OYONNAX 35-39 MONTPELLIER

STADE FRANÇAIS 25-12 PAU

TOULON 44-22 PERPIGNAN

BORDEAUX 21-5 RACING 92

LA ROCHELLE 42-3 CLÉRMONT

Round 18

SAT MAR 9

LA ROCHELLE V STADE FRANÇAIS 

CLÉRMONT V OYONNAX

LYON V CASTRES

MONTPELLIER V BORDEAUX

PAU V BAYONNE

PERPIGNAN V TOULOUSE

SUN MAR 10

RACING V TOULON

AIL UPDATE 

I know I’m being picky here but the format of the Celtic Challenge is really weird.  After a round robin portion it seems they split into top 3 and bottom 3 for the next three rounds so if that’s the case, you shouldn’t be able to finish lower than 3rd IMO, but anyway with the Wolfhounds already having clinched the title last week, the Clovers’ draw against Edinburgh in Llanelli (another oddity, surely they’d have had a better attendance if one team was at home) left them in 4th.

In the Women’s AIL there was actually a shock as a bottom 5 team actually defeated a top 4 one, a very rare occurrence so fair play to Galwegians who overcame Blackrock.  Meanwhile UL Bohemians continue their 100% start and while their trip to Blackrock next weekend is tie of the round, I still assume their record ill continue.

Finally in the men’s 1A Cork Con scored a big win on the Aviva back pitch to stay in touch with Tarf at the top while Terenure crept into 3rd.  Trinity’s win over City of Armagh made the relegation picture interesting with Shannon also in trouble with just three rounds to go.  Cork Con v Terenure is easily the pick of the next round although the league will take a break for the next couple of weekends.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

THIRD PLAYOFF ROUND

CLOVERS 12-12 EDINBURGH

BRYTHON THUNDER 30-5 GWALIA LIGHTNING

WOMEN’S AIL

Round 13

SUTTONIANS 12-39 OLD BELVEDERE

COOKE 7-28 UL BOHS

GALWEGIANS 14-10 BLACKROCK

WICKLOW 32-24 BALLINCOLLIG

Round 14

SAT MAR 9

BLACKROCK V UL BOHS

OLD BELVEDERE V GALWEGIANS

SUTTONIANS V COOKE

BALLINCOLLIG V RAILWAY UNION

MEN’S AIL

ROUND 15

CLONTARF 31-12 YOUNG MUNSTER

TRINITY 31-26 CITY OF ARMAGH

LANSDOWNE 19-25 CORK CON

SHANNON 20-14 BALLYNAHINCH

TERENURE 19-12 UCD

ROUND 16

SAT MAR 23

BALLYNAHINCH V LANSDOWNE

CITY OF ARMAGH V SHANNON

CORK CON V TERENURE

UCD V CLONTARF

YOUNG MUNSTER V TRINITY

SUPER RUGBY PACIFIC UPDATE

Don’t know why I haven’t updated this comp here before but better late than never.  Round 2 was the “Super Round” and apparently what made it Super was the fact that all 6 matches were played at the AAMI Stadium in Melbourne.  Perhaps the name “Help Out Rugby in Oz Round” would have been closer to the mark, if a little more clunky.  Anyway the Waratah’s convincing win over the Crusaders was easily the result of the round, I wonder could they repeat the result if they meet each other again in the knockouts.  Overall the round was full of very “Super Rugby looking” scorelines, with only the Brumbies failing to score at least 24pts.

Next week all eyes will no doubt be on the Tahs who host the Highlanders.

ROUND 1

REDS 40-22 WARATAHS

HIGHLANDERS 35-21 MOANA PASIFIKA

BLUES 34-10 FIJIAN DRUA

WESTERN FORCE 10-44 HURRICANES

REBELS 3-30 BRUMBIES

CHIEFS 33-29 CRUSADERS

ROUND 2

HIGHLANDERS 29-37 BLUES

REBELS 38-24 WESTERN FORCE

MOANA PASIFIKA 39-36 FIJIAN DRUA

CRUSADERS 24-37 WARATAHS

CHIEFS 46-12 BRUMBIES

HURRICANES 38-33 REDS

ROUND 3

FRI MAR 8

MOANA PASIFIKA V REBELS

WARATAHS V HIGHLANDERS

FIJIAN DRUA V CRUSADERS

SAT MAR 9

BRUMBIES V WESTERN FORCE

HURRICANES V BLUES

REDS V CHIEFS

MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY UPDATE

Last season my adopted team was the New England Free Jacks but for the 2024 campaign I think I’ll switch my allegiance to the Chicago Hounds who have added Dave Kearney & Nick McCarthy to their ranks and had a decent away win to start the season.

Of course the 2023 season became a bit farcical with multiple clubs going to the wall but somehow they managed to scrape together another 12 teams this season with the LA Giltinis rebranding as Rugby LA (hallelujah) with new franchises in Miami & Charlotte (Anthem RC).

Round 1

NOLA 18-6 OLD GLORY

HOUSTON 22-15 UTAH

SEATTLE 25-19 SAN DIEGO

MIAMI 19-23 CHICAGO

ANTHEM RC 15-46 NEW ENGLAND

LOS ANGELES 29-32 DALLAS

Round 2

SAT MAR 9

NEW ENGLAND V OLD GLORY

NOLA V ANTHEM RC

UTAH V CHICAGO

SUN MAR 10

SEATTLE V MIAMI

DALLAS V SAN DIEGO

LOS ANGELES V HOUSTON

RUGBY EUROPE CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

Last week I said “I will be very surprised if it isn’t a Georgia v Portugal final” and overall I wasn’t surprised but that said, Spain sure gave Os Lobos a run for their money.  Georgia will of course be heavily favoured in the final on St Patrick’s Day.

SEMIFINALS

GEORGIA 43-5 ROMANIA

PORTUGAL 33-30 SPAIN

FINAL

SUN MAR 17

GEORGIA V PORTUGAL

HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE

I really was pulling too far ahead of the pack so I decided to let them catch up a bit in Round 11, with Kino taking the yellow cap, but from here on in it there will be No More Mr Nice Guy I assure you #ahem.

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

That’s it for another week, next we look to rounds 4 & 5 of the Six Nations with an England preview recording on Thursday eve followed by a wrap on Sunday.  By all means do leave your thoughts on our Facebook page after the full time whistle it’s always great to get your opinions.

Finally, as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Feb 27

On this week’s column…

🏉 RINGER RETURN?

🏉 WHAT NEXT FOR ENG?

🏉 WAINWRIGHT’S ‘TRY’

🏉 THAT PAOLO KICK

🏉 WRAP OF A WRAP

🏉 CALL IT A DRAW?

🏉 NOT A TWEETUP

🏉 LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

🏉 UPDATES [Incl 🔝🐱🐴, SVNS] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere, now including a few thoughts added by myself (JLP).

1.    “The 57-time capped 29-year-old is “hopeful” that his luck will flip ahead of the trek to Twickenham next Saturday week.”

Garry Ringrose: ‘The more injuries I’ve gone through, the better I’ve got at watching’

Gerry Thornley – Irish Times

JLP : Obviously it’s awesome to see Garry is close to returning but those thoughts quickly turn to – who makes room for him?  Bundee & Robbie are in a groove together now plus Stu hasn’t put a foot wrong either.  There’s a case to be made for Ringrose to play on the wing and he would definitely be good there but that wouldn’t exactly be fair on Calvin Nash would it?  Definitely comes under the heading of “good problems” for Andy & co.

2.    “What changed?…I will only be able to understand that fully once we have talked to the players”

Steve Borthwick ‘hopeful’ that Marcus Smith will be fit for England to face Ireland

SkySports.com

JLP : Ahead of the Calcutta Cup, I was genuinely concerned about our Round 4 trip to Twickenham, but I still held it back a bit until I saw how they got on at Murrayfield, and after an impressive start the way the Scots, or arguably DVDM, tore them down made me feel a whole lot better.  Then I see Borthwick’s words afterwards which basically amount to responding to the question “what went wrong” with “damned if I know” then I feel better again.  OBVIOUSLY, I’m taking nothing for granted – whatever goes before I fully expected England to be fully pumped to knock us over, I just feel better about their chances of doing it.

3.    “It looked like it might have clipped it, but again the referee was well-positioned. The best to see it, really.”

Wales Fans Clutch At Straws Over Missed “Second Try” In Ireland Defeat

James Fenton – Balls.ie

JLP : Let’s just say this incident didn’t make our wrap pod!  To be fair, I actually thought it was a try at that moment, but if some Welsh fans think this is the issue to be focusing on from the match, especially in the area of ‘referee injustice’ when they themselves somehow managed to keep 15 on the park from start to finish, then I say let them at it.

As you’ll see further down this column, we’d much rather focus on the fans who want to have a bit of craic after the match.

4.    As the fly-half went to reset the ball on the tee, French players could be seen encroaching forward in an attempt to close down the shot. 

Six Nations plunged into controversy as video replays show Italy penalty ‘should have been retaken’

John Jones – WalesOnline

JLP : I may have been glued to the telly as this kick was being taken, but I definitely missed this.  I’m torn on this…it was such a critical moment of the match and the ball hitting the post caused so much controversy that it would have been a hell of a spot for the officials to call the movement.  Has the TMO ever gotten involved for something like this?  Perhaps they should.   Possibly could have made a great and much deserved result (red card or no) for Italy even better.

5.   “The 21-year-old Welshman has come up big for England here!” 

Irish commentator makes outlandish comment as England score a try

Philip Bendon – Rugby Dump

JLP : Someone call the Clickbait Police!  When I’m just scrolling through my aggregator in general, I tend to cross the road to avoid headlines like this, but for Front Five I will take the odd peek down the rabbit hole and see what’s going on.  Obviously the “Irish person does something against English person” factor is being played up but I have to admire the irony in the subeditor’s outlandish use of the word “outlandish”.  Look – overall I’m not crazy about emphasising nations of birth for test players, the qualification rules are what they are and the players are technically representing the union.  I mean it’s not like Ireland doesn’t rely on players who qualified, but if anyone wants to say they’re not as much Irish rugby players as anyone else in the squad, well, we’re in a whole other area.

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A WRAP

So there I was at my daughter’s match on Sunday morning when a text came in that had me scrambling to put together a traditional 3-person wrap pod.  No hard feelings to he who had to cancel, life has a habit of doing that, I just had to throw myself at the mercy of my top band of contributors and thankfully Ciarán Duffy & Kristian Ross were able to cover the win on Sunday.  

If you missed the wrap pod, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

FULL  POD

Because of the scramble I mention above I had to ditch the bonus clip this week, in fact I may leave it for a while as it can be unnecessarily time consuming.   So to have something to post to YouTube I made a headline video of the full wrap pod.  There is still one extra topic right at the end – what with Kristian being an Ulster fan I thought it rude not to ask him about the Dan McFarland news from during the week.

CAN WE CALL IT A DRAW?

I’m a self-confessed nerd and I love all that wonky talk about competition formats and such so this may not be for you, but I do believe this is a subject that may well come up again despite the tweaks World Rugby has made.

@harpinonrugby

Our 80+ column posts every Tuesday afternoon at harpinonrugby.com

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

Pretty much a “steady as she goes” report, great to see Jamie and Ross made it through their first match back but still concerning to see names like Jimmy O’Brien and Charlie Ngatai still rooted to the bottom tier.  Was a bit worried to see Tommy O’Brien limp off against Benetton but it seems he’s ok, so I doubt there will be that many changes in the 23 for the trip to Cardiff.

Harpin’ matchday 23 v Cardiff

McErlean, T O’Brien, Turner, Osborne, Russell, R Byrne, McGrath

Boyle, McKee, Clarkson, Molony, Jenkins, Connors, Penny (c), Deegan 

Barron, E Byrne, Ala’alatoa, Deeny, Ruddock, Murphy, Prendergast, Brownlee

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:

Jamie Osborne: came through the game against Benetton Rugby with no issues after his return from a shoulder injury

Ross Byrne: came through the game against Benetton Rugby with no issues after his return from an arm injury

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Cormac Foley: has increased his training load and will be further assessed this week as he makes his way back from a shoulder injury

NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:

Martin Moloney (bicep), Alex Soroka (foot), Jimmy O’Brien (neck) and Charlie Ngatai (calf)

NOT  A TWEETUP 

After doing such a great job promoting the hashtag “IrelandWeek” in the lead up to the match, Welsh fan Ed Jenkins suggested a “gathering of individuals who engage on the platform currently known as X”, with the stipulation that it wasn’t called a “tweetup”.  Sadly I wasn’t in the vicinity but as you can see a solid front row of Harpin forwards answered the call.

“SVNS” UPDATE

The pool stages were definitely a far cry from the success both Irish genders enjoyed in Perth, but the weekend most certainly was not without silver linings.  

Obviously winning one leg in a series offers no guarantees of a repeat in the next one, but after defeating South Africa, we were done over by both Brazil and New Zealand and it wasn’t enough for a quarterfinal spot.  Still, once in that position you can only aim to finish as high as you can and with wins over GB and Japan the girls did just that leaving them 9th.  On the overall table it doesn’t look like we can aim much higher than 4th with AUS, NZL & FRA leading the way.

The men also just had one pool win but in their case it got them into the quarters as a best 3rd place finisher, and who did they come up against but France with Monsieur Duponte who of course got the winning try.  However they also managed to salvage the most they could out of the position playoffs, defeating Fiji in extra time to leave us 5th in Vancouver and, somehow, SECOND on the overall standings!  Argentina seem to be running away with 1st place but to finish behind them would certainly be quite the achievement.  Standout player from the matches I saw was definitely Zac Ward, who got that winning try in ET and is quite the strong carrier.

Now the circus moves on to LA and you can see our fixtures below.

VANCOUVER 7S

IRELAND WOMEN

POOL STAGE

28-7 V RSA

7-24 V BRA

5-43 V NZL

9TH-12TH PLAYOFFS

21-7 V GBR

12-7 V JPN

IRELAND MEN

POOL STAGE

14-17 V GBR

14-19 V NZL

22-10 V RSA

QUARTERFINAL

5-12 V FRA

5TH PLAYOFF

24-19 V FIJI (AET)

LOS ANGELES 7S

SAT MAR 2

12:30AM – WOMEN V AUSTRALIA

3:38AM – MEN V SOUTH AFRICA

6:14PM – MEN V SPAIN

8:04PM – WOMEN V FRANCE

11:06PM – MEN V ARGENTINA

SUN MAR 3

12:18AM – WOMEN V JAPAN

NEXT IN THE SERIES…

HONG KONG APR 5-7

SINGAPORE MAY 3-5

MADRID MAY 31-JUN 2

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

With Stade winning the Parisien derby inflicting yet more pain on Stu’s Racing, they and Toulouse both hit the 50point mark atop the 🔝🐱🐴 table after round 16.   Castres lead the chasing pack while ROG’s La Rochelle are hanging on to barrage contention by their fingernails after the NINTH league defeat of the campaign to go with the two in Europe.  It’s actually starting to get them looking over their shoulders at the relegation positions where Montpellier are winning their way off the bottom.  Victory next Sunday against Clérmont will be critical for ROG although Toulouse v Castres is the tie of the round.  

Round 16

MONTPELLIER 28-23 BAYONNE

PERPIGNAN 27-15 LA ROCHELLE

CASTRES 41-12 BORDEAUX

LYON 43-26 OYONNAX

PAU 17-9 TOULON

RACING 92 11-27 STADE FRANCAIS

CLÉRMONT 33-37 TOULOUSE

Round 17

SAT MAR 2

TOULOUSE V CASTRES

BAYONNE V LYON

OYONNAX V MONTPELLIER

STADE FRANÇAIS V PAU

TOULON V PERPIGNAN

BORDEAUX V RACING 92

SUN MAR 3

LA ROCHELLE V CLÉRMONT

AIL UPDATE 

It was essentially a final trial match ahead of the Women’s Six Nations but the all-Irish clash at the Kingspan Stadium also offered the Wolfhounds the opportunity to lift the Celtic Challenge title, and they accepted the offer with a convincing 47-26 victory over the Clovers.  They can’t be caught atop the table so congrats are definitely in order!  Here’s hoping they can continue the winning ways with the green jersey on, absolutely vital that we get at least a win or two under our belt.

Meanwhile in the AIL both genders return to action after a bye week, with Lansdowne v Cork Con in the men’s comp being the pick of the fixtures.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

SECOND PLAYOFF ROUND

GWALIA LIGHTNING 43-5 GLASGOW WARRIORS

WOLFHOUNDS 47-26 CLOVERS

THIRD PLAYOFF ROUND

SUN MAR 3

CLOVERS V EDINBURGH

BRYTHON THUNDER V GWALIA LIGHTNING

WOMEN’S AIL

NO FIXTURES LAST WEEKEND

Round 13

SAT MAR 2

SUTTONIANS V OLD BELVEDERE

COOKE V UL BOHS

GALWEGIANS V BLACKROCK

WICKLOW V BALLINCOLLIG

MEN’S AIL

NO FIXTURES LAST WEEKEND

ROUND 15

SAT MAR 2

CLONTARF V YOUNG MUNSTER

TRINITY V CITY OF ARMAGH

LANSDOWNE V CORK CON

SHANNON V BALLYNAHINCH

TERENURE V UCD

RUGBY EUROPE CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

I will be very surprised if it isn’t a Georgia v Portugal final but you never know, we’ll see if Romania and Spain can cause an upset.

NO FIXTURES LAST WEEKEND

SEMIFINALS

SAT MAR 2

GEORGIA V ROMANIA

SUN MAR 3

PORTUGAL V SPAIN

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Short but sweet column this week, next up we’re turning our attention to Leinster’s URC visit to Cardiff keep an eye out for the preview & wrap pods.

Finally, as ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Feb 14

On this week’s column…

🏉 SILENT LANSDOWNE

🏉 RED/GREEN

🏉 ALL THOSE OFFLOADS

🏉 STEVIE’S CALLING

🏉 THE DUPONTE LAW

🏉 ON ANDY GIVEN SUNDAY

🏉 A GROUNDING IN THE TMO’S ROLE

🏉 LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

🏉 RUGBYPASS TV’S UPS & DOWNS

🏉 UPDATES [Incl 🔝🐱🐴, AIL] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere, now including a few thoughts added by myself (JLP).

Ladies and gentleman, thank you for observing 17 minutes’ silence.

Players not deaf to the infamous Lansdowne hush

Michael Glennon – RTÉ.ie

JLP : The quote might be tongue in cheek but although I wasn’t there myself the reports I heard were that it was a very subdued Aviva crowd, with suggestions it might have to do with a “prawn sandwich” element who were able to afford the ticket price without necessarily being totally invested in the actual rugby.
“This is not about Scottish Rugby being belligerent.”

Scottish Rugby call on governing body to admit officials got try decision wrong

Matthew Elder – The Scotsman

JLP : I harped on this in the bonus clip as you’ll see below, but although I believe the officials came to the correct decision, I can’t really blame the SRU for getting an extra news cycle out of the incident.  This might have an air of “John Delaney asking for Ireland to be 33rd team” about it, but the call was so goddam close and decisive that you can see how they’d lash out, once they are also aware that the Scots did have plenty of chances before that to win the game as well….
The change should create more room for counterattackers as the defending team will all be offside until put back onside by the kicker, or kick-chasers.

Super Rugby closes kick tennis loophole to reward attack

Paul Cully – Stuff.co.nz

JLP : We found this link AFTER Tom’s bit in the bonus clip so at least there is something being tried to fix that wretched Duponte Law.
The ruling from Six Nations (means) in 2025 it would be Ireland travelling to Cardiff to wear a change strip 

Wales and Ireland to play each other in traditional red and green jerseys for final time as ban enforced

Jon Doel – Wales Online

JLP : I wondered why I had red about this red/green think years ago yet Wales/Ireland matches weren’t affected.  I would have thought that if it was definitely a problem for a portion of fans which had been officially identified by the sport’s governing body then surely the thing to do would be to make the change right away, but I suppose these things take time?
“There was 11 offloads for Ireland today, that is significant. There was only three last week.“

Brian O’Driscoll Identifies The Most Eye-Catching Stat From Ireland’s Win Over Italy

Gary Connaughton – Balls.ie

JLP : The quote pretty much tells the story, only thing I’d add is that most of that 11 weren’t just offloads, they were Marks & Spencer offloads…high risk but even higher confidence.

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A (DELAYED) WRAP

Nobody likes a set weekly routine more than myself but when our feature match is on a Sunday afternoon there’s just no way I can prepare a wrap pod to my liking in time so we waited until the Monday.   Tom “LeinsterRoyalty” Coleman became our latest member of the 50-cap club joining Keego and Conor Cronin, and he and Jay did their usual bang-up job reviewing the whitewashing of Italy, although Tom did cause my  first 2024 use of the “Gran’s Lamb Protocol” where we vow not to use a certain phrase depicting 5 Irish wins until it is either achieved or no longer possible, so I had to deploy a “beep” sound at one point after he dropped the “S word” 😜.  

If you missed the wrap pod, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

BONUS CLIP

A mixed bag of chosen topics this week, I have added the transcript from my bit below.

“A GROUNDING IN TMOs”

Now it’s time for my bit and after Tom harping on the kicking duel at the end of the first half of Scotland v France, I’d like to focus on an even more controversial incident from the end of the second in the same match.

Now when I say “controversial” I’m a bit torn on the use of this word.  It seems a bit sensationalist especially when you consider that I actually agree with the way the officials reached their decision.

But what I suppose does make it controversial was the fact that it was a call about a score that would have literally changed the result of the entire match as there was no time left on the clock.  Throw in the fact that the decision went against the home team and you have what must be up there with the top nightmares faced by referees in all sports.

Still I have to go back and explain why I agree with the officials so let’s look at the incident.  And to do this we need to take all the situational stuff out of it.  Forget it’s at Murrayfield, forget it’s Scotland, forget they were four points behind with the clock in the red.

On the 9th phase of a series Sam Skinner carried the ball over the line where he ran into some French defenders.  There was the predictable mass of bodies all around the ball but from referee Nic Berry’s angle, the ball was held up and that is how he called it.  This is the most critical information of the entire incident for me, but there is of course a lot more.

Berry ensured the Scots that the decision would be reviewed, which put matters into the hands of TMO Brian MacNeice.  OK, now you might think I’m defending his decision because he’s Irish but I suppose all I can do is hope that you appreciate that my actual motivation is for the correct decision to be reached where possible.

Anyway what MacNeice had to do was look over as many available angles as he could to see if there was a grounding – and that word grounding is the second most important aspect to all of this.  For this he had to hope for there to be a decent gap among all the other moving parts in the way…arms, legs, heads, boots, even the occasional arse, to catch a glimpse of the ball.

And as many have been at pains to point out, it does look to all intents and purposes that the ball actually does make its way to the Murrayfield grass.  In fact, many of those fans also went to great pains to screengrab the image the TMO was looking at as though it offered some “proof” that it should have been awarded as a try.

And to be fair, during the early part of MacNeice’s dialogue as he watched, it really did sound as though he wanted to award the try.  But there was a problem you see, one that those understandably eager screengrabbing Scottish fans probably missed.

It might seem like a contradiction but the fact remains that the ball touching the ground is not all we need to see in order to call it a grounding.  There is absolutely no evidence that Skinner or indeed any other Scotsman has their hand on the ball as it touches down.  And you need both.  He could have let it go.  There may have been separation.  And remember, even when it comes to the ball touching the ground, we were never 100% because we couldn’t actually see it.

All of which led MacNeice to say to Berry : “I cannot see for certain, I don’t have ball on ground Nick”

So what happens now?  It’s very simple.  With no conclusive way to overturn his original decision, Berry was only left with that decision.  It is definitely unfortunate, maybe even cruel, but having watched it over and over again I can only come back to the same conclusion. 

Now of course what I did at the time was to share my opinion on twitter, and we all know what happened next, I got replies stating categorically that it was a nailed on try, many with that screengrabbed so-called “evidence”.  So to avoid falling down a social media rabbit hole, I chose not to reply and instead waited until now to make my case.

To be absolutely clear…I was 100% shouting for Scotland, they are and have always been my second favourite Six Nations team.  Like I said, we have to take our allegiances out of the equation when discussing these calls otherwise there’s really no point discussing them.

I have always been in favour of using TMOs but only in a support capacity to the onfield referee.  In my view they should always make a decision themselves, which the guy in the booth must only overrule if they have 100% certainty and it’s only when this is accepted that we can appreciate that once in a while we can have a decision that looks both horribly unfair and absolutely correct in equal measure.

STEVIE’S CALLING

I hadn’t time for a TikTok rant this week but even if I had it wouldn’t be worthy of posting instead of this…he needs no introduction from me but I’m still happy to namecheck Stevie Mulrooney he’s definitely a star in the making.

@virginmediasport

Absolutely brilliant! 👏 Stevie Mulrooney, the star of the Toy Show, sings Ireland’s Call in front of a sold out Aviva Stadium. Fantastic. 💚 IREvITA GuinnessSixNations SixNationsRugby IrishRugby Rugby

♬ original sound – Virgin Media Sport – Virgin Media Sport

LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

This week’s update did have good news with Jamie & Ross on the road to recovery but since neither were listed under “available for selection” I’m left struggling to put a Leinster backline together for Saturday without dipping into the academy, and with Hugo Keenan now not able to face Wales I’m wondering if we will even be able to avail of Ciarán Frawley’s services at all.

Harpin’ matchday 23 v 

Cosgrave, Russell, Turner, Brownlee, O’Brien T, Frawley, McGrath

Byrne E, McKee, Ala’alatoa, Molony, Jenkins, Deegan, Penny (c), Culhane

Barron, Healy, Clarkson, Deeny, Connors, Murphy, Prendergast, Turner

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:

Jamie Osborne: has increased his training load and will be further assessed this week as he makes his way back from a shoulder injury

Ross Byrne: has increased his training load and will be further assessed this week as he makes his way back from an arm injury

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

N/A

NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:

Martin Moloney (bicep), Alex Soroka (foot), Charlie Ngatai (calf), Cormac Foley (shoulder) and Jimmy O’Brien (neck)

RUGBYPASS TV UPS & DOWNS

Just a quick note on a couple of things I’ve seen on RugbyPass.TV – I was going to do my TikTok on this had I enough time (for a 3 minute video I need at least an hour that just wasn’t there this week!).

First there was Whistleblowers which I would strongly recommend.  Essentially it was “Full Contact for Referees” and definitely had a decent stab at humanising the officials from RWC2023.  I would definitely recommend it, but since they’re not paying me to say that I should also point out a video I didn’t like as well 😁.

This was Boks Office which was essentially a Springbok view of the Six Nations.  Now to be fair, this kind of input would be invaluable, coming as it does from outside the bubble, and with a panel of test capped stars (host Hanyani Shimange chatting to Jean de Villiers & Schalk Burger) you would definitely be interested.  

But this particular episode featured a review of Round 1 so obviously they would have been focusing on Ireland’s win in Marseilles.  They were full of praise for Andy Farrell’s men, but what ground my gears a tad was their assertion that Paul Willemse’s red card was the wrong call.  

I mean if that is what they honestly believed then I can’t really fault them for expressing their true opinion and I certainly wouldn’t want that opinion banned, I suppose I’m just disappointed that senior players feel that way and are clearly either ignorant of the spirit of the guidelines surrounding head contact or are actually opposed to them.  And the real irony was that I watched this chat right after I had watched Whistleblowers which noted the online abuse that referees can receive, meaning the lads’ views certainly do not help the matter.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t watch Box Office again, however, and they are certainly not alone when it comes to former-players-turned-pundits having these views.

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

After a weekend off the top four all find themselves at home in Round 15 so it’s likely for that end of the table to be just as tight, with both Oyonnax and Montpellier likely to be in even deeper relegation trouble as well.

NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND

Round 15

SAT FEB 17

LYON V LA ROCHELLE

BORDEAUX V PAU

RACING 92 V MONTPELLIER

STADE FRANCAIS V PERPIGNAN

TOULOUSE V OYONNAX

BAYONNE V CLÉRMONT

SUN FEB 18

CASTRES V TOULON

AIL UPDATE 

I have yet to find confirmation of this but I’m assuming that the way the Celtic Challenge works, the top three play each other and the results go to the final overall standings.  If so, the Wolfhounds can probably clinch the title with victory in Edinburgh this weekend, while their final match against the Clovers the following week is essentially a Six Nations trial.

While that comp took a weekend off, the Women’s AIL returned to action, with the result that came nearest to an “upset” being Belvo defeating Wicklow by “only” 13pts.  UL Bohs continued their 100% start, the gap between the top four and the rest grew wider, and that same four all avoid each other yet again in the next round. 

It wa a similar case in the men’s top division with the top four all victorious, although Cork Con seemed to have a bit of a scare at bottom of the table Trinity.  Tie of the round this weekend is definitely the 3rdv4th/Dublin derby that is Lansdowne v Terenure.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND

WOMEN’S AIL

Round 11

SAT FEB 10

SUTTONIANS 0-22 BALLINCOLLIG

COOKE 5-29 RAILWAY UNION

GALWEGIANS 5-58 UL BOHS

WICKLOW 12-25 BELVO

Round 12

SAT FEB 17

UL BOHS V SUTTONIANS

BALLINCOLLIG V COOKE

BLACKROCK V WICKLOW

RAILWAY UNION V GALWEGIANS

MEN’S AIL

ROUND 13

CLONTARF 45-24 BALLYNAHINCH

TRINITY 17-19 CORK CON

SHANNON 13-28 LANSDOWNE

TERENURE 25-10 YOUNG MUNSTER

UCD 32-22 CITY OF ARMAGH

ROUND 13

SAT FEB 17

BALLYNAHINCH V TRINITY

ARMAGH V CLONTARF

CORK CON V SHANNON

LANSDOWNE V TERENURE

YOUNG MUNSTER V UCD

RUGBY EUROPE CHAMPIONSHIP UPDATE

I was kicking myself that I forgot to include an update for this comp last week, as I firmly believe it’s important to keep up on how these countries are doing what with the “6N promotion/expansion” returning every time Italy concedes a try and/or Georgia scores one.

There has of course already been one historic result in the 2024 Championship with Belgium defeating Portugal in round 1, although Os Lobos took out their frustrations on poor Poland last weekend with a 50🍔 while the Belgians couldn’t repeat their heroics in Bucharest.  However if Portugal are to sneak into the semifinals they will have to win in the Romanian capital on Saturday, especially if Belgium can also overcome the Poles.  Meanwhile in Pool A Georgia host Spain with both already safely through to the last four. 

ROUND 1

POLAND 8-20 ROMANIA

GERMANY 17-28 GEORGIA

BELGIUM 10-6 PORTUGAL

NETHERLANDS V SPAIN

ROUND 2

SPAIN 27-5 GERMANY

PORTUGAL 54-7 POLAND

ROMANIA 33-18 BELGIUM

GEORGIA 31-10 NETHERLANDS

ROUND 3

SAT FEB 17

GEORGIA V SPAIN

ROMANIA V PORTUGAL

BELGIUM V POLAND

SUN FEB 18

NETHERLANDS V GERMANY

HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE

Kristian had a super round 2 and a bit like Ireland has opened a commanding lead atop the 6N league, although myself and Jay are also 6 for 6 when it comes to predicting winners.  With the URC back in action this weekend that means so does the HPL so I have also included that table.  Well, yeah, ok, the fact that I’m first in that one might have play a part in my decision…….

1 Kristian 12.00

2 Jeff 9.00

3 Jay 8.50

4 Mark 7.50

5 Conor 7.00

6 Tom 1.50

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Back to the URC this weekend, with a top of the table clash at the RDS no less as Benetton will be coming to D4.  Keego will join me for a preview on Friday while the wrap recording returns to its usual Sunday evening slot.  

As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Feb 6

On this week’s column…

🏉 FRONT FIVE

🏉 “THE GRAN’S LAMB PROTOCOL”

🏉 BARRY JOHN RIP

🏉 JOSH UNDER THE BUS

🏉 IRELAND’S IMPROVING LINEOUT

🏉 A BONUS POINT ABOUT BONUS POINTS

🏉 SCRUMS UP IN THE AIR

🏉 UPDATES [Incl 🔝🐱🐴, AIL] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere, now including a few thoughts added by myself (JLP).

Barring a truly spectacular stumble, though, it is Ireland’s trophy to lose.
Six Nations rivals must react quickly to soaring Ireland after Marseille mauling
Robert Kitson – The Guardian

JLP : On our podcasts, the superstition I like to call the “Gran’s Lamb Protocol” has been put in place where we don’t use the phrase which refers to 5 wins out of 5 on the pod until it either happens or no longer can happen.  It’s partly genuine superstition, partly a bit o’ craic.  That doesn’t mean I share opinions in the media from other countries however, and after that first round of matches Kitson’s assertion is pretty on the nose.
“There was times when they scored that the crowd was going crazy…he was just calm, just telling us to get back into it…”
Josh van der Flier: Cool Peter O’Mahony helped us shut out Marseille maelstrom
Simon Lewis – Irish Examiner

JLP : Hang on…a Leinster player praising his Munster captain?  Surely not!  Seriously though…this is great to see and doesn’t contradict a single thing we saw with our own eyes on the night.  And as many have commented, during POM’s spell on the sideline Caelan Doris did a bang up job showing leadership as well.
“In theory…could just stop there and as long as nobody moved you could just take a break in play. It’s madness.”
Jackman And Lenihan Want To See ‘Ridiculous’ Dupont Law Changed
Eoin Harrington – Balls.ie

JLP : Here’s a radical idea…how about extend the “mark” rule beyond the 22 all the way to the halfway line?  Yeah that probably makes no sense, I literally just thought of it as I was typing, but whatever the solution I totally agree with Berch & Donal that the multiple bouts of kick tennis can be painful to watch.
“You have to remember this was an amateur game…Yes, he wanted to win every game he played, but it wasn’t life and death to him and it wasn’t his job.”
The genius of Barry John, his final Wales match and the only three people he told about it
Mark Orders – Wales Online

JLP : When John was in his heyday I was just a wee lad myself so I can’t relate to the impact he had on the game at the time but certainly the anecdotal evidence showed what a superstar he was in Wales at the time.  Sad though his passing of course is, one can hope that it might just help bring some unity across the principality that is badly needed with the sport he loved in such disarray.  In a couple of weeks I will be speaking to author Seimon Williams about his book “Welsh rugby – What Went Wrong?” where we will of course have much to discuss.
The quarter final ties will be played on the week commencing Monday 19th February
Draw for the Leinster Schools Senior Cup Quarterfinals
Paul Cahill – LeinsterRugby.ie

JLP : Terenure v St Michael’s seems to be the pick of the bunch although Monkstown v Mary’s might actually be the closest tie, we’ll see how they pan out.  From here on in all matches will be shown live on Premier Sports Ireland.

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A WRAP

When I say how many “caps” a contributor has, it is generally with tongue in cheek, but it is worth mentioning when they reach a milestone like Conor Cronin did when he earned his 50th in wrapping the France match on Sunday evening.  He and Mark Jackson, himself just back from a spell on the sidelines, did an excellent job poring over the timeline of the match, and for once I have actually remembered also to remember the preview which was done by Keego who accurately predicted an Irish win although nobody could have dreamed of a 21-point margin!!!

If you missed the wrap pod, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

HARPIN ON…WARREN G, LINEOUTS & BONUS POINTS

Still playing around with the format for the bonus pod but this week’s changes were more on the graphic side of things – having gone with individual videos for my all-provincial panel last week I looked to retain it for this one and I’d say it worked pretty well.  Conor focused on Gatland’s tactless post-match presser, Mark on Ireland’s lineout and I rehashed a bonus point theme I have been harping on for a while.

SCRUMS UP IN THE AIR

These TikTok rants are starting to go a bit longer than they probably should be, my original hope was that they should be no longer than two minutes.  But that said I have to cut the cloth to suit the topic and I felt the extra bits were worth it for this one.

@harpinonrugby

Our 80+ column posts every Tuesday afternoon at HarpinOnRugby.com

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

There was no way Racing could keep losing while holding on to 1st place in the 🔝🐱🐴 but despite slipping to 4th they’re still only a point off their Parisian rivals who have reached the summit.  La Rochelle won’t feel so badly about being just six points off the pace given how their season has gone so far.

Meanwhile down at the bottom it is concerning to see names like Lyon and Montpellier in the relegation discussion but with 12 rounds to go and the way results in this league yoyo back and forth, for all we know they could still make the playoffs!

Most importantly, who’s idea was it to have a round on the opening 6N weekend?  Crazy all round, and you could argue that it hurt the French Under 20s as well.  But the 🔝🐱🐴 takes a breather next weekend.

Round 14

PERPIGNAN 26-5 RACING 92

OYONNAX 19-23 STADE FRANCAIS

CLÉRMONT 38-21 LYON

LA ROCHELLE 18-10 MONTPELLIER

PAU 33-44 CASTRES

TOULOUSE 46-26 BAYONNE

TOULON 32-37 BORDEAUX

Round 15

SAT FEB 17

LYON V LA ROCHELLE

BORDEAUX V PAU

RACING 92 V MONTPELLIER

STADE FRANCAIS V PERPIGNAN

TOULOUSE V OYONNAX

BAYONNE V CLÉRMONT

SUN FEB 18

CASTRES V TOULON

AIL UPDATE 

I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure I went looking for a dedicated website for the Celtic Challenge competition and it only seems to be operational in the past week or so.   I also thought I was following this comp closely yet only now do I realise that it is not just a straight round robin format, in actual fact after 5 rounds the teams break into a top 3 and bottom 3 with two more matches for each to decide the placings.

All of which means the Wolfhounds v Clovers matchup on the weekend of the 24th will make for a decent final trial ahead of our upcoming 6 Nations campaign.

Now after my assertion in recent weeks that the Celtic Comp clashing with the AIL Cup wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it will be interesting to see if these extra matches have an effect on the actual Women’s AIL which returns this weekend – as you can see the top four all avoid each other.

And in actual fact the same can be said of the men’s top division which also kicks back into gear this weekend, chances are the playoff spots there too will remain the same.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

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

NO MATCHES LAST WEEKEND

ROUND 13

SAT FEB 10

CLONTARF V BALLYNAHINCH

TRINITY V CORK CON

SHANNON V LANSDOWNE

TERENURE V YOUNG MUNSTER

UCD V CITY OF ARMAGH

HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE

Kristian was keen to start up a fresh prediction league for the Six Nations so I obliged – no prizes or forfeits, just bragging right and as you can see three of us correctly predicted the three away wins from round 1.

1 Conor 5.00

2 Jeff 5.00

3 Kristian 5.00

4 Jay 4.00

5 Mark 2.00

6 Tom 1.50

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Italy are next on the agenda with the wrap pod moved to a Monday evening recording although the preview should post on Friday as normal.

As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Jan 30

On this week’s column…

🏉 FRONT FIVE

🏉 WRAP OF A NON-WRAP

🏉 HARPIN ON…CON, ULS & MUN

🏉 WONDERS OF THE 7s WORLD

🏉 APPEALING APPEAL

🏉 UPDATES [Incl 🔝🐱🐴 , Prem & AIL] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere.

As he is Irish qualified, Burns would have additional appeal to Munster, who a few years ago had something of a logjam at ‘10′
Munster line up move for Ulster outhalf Billy Burns
Gerry Thornley – Irish Times
An independent appeals committee will hear the case via video conference (Tuesday).
EPCR to appeal Josh Caulfield red card decision
Michael Glennon – RTÉ.ie
“he’s probably been one of the main drivers of the team over the last number of weeks, and the run of games where we’ve been pretty successful.”
Irish Top 14 Coach On What To Expect From ‘Outstanding’ Dupont Replacement
Colman Stanley – Balls.ie
…(he) held the role of assistant coach under Declan Kidney during his time at London Irish.
Danaher new defence coach for Ireland women
SixNationsRugby.com
“You’re fat, you’re lazy”
England star tells all about Eddie Jones x-rated rant
Ruck.co.uk

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A NON-WRAP

No Leinster or Ireland action last weekend so nothing to wrap which meant it was a good time for one of our “all provincial panels” where we look for some opinions  on the Irish squad from outside the blue-jersey bubble.  Joining me were two much-capped Harpists in Messrs Ian Frizzell & Pádraig Kelly and we also had an excellent debut from Patricia V who offered a Munster slant on things. 

If you missed it, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

HARPIN ON…CON, ULS & MUN SEASONS SO FAR

As I say in the intro, it would be rude not to have fans of the other provinces on without asking them to summarize how their respective seasons have gone so far, and thi made for a perfect bonus clip topic.

WONDERS OF THE 7s WORLD

The regular sevens update is below and this was quite a week for it, but I also wanted to harp on the code for my TikTok bit since I was a bit negative a while ago over the whole Duponte thing.

@harpinonrugby

This is part of our 80+ column which posts at harpinonrugby.com every Tuesday #irishtiktok #rugbytiktoks🏉

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

APPEALING APPEAL

Harped last week about the Caulfield decision…as you can see in the Front Five segment the EPCR has taken up the case to restore my faith in the sport, at least until we see how the matter is finally resolved.  To summarise, I reckon that since the referee can clearly be heard saying the stamp was “intentional”, IMO the final ruling has to somehow resolve this, either by cleaning it up by saying he mis-spoke or by applying the appropriate sanction because if a player intends to stamp like that on an opponents’ head, they should know this is not the port for them.

URC WRAP

Couple of extra matches down in SA throughout January which official brought the URC 23/24 regular season to the halfway stage, resuming with a top of the table clash at the RDS in mid-Feb.

ROUND 8

SHARKS 18-20 LIONS

ROUND 9

BULLS 30-28 LIONS

ROUND 10

FRI FEB 16

SCARLETS V MUNSTER

ZEBRE V EDINBURGH

SAT FEB 17

LIONS V BULLS

LEINSTER V BENETTON

SHARKS V STORMERS

CARDIFF V CONNACHT

GLASGOW WARRIORS V DRAGONS

SUN FEB 18

OSPREYS V ULSTER

“SVNS” UPDATE

Both genders got off to winning starts in Perth but then I tweeted about it which of course meant they both went on to lose their next matches so I decided it was best to stop doing that.

The rest, as you probably know, is history as both teams bounced back with two wins on the Saturday to put them in semifinals, the women overcoming Fiji and the men only falling to an Argentine squad which went on to win the whole thing and now tops the series table.

Let us be perfectly clear about what the Irish women achieved to win their final.  Australia were not just firm favourites on account of being the home side.  They have easily been the form team over the series so far and when Ireland weren’t able to capitalise on them putting their kickoff out on the full, Casslick’s try after 2 minutes to put them ahead seemed to be the beginning of the end for us.

But we stormed right back from the restart with great combinations that allowed Beibhinn Parsons to draw us level before a bizarre series at the end of the half when Ireland attacked their line as Australia shipped 5, yes, FIVE consecutive penalties before the referee flashed a card and even then we weren’t certain to capitalise although eventually skipper Lucy Mulhall got us an absolutely crucial score before the break.

The Aussies struck back to level things up as Levi stormed up the middle for their second converted try but some absolutely savage Irish defending around halfway forced a knockon putting us back in opposition territory before Eve Higgins nudged us back in front.  This put the whole ball game on the restart and we won it back to kill the game and claim a famous victory.

We now sit in 4th on the women’s table with Australia still comfortably ahead at the top, while it’s Argentina who have the commanding lead on the men’s side and while over there Ireland are 5th, we’re actually a lot closer to second so there is a whole lot for both genders to play for when the series rolls around to Vancouver in February.

PERTH 7s

#IREW7s 

POOL STAGE 

USA 14-19 IRE

NZL 21-14 IRE 

IRE 26-7 JPN

QF

FIJ 12-14 IRE 

SF

IRE 31-7 GBR

F

AUS 14-19 IRE

#IREM7s

POOL STAGE

IRE 17-12 GB

IRE 7-26 USA

AUS 10-19 IRE

QF

IRE 21-14 FRA

SF

IRE 5-24 ARG

3rd place playoff

IRE 24-7 FIJ

NEXT IN THE SERIES…

VANCOUVER FEB 23-25

LOS ANGELES MAR 2-3

HONG KONG APR 5-7

SINGAPORE MAY 3-5

MADRID MAY 31-JUN 2

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

The big question here is how the hell are Racing still top when they keep losing?  This time it was Toulouse overcoming them in Paris and now only 4 pts separate the top 5 with La Rochelle staying in touch with the playoff spots by their fingernails after a 7th loss of the campaign.

You might think the 🔝🐱🐴 might respect the 6mas tradition and take this coming weekend off but you’d be wrong, with Toulon v Bordeaux probably the pick of the seven matches.

Round 13

BORDEAUX 26-30 STADE FRANCAIS

BAYONNE 21-17 OYONNAX

CASTRES 20-23 CLÉRMONT

LYON 36-24 PERPIGNAN

MONTPELLIER 22-17 PAU

TOULON 25-23 LA ROCHELLE

RACING 92 20-27 TOULOUSE

Round 14

SAT FEB 3

PERPIGNAN V RACING 92

OYONNAX V STADE FRANCAIS

CLÉRMONT V LYON

LA ROCHELLE V MONTPELLIER

PAU V CASTRES

TOULOUSE V BAYONNE

SUN FEB 4

TOULON V BORDEAUX

PREMIERSHIP UPDATE

After such a successful Champions Cup pool stage, Northampton were able to ease back into the domestic comp with a handy home win over hapless Newcastle but the match everyone was walking about was the West Country derby where Bristol outlasted Bath in a shootout including a very un-Messi-like brainfart from Finn Russell towards the end.

The Saints now have a 7 point lead with 9 wins although there’s quite the chasing pack with SIX clubs all have the same won 7 lost 5 record so it’s all to play for in the next round…which doesn’t roll around until the end of March.

ROUND 11

HARLEQUINS 19-20 LEICESTER TIGERS

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS 38-13 NEWCASTLE FALCONS

BRISTOL BEARS 57-44 BATH

SARACENS 40-22 EXETER CHIEFS

GLOUCESTER 32-20 SALE SHARKS

ROUND 13

FRI MAR 22

BRISTOL V NORTHAMPTON

LEICESTER TIGERS V GLOUCESTER

SAT MAR 23

BATH V SALE SHARKS

EXETER CHIEFS V NEWCASTLE

SARACENS V HARLEQUINS

AIL UPDATE 

Wolfhounds are on the verge of securing the Celtic Challenge title after a convincing win over the Thunder made it 4 wins from 4 and victory over the other Welsh club Gwalia Lightning next weekend will get the mostly Leinster/Ulster outfit over the line, while Edinburgh hosting the Clovers could be a contest for 2nd place although both are still mathematically in the title race.

Over in the Men’s AIL, Cork Con edged the big clash with Tarf by the point to narrow the North Dublin side’s lead at the top to just one point while Lansdowne, Terenure and Hinch all kept themselves in the playoff picture with victories.

The league takes a break for 6Mas weekend.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

ROUND 4

GLASGOW WARRIORS 10-29 CLOVERS

WOLFHOUNDS 41-10 BRYTHON THUNDER

GWALIA LIGHTNING 19-20 EDINBURGH

ROUND 4

SAT FEB 3

EDINBURGH V CLOVERS

WOLFHOUNDS V GWALIA LIGHTNING

BRYTHON THUNDER V GLASGOW WARRIORS

MEN’S AIL

ROUND 12

BALLYNAHINCH 40-13 UCD

CITY OF ARMAGH 29-21 YOUNG MUNSTER

CORK CON 27-26 CLONTARF

LANSDOWNE 31-19 DUBLIN UNIV

SHANNON 5-31 TERENURE

ROUND 13

SAT FEB 10

CLONTARF V BALLYNAHINCH

TRINITY V CORK CON

SHANNON V LANSDOWNE

TERENURE V YOUNG MUNSTER

UCD V CITY OF ARMAGH

HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE

Just the one URC match last weekend which formally ended Round 9 – and while everyone predicted the Bulls to beat the Lions, it was actually only Keego who said it would be as close as it was so just this once he was one with bragging rights…until he saw the overall table of course.  He’ll need a lot more forecasts to go his way over the second half of the season if he is to avoid retaining the Jersey of Shame.

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

It’s 6mas week and thus a busy one…on Wednesday I’ll post a special pod interview with Ball Handling Hooker looking at the latest crop of Irish Under 20 players ahead of their own Grand Slam defence, then with the big match being on Friday, our preview with Keego moves to Thursday but the wrap pod will stay in its usual slot, recording on Sunday.

As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Jan 23

On this week’s column…

🏉 FRONT FIVE

🏉 WRAP OF A WRAP

🏉 HARPIN ON…

🏉 POM TIKTOK

🏉 LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

🏉 FOUL PLAY ‘✓’ RED CARD ‘✖’ ME ‘?’

🏉 WOMEN’S AIL CUP

🏉 UPDATES [Incl 7s & Chall Cup] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere.

“I don’t buy into that four-year cycle talk.”
Andy Farrell outlines why Ireland had no uncapped players in full Six Nations squad
Patrick McCarry – SportsJoe.ie
With Jelonch’s absence, 21 of the players who competed at last year’s World Cup on home soil are in the Six Nations squad
France duo Anthony Jelonch and Emmanuel Meafou out of Ireland game
RTÉ.ie
…current boss Gatland has admitted Ruddock is a viable option “at some stage” during the tournament
Warren Gatland says one Ireland star ‘potentially available’ to Wales for Six Nations
Mark Donlon – Extra.ie
“Owen Farrell joins Racing 92 from 1 July, initially singing a two-year deal.”
Owen Farrell joins Racing 92 in summer
Alan Dymock – Rugby World
In a poll run by the NZ Herald…41% of readers [gave] the former Ireland head coach the thumbs up….Only 37% of readers voted for Robertson
Kiwis snub Razor for Schmidt
SA Rugby Mag

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A WRAP

Thankfully we didn’t lose any actual rugby to Storm Isha but we nearly lost our wrap pod as Jay reported power outages in his area up to an hour to our recording time but he made it through and along with Rich they did a top job going back over the win at Welford Road.

If you missed it, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

HARPIN ON…JOE TO AUS, PREM IN CC & WHAT IS “RECKLESS”?

In our latest bonus clip we have Rich looking at some rare positive news for Australian rugby, Jay points out the success of the Premiership clubs in this season’s Champions Cup and below you see the transcript of my contribution where I harp on the continued misunderstanding when it comes to anti-concussion regulations.

RECKLESS DEFINITIONS

Well we’ve had to do a lot of rethinking of how we look at tackles over the past decade or so.  From all the talk of zero tolerance which somehow reduced itself to zero over time to the bunker system trialled at the recent Rugby World Cup that seemed to work pretty well for the most part, the game’s powers that be have made several efforts to make the game safer.

And whenever I go to harp on this topic I always feel I have to point out that safety is the driving force behind these changes, because every time there’s a debate over the way a particular on-field decision is worked out, there still seems to be a lot of people out there who just can’t get that concept.

Without fail when a red card gets flashed you’ll find somebody somewhere using one of the most triggering phrases for me right now, namely “that’s a disgraceful call there’s no way that was intentional.”  I really can’t get my head around just how this issue hasn’t been put to bed years ago.

Just this weekend we had at least two perfect examples of this in the final pool round of the Champions Cup, first there was a stamp by Bristol’s Josh Caulfield on the head of Connacht’s Finlay Bealham and then on Saturday evening Tom Ahern got the knee of Northampton’s Curtis Langdon to the head twice, with the second one leading to another red.

Now it might be wrong for me to choose these particular examples since in both cases the injured parties were players for Irish provinces which might make it look like I’m biased, but I have to look past that because the only way we can have a proper discussion about this is by taking the jersey colours out of the equation.

In Caulfield’s case the bulk of the disagreement stemmed from the referee’s use of the word “intentional” as he announced his final decision.  This led to a flurry of reactions which implied that if there was no intent, then it couldn’t be red and that literally could not be further from the truth.

On the official list of criteria that citing commissioners use to assess foul play, there are 13 items listed in order of importance.  At the top of that list is “intentional/deliberate”.  But right behind it at number 2, or b to be precise, is the word “reckless”.  I really hope the problem here is that people don’t know what that word means, rather than it’s that they don’t realise just how important recklessness is in determining a red card and further sanction.  It’s just one below actual intent and it still leads to red.

Now the referee’s ruling for the Langdon dismissal at Thomond Park made this much, much clearer. He said QUOTE “The first contact was clearly accidental. The second one we can’t say it’s intentional, but it is reckless the player is definitely injured so it is red card.” END QUOTE Not even the French accent of Monsieur Trainini could mask this very clear explanation of the Laws and guidelines right there.

I really hope we can at least come to a point where the vast majority of those enjoying these top rugby matches appreciate what’s involved in these decisions, because while it’s bad enough to see those watching at home on their sofas not understanding, when we’re still getting it from ex-players in the media in the year 2024 it really does make you feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall which of course leads to the very kind of injuries these sanctions are genuinely trying to avoid. 

TRUST YOUR CAPTAIN

It really bugs me to see all the speculation over Peter’s contract, especially when I see it going to such lengths as to compare his situation to others suggesting there is some kind of conspiracy at work against him and/or his province.  We don’t know enough, it’s none of our business, AND he is the ‘War God’ so let’s just trust him and get on with supporting the boys in green.

@harpinonrugby

Our 80+ column posts every Tuesday at HarpinOnRugby.com

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

Nothing released at time of posting and Leinster are off until February anyway so might leave this segment aside for the next few week – besides, it’s time to start giving Irish team updates starting next Tuesday.

FOUL PLAY ‘✓’ RED CARD ‘✖’ ME ‘?’

Having referenced the Caulfield challenge in the bonus clip which was recorded Sunday, his actual hearing came just 24 hours later and the result was disappointing if not surprising.

Please don’t get me wrong – I don’t actually want to see any player banned for a long length of time but the fact remained the player was sent off for a stamp to the head which the referee clearly described as “intentional” so I was very curious to see how the final ruling would address this because if a player is judged to have intentionally stamped on the head of an opponent surely the only option is for a lengthy ban.  

As you see below, instead, they just ignored that part of it altogether.

“Caulfield was sent off by the referee, Pierre Brousset (France), in the 13th minute of the match for stamping on the Connacht Rugby prop, Finlay Bealham, in contravention of Law 9.12.

The committee determined that Caulfield had committed an act of foul play, however, it found that the offence did not warrant a red card, and the red card decision was therefore overturned.”

I assumed they’d clean up the “intentional” remark like perhaps saying the ref mis-spoke and to be honest I prefer that much more to actually pretending it wasn’t said at all or at least wasn’t significant.

But on top of that, to determine it was both foul play AND not a red card is like saying 2+2=62,387 as far as I’m concerned.

“SVNS” UPDATE

The new look “SVNS” circuit gets back underway this weekend with the latest event in Perth.  Significance of this one is that it’s over three days so teams won’t have more than two matches per day which should obviously help the fitness levels.  After two rounds the women sit in 7th and the men 5th with both more than capable of moving up their respective ladders.  As ever all the action will be streamed live via Rugbypass.tv.

IRELAND’S PERTH FIXTURES

FRIDAY, JANUARY 26

5:32AM – WOMEN V USA

7:51AM – MEN V GREAT BRITAIN

9:56AM – WOMEN V NEW ZEALAND

12:50PM – MEN V USA

SATURDAY, JANUARY 27

2:44AM – WOMEN V JAPAN

6:11AM – MEN V AUSTRALIA

NEXT IN THE SERIES…

VANCOUVER FEB 23-25

LOS ANGELES MAR 2-3

HONG KONG APR 5-7

SINGAPORE MAY 3-5

MADRID MAY 31-JUN 2

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

Some big clashes at the top of the table as 1st plays 3rd and 2nd plays 4th in Round 13 (which is the halfway point of the regular season btw) but for me the match of the round is La Rochelle’s trip to Toulon – defeat for ROG’s men would be their 7th of the campaign and put them even further away from that elusive Brennus.

Round 13

SAT JAN 27

BORDEAUX V STADE FRANCAIS

BAYONNE V OYONNAX

CASTRES V CLÉRMONT

LYON V PERPIGNAN

MONTPELLIER V PAU

TOULON V LA ROCHELLE

SUN JAN 28

RACING 92 V TOULOUSE

PREMIERSHIP UPDATE

Northampton are arguably the form team in Europe right now and with winless Newcastle due to visit Franklin’s Gardens in round 12 they could well extend their lead at the top with many of the chasing pack playing each other.

ROUND 11

FRI JAN 26

HARLEQUINS V LEICESTER TIGERS

SAT JAN 27

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS V NEWCASTLE FALCONS

BRISTOL BEARS V BATH

SARACENS V EXETER CHIEFS

SUN JAN 28

GLOUCESTER V SALE SHARKS

AIL UPDATE 

A lot of online chatter in women’s rugby has been about the postponements in the AIL Cup but to repeat an opinion I shared here a few weeks ago, I’m not altogether sure this represents another stick to beat the IRFU with necessarily.

Sure, it is far from a good look for senior clubs to be unable to field players in an official competition, but we need to remember why the competition exists in the first place.  

Last season both the interpro series & WAIL were done and dusted before Christmas, definitely a “stick” as mentioned above.  So this season, they turned the WAIL into a home-and-away competition AND with the expansion of the international Celtic Challenge to include an extra team, they made sure there were no league fixtures overlapping with it and instead used the cup to give the clubs some rugby in that time.

So while it is true that this ended up exposing the lack of available players, I would argue that it was done with the best intentions, while adding that it is certainly not MY intention to defend the IRFU for the sake of it.  

In this case, just to be devil’s advocate if nothing else, I’d suggest maybe they tried to offer more competitive rugby but just overshot the mark.

Anyway…back to the Celtic Challenge, and after a week off it returns to action with the table-topping Wolfhounds hosting Brython Thunder while the Colvers must travel to Glasgow.  Live coverage will be on RugbyPass.tv again.

Over on the men’s side, Tarf slipped up at home to Lansdowne allowing the chasing pack to catch up and with Hinch narrowly losing out to the Cookies it means the top four are starting to see some daylight.  Pick of the next round is an easy one with the top two going at it down in Cork.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

ROUND 4

SAT JAN 27

GLASGOW WARRIORS V CLOVERS

WOLFHOUNDS V BRYTHON THUNDER

SUN JAN 28

GWALIA LIGHTNING V EDINBURGH

MEN’S AIL

ROUND 11

CITY OF ARMAGH 13-37 TERENURE

CLONTARF 26-29 LANSDOWNE

TRINITY 38-9 SHANNON 

UCD 24-34 CORK CON

YOUNG MUNSTER 26-25 BALLYNAHINCH 

ROUND 12

SAT JAN 27

BALLYNAHINCH V UCD

CITY OF ARMAGH V YOUNG MUNSTER

CORK CON V CLONTARF

LANSDOWNE V DUBLIN UNIV

SHANNON V TERENURE

CHALLENGE CUP UPDATE

Even with the round of 16 pairing being decided after round 4 the highlight for me was the news from Tblisi as Black Lion may have fallen at the final hurdle and missed out on further progress but still that 17k attendance for the visit of Clérmont certainly caught the eye.

And while we’re at the bottom end of the competition we really have to mention the demise of the Scarlets this season, for a club that won a major title as relatively recently as 2017 it’s a real disappointment to see them struggling in both competitions now.

So anyway back to the competition itself, like I said there are now 16 left in contention with four dropping down from the Champions Cup which included both Ulster and Connacht, both of which face tricky challenges away to 🔝🐱🐴 opposition.

Personally I’m looking at that bracket and wondering if Benetton aren’t worth a sneaky bet to win it all?

ROUND 4

GLOUCESTER 35-5 CASTRES

SCARLETS 19-31 EDINBURGH

BLACK LION 3-36 CLÉRMONT

PAU 28-27 ZEBRE

OYONNAX 28-27 CHEETAHS

BENETTON 27-19 MONTPELLIER

PERPIGNAN 23-32 NEWC ASTLE

LIONS 28-38 OSPREYS

DRAGONS 9-29 SHARKS

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Time to hang up the blue jersey for a bit and go back to the green, in fact I’ll have to take the time to go change the logos on all the social media channels too.  On Sunday evening with no wrap pod I will instead be having fans from Ulster, Connacht & Munster on to look at Ireland’s Six Nations chances, and while I have them it would probably be rude not to ask them to harp on their own provinces a bit too. 

We should have some other content floating around as well so keep tabs with any or all of our social media channels and please comment, like, share & subscribe whenever the mood takes you.

As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Jan 16

On this week’s column…

🏉 FRONT FIVE

🏉 WRAP OF A WRAP

🏉 2ND STRINGING US ALONG

🏉 MUNSTER TRIAGE

🏉 A TONY BRIDGE TOO FAR

🏉 FORMAT REFORM

🏉 LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

🏉 LRZ TO USA

🏉 UPDATES [Incl Challenge Cup & AIL] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere.

A Tour schedule has still to be finalised, but it will not overlap with the men’s 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.
New British and Irish Lions women’s team to tour New Zealand in 2027
Andy Wright – Rugby World
The news will be a big blow for both La Rochelle and France as the 26-year-old has been in impressive form since his return from the World Cup campaign.
Pierre Bourgarit set to miss France’s Six Nations campaign
Frank Nickson – Talking Rugby Union
“A pioneer for women’s sport in Ireland, it is fitting that she bows out at the top having recently become the first female match official to officiate at a men’s Rugby World Cup,”
Joy Neville to retire from refereeing and take up development role with Connacht
Irish Times
“No deal has been done, there is no confirmation of anything for next year. It’ll be me [who has the final say on signings].”
Owen Farrell: Racing 92 coach Stuart Lancaster confirms interest in signing Saracens fly-half
BBC.com
Virgin get the first crack at covering a game for the current holders and Grand Slam winners. 
RTÉ and Virgin unveil their Six Nations pundits, fixtures and commentators
Patrick McCarry – SportsJoe.ie

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

WRAP OF A WRAP

Had a go at our new wrap format this weekend having switched the Front Five segment over to this column as you see above.  It certainly gave us more time to harp on our feature match and as ever Conor & Tom did a bang up job getting it done.

If you missed it, here’s a link for Spotify but it’s also available on Apple and other platforms, please subscribe and/or leave a review if you can.

NEW LOOK BONUS CLIP

The bonus clip also got a mini makeover; instead of three of us harping on one topic we will now each bring our own chosen subjects for a brief rant.  I’ve posted the transcript from my Duponte bit below FWIW.

A TONY BRIDGE TOO FAR?

2024 is an Olympic year and of course it has been great for rugby to have been included as a discipline even if it is the shortened sevens version of the game.

And from an Irish point of view we have both genders taking part in the tournament in Paris and going by the way both have played so far on the world circuit there’s every possibility for us to be in contention for a medal or two all going well.

But what I’d like to harp on here is the decision to include Antione Duponte in the French squad for the tournament.  Obviously there are many benefits for this…France will certainly want to do well on their own patch especially given how the World Cup turned out.  And anyone who watched the Ulster Toulouse game on Saturday evening will know he is still very much at the top of his game and given how he can create space from nothing on a pitch with 30 bodies on it, you can only imagine how he’d tear it up in sevens so when the Games are actually taking place at the end of July it should be a good advertisement for all forms of the sport.

For me though, none of those positives outweigh the downsides.  Obviously for this I have to take off both my Leinster and Ireland hats because the fact that he will be unavailable for both the Six Nations and the business end of the Champions Cup certainly won’t hurt our chances at all.  But with an overall rugby supporters hat on, you really do want the best players available for all the top matches and as exciting as all as the sevens code may be, surely the fifteens version has to trump it every time.

Then there’s the fact that Duponte parachuting into the French sevens squad means that someone who has been involved with sevens regularly for the past while is likely to miss out.  I have also heard talk of Irish fifteens stars like Nick Timoney doing likewise and while the addition of talent like that would certainly help our chances, the actual Irish sevens men’ squad has become quite settled over the past few seasons and given these players are being denied the opportunity to achieve the honours afforded by playing for provinces, for any to also miss out on a medal chance just doesn’t sit well with me.

Of course on the women’s side the issue is even bigger since they don’t even need the Olympics to deprive the senior fifteens squad of the best available players.  I could be wrong but you have to assume our last place finish in the 2023 Six Nations could have been avoided with the likes of Beibhinn Parsons and Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe involved.

At the end of the day there’s no disputing that seven into fifteen just doesn’t go evenly in every sense.  The best way forward has to be to keep them apart and prioritise the version of the sport that came first.  

FORMAT REFORM

I’m wary of doing these TikToks just to go along with popular views on rugby matters so this week I have gone with the (admittedly not exactly sexy) topic of Champions Cup format reform.  Again I have included the transcript.

@harpinonrugby

Our 80+ column posts ever Tuesday afternoon at harpinonrugby.com #rugbytiktoks🏉

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

With the final round of Champions Cup pool matches coming up I suppose it’s time to have another crack at addressing the much debated issue of the format, but for this I actually don’t agree with what seems to be the popular opinion.

Having said that I should probably start by pointing out that I’m not exactly a fan of the current method either, I just disagree with what most people are finding wrong with it.  Judging by comments on social media it seems that the biggest flaw of the current system is the fact that you can lose three of your four pool matches and still qualify for the knockouts.

Personally I don’t think that’s as ridiculous as you might think.  For one thing, under the round robin pools of four everyone is saying we should go back to, you weren’t trying to get into the last 16 it was the last 8 and besides, teams still have qualified for the quarterfinals winning just 3 of their 6 pool matches for example in 2016 Exeter actually topped their pool despite three losses  so it’s not like your record had to be all that perfect.

But more importantly we have to remember that the last 16 stage is actually replacing rounds 5 and 6 from the pools in the old method.  So instead of up to 24 matches a lot of which are dead rubbers, we now actually have 8 matches all of which are straight knockout rugby and even if you did qualify with just one win, you most certainly aren’t guaranteed an easy task for getting any further.

But look like I said, I’m not wild about the current way myself so I won’t try to defend it anymore than that, what I will say is that we need to be clear on what is actually causing the problem.  The domestic leagues, specifically the English & French ones, just don’t seem to be willing to give back the extra weekends required to go back to the old way so until that happens, we’re bound to be having this debate every season whatever way they structure this competition.

All I’m saying is that if there is to be a change it needs to one that fixes issues that were even there in the format during the so-called golden years, like the fact that teams have always been forced to choose between the continental and domestic fixtures when it comes to picking their strongest sides.  

Until that happens it seems pointless arguing over the format, we might as well focus on the actual rugby-related questions like can anyone stop Toulouse and Bordeaux, can La Rochelle overcome their shaky start and, of course, can Leinster finally get that fifth star?

[Besides, debating formats is just boring]

LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

It goes without saying the uncertainty over both Harry and Ciarán is a major concern for Leinster, nothing at all against Sam Prendergast but the hope is that at least one will be available for what could be a tricky outing at Welford Road.  Elsewhere it was great to see the likes of Ryan, Lowe and Furlong get through the Aviva match unscathed, though the section at the bottom of the update still looks far from ideal.

Harpin’ matchday 23 v Leicester Tigers

Keenan, Larmour, Ringrose, Henshaw (c), Lowe, Byrne H/Frawley/Prendergast, Gibson-Park

Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, McCarthy, Ryan, Baird, van der Flier, Doris

Kelleher, Healy, Ala’alatoa, Molony, Conan, McGrath, Frawley/Prendergast/Tector, O’Brien T

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:

James Ryan: came through the game against Stade Francais with no issues and will be available for selection this week

INJURY UPDATE – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

Harry Byrne: picked up an ankle injury at training and will be further assessed this week before a final decision is made on selection

Ciarán Frawley: picked up a rib injury during the Stade Francis game and will be further assessed this week before a final decision is made on selection

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Michael Milne: picked up a calf injury last week and will be unavailable for selection this week

NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:

Jimmy O’Brien (neck), Martin Moloney (bicep), Alex Soroka (foot), Charlie Ngatai (calf), Cormac Foley (shoulder), Ross Byrne (arm) and Jamie Osborne (shoulder)

LRZ TO USA

News is only breaking as I’m posting this column so haven’t had much time to react with any more than the tweet blow plus the realization that Welsh rugby seems to be in an even worse state than once thought. If they had won a RWC or Grand Slam in the past year or so I wonder if he’d be even considering “doing a Christian Wade”. Interesting POV from Harpin contributor Mark Jackson too.

AIL UPDATE 

The Leinster-heavy Wolfhounds won in Glasgow to keep them at the top of the Celtic Challenge table as the competition goes into a bye weekend.  The Clovers made it another Irish double as they edged the Lightning.

Meanwhile in the men’s AIL the top 5 were kept apart in Round 10 and all won which has of course opened up something of a gap in the middle of the table.   The Dublin derby at Castle Avenue between Clontarf and Lansdowne has to be the pick of round 11.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

ROUND 3

GLASGOW WARRIORS 12-40 WOLFHOUNDS

CLOVERS 19-17 GWALIA LIGHTNING

BRYTHON THUNDER 17-22 EDINBURGH

ROUND 4

SAT JAN 27

GLASGOW WARRIORS V CLOVERS

WOLFHOUNDS V BRYTHON THUNDER

SUN JAN 28

GWALIA LIGHTNING V EDINBURGH

MEN’S AIL

ROUND 10

LANSDOWNE 30-26 UCD

BALLYNAHINCH 36-10 CITY OF ARMAGH

SHANNON 20-24 CLONTARF

TERENURE 26-17 DUBLIN UNIV

CORK CON 23-13 YOUNG MUNSTER

ROUND 11

SAT DEC 23

CITY OF ARMAGH V TERENURE

CLONTARF V LANSDOWNE

TRINITY V SHANNON 

UCD V CORK CON

YOUNG MUNSTER V BALLYNAHINCH 

CHALLENGE CUP UPDATE

No second win for Black Lion yet and it looks like they’ll need to beat Clérmont in round 4 to make the knockout stages but anything is possible.  Gloucester & Montpellier remain the only unbeaten sides with the latter’s trip to Benetton seeming to be the pick of the ties for the next round, unless of course the Top 14 outfit decide their home match against Pau the following weekend is more important, which I have a feeling they will.

ROUND 3

NEWCASTLE 18-57 BENETTON

OSPREYS 25-3 PERPIGNAN

SHARKS 38-7 OYONNAX

CLÉRMONT 38-17 SCARLETS

ZEBRE 20-17 DRAGONS

CASTRES 28-6 BLACK LION

EDINBURGH 20-21 GLOUCESTER

MONTPELLIER 13-3 LIONS

CHEETAHS 20-33 PAU

ROUND 4

FRI JAN 19

GLOUCESTER V CASTRES

SCARLETS V EDINBURGH

SAT JAN 20

BLACK LION V CLÉRMONT

PAU V ZEBRE

OYONNAX V CHEETAHS

BENETTON V MONTPELLIER

SUN JAN 21

PERPIGNAN V NEWC ASTLE

LIONS V OSPREYS

DRAGONS V SHARKS

HARPIN PREDICTION LEAGUE

No URC matches for a few weeks but given I’m still top of the league I don’t mind if I keep publishing the table any chance I get!!!

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Next up for us is of course Leinster’s trip to Leicester next weekend, Kino will join me for a preview on Friday then the wrap pod will be recorded Sunday evening.  Keep up with all the latest happenings on our social media channels and please help us by commenting, liking, sharing & subscribing wherever you can.

As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP

80+ column : Jan 10

On this week’s column…

🏉 FRONT FIVE

🏉 NEW WRAP UNWRAPPED

🏉 HARPIN ON…BEST VID OF 2023

🏉 SENSIBLE V SILLY TIKTOK

🏉 LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

🏉 THE MIDDLE AISLE

🏉 UPDATES [Incl 🔝🐱🐴, Prem & AIL] 

FRONT FIVE

A selection of five eye-catching egg-chasing quotes & links from around the ruggersphere.

“If it wasn’t for O’Mahony’s age profile and rumours of a departure, they would be neck and neck in the race; but you would have to favour the lanky Leinster lock to pip it at the death” 
Farrell’s New Year Headache is Selecting A New Captain
Caolán Scully – CaolánSRugby
“It is understood an agreement has been reached in principle, with a final green light awaited.”
Ireland’s Six Nations jerseys set to feature player names
RTÉ.ie
“He was such an influencer in that regard, mixing immaculate ball skills with granite defence. Rugby had never seen a full-back like him.” 
My Lions team-mate JPR was the best full-back the game has ever seen – full stop
Ian McGeechan – Irish Independent (via Daily Telegraph)
“The more people think it’s acceptable to make a derogatory comment…on social media or electronically, I think people think it’s also OK to say it in person.” 
RFU increases sanction for abuse of officials as survey finds 49% targeted
Gerard Meagher – The Guardian
“…this one feels as though it might be more of a move that will work out for him and his family and from a rugby point of view just to change things up.”
Brian O’Driscoll Has Interesting Theory On Owen Farrell’s Rumoured France Move
Gary Connaughton – Balls.ie

Note – views expressed in “Front Five” links do not necessarily reflect those of HarpinOnRugby

NEW WRAP UNWRAPPED

As you can see above, we’ll be doing things a little differently at Harpin Manor in 2024.  The wrap pod from now on will be just that…a pod wrapping the latest Leinster & Ireland fixture and the “Front Five” feature will return to a written format, appearing at the tart of this column each week.

I started the Front 5 way back in July 2014 and it was a daily post which helped with regular content and also helped keep me up to date with issues outside my chosen remit.  I chose to keep it when I switched to a pod format but I reckon it’s better to launch straight into the subject matter so this seems to be a logical resting place for it, although with more and more publications putting themselves behind firewalls we’ll see how long interesting links remain accessible!

HARPIN’ ON…MOST VIEWED VID OF 2023

We will still have a “bonus clip” segment in our wrap recordings except rather than me choosing a topic I’m going to let my guests harp on things they’d like to discuss.

The videos will remain in this portion of the 80+ column so for this week I will share the video which got by far the most views over the past year, namely my thoughts on the Jean Kleyn situation which I’m assuming got shared around the Springbok fan base.

SENSIBLE V SILLY TIK TOK

Since I’ve had a TikTok account I have seen a lot of different types of post; some I find hilarious but others kind of make me cringe.  One of the latter for me is the “talking to myself” style so to announce the return from my “mini break” I decided to make my own.  You probably think it is just as cringeworthy as any other and I wouldn’t argue as that is kind of the point!  

The scene is meant to be between two versions of myself, a “sensible” one and a “silly” one – and this is actually symbolic of my general approach to content production, part of me wants to be a straight laced presenter while another can’t resist dad jokes and such.  So in a way this format worked, but as I say, it will more than likely be the first AND last time I ever use it.  I’m also a bit annoyed I fucked up the subtitles in a couple of places but let’s just say I’m not losing any sleep!!!

Thanks for all who gave positive feedback anyway though!

@harpinonrugby

We’re back Wednesday with a new 80+ column

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.com – Harpinonrugby.com

LEINSTER INJURY UPDATE

“Number of months” are obviously the last words you want to see in an injury update, particularly at the midpoint of a season which could very well mean yours is all but over.  Jimmy O’Brien and Martin Moloney both got that horrible news over the holidays, the former would have of course been heavily involved in the plans for both Leinster and Ireland while Moloney is probably cursing his luck even more as he has yet to appear for Leinster after returning from a previous spell on the sidelines which began just as he broke into the team.

The “no further updates” section is also full of players who would feature heavily in Leinster’s plans but as you can see from the “x” below there was some extra good news announced after the update was published…

Harpin’ matchday 23 v Stade Francais

Keenan, O’Brien T, Ringrose (c), Henshaw, Lowe, Byrne H, Gibson-Park

Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, McCarthy, Ryan, Baird, van der Flier, Doris

Kelleher, Healy, Ala’alatoa, Molony, Conan, McGrath, Frawley, Connors

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 – FURTHER ASSESSMENT REQUIRED:

James Ryan: was withdrawn before the game against Ulster Rugby as a precaution and will be further assessed this week before a final decision is made on selection

INJURY UPDATE – UNAVAILABLE FOR SELECTION:

Jimmy O’Brien: has picked up a neck injury and will be unavailable for a number of months

Martin Moloney: has picked up a bicep injury and will be unavailable for a number of months

Alex Soroka: picked up a foot injury in training last week and will be unavailable for selection this week   

NO FURTHER UPDATES ON:

Charlie Ngatai (calf), Cormac Foley (shoulder), Ross Byrne (arm) and Jamie Osborne (shoulder)

THE MIDDLE AISLE

This is the “middle aisle” portion of the column where I will briefly harp on issues of the day, or at least it will be from next week – that TikTok involved so much work I really don’t have the time right now to delve into much else!

URC IRISH SHIELD UPDATE

I know there will be no more URC interpros until May, but I thought I’d post the state of play one last time before that as it is so well poised.

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 22-9 MUNSTER

JAN 1 LEINSTER 21-22 ULSTER

MAY 11 MUNSTER V CONNACHT

MAY 18 ULSTER V LEINSTER

MAY 31 LEINSTER V CONNACHT

JUNE 1 MUNSTER V ULSTER

“SVNS” UPDATE

The Sevens circuit is still on a break but I’ll still post the update to remind us all how things stand.  Big year for the Irish programme of course with the Olympics in July also on the schedule.

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

🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE

From a Leinster POV the drab draw for Stade catches the eye and makes me wonder just how much they will prioritise their Champions Cup campaign over the coming weeks after 2 defeats from 2 and a trip to 2nd place Bayonne next up at home.

Racing held off Castres in a shootout to stay top while La Rochelle moved closer to the playoff spots by winning at Pau, and have to overcome Premiership opposition over the next two weeks if they are to also revive their Champions Cup hopes.

Round 12

SAT JAN 6

PAU 20-29 LA ROCHELLE

PERPIGNAN 27-12 OYONNAX

BORDEAUX 24-23 BAYONNE

STADE FRANCAIS 14-14 CLÉRMONT

RACING 92 34-30 CASTRES

TOULOUSE 45-0 LYON

MONTPELLIER 27-17 TOULON

Round 13

SAT JAN 27

BORDEAUX V STADE FRANCAIS

BAYONNE V OYONNAX

CASTRES V CLÉRMONT

LYON V PERPIGNAN

MONTPELLIER V PAU

TOULON V LA ROCHELLE

SUN JAN 28

RACING 92 V TOULOUSE

PREMIERSHIP UPDATE

Northampton stay top after an impressive win at Exeter, and will probably stay their after the next round with lowly Newcastle coming to Franklin’s Gardens.  Sale fell out of the playoff places after getting done at home by Bristol.  After 11 rounds, 70% of the league have more wins than losses so there are many twists and turns left.

ROUND 11

SALE SHARKS 14-22 BRISTOL BEARS

NEWCASTLE FALCONS 3-24 HARLEQUINS

EXETER 36-42 NORTHAMPTON SAINTS

LEICESTER TIGERS 19-10 SARACENS

BATH 17-10 GLOUCESTER

ROUND 11

FRI JAN 26

HARLEQUINS V LEICESTER TIGERS

SAT JAN 27

NORTHAMPTON SAINTS V NEWCASTLE FALCONS

BRISTOL BEARS V BATH

SARACENS V EXETER CHIEFS

SUN JAN 28

GLOUCESTER V SALE SHARKS

AIL UPDATE 

Both Irish clubs were victorious in round 2 of the Celtic Challenge but the Welsh franchise Gwalia Lightning are top of the table and visit the Clovers next.  The Leinster-heavy Wolfhounds side will aim to keep their 100% record intact when they travel to Glasgow and all games are available to watch for free on RugbyPass.tv

Meanwhile the new competition has put pressure on the Women’s AIL clubs – while there are no league fixtures while it’s on, there is an “All-Ireland Women’s Cup” and Old Belvedere of all teams found themselves unable to put out a side to face Galwegians in Round 1 and had to concede the match points.

I like to consider myself an ally to those pushing for the IRFU bringing the standards up to where they should be but in this one case I’m not sure it really counts as another stick to beat them with.  The Celtic Challenge seems to be a net positive and given it has to be run in conjunction with other unions, there was always going to be a chance it would affect the clubs.  Last year, the complaints were that the clubs didn’t have enough matches (and this was correct as the AIL was done and dusted by Christmas) so while the Belvo concession clearly demonstrates there is still a long way to go, I’d still hope at least we’re heading in a decent general direction.

Meanwhile the men’s AIL is back this week while the Bateman Cup final was retained by Terenure (who had arguably their best social media team announcement yet see below) after they overcame Young Munster and with lowly Trinity visiting Lakelands next in the league, they have every chance to climb further.  

Ballynahinch will need another win over their Ulster rivals City of Armagh to stay in touch with the top four while leaders Clontarf make the trip to Shannon.

#SupportYourLocalClub

WOMEN’S CELTIC CHALLENGE

ROUND 2

EDINBURGH 17-27 WOLFHOUNDS

CLOVERS 20-5 BRYTHON THUNDER

GWALIA LIGHTNING 36-19 GLASGOW WARRIORS

ROUND 3

SAT JAN 13

GLASGOW WARRIORS V WOLFHOUNDS

SUN JAN 14

CLOVERS V GWALIA LIGHTNING

BRYTHON THUNDER V EDINBURGH

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

BATEMAN CUP FINAL

TERENURE 22-15 YOUNG MUNSTER

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

Not many eyes in the wider rugby world fall on the Challenge Cup but those that do will no doubt be on Black Lion’s progress…the 5 match points they already have could well be enough to see them into the knockouts but who’s to say they won’t get more?  This weekend they go to Castres who could well be putting more focus on their domestic standing.

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

Just the one URC match last weekend and the only HPL combatants to predict that the Lions would win at the Sharks were Kristian, who leapfrogged Kino into 3rd, and…wait for it…KEEGO!!! Still can’t see him making up the gap to avoid keeping the Jersey of Shame though, even if we aren’t quite yet at the halfway stage of the season.

I’m considering adding a “cup competition” to the HPL starting in Round 10 but I’ll let you know when it gets closer to the time.

NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’

Right that’s it for now, great to be back to whatever “normal” is.  The Rugby on TV feature returns as it’s regular stand alone post on Thursday, then Keego will join me for Friday’s preview of the visit of Stade while our new-look wrap pod will feature Tom & Conor recording on Sunday evening.

As ever, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are.  JLP