This is an excerpt from my latest article in series I call Broken Play, which I have been writing on Saturday mornings during the rugby season this year. For the whole thing you need to subscribe (for free) to our Harpin Substack account

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Welcome to my Saturday morning scribble which returns after a summer hiatus. Basically I set the timer for an hour and keep harpin’ until it’s done. Since I’m VERY easily distracted that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be constantly typing the entire time but for sure I will finish when my phone tells me to.

I’ve just finished watching the Bledisloe Cup/Rugby Champions match, a win for the All Blacks which retains the Cup for yet another year but hardly a convincing one. They really needed the BP to put pressure on the Springboks but some resilient Wallaby defence at the end kept them out.

As you can see I’m taking my time making reference to another rugby match I watched this weekend, that being Friday evening’s URC season opener between Stormers and Leinster from Cape Town.

Here’s what I said on TikTok after the FT whistle; I’m hoping to do this regularly throughout the season, though perhaps not if they all go this way!

@harpinonrugby

♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.blog

And can see what the sentiment was in the Harpin Whatsapp chat at full time.

But it’s not like I get to ignore the result altogether just yet, having committed to another season of producing a wrap pod for EVERY match so on Sunday evening myself and David Cordial will do our best to make sense of what went down at the DHL Stadium.

For now, I get to harp on literally anything else so I think I’ll have a go at the subject of television coverage.

Following on from my Broken Play article on Substack, I have received this open letter and was encouraged to share. Signatories are listed in bold at the end.

In the meantime, we ask the IRFU to:

• Publish its ‘comprehensive review’
• Highlight the ‘net costs’ of running the 7’s programme are
• Describe what alternative sources of finance, if any, were sought to fill any gap.

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The IRFU’s decision to axe the men’s rugby 7’s programme – after nearly ten years in which they came from the bottom divisions to the top; onto the HSBC World Series, were bronze medalists at World Cup in Cape Town in 2022, were second in the HSBC 7’s Series in 2023/24, qualified for two Olympics (Tokyo and Paris) – did not come after the review highlighted in an IRFU press release on Wednesday last, which read as follows;

“The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) today confirmed that following a comprehensive review of its Sevens programmes after the conclusion of the 2024 Olympic cycle, it has made the decision to cease the Men’s Sevens programme following the conclusion of the 2024/25 season.” (Wed 14th May 2025)

For those of us close to the Sevens programme we were asking, particularly at the end of last season, asking the lads, asking the sponsors and asking our contacts in the IRFU, “What’s happening with the 7’s programme”? “Oh, we’re conducting a review”. David Nucifora, the previous director of performance, had just left the car park and the 7’s were up for review!

What were they reviewing? The success of the 7’s programme, the fact that they came from nowhere in such a short time? Were they thinking, you know, the 7’s game has fewer injuries and concussions, is much easier for kids to get into and is clearly very popular, being one of the most watched sports events at the Olympics (530,000 spectators), and the lads have shown that Ireland can really compete. Perhaps we should start taking this more seriously, even pay the players a proper professional wage?

Presumably, such a “comprehensive review” would involve talking to the players, the 7’s coach and staff, and other stakeholders like Sports Ireland, the Olympic Council, and the team’s sponsors, Tritonlake?

You’d want to speak to the players, to Harry McNulty, Billy Dardis, Mark Roche, Greg O’Shea, fellows who’d been with the programme from the start and others like Jordan Conroy, Bryan Mollen, Jack Kelly, Gavin Mullin, Niall Comerford, Hugo Lennox, Aaron O’Sullivan, who’d been with the squad through one or two Olympic Cycles? And the current crop of players, including Matt McDonald, Tadhg Brophy, Dylan O’Grady, Daniel Hawkshaw, Indigo Cruise O’Brien, Edward Kelly, Josh Kenny…?

No. The reviewers didn’t speak to the players. What about the coach and the IRFU staff? Surely they spoke to the coach and their own IRFU staff! No, not the staff either. What about the Olympic Council? After all, 7’s is now an official Olympic game, and the IRFU receives funding from Sport Ireland? No. Didn’t speak to them either. Well then, they definitely spoke to their sponsors, Tritonlake? Surely, no, didn’t speak to the sponsors.

Well, what sort of a review was it then? More of a ‘desktop financial review’ conducted off-the-field, somewhere in the background, rather than any comprehensive front-of-house detailed review?

Here’s another impression; the ‘reviewers’ weren’t reviewing the 7’s programme at all; they’d already made up their minds and had moved onto ‘So how can we close this thing down’? The old guard was reasserting itself. They had never loved the sevens, anyway, “We’re a 15s nation” don’t you know! This was not a review; it was a post-mortem justification!

The genesis of the decision to axe the programme began before the lads had even left for the Olympics in Paris last summer. How? By not offering viable contracts to two of the most experienced players, the captain, Harry McNulty and Terry Kennedy, the sevens World Player of the Year (2023). There was no budget, the lads were told. The lads were retiring anyway, the narrative went.

The truth was that they had to leave after years in the programme to find some way of making a grown-up living. Also, if they were really retiring, why are they both lining out for a professional 7’s tournament in India in June?

A total of eight players left after the Olympics, and that really ripped the heart out of the team – four of whom going back to play 15s for their provinces – but of course, 7’s makes no contribution to the 15s or so the story goes? The IRFU knew these eight players were 2 leaving in advance and so you’d think that they’d have been busy recruiting the next crop of players for the new season? No.

By the time pre-season training had started, the squad was about 70% full and by the time the season had begun in Dubai, everyone who was fit to play was selected to play. In other words, no competition in the squad for places, no intensity in the preparation and not surprisingly, the team was not very competitive.

Then the 7’s staff started to leave and were not replaced. Did they suspect that something was up? Had the IRFU begun, as we all suspected, a managed decline of the programme, even if they had yet to articulate that to themselves? No, “We’re conducting a review”.

At the end of the first tournament in Dubai, Ireland were in 11th place. From 2nd to 11th place in just 6 months? In the second tournament in Cape Town, Ireland were again in 11th place. By the end of the season, they had fallen out of the first tier altogether, it was that quick.

Was that not just post-Olympic fallout, the inevitable changeover that occurs after an Olympic cycle? If it was, it hadn’t affected New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, France, Fiji and Argentina, all of whom had remained competitive.

The IRFU is a not-for-profit organisation with a remit to grow the sport in Ireland and internationally. We also see ourselves as a ‘premier first-tier Rugby nation’, up there with the best and we take our responsibilities seriously. The inclusion of the rugby sevens in the Olympics – the biggest sporting event in the World – has, by all accounts, elevated the sport’s profile and attraction to new players around the world. So how is this decision by the IRFU then in line with that mandate?

And the reason for cutting the 7’s programme? Cost! It was losing money. According to reliable sources, the normalised costs (non-Olympic year) costs are €1.35m pa, less €900k of contributions from sponsors, World Rugby and Sport Ireland. So by this calculation, the net cost is €450k, which is less than the IRFU spends on travel and entertainment for their committees.

Also, if the deficit of €450k was ‘the problem’, did the IRFU seek additional sponsorship, public or private, as happens with the provinces, and which is likely to be available?

The reality is that almost everyone in Irish rugby loses money. If losing money was the issue, then we’d be axing Munster (losing money/breaking even), Connacht (losing 3 money), Ulster (losing money) and women’s rugby (losing heaps of money). Also, the All Ireland League (AIL), loses money and even Leinster, one of the great teams in the rugby world, would be struggling if it were not for their central IRFU contracts.

How does Irish rugby make its money, then? Two main sources: The Six Nations, where the same six teams play each other each year, and the Autumn Internationals, where the same Southern Hemisphere teams come up to play in the Northern Hemisphere every other year. The funds then come into a central point and are redistributed to the loss-making divisions, whether they are performing or not.

Assuming the above valuations are correct, the IRFU is going to shut down a national Olympic sports programme with a realistic shot at a team medal in the future, make 20 of its players and a number of its staff effectively redundant, while shirking its responsibilities as a first-tier Rugby nation to promote the game for what it costs for its committees to go on tour!

Interestingly, the loss-making women’s 7’s programme survived this “comprehensive review” How was that? Because the 7’s women contribute to the women’s 15s whereas, the narrative goes, the men’s 7s does not? We already know that is just not the case. Does it have more to do with resistance from the provincial academies not wanting to release their players, thereby denying them the opportunity to play for their country?

And, can the IRFU actually axe our participation in an Olympic Sport without conferring with the Olympic Council? The 7’s is one of Ireland’s only realistic Olympic team medal hopefuls and therefore owned in part by its people. Also, did the IRFU talk to the Government? I wonder if the IRFU said they were reducing their investment in Women’s Rugby by €1-2 million, whether that would cause more of a stir?

The job of the senior people in the IRFU is to find ways to make the various programmes work, not to cut them, i.e., to take successful programmes like the men’s 7’s and make them better, not run them down and to find ways to make the 7’s work alongside other parts of the sport, as they do in other leading first-tier rugby nations. Is the axing of the 7’s programme an acknowledgement that those senior executives have failed in their roles?

Perhaps it’s the governance in the IRFU that needs to be up for review and not the success of the men’s rugby programme, their staff and their many supporters who are rightly feeling aggrieved.

As parents and long-time supporters of the Ireland sevens and Irish Rugby in general, we, the undersigned, call on the IRFU to convene an emergency board meeting to reverse this ill-thought-out decision.

Signed : Edward Kelly, Joyce Mac Redmond, Terry Kennedy, Rosie Kennedy, David Roche, Joanne Fox, Fiona Reid, Philip Comerford, Joyce Comerford, Sandra McNulty, Aido McNulty, Mary Lennox, Barry O’Sullivan, Stephanie O’Boyle, Bernard Smith, Dan O’Grady, Emer Crowley, Patrick O’Brien, Frank Mollen, Mo Mollen, Liz and Sean Fitzpatrick, Mary Carroll, Donal Leavy, Sarah Hogan, Barbara Kirwan Daris, Colm Dardis

P.S. This is not just about our lads and respect for the efforts they put in, or for the lads who went before them, it’s also about maintaining the opportunity for a new generation of players to play for their country and potentially participate in the Olympics. If you think about how long it takes to get a 7’s programme up and running and ‘competitive’ and then to actually get into the Olympics, you’d think more than twice about axing it because other parts of the organisation is haemorrhaging money. It doesn’t make any sense to be scapegoating something that is working.

This is a repost of an article I wrote for my Substack account back on March 15, I’ve decided to add to the blog as well so it can be used for reference in the future.

You know what, I can definitely think of better things to do of a Friday evening than book the main TV in the house so I can sit with a few beers and watch a rugby team I’m shouting for ship two tries in the early stages despite having an extra man and proceed to, on the one hand, keep the opposition scoreless for the remainder of the match, only for the other hand to keep knocking the ball forward (albeit in shitty conditions but they’re the same for both sides) for the remainder of the match, while still building up hope by clawing back 12 of the 15 point deficit in the process.

Then after accepting the loss, I try to console myself by putting this message in the WhatsApp group after following the other U20 Six Nations matches from the evening: “At least we dodge the wooden spoon – I thought Scotland might nick a second BP”. You see, when I first checked the FRAvSCO score it was 38-30 to the French so I presumed the Scots had 4 tries in the bank. Then it changed to 45-30 so I just presumed that left them in last place, yet having surrendered the telly back to the family for Fair City (don’t ask) I later found this message in the group : “Nope, Scotland nicked the LBP with a drop goal in the last play”

Well ain’t that a kick in the nuts. After the two Grand Slams for this age grade in recent years it would be mad to assume we’d continue that success, and in fact we didn’t do too badly last year either as it happened. But while a decline was expected, we certainly didn’t think it would be as bad as this and while I really want to avoid pointing fingers directly at the coaching rather than the actual talent, having watched all of the five matched I really have to say there seems to be a sharp decline in the cohesion and tactical nous displayed on the pitch. There have been some fine individual displays for sure, particularly Munster’s back rower Michael Foy, but with the ball we suddenly seem to have made ourselves remarkably easy to defend. Some might say the same is true of the senior team but I’ll keep that topic for the main Harpin content for now.

In fact I will also park the Under20 criticism if you don’t mind, you don’t want to be too harsh on the younglings plus this wooden spoon gives me the opportunity to harp on another issue that really grinds my gears. The way the Scots pipped us to 5th is another example of the very obvious flaws of the try bonus point system.

I’ll be honest – when it was first introduced I thought it was brilliant. I never subscribed to the notion that whatever football does, so must rugby do and this method of incentivising attacking rugby really did seem to be an inspired one that suited our code down to the ground. IIRC it was a southern hemisphere idea which naturally meant that the much more stubborn northern portion of the planet would take a while to adopt it but eventually they did.

But then in France the 🔝🐱🐴 (if you haven’t seen that before, it’s how I always write the name of that comp, it’s kind of my thing) went a bit rogue. I never actually heard of an announcement of their change, I only noticed when I was following a particular team and realised that although they had scored 4 tries they still only only got 4 points on the table. So the number nerd in me just had to know why and it turned out that rather than rewarding the scoring of 4 tries (a “Quantitative” BP as I call it), they instead gave it to team who scored three more tries than their opposition (“Differential” BP).

Hand on heart it took me a while to work out the benefits of this idea; at first I just thought the French were being, well, French. But the more you think about it, the more it makes absolutely perfect sense. While the QBP always seemed to be sufficient in theory, over the years in practice we frequently saw dominant teams “banking” their bonus in the early stages of a match only to take their foot off the pedal in the second, probably with the following week’s contest in mind. They would probably do enough to stay ahead in the particular match, but if they were at the top of the table while the opposition down the other end, the concession of a few tries in the final quarter wasn’t usually considered a hanging offence. And as a Leinster fan, I experienced this scenario more often than most – call that arrogant if you must, but all I’m really doing is stating facts.

But when I actually mulled over the advantages of the DBP over the QBP it became clear first and foremost that in many cases teams were being rewarded for things that didn’t necessarily deserve a reward. The winning team letting up after securing a winning margin is one example, but also why should a losing team EVER earn more than one point on the log?

Actually the French seemed to have a problem with even that one point and a few years ago they reduced the margin for earning the losing bonus from 7 down to 5. FWIW I don’t agree with that, seven is fine and means you still have something to play for with a 14-point deficit in the closing stages. But most certainly, one point should be that when it comes to a loss, especially when it means a team that loses scoring 4 tries does as well on the ladder as one that earned a draw with 3. The DBP also eliminates the messiness of draws where teams scoring 4 tries earn just 1 point fewer than those who actually triumphed. When you think of it, those scenarios are madness.

But I haven’t gotten to the biggest advantage of the DBP yet. I wrote earlier of teams banking their bonus with four early scores. Switch to the French system and this not only goes away completely, it also adds a new dimension – you can now put yourself in a position to earn the bonus only for it to be taken away.

I really got into the 🔝🐱🐴 when Sexton was playing over there and I remember a match where Racing were hosting Toulouse and had a lead of something like 23-0 going into the final stages. Seems comfortable enough, and while they had only scored the three tries, that was enough to earn them the BP. But literally with the final play of the match, Les Rouge et Noir went the length of the pitch for a score which meant Racing had to make do with just the four points, and for someone like me who appreciates a decent defensive stand just as much as a series of behind the back offloads, this was reasonable outcome for the Parisian side.

And although Super Rugby came up with the idea in the first place, eventually they too saw the light about the DBP and introduced it to their competition a while back. So I feel it’s about time the entire rugby world saw sense and kicked the QBP squarely into touch where it belongs.

Sadly I think it might take a while before this happens, what with the nature of rugby’s alickadoos being slow when it comes to change. However with the 2027 RWC being in Australia and World Rugby already being open to an expanded format to 24 teams, maybe that would be a perfect opportunity to introduce it to everyone.

One last thing – I hope you don’t think I’m only harping on this method because it put the Irish Under 20s in the basement last night. I’ve been on about this for years, and there have been several cases where the QBP was shown to be absurd, like when it was introduced to the Men’s Six Nations, someone realised that it was mathematically possible for a team to win the Grand Slam yet finish second on the points table. To “fix” this, they added a “slam bonus” of three extra points to anyone winning five matches.

But did that REALLY fix the problem? As I type it’s Super Saturday for the 2025 tournament and the way the table stands, it’s not impossible for Italy to get zero points against us while Wales get a LBP against England which would mean the Welsh avoid the wooden spoon despite having lost all five. Absurd.

And so I’ll end my scribbling with a string of acronyms…IMHO, the DBP is FTW and WR should exclusively use it ASAFP.