Friday night sh*te, not so super defending & flag foibles

Saturday. February 28, 2026

Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.

Needless to say I’m not in a very good mood this morning, mostly because Leinster got beaten last night of course, but also because it was a really, really, truly awful game of rugby. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m not saying that due to sour grapes, it really was a long, arduous 80m watch although since Leinster got beaten, I’d say it did provide sufficient Friday evening viewing for the majority of those watching!

But that’s what wrap pods are for so I’ll try to put the frustration aside for the moment and leave it until Sunday to do the tortuous rewatch. No point in sharing a link to the preview this week, but to get a sense of how I was feeling before this match here is my latest spot on Dublin South FM…

Anyway, enough about all that. This time last week instead of doing this article I was sitting in the car recording my part of our 500th episode special. It was eventually an enjoyable experience, but not before I got through the process of downloading/editing/re-uploading which took literally hours longer than it should have. Do check it out if you missed it, you’ll find the YouTube version here.

Speaking of this Broken Play article, I see I missed the 1 year anniversary of it – the first edition was scribbled on February 9, 2025. That’s unusual for me as in general I’m good at keeping track of such things, but anyway I have to say I enjoy doing them and as long as I can drag myself out of bed at this ungodly hour on Saturdays I’ll keep it up for the foreseeable.

I just remembered there’s Super Rugby on, so it is now accompanying me and Chiefs v Crusaders isn’t a bad contest to have on in the background. Chiefs have just taken a 14-0 lead but we all know that means nothing in this comp, defences were shaky anyway but with a gagillion Law “trials” meant to “speed up the game” anything is possible.

This week I want to touch on a subject that is, well touchy. Last night’s disappointment for Leinster in Cardiff brought to an end an extremely enjoyable week on social media for me. Any big win for my team has me in a good mood, but England? In Twickenham? When we thought our chances were slim at best? Magical.

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Throwback Thursday – Ireland v England 2011

This week we go back to yet another Ireland win over England, just because.

Technically our choice of Throwback Thursday match should be based on our NEXT featured match, but, well, Twickenham. Nuff said. Let’s harp on that some more, shall we.

So there I was, writing my weekly 80+ column (one back here on the Substack feed) and I brought up the time it got leaked that England had produced a load of Grand Slam winning t-shirts ahead of their visit to Dublin, only to forget to do the most important thing, namely actually winning said Slam.

All of which inspired me to hark back to my writeup of that match in the Aviva Stadium. It was a time when Declan Kidney’s good will from his own 2009 Slam was starting to wear off…in this 2011 Championship we had already struggled to beat Italy & Scotland and lost to France & Wales before the English rocked up to our shiny new D4 home for the first time.

We all know what happened, yet I assume we all enjoy remembering what happened same as any other time we beat them, so here are the starting lineups followed by the writeup…

IRELAND

15 Keith Earls 14 Tommy Bowe 13 Brian O’Driscoll (c) 12 Gordon D’Arcy 11 Andrew Trimble 10 Johnny Sexton 9 Eoin Reddan

1 Cian Healy 2 Rory Best 3 Mike Ross 4 Donncha O’Callaghan 5 Paul O’Connell 6 Seán O’Brien 7 David Wallace 8 Jamie Heaslip

16 Seán Cronin 17 Tom Court 18 Leo Cullen 19 Denis Leamy 20 Peter Stringer 21 Ronan O’Gara 22 Paddy Wallace

ENGLAND

15 Ben Foden 14 Chris Ashton 13 Matt Banahan 12 Shontayne Hape 11 Mark Cueto 10 Toby Flood 9 Ben Youngs

1 Alex Corbisiero 2 Dylan Hartley 3 Dan Cole 4 Louis Deacon 5 Tom Palmer 6 Tom Wood 7 James Haskell 8 Nick Easter (c)

16 Steve Thompson 17 Paul Doran-Jones 18 Simon Shaw 19 Tom Croft 20 Danny Care 21 Jonny Wilkinson 22 David Strettle

RBS Six Nations – Round 5

Saturday, March 19, 2011

KO 5pm

Aviva Stadium

Referee – Bryce Lawrence (NZL)

SLAM, DENIED. FAITH, RESTORED.

Professional rugby union has evolved into so much more than an 80-minute slosh in the mud at the weekend. It’s now a process that begins the previous Monday morning.

As well as all the general work to be done on the training pitch and in the weights room, there’s DVDs to be analysed, charts to be drawn and top-secret code sequences to be created.

But when all is said and done, the real work behind everything associated with a team begins in just one square foot of real estate…the noggin of the head coach.

And for me, the most satisfying aspect of Ireland’s slam-denying victory at the Aviva Stadium was that it was clearly the culmination of a superior week’s preparation from Declan Kidney, who totally outfoxed his opposite number.

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80+ column : February 25

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

WRAP OF A WRAP
ROYAL FLUSHED
EDDIE SHOULD KNOW
(DESTI)NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP
AN ACTUAL ITALIAN JOB
SING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING
HARPIN’ ON…IRELAND’S NEXT OPPONENTS
500TH EPISODE SPECIAL
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
JAVAN SEBASTIAN ARTICLE
TROLL PATROL
COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Celtic Challenge)
NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

Our newest contributor is Hugo Gordon, and our schedule worked out in such a way that he had arguably the two “cushiest” assignments for an Irish podster in the opening three weeks of the 2026 Six Nations – first previewing the French game, when there was still even a smidge of hope for an upset away win, and finally wrapping the England game, when Ireland actually got one.

It goes without saying that this pod in particular was a pleasure to record, especially since we could spend the first portion reversing the mood from the previous week when we panned our attack plan, such as it was.

ICYMI you can have a listen here.

ROYAL FLUSHED

“They did nothing to win”

Mike Tindall slates Ireland despite record England win

RugbyLad.ie

The whole point of this 80+ column is meant to be to turn the spotlight on anything BUT the Leinster & Ireland men’s rugby teams, but after that performance in Twickenham I think it would be rude not to bring it up a few times anyway. Besides, I do get away with it on a technicality in that the three Front 5 articles devoted to it involved reactions from non-Irish sources.

First up is Mike Tindall – look, while this stance may positively reek of sour grapes it is probably one that a lot of English fans will take when summarising the match. Plus it’s true, Borthwick’s men were below par and we did explore this on our wrap pod, it was definitely a factor.

But Ireland were pretty low on confidence too and there was no guarantee that we could take full advantage of England’s shortcomings, so to say we “did nothing to win” is disingenuous to say the very least.

And then of course there’s this – given his royal family connections….does Tindall really think he needs to be the poster-child for such a gaslighting opinion? REALLY? At THIS particular time? Baffling. I’ll leave it there.

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Irish realities, casual fans & telly innovations

Saturday, February 7, 2026

Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.

Well, this hasn’t been a great couple of days for Irish rugby has it. Bad enough that we had Six Nations rugby on a Thursday, the opening match in Paris quickly devolved into one we were never going to win in a month of Sundays.

I toyed with the notion of getting the weekly wrap pod over with early this week, but in the end I thought it better to leave for a couple of days to let the wounds heal a bit and also to allow the other matches from round 1 to play out, which seems like the right decision. To tide us over in the meantime, a couple of contributors from the Harpin WhatsApp group, Kristian Ross & Keego, did offer their own thoughts by way of a brief article and video respectively, click here to check them out.

But of course the Thursday thrashing wasn’t to be the only Irish rugby this weekend, and at Thomond Park last night we had the next crop of players down Andy Farrell’s pecking order assembling to take on their English counterparts. Before I get to the match itself, a quick word on the names of these teams.

This is a small point about aesthetics, I freely admit that, but is it too much to ask the rugby nations to come to some sort of agreement on what they’re going to call these 2nd string selections? To my eye anyway it looks really shoddy the way we sometimes call them XV, sometimes call them ‘A’, and sometimes give them nicknames like Wolfhounds or Saxons.

If I were being really picky, and I suppose I am, I’d never refer to the teams as ‘A’ because surely that letter is meant to be used for the best, which by definition this group is not? But FWIW even I would accept that, once they all did it. Why make it so goddam confusing for everyone. Ireland XV v England A suggests two teams that are different somehow, when they aren’t.

Well, when I say they aren’t…the above grievance is of course referring to the marketing of the match to the public before kickoff. Once things got underway in Limerick on Friday night, it was clear we did have two squads that were completely different in composition.

In England’s case, they looked like a team of players all of whom not only knew what they were about tactics-wise, but also all of whom were confident of stepping up to the top level when called upon. Ireland on the other hand resembled a team of players who were just filling the jersey for a night. Let’s just say that it was clear from an early stage that the visitors were likely to rack up 50 points and leave it at that.

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Some post-Paris thoughts from Kristian & Keego

It’s Friday when we normally do our feature match previews here at Harpin Manor, but the horrendous Thursday evening kickoff time has discombobulated our weekly routine a tad.

We’ve decided to stick with our Sunday evening match wrap recording, and regular contributor Mark Jackson will be joining me for that, but to tide us over until then, here are some thoughts from two other friends of the pod, Kristian Ross who offered some written words and Keego who recorded a brief video.

IRELAND THROWN BACK ON THURSDAY

by Kristian Ross

A weakened Ireland opened their 2026 Six Nations campaign with a humbling defeat to France in Paris, on an unfamiliar Thursday evening.

With a seemingly insurmountable injury list, Andy Farrell’s side were in need of a miracle at the Stade de France — but any hope of that was firmly extinguished as the reigning champions set the pace early on.

By half-time, the contest was effectively over. Les Bleus held a 22-point lead that reflected their dominance, with Louis Bielle-Biarrey, Matthieu Jalibert, and Charles Ollivon all crossing the line. However, there was controversy surrounding the opening try, with what appeared to be a forward pass in the build-up.

Uncharacteristically, Ireland made multiple handling errors, their exits misfired, and any momentum was quickly smothered by French line speed and physicality at the breakdown.

The home side were just as ruthless after the restart, extending their lead further. A brief flicker of resistance emerged after both benches emptied, with Ireland showing greater intent with ball in hand and earning a try through Ulster forward Nick Twomey.

A second score followed soon after, capitalising on a rare lapse in French concentration and briefly threatening to give the contest some shape, as Munster prop Michael Milne became the first Offaly-born player to score an international try in a green jersey.

Historically, France have a habit of making things difficult for themselves, and they nearly conceded a third try following a penalty for a deliberate knock-on by Antoine Dupont. Yet, to the confusion of a partisan crowd, he avoided a yellow card.

With that reprieve, France punished Ireland further as Théo Attissogbe put the finishing touch on a commanding win. A depleted Ireland squad must now regroup and aim for a bounce-back victory against Italy next week to keep their slim championship hopes alive.

@harpinonrugby
He usually does previews for us on Fridays but this week we get to hear Keego’s views on the other side…. #FRAvIRE #GuinnessM6N #rugbytiktok
♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.blog

80+ column : February 3

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

WRAP OF A WRAP
THURSDAY’S CHILD…
SOLIDARITY
EARLY DOORS
LAWS UNTO THEMSELVES
DEVINE INTERVENTION
HARPIN’ ON…LEINSTER SEASON OVERVIEW
TEAMS FOR FRANCE V IRELAND
TROLL PATROL
COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Leinster Schools)
NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

As you’ll see a bit down the page, this ‘Thursday Six Nations kickoff’ malarkey is really grinding my gears, not least because it messes up my content schedule. Our preview will record Wednesday evening so I will post this late on Tuesday.

When it comes to the Edinburgh wrap, I was joined by Mr Leinster Royalty himself Tom Coleman who gave an excellent account of the match as well as an overview of Leinster’s season as you’ll see in the bonus chat. We began by focusing on Leinster’s NIQ players. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one cursing RG Snyman during the match on Saturday for overdoing the funky offloads but Tom did a decent job of providing counter point with all the good he’s done, as well as looking at Reiko & Rabah.

ICYMI click here to have a listen.

THURSDAY’S CHILD…

…this year’s Thursday start is because of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics.

Why is the Six Nations starting on Thursday?

Jonathan Bradley – BBC.com

…had far to go. And I’ll tell you what, you’d have to go pretty far to convince me that any of the reasons given for bringing this match forward to a goddam Thursday make any sense.

I mean, forgive me for not keeping up on the latest bobsledding and luge news but when this day switch was first announced, and I heard it was to do with the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics, I thought that meant the games were IN France. But they’re not. They’re actually in Italy. So why isn’t it their game with Scotland that gets moved instead of ours????

I mean, going by this article it seems that a weekly ProD2 fixture plus several World Cup matches under a very flawed format somehow makes this marquee matchup going to midweek understandable. Excusez‑moi, mesdames et messieurs, but it doesn’t.

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The Bundee debate, wonderful Warriors & provincial bants

Saturday, January 31, 2026

Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.

Ah here, is it the last day of January already? It doesn’t feel like I’d quite gotten finished saying “Ah here, is it the last day of 2025 already?” yet here we are. I must be having tons of fun. It certainly wasn’t from the weather for the past week, mind you. Storm Chandra not only wreaked havoc by causing floods and upturning wheelie bins but took mind to circle back and wreak some more later in the week for good measure.

Which means the forecast for the Aviva tonight of 5॰, little or no wind and 25% rain sounds positively tropical and having been forced to miss the La Rochelle thriller I’m extra looking forward to some live Leinster Rugby this evening.

The latest Harpin preview was a little different this week. The actual format was still the same, but right after the intro when I normally ask my regular guest Keego about last week’s match, he elected to focus on the ban inflicted on Bundee Aki during the week. We don’t discuss what we’re going to say beforehand and I reckon this could have been the most I have ever disagreed with him in all the years we have been doing these preview pods.

Obviously that’s not necessarily a bad thing, in fact many suggest ALL podcasts should have an element of opposing sides, but with this one being so short and the opening segment meant to be brief, we couldn’t really get into it. I did push back a bit, but rather than relitigate the whole matter here you’d be better off listening for yourself so you can do that here. There is also, of course, a decent look ahead to this evening’s match if I do say so myself.

And let’s not forget my latest stint on DublinSouthFM…

But before the spotlight gets turned on the team from the Scottish capital, I’d like to first look at their 1972 Cup rivals the Glasgow Warriors, who consolidated themselves at the top of the URC table (although the Stormers who are 7pts behind them have two games in hand) with a 31-22 victory over Munster last night at Scotstoun.

I didn’t see all of the match, but it was 12-5 to the home side when I joined so I got a decent look at the free flowing rugby they are playing this season. It really was a sight to behold. I spend a lot of my harpin’ time trying to justify Leinster’s defence-centric approach this season but I have to say, at times I do miss the days when we were all freely using the phrase “Leinstertainment” and Glasgow certainly had their own version on display at times last night.

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Previous errors, pesky birds & Potter references

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.

It’s 7am, somehow later than I usually start doing these articles so I guess from my POV you could call this a “lie-in”. But the family is still asleep and I am alone in a quiet kitchen, apart from the cat who just checked in after a night on the tiles, literally the ones in the garden.

Just in case this is your first time reading this Broken Play, the aim is to kind of do a written version of the Tommy Tiernan Show only that I kind of interview myself with no knowledge of my subject matter; I just type in whatever way my fingers take me and after a quick edit, the post gets published.

Last week that didn’t work so well as I apparently referenced the result of a rugby match that didn’t actually happen, major hat-tip to Harpin’ contributor (and this week’s wrap pod guest) Ciarán Duffy for pointing it out.

There is one regular, predictable section of this article where I plug the latest Harpin’ Preview Show, so I might as well do that here – myself and Keego had a quit chat looking ahead to this evening’s match with Connacht in Galway which also doubles as the formal opening of their shiny new look stadium. Click here to have a look/listen.

I think this week I’d like to harp on the ongoing soap opera that is Welsh Rugby. Well, I say I’d LIKE to, when I’d really rather not. The rivalry between Ireland and our Celtic cousins is quite intense and might have you think I’d be overflowing with Schadenfreude, but I guess I’m just too “nice a guy” to be happy about their current plight.

And no matter how long it might take for the rest of the house to wake up here at Harpin’ Manor, were I to try to explain what’s going on there in detail it would probably take me at least until next week’s Broken Play article. It really is quite the mess.

From my own perspective I suppose I could offer a broader look at what has happened, at least when you compare it to Irish rugby. I know that sounds trite since things are considerably rosier on these shores and comparing the two nations really has an “apples and oranges” feel to it, assuming the two fruits met each other on a rugby pitch at least once a year while slagging each other off for the rest of it.

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80+ column : January 21

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

WRAP OF A WRAP
FORMAT TWEAKS
SACRE BLEU!
CLAYTON STAYS
WHERE THERE’S A WILLIS
LATEST WELSH WOES
JACK B, JOSH K & MAX D
IRISH 6N SQUAD ANNOUNCEMENT (pending)
LEINSTER ACADEMY IN TOULOUSE
DORIS AS ‘TACKLE YOUR FEELINGS’ AMBASSADOR
LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
TROLL PATROL
COMPETITION UPDATES (incl AIL)
NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

Hey there, welcome to our latest 80+ column, where my goal is to harp on anything but Leinster & Ireland rugby and, well, I almost get there each week. Almost.

The wrap pod on Sunday featured Leinster’s biggest fan in Gibraltar, Rich Mifsud, who offered his thoughts on the win over Bayonne, ICYMI you can find it here.

It was officially Harpin’ pod number 490 which means a big milestone is on the horizon and if the numbers followed their usual progress then 500 would have been the wrap pod for England v Ireland in the Six Nations so instead to mark the occasion we have a special episode planned, more info on it closer to the time.

For now it’s time to kick off the column with Front Five, a feature I started on the old blog back in 2014. In those days I’d actually choose five articles to post every day to both keep the content flowing and to keep myself up to date on what’s happening in the ruggersphere. These days with podcasts and videos and such to work on, once a week is plenty.

FORMAT TWEAKS

…there is collective support from coaches and clubs to commence their campaigns before the packed November Test window.

Champions Cup organisers defend format but consider changes next season

Robert Kitson – The Guardian

Since this current format was introduced I have always been torn on my opinion, certainly not with what seems to be the majority. The elements that appear to annoy most people never really bothered me, like “How can you win just one game and still make the knockouts?” (you might make the knockouts but you’ll be away to a team that probably won all their matches) and “bring back the pools of four” (had plenty of flaws of its own like dead rubbers in January). Still, I wouldn’t be delighted with the current status quo, like “how the hell can a team finishing 3rd from bottom of the Premiership earn a shot at being champions?” so it’s not like I’d be a staunch defender.

This article seems to suggest that for the most part the current four pools of six with four matches each seems to be set in stone until 2030. That only annoys me because it means four more seasons of format nay-saying online if I’m honest. But as you can see by the quote, there is talk of perhaps playing matches at different times of the year, with one, possibly even two matches in October, plus a gap between the Round of 16 and the Quarterfinal.

I kind of like those ideas, in fact I’d suggest putting the Round of 16 BEFORE the Six Nations; imagine if that Champions Cup bracket was taking place this coming weekend? Anyway – we’ll see what they end up doing. I’m sure the collective ruggersphere will be delighted with the decision regardless…

OH BTW…here’s one other thing I definitely would change, this popped into my inbox Wednesday morning…

I don’t care what marketing jargon you might throw at me to explain why they have done this, I can’t see the logic in announcing nominees for POTY when the Y is only 3 weeks old. Makes about as much sense as a certain someone expecting to get a peace prize.

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AI doing me wrong, Mad Dog & Englishmen, opinions on opinions

Saturday, December 13, 2025

Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.

As promised last week, the Christmas decorations are now up in the Pagano household, and I have even resorted to AI to festivize the logo for the time of year that’s in it.

Speaking of AI, I’m afraid I have to hang my head in shame when it comes to our latest preview show on YouTube. When I talk of producing content I often joke about having a “Harpin’ Legal Department” or “Harpin’ Graphic Department” assuming most people know my tongue is firmly in my cheek as I type. The reality is that apart from my excellent group of contributors who join me on pods and take part in our WhatsApp group, the different hats are generally worn by my good salf.

Which means I have come to resort to AI more and more for research to save time, and sadly the same ways AI photos often come out with 6 or 7 fingers on each hand, the data I ask for can be wildly inaccurate.

The Preview show follows a specific template each week, and one mini segment involves looking at the other matches in the round of the weekend for the tournament Leinster or Ireland are playing in that weekend. When it’s Champions Cup time, I do try to include all the Irish provinces which means I have to also keep tabs on the Challenge Cup.

So when setting up the graphic for the video, rather than go to the official Challenge Cup site like I should have done, I relied on AI to provide me with the list of games and for some reason I was told Ulster were playing against the Dragons while Connacht were playing the Cheetahs.

Both were totally wrong, their opponents were in fact Cardiff and Black Lion respectively, and it’s way too late to fix it. I only noticed there was egg on my fac when I was researching for my weekly Dublin FM slot and it dawned on me that Connacht couldn’t possibly be playing away from home two weeks in a row.

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