Category: Champions Cup

490 : Bayonne v Leinster wrap

17 January 2026; Dan Sheehan of Leinster scores his side’s first try despite the tackle of Tom Spring of Aviron Bayonnais during the Investec Champions Cup match between Bayonne and Leinster at the Stade Jean Dauger in Bayonne, France. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 The kicking game

🏉 Blunt attack

🏉 Rotating 15s

🏉 Lineouts

🏉 Playing catchup

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

RICHARD MIFSUD

FULL TIME TAKES

Kevin Kelehan

Bayonne are decent ballers, that stadium is as tough to go to as La Rochelle. Eked it out and like the Ulster game they were always going to.

David Ryle

Well done. Great resilience against a team who lose rarely at home. Great vision from Sam to follow the ball for his try.

Gavin Little

Basic skills have dropped way off. The defence isn’t working. Is there a plan of attack?

Coaches have a lot to answer for. Players too.

Ken Tancred

I think Bayonne deserve more credit than most people are giving them credit for

Peter Tracey

Worst European performance I’ve seen in a long long time. They don’t know how to attack anymore sadly. They’ve forgotten how to defend as well. Boyle was brilliant as was VDF. Don’t know what Ioane offers at the minute. Stopping the progress of Tector and Cooney. Not his fault that Leinster signed him though.

Chris McDonnell

This style is seriously attritional. Another 4 players injured again today. We need to start going around teams not through them.

Christy O’Connor

Another hard watch, another limp to victory. It’s not going to last much longer playing like this and getting wins.

Sandra Seery

A win is a win. Thrilled for Sam P. Great insights for passing and his try was super.

Craig Grehan

First thing, can we stop the over hype of Sam P’s inclusion 2 lucky bounces. One led to him falling to a try. The other to a bit of a run that nearly led to a try.

Overall, smelly performance. We won, but was smelly. Where has our attacking prowess gone ?

Why is Ioane even here ? Or is it us using him wrong?

Our defense looked a bit sloppy too. A win is a win, but we’re in need of actually playing rugby. Not playing a game plan..

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

Round 4

Pau 24–26 Bulls

Bath 63–10 Edinburgh

Sharks 50–12 Clermont

Bayonne 13–22 Leinster

Stormers 39–26 Leicester

Toulouse 77–7 Sale

Munster 29–31 Castres

Gloucester 14–31 Toulon

Bristol 15–27 Bordeaux

Northampton 43-28 Scarlets

La Rochelle 17–27 Harlequins

Glasgow 28–3 Saracens

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “Jack B, Josh K & Max D”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

488 : Leinster v La Rochelle wrap

10 January 2026; Harry Byrne of Leinster celebrates after converting an 80th minute penalty to give his side a 25-24 victory during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leinster and La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

🏉 That start & that finish
🏉 More injuries
🏉 More ill discipline
🏉 Breakdown decisions
🏉 Vintage visitors

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Sheena Crean

A super match to attend, havent witnessed that atmos in the aviva in quite some time, but left feeling Leinster’s attack is soulless. Defensively strong but lacking ideas elsewhere. Joshua Kenny is a very exciting prospect, would be super to see him start a 6N game- maybe v Wales so that he doesnt get the same level of pressure overload that appears to be destroying SP (or perhaps SP simply isnt good enough, time will tell)

Eamon Saunders

That was close but great performance from Leinster considering we had so many big names missing

Cormac Mannion

Yet again we score early and then fail to do so for a huge chunk of the match. Gotta admire the grit but our ball presentation going into contact, our breakdown work and our ruck defence are utter garbage at the moment.

Fair play to JJ, he’s really growing into the role and it’s brilliant to see him and TOB burning players with sheer speed.

The third and fourth tries were great to see, pure instinct and well worked through the hands.

Balls of steel for Harry to nail that final kick but quite telling that Sam handed the ball to him.

La Rochelle wil be kicking themselves though. They butchered two certain tries

Conor Cronin

I’ll be doing a rewatch tomorrow before I judge this game completely, but I will say that from my seat it seemed like the ref had more impact on this game than he should have, and our choice to not go for points at 12-0 could’ve returned to catch us out, it would’ve put us 3 scores ahead and had an impact on their attitude to the game. Game management and captain decisions need a little attention for tight games like this

Vincent Duggan

Leinster lucky to get away with this one. La Rochell butchered 3 try attempts. Carley is an international standard ref he pulled Leinster for all the stuff they get away with in the URC, killing the ball a the breakdown and offside in midfield. Prendergast was responsible for two tries because of his inability to defend. Leinster were cut apart in midfield.

Tom Clarke

Given the injuries and then the injuries in the game that was a great win. A lot to work on defensively but the lads showed great fight and resilience.

Andrew Byrne

Looks like our depth at prop is better than we all thought. Fair play to Jerry Cahir off the bench, did a great job when he came on.

Billy Glynn

Two men playing their first H Cup two tries from kenny and brilliant from jerry Cahir AIL to H Cup 👏 great win with a bonus point can’t complain really.

Keith Bruce

Great game, La Rochelle didn’t take their chances and should have overrun Ireland, not looking good for Leinster in the six nations.

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

Round 3

Castres 20–43 Bath
Edinburgh 26–24 Gloucester
Bulls 49–61 Bristol Bears
Clermont 21–33 Glasgow Warriors
Leinster 25–24 Stade Rochelais
Sale Sharks 26–10 Hollywoodbets Sharks
Scarlets 38–47 Pau
Leicester Tigers 57–14 Bayonne
Harlequins 61–10 Stormers
Toulon 27–25 Munster
Bordeaux 50–28 Northampton Saints
Saracens 20-14 Toulouse

Round 4

Friday 16 January 2026

Pau v Bulls

Bath v Edinburgh

Saturday 17 January 2026

Sharks v Clermont

Bayonne v Leinster

Stormers v Leicester

Toulouse v Sale

Munster v Castres

Gloucester v Toulon

Sunday 18 January 2026

Bristol v Bordeaux

Northampton v Scarlets

La Rochelle v Harlequins

Glasgow v Saracens

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “Final round permutations” (YouTube)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (Substack)

487: Leinster v La Rochelle preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST

Our guest : MARK JACKSON

Leinster: 15. Ciaran Frawley, 14. Tommy O’Brien, 13. Rieko Ioane, 12. Robbie Henshaw, 11. Joshua Kenny, 10. Sam Prendergast, 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Paddy McCarthy, 2. Dan Sheehan, 3. Tom Clarkson, 4. Joe McCarthy, 5. James Ryan, 6. Jack Conan, 7. Josh van der Flier, 8. Caelan Doris (c)

16. Ronan Kelleher, 17. Jerry Cahir, 18. Andrew Sparrow, 19. Diarmuid Mangan, 20. Max Deegan, 21. Luke McGrath, 22. Harry Byrne, 23. Andrew Osborne

La Rochelle: 15. Dillyn Leyds, 14. Jack Nowell, 13. Jules Favre, 12. Simeli Daunivucu, 11. Davit Niniashvili, 10. Ihaia West, 9. Nolann le Garrec

1. Reda Wardi, 2. Tolu Latu, 3. Uini Atonio, 4. Charles Kante Samba, 5. Will Skelton, 6. Oscar Jegou, 7. Levani Botia, 8. Grégory Alldritt (c)

16. Quentin Lespiaucq, 17. Louis Penverne, 18. Aleksandre Kuntelia, 19. Kane Douglas, 20. Kirill Fraindt, 21. Thomas Berjon, 22. Antoine Hastoy, 23. Nathan Bollengier

Investec Champions Cup 25/26 – Round 3

Saturday, January 10, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1

Referee: Matthew Carley (Eng)

AR1: Adam Leal (Eng)

AR2: John Meredith (Eng)

TMO: Ian Tempest (Eng)

480 : Leicester Tigers v Leinster wrap

12 December 2025; Jamison Gibson-Park of Leinster scores his side’s first try during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leicester Tigers and Leinster at Mattioli Woods Welford Road in Leicester, England. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Reiko’s 1st start

🏉 Joe McC

🏉 Defensive concerns

🏉 The road ahead

🏉 Paddy McC

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Cian O’Muilleoir (WhatsApp)

The more I think on that performance, the more I reckon the 1% is right. 

The previous big obvious things (scrum, lineout, discipline) are more or less fixed, certainly improved. 

Outside of that we’re getting into the right patterns and areas both sides of the ball, pretty much, but then… it falls apart. The reason differs. Sometimes it’s ruck resourcing. Sometimes it’s ball placement. Sometimes it’s offence or defence position or role confusion. Sometimes it’s accuracy/execution.

None of them feel like they’d be a massive issue to fix by themselves. But they’re all happening in every match like a random failure generator.

It needs fixing, and quick.

Darach Kennedy

An away win in Welford road. I’ll take that. Someone else can try and gather up some negatives.

Greg Kelly

Leinsters poor attack and sloppy execution continues. You wonder what’s really going on. We were the better team overall and they never really looked like scoring in the second half but our attack was woefully sloppy.

Irish rugby should be concerned overall with the loose head situation. Regardless of what happens referees seem to think we are weak there. There were some real garbage calls against McCarthy in the first half but as with Porter there is a perception.

Christy O’Connor

Another poor performance overall with some good individual performances. So many poor passes and spilled balls. At least our lineout was the best I’ve seen in a good while.

Doris needs to be careful moaning at the ref so much, the hit on Conan was a rugby incident and nothing more.

Our defense is not going to be good enough when we come up against better teams

Kevin Kelehan

Very happy that despite conceding two really well taken tries against the run of play the lads kept their belief and upped their work rate. The coming six weeks will make or break Leinster’s season, Ulster, Munster, Connacht, La Rochelle and Bayonne. Great to be heading into that run knowing that when the opportunity for players to go missing, they refused to take it.

Odran John OBrien

Brilliant win away from home but the Leinster attack is simply awful

anyone have Isa’s number? We could all do a whip around to persuade him to come back and coach

Chris McDonnell

If we could only put the straps Robbie henshaw has on his accordion on to a rugby ball, he might not drop the ball as much.

Craig Grehan

Win is a win. Grafted that one out

Tom Fingleton

Look at all the stats from tonight and the try return from the dominance . Tells you all really

Richard Collumb

4 points away, despite playing at times like they only met each other in the dressing room.

Eamon Saunders

Not a great team performance but again some very good individuals

Lorcán Murphy

The good news is they’re getting gritty away wins playing poorly with injury disruption. Can only get better

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

ROUND 2

Leicester Tigers 15–23 Leinster

Stormers 42–21 La Rochelle

Clermont 14–35 Sale Sharks

Sharks 28-23 Saracens

Munster 31–3 Gloucester

Bordeaux-Bègles 50–21 Scarlets

Glasgow Warriors 28–21 Toulouse

Cardiff 29–26 Ulster

Castres 33–0 Edinburgh

Harlequins 68-14 Bayonne

Northampton Saints 50-5 Bulls

Toulon 45-34 Bath

Bristol Bears 61-12 Pau

Round 3

Friday, 9 January 2026

Castres v Bath

Edinburgh v Gloucester

Saturday, 10 January 2026

Bulls v Bristol

Clermont v Glasgow

Leinster v La Rochelle

Sale Sharks v Sharks

Scarlets v Pau

Leicester Tigers v Bayonne

Sunday, 11 January 2026

Harlequins v Stormers

Toulon v Munster

Bordeaux-Bègles v Northampton Saints

Saracens v Toulouse

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “THE RISE AND RISE OF PADDY McCARTHY” (YOUTUBE)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (SUBSTACK) 

479: Leicester Tigers v Leinster preview

Our guest : MARK JACKSON

LEINSTER :

15. Jimmy O’Brien14. Tommy O’Brien 13. Rieko Ioane 12. Robbie Henshaw

11. James Lowe 10. Harry Byrne 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Paddy McCarthy 2. Rónan Kelleher 3. Tadhg Furlong 4. Joe McCarthy

5. James Ryan 6. Jack Conan 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris (c)

16. Dan Sheehan 17. Jack Boyle 18. Thomas Clarkson 19. Diarmuid Mangan

20. Max Deegan 21. Luke McGrath 22. Sam Prendergast 23. Ciarán Frawley

LEICESTER TIGERS

15 Freddie Steward 14 Adam Radwan 13 Will Wand

12 Solomone Kata 11 Ollie Hassell-Collins 10 Billy Searle 9 Tom Whiteley

1 Nicky Smith 2 Jamie Blamire 3 Joe Heyes 4 Cameron Henderson

5 Harry Wells 6 James Thompson 7 Tommy Reffell (c) 8 Joaquin Moro

16 Finn Theobald Thomas 17 Archie van der Flier 18 Will Hurd 19 Tom Manz

20 Sam Williams 21 Ollie Allan 22 Orlando Bailey 23 Joseph Woodward

Investec Champions Cup 25/26 – Round 2

Friday, December 12, 2025

Mattioli Woods Welford Road

KO 8pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1

Referee – Pierre Brousset (Fra)

AR1 – Vincent Blasco Baque (Fra)

AR2 – Julien Caulier (Fra)

TMO – Tual Trainini (Fra)

477 : Leinster v Harlequins preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST

Our guest : MARK JACKSON

LEINSTER : 15. Jimmy O’Brien 14. Tommy O’Brien 13. Garry Ringrose 12. Ciarán Frawley 11. Jordan Larmour 10. Sam Prendergast 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Paddy McCarthy 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Thomas Clarkson 4. RG Snyman 5. Joe McCarthy 6. Jack Conan 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris (c)

16. Rónan Kelleher 17. Jack Boyle 18. Tadhg Furlong 19. Diarmuid Mangan 20. Max Deegan 21. Luke McGrath 22. Harry Byrne 23. Rieko Ioane

HARLEQUINS : 15. Cameron Anderson, 14. Cassius Cleaves, 13. Oscar Beard, 12. Luke Northmore, 11. Cadan Murley (c), 10. Jarrod Evans, 9. Will Porter

1. Boris Wenger, 2. Jack Walker, 3. Harry Williams, 4. Kieran Treadwell, 5. Stephan Lewies, 6. Zach Carr, 7. Will Evans, 8. Tom Lawday

16. George Turner, 17. Will Hobson, 18. Pedro Delgado, 19. Joe Launchbury, 20. Lucas Schmid, 21. Lucas Friday, 22. Jamie Benson, 23. Bryn Bradley

Investec Champions Cup 25/26 – Round 1

Saturday, December 6, 2025

Aviva Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1

Referee : Craig Evans (WRU)

AR1 : Adam Jones (WRU)

AR2 : Ben Breakspear (WRU)

TMO : Keith David (WRU)

Harpin’ on…the Champions’ Cup contenders

Every Tuesday we post a “bonus chat” from our Sunday evening wrap pod recording, here’s the latest one.

This is the lead-in : “Next weekend sees the opening round of the Champions Cup, and rather than engage in the annual complaints about the format which doesn’t seem to be moving the needle with the organisers, we thought instead we’d start our coverage by looking at the various contenders for winning the 2026 final in Bilbao, which Leinster fans won’t need reminding is where we won our fourth, and crucially our most recent, star. I suppose David before you list your contenders from around the continent I should probably ask, are Leinster one of them?“

433 : Leinster v Northampton wrap

🏉  Top two inches

🏉  Saints on the march

🏉  D-construction

🏉  Selection issues

🏉  What next?

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

RICHARD MIFSUD & HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Cormac Mannion

Kept kicking the ball away and when we actually had a straightforward kick to draw level at 37-37 we went for the corner. Summed up our brainless play all evening. I’m really annoyed about how we played. Yet again we’ve faltered in a big match

Gavin Hegarty

Anyone else think henshaw was a huge weak link? He didn’t bring anything to the party.

Head to simani is a straight red

Yellow at the try line should be a penalty try

But we shouldn’t have been in that position.

Horrific first half that we shouldn’t have been that bad in.

Andrew Tynan

The ref giving a saints player a yellow card at the end but yet no penalty try? What?

Kevin Kelehan

Kicking the ball at Saints back 3 was never going to be a winner, Leinster were lucky to be in the game right to the end, tactically the approach did not play to Leinster’s strengths. Credit Saints they nailed 90% of their chances

Colette Caddle

They were the better side and deserved the win.

Christy O’Connor

Nienaber has to go for me, I’ve never liked his tactics and I was never hopeful we would win with his style. Yes we played better the last few weeks but against very poor opposition

Daniel James

I think we should’ve played at least the bones of this team against scarlets last week as I worry that the international are sometime undercooked. Also i think we need to win an URC before the champions cup and we have been focusing to much on getting that 5th star rather then winning our league then going for the star. The intensity from Northampton was incredible all game I expected them to get tired towards the end but they have it there all where as I thought we got tired at times and their scores seemed a bit easy.

Cuan Mulligan

Saints deserved the win. However some very dubious ref calls. The possible try at the end should not have been disallowed for the reason the ref gave, the corner flag is not in touch.. however Byrne was on the floor and it’s questionable if he is allowed to touch it down. About 2 or 3 plays before it, near their try line, I think Pollock goes off his feet crawling on his knees over our players and a second player in goes into take the ball… not sharing this to gripe.. if you leave your win down to ref calls you don’t deserve it.. but the reffing was poor

Jackie McEachern

Saints were very good (and it pains me to say that). But I don’t understand not starting Barrett.

And I’m not sure resting the starters leading up to these big games is a good strategy. I know it’s a physical game but we’ve seen time and time again where they come into the big matches rested but not cohesive.

Richard Collumb

Useless today & Tactics were terrible. That’s down to the coaches. Given team & budget the players & management get judged on performances in May & they aren’t good enough.

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NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “ANNUAL CULLENOSCOPY”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY (Substack)

432 : Leinster v Northampton preview

Our guest : MARK JACKSON

LEINSTER : 15. Hugo Keenan 14. Tommy O’Brien 13. Garry Ringrose 12. Robbie Henshaw 11. James Lowe 10. Sam Prendergast 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Cian Healy 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Tadhg Furlong 4. RG Snyman 5. Joe McCarthy 6. Max Deegan 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris (c)

16. Rónan Kelleher 17. Andrew Porter 18. Rabah Slimani 19. Ryan Baird 20. Jack Conan 21. Luke McGrath 22. Ross Byrne 23. Jordie Barrett

NORTHAMPTON :  15 James Ramm 14 Tommy Freeman 13 Fraser Dingwall (c) 12 Rory Hutchinson 11 Tom Litchfield 10 Fin Smith 9 Alex Mitchell

1 Emmanuel Iyogun 2 Curtis Langdon 3 Trevor Davison 4 Temo Mayanavanua 5 Alex Coles 6 Josh Kemeny 7 Henry Pollock 8 Juarno Augustus

16 Henry Walker17 Tom West 18 Elliot Millar Mills 19 Tom Lockett 20 Chunya Munga 21 Angus Scott-Young 22 Tom James 23 Tom Seabrook

Investec Champions Cup 24/25 Semifinal

Saturday, May 3, 2025

KO 5:30pm  Aviva Stadium

Live on : RTÉ2, Premier Sports 1

Referee : Pierre Brousset (Fra)

AR1 : Luc Ramos (Fra)

AR2 : Gianluca Gnecchi (Ita)

TMO : Tual Trainini (Fra)

427 : Leinster v Glasgow wrap

11 April 2025; Dan Sheehan of Leinster scores his side’s seventh try during the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final match between Leinster and Glasgow Warriors at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉  Glasgow’s poor exits

🏉  Sam’s spirals

🏉  Leinster’s D (again) 

🏉  Mangan’s Euro debut

🏉  Jordie’s everything

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

TOM COLEMAN

RICHARD MIFSUD

FULL TIME TAKES

Greg Kelly

We put on a show but we learned nothing and didn’t sharpen our edges. When Byrne replaced Sam there was a noticeable drop off in incision and tempo. All in all we played an hour of solid rugby and then pulled up in the last 20 to save legs.

Chris McDonnell

Just too good. Noticeable drop off when we changed our half backs.

David Ryle

Wasn’t a scoreline we were expecting. But Glasgow were missing half of their starters.

2 weeks on the bounce teams kept scoreless.

Cuan Mulligan

Loved the term.. Leinster Double Bagel

Get in the conversation yourself by leaving

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 in Leinster & Ireland matches on our Facebook page

CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S BEST IMPORTS”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN INCLUDING FRONT 5 VIDEO

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY