19 April 2025; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster evades the tackle of on his way to scoring his side’s first try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Ulster at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Tommy is flying, definitely in with a great shout to be playing in the cup games. Will definitely be on the irish summer tour
Greg Kelly
Tommy O’Brien looking like the real deal these days
Michael Branagan
Great result. Porter needs to be “seen to be in control”. He’s throwing penalties away, 50:50 calls, that are damaging us and his reputation. I do think it’s harsh on a number of fronts but he has to “ease back” as it were. For a little while.
William Andrew
Ulster had a lot go against them, but still hung in there.
Some unfortunate, some self inflected.
Leinster were good but you can see some players are not quite the standard of the 1st squad.
Others are pushing on. Highlights were the chip to Dan and Gunn delaying his pass to Dan.
Smart play
Warren Doyle
Right person won man of the match. Class act. Well done Tommy O’Brien.
Josh van der Flier of Leinster scores his side’s fourth try during the Investec Champions Cup Round of 16 match between Leinster and Harlequins at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
I thought it was going to be a hard day at the office on the first 10 mins. I think the held up ball knocked the wind out of them.
Kevin Kelehan
Quins turned up, sadly only for 10 minutes, great to see JVdF back to his rampaging best, Ringrose lethal in defense and incisive in attack and Jordie Barrett’s team first and self second distribution showing why he was signed.
Chris McDonnell
As complete a performance as I have seen in ages.
Alan Murphy
Quins over 80 mins were never going to win that. Not taking the 6 points on offer for two kickable penalties in the first 10 mins was really naive. Aimless kicking to a Leinster back 3 was naive. Kicking all their restarts to the same space in the first half was naive. Very poor from a last 16 team. I hope they get rid of this round in future as very average teams are winning one game (Ulster) in 4 in the ‘group’ stages and making the knockouts. Others staggering in with 2 wins from 4. Go straight to the quarter finals in future.
Christy O’Connor
Dragons would’ve caused us more problems. I expect a much tougher game next week. I reckon Glasgow will beat Leicester and Glasgow will definitely give is a tough game
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Wales were so much better today, played with width and offloaded really accurately. Doris certainly missed and Ringrose’s mistimed tackle didn’t help. Likely France only 3 points behind us after this weekend which makes a win essential in 2 weeks time.
Peggy Sibbald
Well done Ireland..but hats of to Wales they played a massive game of Rugby 👏👏👏
Craig Grehan
That was an epic battle. Sloppy but epic. I think it will stand to us better than if we’d gone out and hammered them. Not that it was gonna happen. Fair play Wales. But fair play Ireland for sticking it out and showing the grit between the teeth
Michelle Tobin
Scrum was an unmitigated disaster. We were lucky not to concede a yellow for the repeated penalties. So many players will watch that performance back and be embarrassed. Some dreadful stuff. A few bright sparks, Osborne, Lowe, Conan and Beirne but plenty of others sub-par.
Greg Kelly
Ireland were poor but did the job when needed. In fairness had we played well for 60 mins of that game we would have won comfortably and I think we allowed Wales to play well. Was surprised Ringrose was upgraded to red but there was some really bizzare interactions between referee and TMO in that game 🤷♂️
Jackie McEachern
Grateful for the win. We missed Doris, hoping he’s back for France and also hoping Conan’s injury isn’t serious. I thought it was a little strange that Crowley wasn’t brought on until so late in the game.
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25 January 2025; Jordie Barrett of Leinster scores his side’s third try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and DHL Stormers at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
27 December 2024; Luke McGrath of Leinster scores his side’s first try during the United Rugby Championship match between Munster and Leinster at Thomond Park in Limerick. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
NOTE : this week we posted the ‘Final Thoughts’ portion separately on our YouTube channel
I am not a McGrath fan but he was good tonight. Credit where its due. Munster’s refusal to take points when they are on offer is just daft against a defence as good as Leinster’s. Lineout was better and the scrum was good mostly.
Gavin Hegarty
Let’s not get carried away here, that was a terrible Munster team. They need to rebuild from the ground up.
Adrian Hickey
Being cautious with Super Sam is key. No Jordie or RG was a killer blow to a real soft Munster outfit imo. No real reason to egg them on
Jackie McEachern
Happy to see the lineout functioning better. Thought VdF was excellent again. Really happy to get the BP win. Still lots to work on but lots of positives too.
Kevin Kelehan
11 points clear of the pack, selecting a stronger squad to tour South Africa in March is vital, now the meat of the season kicks off, La Rochelle away, Bath home and the Six Nations title defence
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8 December 2024; Jordie Barrett of Leinster during the Champions Cup Round 1 match between Bristol Bears and Leinster at Ashton Gate in Bristol, England. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
First half was poor, but the second half was loads of fun and I especially enjoyed the two tries from Sam ‘Not A Running Threat’ Prendergast
Louis Hoffman
Could a scrum ‘expert’ explain to me, what all that nonsense was about? Was it the refs fault?
Kevin Kelehan
Dreadful ref, his scrum time nearly wrecked the game completely. The bench was ridiculously over strength but thankfully it worked a charm when introduced, a BP on the road is all that history will record in a game of two halves.
Jackie McEachern
Definitely a “game of two halves”. As others have said, our bench obviously made a huge difference. While the reffing was horrible, we showed good composure in the first half when we had two yellow cards to attack and score a try.
Brian Patrick Donnelly
match ruined by inept, pedantic, awful refereeing. We were good for 20 minutes and that was that.
Shane Mcdonald
Just watching it it now at half time but how on gods green earth did the ref linesman tmo miss the very very very obvious hands in the ruck when jvdf nearly got over in the corner
Stevie wonder could have seen that and tv kept showing it over over over 🤦
Greg Kelly
BP away to the 2nd placed team in England is not to be sniffed at. The officiating was poor. We got little change from the officials in the first half but credit to the lads they worked around it well. Not sure how the TMO doesn’t intervene to card Thacker for pulling the ball out of Joshs hands on the goal line in the first half but comes in to reverse a lineout🤷♂️
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I’m not too worried about the attack just yet. It took Catt a bit of time to sort that out when he took up the role so let’s hope Goodman makes improvements by the 6N.
However, our lineout is appalling and this is nothing new. Serious questions to be asked of O’Connell and what he’s doing there.
Big step up for Prendergast today and he’ll learn from it. Suddenly we now have options at 10 post Johnny. Crowley was really up for it when he came on too.
Another issue though seems to be the back row. We seem to get isolated an awful lot at the breakdown and giving away a lot of turnovers. Ruck clearance has definitely gone downhill this year.
Ronan McManus
I’m not sure that Prendergast’s more languid passing style helped us against the Aussie rush defence. They were in among us by the time the ball came into the centre.
Some real flashes of quality from him though.
Sort.out.the.lineout.
Kevin Kelehan
Bench was the difference between the sides, Dan Sheehan will be back once fit and Gus McCarthy should be on the bench, you need to win your own line outs, something that only happened once McCarthy came on. Jack Crowley also showed so much more accuracy and energy in his time, Prendergast just not up to the pace aged 21. Craig Casey also full of energy when introduced. Josh VDF also superb and was Doris as was Big Joe and Porter.
Sean MacDonnchadha
Can’t sweep this under the rug and say a win is a win and move on. That lazy mentality has only ever gotten us to the same QF exit in world cups. Lineout and attack are serious issues and can no longer be ignored – changes needed.
Jackie McEachern
Lineout needs to be sorted. Bench made a big impact (esp Crowley, Casey and McCarthy). Glad we got the win but that could easily have gone the other way.
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Sam P’s ability to pick out a late pass and put a player into a gap was otherworldly! Set up a number of clean breaks. Loved the fact he made a number of errors but the head didn’t do down and he just played on as if it didn’t matter. Great temperament.
Gus was also brilliant- another couple of games and he’ll be pushing Kelleher and of course Sheehan when he’s back! What a debut.
Lots of really good performances from more established players Henshaw, Aki, JVDF, Doris and loved Casey’s performances – much better then I’ve seen him play before.
Lastly a word for Frawley – he took some punishment and kept going and did very well!
Opposition was quite poor however and we need to keep that in mind.
Jackie McEachern
Bearing in mind that Fiji were poor, I think we can still take away positives. Great first time starts from Sam and Gus. And many of the veterns put in strong performances – Aki, Henshaw, Doris, VdF. I was also really impressed with Casey.
I think Crowley should definitely start next week and the #10 jersey is his. But I’m excited for what Sam will also bring as he matures and his skills grow.
Bert McLoughlin
Fijian discipline shocking. Gus McCarthy had a great debut 3 assists and a try👏. Sam had a mixed bag with the yellow and a few mistakes after he can back on, but his passing gains space for players around him and is definitely a playmaker 10.
Chris McDonnell
Casey played his best game, sam recovered from some silly mistakes and played well especially after frawley came on and took loads of the pressure off playing as a second play maker. Said before the game the balance on the bench with so many 12’s and no back 3 players was always going to go badly.
Eamon Saunders
A win is a win some great individual performances but for me Robbie Henshaw was back to his best but again great performances all over the pitch
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5 October 2024; Ciarán Frawley of Leinster beats the tackle of Tommaso Menoncello of Benetton on the way to scoring his side’s second try during the United Rugby Championship match between Benetton and Leinster at Stadio Monigo in Treviso, Italy. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Weird one that. Obviously happy with 5 points away at Benetton. We were brilliant for half an hour. Defensively exceptional for the whole game. But it's a concern how much our attack faded after that opening blitz. #BENvLEI
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 