Richard Collumb Positives: Frawley looked good at 10, line out functioned well as did scrum (mostly).
Negatives: too many aimless kicks, defence shaky, Ross Byrne didnt stamp authority on game
Gavin Hegarty Needing work: first up tackles. The backline seemed to have a nice rush defence but this broke down quite a bit when the first up tackles were missed or broke. It was very unleinsterlike.
Marcas Mac Siacais much improved obv from a stronger side than last week..Baird is a 6 leave him there please…hope frawley off was precautionary…that Josh VDF has a future if he works hard….
Chris McDonnell Jenkins is better than i thought, mcgrath and byrne are playing the wrong sport, all they want to do is kick the ball. Frawley was good, josh was josh, dan is unstoppable, great achievement for healy, larmour was very good and was henshaw. worried about Doris.
Kevin OCeallaigh I was disappointed with Benetton. The final score didn’t reflect the gulf between the teams.
Much more comfortable 5pts than last week, that's for sure. Still think we could have done more but def happy with the way a lot of the systems were working. Obvs Dan's tries the highlight but darts and play in the loose excellent too. Now to the Kingspan. #LEIvBEN#BKTURC
Richard Mifsud Congrats @ZebreParma they were v/good value for the score line from a @leinsterrugby pov very poor D esp in midfield lacking cohesion kicks loose giving away too many metres Plenty for the coaches to review BPW w/much to improve #ZEBvLEI @URCOfficial
Tom Coleman From Leinster pov tackling has been very substandard means defending has been chaotic with very little cohesion. Worried about lack of urgency from our chasers from kicks. Just giving free 20 to 30m to their back 3. Lots to work on. Not a good performance #ZEBvLEI
Andy McGeady Fair play Zebre. Leinster very, very, very, very lucky to hold on for that win. Very very very very very very very very very lucky. #ZEBvLEI
The 2nd Row Zebre put some great attack together showed real intent & imagination, tonnes of fight, lots of heart 2 bonus points for them out of that game is a huge result could’ve been more if their patience & accuracy was 5/10% better, esp in that final 10 minutes
Miriam Collins Phew, thankfully we held on at the end and maybe, just maybe that result will stand to us later in the season. Would much prefer a scare at this part of the season than at the business end.
Derek McGee Gotta say, that was poor. Yes, early season rust is always a consideration but there were some lads out there who looked like they’d never met each other before today. None of the backs covered themselves in glory but in particular, the five men behind the half backs will be dreading Monday’s video session. “Turnstile” tackling, and that was only when they actually made contact. A hell of a lot to work on there. On the forwards, okay at best. You could count the good performances on one hand (if you have particularly tiny Trump hands): Rhys did what Rhys does & was excellent during his time on the field, Ronan Kelleher was solid, as was Ross Molony & what we saw from Jason Jenkins was very encouraging. The scrum was dominant until the second half changes & fairly solid thereafter, so there is that. Have to give Zebre their due though, they were as good as I’ve ever seen them & pretty much all of their tries were very high quality. If their outhalf had his radar on, this might have been One Of Those Days. A tiny silver lining is that this should serve as a wake-up call good & early in the season: We’ve seen before how coasting through until May can bite us in the rear, come the business end of the season, so chalk this one down as a tough lesson on Day One.
Chris McDonnell Penny wins a turnover in a great position, Mcgrath kicks the ball straight back to them. Byrne at 10 is just a mistake. Leo needs to learn from his mistakes
Full credit to Zebre probably deserved more than 2 match pts, after a slow start they really looked more season ready. Lots of issues in Leinster set up, like midfield D nowhere near good enough at times. Can only take the 5pts and fix what's wrong. #ZEBvLEI#BKTURC
So….in case you hadn’t noticed, the theme here at Harpin Manor this season has been “re-imagining”. The logo, the designs, the bells, the whistles, even the domain name has been tinkered with ahead of the new campaign.
Yet the most important change has been to the centrepiece of our content production. For the past 14 seasons, the main focus has been the “match writeup” where I scribbled around 2000 words on the latest Leinster & Ireland outing every week. Now the work I do for that is being switched from written word to spoken and for the foreseeable future it will be our “main podcast”, recorded and published on Sunday evening, that serves to wrap up the action from the weekend on these pages.
I’ve really enjoyed the new challenges since we began back on August 21, producing more pods, publishing video clips on YouTube and Tik Tok to help promote them, and I reckon this week’s wrap on Zebre v Leinster, with the brilliant help and preparation of Messrs Coleman & Mifsud I might add, is very close to the way I want it and I’m very excited about the weeks ahead both from Leinster-rugby-watching and a Harpin’-content-producing perspectives.
Here’s the thing though…I really, really do like the writing. So I’ve come up with this column, which I’m calling 80+, which I’m going to tack on to my post here on the site promoting each pod so I can harp on a host of egg-chasing stuff, some of it to do with the match in question, maybe some thoughts I forgot to bring up on the pod, but also with a wider scope as well.
So that’s what I plan the 80+ column to be, a series of headings on different things that have been on my mind lately. I’ve probably given enough words to explain what the column is, and now it’s time to actually use it for what it’s intended!!!
PLAYER OF THE MATCH
One thing I forgot to ask the lads about in the pod was how they felt about Rhys Ruddock being named Player of the Match by Gordon D’Arcy in the RTÉ commentary box. Obviously I love Rhys and his two tries went a long way to establishing enough of a lead for us to hold onto, but personally I thought it was in our second row where we needed the leadership and when Zebre first got within 6 points of us, IMO it was Ross Molony who really knuckled down and made the right call at the next attacking lineout to put us in a position to get that all-important fifth (and ultimately winning) try. Yes, I know he dropped the restart at 21-0 that kickstarted Zebre’s fightback, but those catches aren’t all down to the guy who is relying on lifters and I have to say overall I’m excited for what this Molony/Jenkins axis can do for us this season, especially in this opening 7-round block of URC matches.
Of course with the final score so close there was always the option to go for a Zebre player and I consulted the lads from the pod via WhatsApp and they agree that while Molony was a choice, the likes of Eden, Gesi and Pelsner from the home side were also in the frame.
THE POINT OF A TRY BONUS
I was delighted when Rich brought up the try bonus point issue on the pod because it’s something I’ve been harpin’ on for a while. As delighted as I was with Leinster’s maximum-point haul on Saturday, when I take the blue googles off I have to ask if we really deserved one? Four tries in the first half is impressive yes, but when you go on to concede a further three down the other end to shrink your lead from 21 down to just 4, I’m not so sure it can be justified.
The way the system works in the Top😺🐴 is that you must score 3 more tries than your opponent which means racking up four tries in a first half isn’t near enough for a BP, you also have to make sure you defend your line right to the 80th minute. It also means the vast majority of losing teams won’t be able to earn one. That may be harsh on Zebre but don’t forget, they also conceded five tries!
It’s just my new way of writing the Top14. Because it’s French, they don’t say “fourteen”, they say “quatorze” so I thought this might get more people saying it at least a bit closer to what it is. My original idea was to make it all graphic by using the cartoon character Top Cat along with a horse but then I realised just how dated a reference that is so best not broadcast my age when I can avoid it!
“THAT CALL BY REYNAL”
Our podcast ended up being over an hour so some of it ended up on the “cutting room floor”, although I did hold on to this clip which was my thoughts on Mathieu Reynal’s decision to give a free kick against the Wallabies’ Bernard Foley at a critical stage of the Bledisloe Cup clash during the week.
PREDICTION LEAGUE
In the pod I mentioned our Harpin’ Prediction League, you’ll be hearing a lot about it over the course of the URC campaign. The idea is not so much to finish first (although if you keep tabs on the standings you might be interested in what the league leaders are predicting when it comes to our preview shows) rather to not finish last, for which the punishment is to have to wear The Jersey Of Doom, and since I got the questionable honour last season, it was down to me. I tried to wear it in the preview pod but half of it clashed with the green screen so here you see the one and only time I will post a shot of me wearing it on a Harpin platform, ever. A bet is a bet, after all.
It’s no more Mr Nice Guy when it comes to this season’s league, however…I’m gunning for first now!!! As you can see by the standings after round one I’m not off to a bad start although Tom is the guy to beat.
OUR NEXT HARPIN’
During the week we’re planning a bonus pod where I’ll be finding out all about the Rugby Europe Super Cup and it’s eight clubs, then I’ll be reviewing the last match involving our European opposition Racing 92 as well as Friday’s visitors to the RDS Benetton, keep an eye on TikTok for content there.
Next it will be all eyes on the RDS home opener, with the team announced at lunchtime on Thursday, then our video preview, the usual harpin’ from kickoff to the final whistle and finally our wrap up show on Sunday evening followed by the next 80+ column on the Monday.
Enough to be getting on with I reckon!!! In the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
Harpin match wraps are brought to you by THE IRISH RUGBY STORE
you can also listen to the full pod using the player below
EXTRA THOUGHTS
Love this time of year, new season about to begin, full of opportunities to improve on what has gone before.
I had been disappointed for a while that there was no home preseason senior fixture for Leinster this year, and the weekend just gone would have been the perfect window for it, but as it turned out the Irish 7s both women and men did us proud down in South Africa at the Rugby World Cup.
Obviously it was a bit different from normal rugby weekends; normally your team just plays the one match so you an plan other life things around it, but this time it was all about setting reminders on your phone for mad kickoff times like 11:33am, but boy, was it worth it.
And I know the men got the bronze medal and all which was an incredible achievement in its own right, but let’s not forget the women who also finished their campaign with a victory, clinching 7th place with a 26-10 win over England. Both sides very much did us proud and have the ability to push even further down the road.
I’ll keep saying it – we need the World Rugby Sevens circuit to come to Ireland. Doesn’t have to be Dublin, I don’t care if it’s at Malin Head or Mizen, just find a slot on the calendar and give us an awesome day out to finally get to see these legends in the flesh. I’m trying to get a hashtag going on the twitter machine maybe you can help me give it a push…
Followers of our previous “.net” site may remember a daily feature called The Front Five where we shared quotes and links from around the ruggersphere. Now we have reimagined it into a segment on our main show each week which gives us a chance to step out of the Leinster & Ireland bubble on a regular basis.
And if you keep an eye on all of our social media channels you’ll see more of our old features still going, like Rugby on TV and also Eurowatch where we keep tabs on Leinster’s upcoming opposition in the Heineken Cup. As well as our established accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram be sure to follow us on both TikTok and YouTube as well, the plan is to post regular videos there throughout the season.
But the focus of our main show this week is of course Leinster’s squad depth and I have to say both Mark and Tom came brilliantly prepared to go over all of our options so be sure to have a listen.
Also a shout out to the poster on the Babbling Brook Leinster message board who goes by the moniker “mildly interested” as it was their detailed listing of the squad which we used for the show.
Next week it’s all for real folks! Keep an eye out for our Zebre v Leinster preview on Friday, and before that we’ll be have bonus episode for you with a brief look at Connacht’s squad. JLP
From 2008-last season the bulk of my Harpin’ On Leinster & Ireland rugby was done in the form of a “match writeup” which would post every Monday afternoon, while I added a weekly podcast in 2019 to cover broader topics around the sport.
This season just to mix things up I have chosen to do less articles and more pods and the weekend just gone gave me the first chance to try out a new type of “wrapup” pods where instead of reviewing the most recent match in my own words, I’ll instead chat to some fellow fans about it. And I think we gave it a decent go in our first attempt if I do say so myself, which I do. Obvs there are things that need to be ironed out and I plan to upgrade my equipment as the season goes along but I’m happy enough with the new format so far.
But that certainly won’t stop me writing and I’ve decided to create this ‘extra thoughts’ heading for these posts where I can add things I may have forgotten to add or perhaps clarify somethind a listener brougtup in some feedback, stuff like that.
For the win at Quins there were a couple of impressive performances I forgot to mention, like Alex Soroka who seems to have picked up where he left off after his PotM display in South Africa earlier in the year, and of the 19 year olds who had prolonged cameos, Ben Brownlee had an error or two but certainly nothing to suggest he wont improve and as for Sam Prendergast he did really well under the circumstances, particularly that territory kick that put us in a position to claim the match winning try.
On the Harlequins side I forgot to give an honourable mention to their centre Lennox Anyanwu who had some really strong carries, with himself and Dombrandt representing the home side’s most potent threats.
Also on the pod we spoke about “full time takes” and I realise I forgot to add my own so here’s what I tweeted…
Enjoyed that, classic preseason tussle, mix of good and bad. Jamie Osborne stood out for me on first look but lots of decent outings. Can't wait to have a natter about it, bring on the new season!
Very grateful for the stream, worth every cent.#HARvLEI
Sadly there is no Leinster match next weekend so as well as using the time to go around the provinces to see how their squads are shaping up, I plan to follow both the Irish Women’s and Men’s 7s squads as they take part in the World Cup, with the men taking part in the very first match of the weekend on Friday morning, so stay tuned for that.
Don’t forget to follow us wherever you can, we’re well established on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram but also this season we’re aiming to increase our presence on both YouTube and TikTok so as the saying goes “smash that subscribe button”!!! JLP
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 