478 : Leinster v Harlequins wrap

6 December 2025; Jordan Larmour of Leinster scores his side’s third try during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leinster and Harlequins at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Attack consistency

🏉 Quins successes

🏉 Day of Reiko-ning*

🏉 Defence & discipline

🏉 First half end game

* = hat-tip Ciarán Duffy

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

TOM COLEMAN

FULL TIME TAKES

Christy O’Connor

Positives first, some great individual performances from Lamour, Frawley and O’Brien I thought their work both on and off the ball was brilliant, they showed a real hunger in their game. Tommy’s quick thinking to chip the ball through when he had no space and Prendergasts cross field kicks for Lamours try was great to watch.

Negatives (I’ll try keep it short) discipline again was very poor, Quinn’s 2nd 3rd and 4th try came from our poor discipline. Ringrose made some great ground and Paddy Mc gives a penalty away for a needless croc roll which leads to their try. The deliberate knock was brain dead as well, it was always going to be a yellow for it.

The rushed defence is not as great a tactic as it’s made out to be, we left gaps everywhere and could’ve been exposed more than we were. Over all another poor team performance, scoreline doesn’t tell the real story.

If Leinster played the Racing team that Ulster played last night, I can guarantee that we wouldn’t have put the same score on them that Ulster did. Ulster are playing like the old Leinster and Leinster look like a team that are unsure of what they want to do at times.

Greg Kelly

It was a weird sort of game. Everyone and his dog knew Leinster would win it. Even when Quins were within 3 you never felt that would actually win the game. That led to a looseness from Leinster. In the end the flood gates opened a bit.

I’d expect a lot more focus away from home next week.

Jackie McEachern

Glad for the BP win. But as other have said, too many errors. It feels like a team looking for their identity and not sure of themselves?

The defence is a definite problem and I think that’s going to be so costly against better teams.

There were some good performances for sure. Both McCarthy brothers were good. TOB, Larmour and Byrne were also bright spots for me.

Cormac Mannion

Do they not use a ball in training at all? So many poor passes, dropped passes, passes not going to hand, knock-ons in the tackle etc etc.

Just as well we can rely on our teak-tough defence to win matches… eh… oh…

Kevin Kelehan

Scrappy game, the absence of Keenan was really felt in organising the defence out wide, Quins did their homework and scored 5 tries by exploiting flaws. Thankfully the work at the breakdown was incessant and the penalty conveyer put Leinster in a position to score 7 tries. Larmour definitely back in serious form again and will push Lowe and Tommy O’Brien all the way for the starting shirts if he stays this sharp. You’d be expecting a sterner test from Tigers next week and a lot more cohesion from Ireland and visiting stars to ensure another win on the road. Frawley also seriously impressive taking the ball into contact and tackling.

Chris McDonnell

5 points are all you can get so fair play. Set piece was excellent. Of the 2 outhalves we have on the pitch neither were great thankfully frawley stepped up.

Gavin Hegarty

Last April we beat their firsts 62-0.

Today their reserves got a BP against us.

Nothing else to say.

Tom Clarke

Very sloppy performance. So many mistakes in attack and poor in defense. Early days but if that continues we won’t be winning a 5th star any time soon.

Andrew Tynan

Jaysus you lot are happy after us winning aren’t ye? 🤣🤣🤣🙄

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

ROUND 1

Sale Sharks 21–26 Glasgow

Bayonne 17–26 Stormers

Saracens 47–10 Clermont

Bulls 33–46 Bordeaux

La Rochelle 39–20 Leicester Tigers

Leinster 45–28 Harlequins

Scarlets 16–17 Bristol Bears

Bath 40–14 Munster

Pau 27–35 Northampton Saints

Toulouse 28–12 Sharks

Gloucester 14–14 Castres

Edinburgh 33–20 Toulon

ROUND 2

Friday, 12 December 2025
Leicester Tigers v Leinster — 20:00

Saturday, 13 December 2025
Stormers v La Rochelle — 13:00

Clermont v Sale Sharks — 15:15

Sharks v Saracens — 15:15

Munster v Gloucester — 17:30

Bordeaux-Bègles v Scarlets — 17:30

Glasgow Warriors v Toulouse — 20:00

Sunday, 14 December 2025
Castres v Edinburgh — 13:00

Harlequins v Bayonne — 15:15

Northampton Saints v Bulls — 15:15

Toulon v Bath — 17:30

Bristol Bears v Pau — 17:30

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S SEASON SO FAR”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

476 : Dragons v Leinster wrap

28 November 2025; Joshua Kenny of Leinster scores his side’s second try during the United Rugby Championship match between Dragons and Leinster at Rodney Parade in Newport, Wales. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Penny for our thoughts

🏉 Rainy night in Newport

🏉 Attack plans

🏉 JJ & RG

🏉 Dodgy discipline

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

DAVID CORDIAL

FULL TIME TAKES

Jackie McEachern

Glad for the bonus point win but am genuinely concerned about the discipline issues. I really worry about the European matches to come.

Christy O’Connor

That was a hard watch. The discipline was terrible, a lot of unforced errors and 3 yellow cards.

There was some scattered good passages of play but overall that was a terrible performance. We could’ve lost that game and not have had any complaints that Dragons didn’t deserve it.

I’ve said it many times now, I’m not a fan of Nienabar and it’s getting harder and harder to enjoy watching Leinster under his style of play

Kevin Kelehan

Better second half, Luke McGrath added an urgency and Snyman’s offloading came off perfectly. Against better sides the penalty count would have been fatal, they really need to stop giving away penalties at the breakdown.

Pádraig Turley

A curate’s egg of a performance, but bonus point very welcome.

Cormac Mannion

South African refs – a great bunch of lads

Eamon Saunders

Need to be better but getting loads of game time for the second choice players we will need them going forward

Gavin Delves

Ulster Munster and Connacht have ireland players playing this week and leinster had snyman in the second have why no one else becacause leo does what hes told by the IRFU things have to change

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “CHAMPIONS CUP CONTENDERS”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

Dragons deposing dungeons, dodgy decisions & dubious D4 debates

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.

Last night there was something of a standoff here in Harpin’ Manor. On ‘normal’ weekends, my flagging the date and time of the latest Leinster & Ireland match (usually by way of a note on the fridge) informs/warns the rest of the family that his is the two-hour block where Dad is going to be screaming at the main TV for the duration and be sure to find something else to do.

But more often than not, and indeed on most weekends this season, said match has been on a Saturday, and given I’m the only real rugby fan in the house, I suppose you’d forgive the others for assuming it was the same this week.

So it turns out the four of us have been actively going about our lives all week with three of us under the assumption that Friday evening would be spent binge-watching the new episodes of Stranger Things, while my plans involved a different type of Dragons, with absolutely no dungeons.

Things came to a head when we sat down to dinner as I rocked up to the table wearing my Leinster jersey.

“Dad, why did you change into that????” asked one of the kids.

Given I’m unashamedly one of those nerdy dads who not only implements household systems like putting regular notes on the fridge, but also gets extremely smug when the opportunity arises to point out that people didn’t follow it, my reply was dripping with sarcasm.

“Because of the match”

“What match?”

“The match you’d know about if you looked at the fridge.”

My hubris came from the fact that I assumed this was a one v one conversation that I would easily win as the other two would remain neutral, if possibly rolling their eyes that dad is referring to another one of his nerdy systems again. But in actual fact, I had talked myself into a perilous 1 v 3 situation.

“But what about our Stranger Things marathon?”

“Was that tonight?”

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474 : Ireland v South Africa wrap

2025 Quilter Nations Series, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 22/11/2025 Ireland vs South Africa Referee Matthew Carley awards Ireland’s Sam Prendergast a yellow cardMandatory Credit ©INPHO/Gary Carr

🏉 The cards

🏉 The chaos

🏉 The Carley factor

🏉 The carnage

🏉 The character

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CIAN O’MUILLEOIR

FULL TIME TAKES

Greg Kelly

Thoughts..

Sasha gets the YC he should have then it changes the opening 20 mins.

Ryan may have ended his stint as a front liner with his stupidity there.

Interested to know how the SA LHP can hinge down 3 times in a row and they Paddy Mc gets a YC 😵‍💫

Mathew Carley lost control and composure and he lost buy in from the Irish players.

Christy O’Connor

I can’t disagree with any of our cards, except that Ryan’s could’ve been a straight red. Sacha should’ve been carded though. We were panicky when on the ball, took us for ever to get out of our own half in the 2nd half.

The better team won in the end, but other than their scrum, I don’t think SA were all that great.

David Harold

SA didn’t go out to win the match. They went out to “beat” Ireland. But the ended up winning the match. And deservedly so.

Gavin Hegarty

My problem is at what rugby has become.

A ref, two touch judges and a tmo review sfms no wrap shoulder to the head of Tob and deem it only a penalty by not applying the correct laws.

The same laws they apply to Ryan’s moment of madness.

Can’t help but feel this was influenced by the same outcry over reds this week. Carley and his team copped out.

That early in the game it could have made a huge difference.

After this Ireland did themselves no favours but honestly did well to stay in the game.

RGs card being rescinded soon after was a new one to me! If it was red would it have been! No.

World rugby need to halt where rugby is going. You now have tmos that want the spotlight and we are spending far too long reviewing footage. For this to happen and still have the wrong outcome is pathetic.

John O Halloran

What did I just watch? A mental game, a bizarre reffing performance, a bizarre Irish performance of indisipline, and more subs than the battle of the Atlantic.

Cormac Mannion

The lack of a card for Feinberg set the tone for the rest of the match. I hate Carley or Dickson reffing either a Leinster or Ireland match and he didn’t fail to disappoint once again tonight

I don’t know if it’s hilarious or pathetic how the Saffa trolls are out in force once again tonight. Some are even still bleating about ROG’s try in 2004.

Oh well, they can press their grubby noses to the window in February when the 6N starts once again as they whimper to be allowed to compete in it.

Kevin Kelehan

Worst refereeing performance of 2025, destroyed the contest by letting Rassie get inside his head. Boks ruthless scrummagers, Ireland died with their boots on, Could have been a 40 point defeat when down to 12 men

Bert McLoughlin

Carley should do us a favour and retire. Boks could have beaten us by way more if they actually played a bit of rugby instead of being 🔔🔚’s and trying to pummel our pack (anti rugby if you will) they along with Carley killed the game as a spectacle

GIFsRugbyNStuff (‪@gifsrugbynstuff.bsky.social‬)

Ireland’s finishing XV

Paddy Mc Kelleher Bealham

Beirne Prendergast

Doris Conan one armed vdF

Casey Sam

JGP bundee Farrell ringrose

Crowley

Justin Deegan‬ ‪(@justindeegan.bsky.social‬)

Having 15 on the field is always a help. I had the head bitten off me before when I said Ireland’s discipline not as foremost as it was a couple of years ago. Well, I hope today was the culmination rather than the next step down. Piss poor.

Early subs from Sth Africa also took their foot off their pedal.

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NOVEMBER WRAP

Georgia 23-25 Japan

Romania 21-31 Uruguay

Wales 26-52 New Zealand

Portugal 33-27 Canada

Spain 33-41 Fiji

Italy 34-19 Chile

France 48-33 Australia

Scotland 56-0 Tonga

England 27-23 Argentina

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “NOVEMBER TAKEA”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

470 : IRELAND V JAPAN WRAP

2025 Quilter Nations Series, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 8/11/2025Ireland vs Japan Ireland’s Tommy O’Brien scores his sides 6th try of the match Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Billy Stickland

🏉 Japan’s tempo

🏉 Aerial game

🏉 Halftime hairdryer

🏉 Top notch Tommy

🏉 Bench impress

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CONOR CRONIN

FULL TIME TAKES

Stevo Fitzgerald

A win was satisfying in the end to change the whole squad near enough and not be a million miles away is success in my eyes can you imagine if we played the majority off the squad today in most or all games how they could transform into another golden era lol

Always happy with a win

Bert McLoughlin

Very poor 1st half, looks like nobody has any idea what’s happening with the lineout. 2nd half was better when Prendergast, Conan and C Prendergast came on the field

Mark Hunter

Sloppy, clunky unimpressive

Conor C (via BlueSky)

The difference getting clean ball and then changing up first receiver made was huge. Allowed the attack to get set more and then for Sam to take the ball a little wider with options available to him

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NOVEMBER WRAP

IRELAND 41-10 JAPAN

SCOTLAND 17–25 NEW ZEALAND

ENGLAND 38–18 FIJI

SPAIN 24-61 IRELAND XV

ITALY 26–19 AUSTRALIA

FRANCE 17–32 SOUTH AFRICA

WALES 28–52 ARGENTINA

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “IRELAND’S CURRENT STANDING” [YOUTUBE]

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN [SUBSTACK]

How this Yank got into rugby

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.

When I was harping on Leinster’s match against Zebre the weekend before last, I kept saying how there was no result the boys in blue could achieve that would help the fans get over the disappointment of Croke Park the week before, and that the same happened in May when the same Italian opponents rocked up to the Aviva seven days after the Northampton defeat.

For some reason it didn’t occur to me that Andy Farrell’s Ireland are in a similar boat today as they prepare to face Japan, although perhaps the expectations of victory in Chicago weren’t as high as the previous two weeks. Thankfully Keego spotted that in the preview show and it does make today’s test match at HQ a little less of a spectacle than it could be, which could explain why I keep getting emails about the “last remaining tickets still available”, although the easier explanation is that they’re just too goddam expensive amidst a cost of living crisis in the country, I suppose that’s a matter of opinion.

ICYMI the preview can be found here.

Whatever the reason I find myself drawn more to the double header of sorts this evening, with a fascinating Ireland XV playing Spain at 4pm and France hosting the Springboks at 8 – a veritable feast of rugby union for a Saturday that makes “getting family stuff done” something of a military operation.

Speaking of family, I thought I’d use my column this week to harp on myself for a change, or at least how I came to become enough of a fan of rugby union to maintain an online entity for the best part of two decades. It most certainly has not been the traditional route for Irish rugby fans.

And what is this “traditional route” exactly? Well, while the sport has definitely grown a lot in popularity over the years, I’m not quite sure it has yet shaken the tag of “niche”, particularly with such a complicated set of Laws continuing to form a barrier to turning casual fans who tune in for the test matches into ones who will tune in every week to my podcast.

So definitely the most common way the sport seeps into people’s souls is through family. Your grandfather once togged out with Tony Ward. Your uncle was captain of Mary’s Junior 3rds for ten years. Your big brother played in that Senior Cup team that almost beat Rock that time. And since 2013/14, plenty of inspiration for girls to get involved in women’s rugby, given the right support structures of course.

But for me, there was absolutely nothing in my past to connect me to egg-chasing, far from it. in fact, VERY far from it, over 8000km to be more precise. I lived the first 8 years of my life in a town called Pittsburg in California, though I eventually stopped telling people that in casual conversation as they usually mistook it for the one ending in ‘h’ that’s in Pennsylvania. So instead I’d use the name of the town that had the hospital where I was born, which had the much more “mom and apple pie” name of Walnut Creek.

To explain why I was raised by my grandparents, and to then explain why they brought that 8-year-old only child to Ireland, would take me way too far from the subject matter so I’ll leave you with those two facts for this article and leave the details for my memoirs 😜.

So there we were, an American couple in their early 60s and an 8-year old boy arriving in Dublin. Their dream, or at least my grandfather’s, had always been to settle in a cottage in Connemara or something like that for their retirement but with me in tow, they thought it best to settle around the capital, and obviously once here, it was important to get me established in a school.

At the time, school was just that, school. 8 year old me wasn’t going to know the difference between public and private, but now I do appreciate how fortunate I was for them to be able to get me into quite an exclusive private one. And with the new surroundings came a lot of new things to both appreciate and purchase, like school uniforms, and also uniform for some sport called rugby, which was pretty much a second religion at the school.

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468 : IRELAND V NEW ZEALAND WRAP

The Rematch, Solider Field, Chicago, United States of America 1/11/2025 Ireland vs New Zealand All Blacks Ireland’s Tadhg Furlong celebrates his try with team mate Jack ConanMandatory Credit ©INPHO/Gary Carr

🏉 Clinical finishing

🏉 Beirne-d by TMO

🏉 Lineout woes

🏉 Outhalves fail

🏉 Finding positives

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CIARÁN DUFFY

Post to Post blog

FULL TIME TAKES

Gavin Hegarty

Sometimes we love rugby because it’s not simple, but sometimes this backfires.

Pass to Barrett is forward, so he’s offside and not in play, therefore technically he’s obstructing beirne. How this was deemed a yellow baffles me, a red makes me lose faith.

Ireland simply weren’t good enough but my god the quality of officiating was dire.

Tommy O’Brien held back and then deemed to have knocked on, madness.

We can’t be this bad again but world rugby need to do something to get better refs

Cormac Mannion

What exactly do Goodman and O’Connell offer as coaches? Zero line breaks and multiple lineout turnovers tonight. Not the first time either. Our lineout has been muck for several years

Yvonne Dowd

Shit!! Red card?? ‘Dangerous tackle’??

Christy O’Connor

Some serious questions to be asked. Lineout has been poor since the last world cup and NZ were missing 2 of their locks.

Crowley made some poor decisions in the 2nd half but I’d still have him ahead of Sam for the moment. Red card was ridiculous, Beirne was standing still, so how can they say a high degree of danger

Lorcán Murphy

Do we need a change of lineout coach? And does Andy have the balls to ditch POC? It hasn’t functioned the past 2 years and is a key component of our attack. No lineout, no attack

‪Brian Connell‬

Ireland … dare I say it … undercooked??

Pearse O Donnell

Ireland were dazzled by the All Black’s footwork.

Those fluorescent boots would frighten the living shīte out of any opponent.

A masterstroke from Razor.🤣🤣

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NOVEMBER SERIES WRAP

BARBARIANS 19-33 NEW ZEALAND A

ENGLAND 25-7 AUSTRALIA

SOUTH AFRICA 61-7 JAPAN

SCOTLAND 85-0 USA

MUNSTER 31-28 ARGENTINA XV

IRELAND 13-26 NEW ZEALAND

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “IRISH SQUAD AGE PROFILE”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

80+ column : October 29

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

WRAP OF A WRAP
PALESTINE RUGBY
TALKING UP IRELAND
AGENT JORDIE
PARA-GONE
CLICKBAIT OF THE WEEK
HARPIN’ ON…IRELAND’S CHICAGO HOPES
IRELAND SQUAD UPDATE
TROLL PATROL
COMPETITION UPDATES (incl SVNS)
NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

Probably my top line opinion of Leinster’s match against Zebre last Saturday was that after what had gone down at Croker a week earlier, there was literally no result we could achieve that would satisfy the fans or even make the match close to being memorable. This was a genuinely held opinion on my part, in fact even though we put over 70 points on them back in May at the same venue, I had forgotten that fact myself, mostly because that too came just one week after a major disappointment.

That’s all well and good, but I doubt it’s the best subject to lead with when promoting a podcast that is entirely about Leinster’s win at the weekend! So I don’t actually mention that until about 5 minutes into the pod and to be fair, David Cordial did an excellent job both finding and highlighting some interesting harping points from the match.

ICYMI you can check out the pod here.

PALESTINE RUGBY

“The first couple of days it was like a mix between Saipan and Cool Runnings”

Kevin McCleery – bringing rugby to Palestine in front of the world

Off the Ball (podcast)

It’s not often I include a pod in my Front Five, even less often I give any kind of a plug to Off The Boil, but I reckon a story about an Irish coach helping Palestinians playing rugby is more than worthy of inclusion.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL COLUMN ON SUBSTACK

466 : Leinster v Zebre wrap

25 October 2025; Jerry Cahir of Leinster on his way to scoring his side’s fifth try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Zebre Parma at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

🏉 The newbies

🏉 Zebre’s tries

🏉 Harry’s game

🏉 All-star Alex

🏉 Those 20m reds

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

DAVID CORDIAL

FULL TIME TAKES

Christy O’Connor

Good win with some good tries, but it was very poor opposition. My big concern was that we still went with brute force so often to get the ball over the line. It worked because it was a poor Zebre team, it’s not going to work against better teams (last week) and it certainly won’t work in the cup.

Delighted Harry, Luke and Alex all had a great game.

Gavin Hegarty

If Osbourne’s red is a red then I worry for rugby. He contested the ball, never even saw the zebra player. Rugby collision, end of. You should not be able to get a red for merely playing the game.

The kids did well but at one stage they were within 5 of us and we had dominated every aspect of the game.

Harry is looking great, he could usurp Sam soon enough.

Chris McDonnell

A fair amount of the crowd turned up to see casper Gabriel make his debut. Leo again couldn’t care less about the leinster supporters. 5 minutes in a game that was won as soon as their 9 got his red card.