16 October 2021; Jack Carty of Connacht celebrates scoring his side’s second try, as Joey Carbery of Munster looks on, during the United Rugby Championship match between Munster and Connacht at Thomond Park in Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sports Filey
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This week we harp on Saturday’s try fest at the RDS as well as taking a quick look at the other provinces, the Women’s World Cup, Emerging Ireland and the AIL.
Harpin’ On Rugby match wrap ups are brought to you by The Irish Rugby Store
Our guests…
TOM COLEMAN
https://twitter.com/LeinsterRoyalty
RICHARD MIFSUD
https://twitter.com/Once_in_the_job
FRONT FIVE ARTICLES
Ferns win as Aussies mourn what might have been | Scrum Queens – John Birch
'We dominated the physicality' says Andy Friend as Connacht kickstart season (irishexaminer.com) – Simon Lewis
Key wins for Clontarf, Trinity, Terenure and Ballynahinch in the AIL (the42.ie) – Dave Mervyn
Ulster ease back to winning ways by running seven tries past poor Ospreys on comfortable night at Ravenhill – BelfastTelegraph.co.uk – Jonathan Bradley
Emerging Ireland hold off Cheetahs to complete unbeaten tour in South Africa – The Irish Times – Daire Walsh
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Andrew Potts There is a gratuitous physicality to SA rugby, we lost a few players to careless confrontation, hopefully two of them will not be a serious as it looked.The refereeing needs sharpening up as both teams looked confused by what was being applied at the breakdown.Nice to see a very mean Leinster coming out in the second half and all the lads off the bench more than happy to dish it out.Not often Leinster hit 50 points and think it was a contest.One down side was not getting the last try. 60 points would have been nicenicely
Martin Loughrey Watched the 1st half live and just finished the 2nd after feeding the kids/animals. What a game!! So many good things, but the main thing that stands out is adaptablity. How many players were out of position at the end of that 80 minute 20 point win over a good strong opposition? Obviously I hope that Ruddock, Larmour, Ngaitai, but most of all Baird are ok. But a great team performance across the 23. Ringrose obviously impressed on the wing of all places. Byrne came on in the centre, and Martin Mololney and Foley got a lot more game time than originally planned, but the team stayed on course. Rob Russell did very little wrong on his debut and crossed the whitewash. Henshaw was his usual self, as was Sheehan, and Ngatai’s kick for Henshaw’s try wasn’t just incredible for it’s accuracy, but also the awareness in it. All in all a great performance. Roll on next week!
Sexton is an elite #10. You see it in every action he has on the field. Real quality.
You can see him fighting for his players too with the referee. That's what you want to see, even if you don't like it. Proper captain. #LEIvSHA
Dave Murray Questionable tackling aside it was a great end to end game of rugby. The addition of the 4 SA teams have definitely improved the league and will make it much more exciting to watch going forward and in Europe.
Richard Collumb Fantastic win, best game of rugby I’ve seen in while. Ringrose class, Foley great with quick ball & Sexton still the master. Tough games like this can only help Leinster (& Ireland) this season.
The standard of fare this evening at the RDS, from both sides, left one feeling very satisfied.
There are other teams who have a lot of work to do.#LEIvSHA
Roy Thompson Cracking game of Rugby. High scoring, and highly entertaining. Yes, there were errors, but both sides were fully committed, creating and taking scoring opportunities. A great game to watch.
Greg Kelly Not sure how the Baird one wasn’t red. Abrahams makes no attempt to challenge for the ball and flips him in the air causing him to land head first. You take the 2nd Sharks player out and Abrahams would have walked.
Gavin Hegarty Thoroughly enjoyable game. Some great flowing rugby but also some awful defensive mistakes from Leinster so I’d say they are going to have a rough week. The majority of the sharks tries came from our mistakes which created a large overlap for them.
Way too much to harp on in one tweet but what impressed me most was how we went for tap n go penalties early in 2nd half, despite our earlier breakdown woes, and backed them up with tries each time.
Oh, and is there anyone doubting URC=Best League now? 😜#LEIvSHA
LEINSTER : 15. Jimmy O’Brien 14. Jordan Larmour 13. Robbie Henshaw 12. Charlie Ngatai 11. Rob Russell 10. Johnny Sexton > CAPTAIN 9. Luke McGrath
1. Andrew Porter 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Michael Ala’alatoa 4. Ross Molony 5. Jason Jenkins 6. Ryan Baird 7. Will Connors 8. Jack Conan
16. John McKee 17. Cian Healy 18. Vakhtang Abdaladze 19. James Ryan 20. Rhys Ruddock 21. Cormac Foley 22. Ross Byrne 23. Garry Ringrose.
Cell C Sharks : 15. Aphelele Fassi 14. Werner Kok 13. Rohan Janse Van Rensburg 12. Ben Tapuai 11. Thaakir Abrahams 10. Boeta Chamberlain 9. Grant Williams
1. Ntuthuko Mchunu 2. Kerron van Vuuren 3. Thomas du Toit (c) 4. Justin Basson 5. Hyron Andrews 6. James Venter 7. Dylan Richardson 8. Sikhumbuzo Notshe
Replacements : 16. Dan Jooste 17. Dian Bleuler 18. Carlu Sadie 19. Reniel Hugo 20. Phepsi Buthelezi 21. Cameron Wright 22. Nevaldo Fleurs 23. Marnus Potgieter
United Rugby Championship 22/23 Round 4
Saturday, October 8, 2022
RDS Arena
Kickoff 5:05pm
Referee: Craig Evans (WRU)
AR 1: Peter Martin (IRFU)
AR 2: Keane Davison (IRFU)
TMO: Sean Brickell (WRU)
Live on: RTÉ, Premier Sports, SuperSport, Discovery + & URC.tv
Is it terrible of me to be disappointed at being out scored in the second half?
Away from home that’s a good win, particularly against a decent Ulster side. Strong first half, dirty conditions spoiled it a bit, but happy out at that result.
Gav Heg
(reply to Conor Cronin) indeed but that’s the standards we set. A win up north at this stage is good. They’ve a good squad. But I am a little disappointed how they came back and got a point.
Not pretty, hanging on a bit at the end, but 4 points on the road in an Interpro will do very nicely, thank you very much #ULSvLEI
Good win tonight in tough conditions. Jenkins was very good again & looks like a great acquisition (about time we got someone coming up from Limerick). Seemed to switch off in second half a bit but Ngatai covering tackle was significant in the overall score.
A good win for Leinster in those conditions but Ulster will rightfully be disappointed with themselves, especially poor Aaron Sexton. #ULSvLEI
McGrath was very poor with the ball. (he can defend in fairness) brace was ulsters best player and james ryan on that form is behind moloney, jenkins, baird and joe mccarthy. He needs to get his act together.
Andrew Potts
Did well to get out of Belfast with that one. A little loss of focus, the ref went a little off and a big slice of luck with the non try.
Choke tackle from Sexton to secure the points.
Some shift from both sets of players.
Martin Loughrey
A good win away to a tough opponent on a dirty night. Score gap possibly would have been bigger had Leinster not switched off in the 2nd half. That said, Ulster were well up for it though, and the conditions made it a bit of a lottery. Their maul has become quite the weapon. Ngatai’s tackle on Aaron Sexton was pure gold and probably saved us the match. All in all, happy to have that match done and dusted with 4 points in the bag.
Neil ‘Keego’ Keegan
Even in the storm
When you come at the kings, best not miss!
Hell of a second half from Ulster. Just came up short but Leinster are a hell of a side. O’Sullivan and Moore made a difference. Leinster made such a mess of the breakdown and scrum in the first half. Fair play to Ulster for coming back from that at all #BKTURC#ULSvLEI#SUFTUM
Literally a game of two halves with Leinster owning the first and Ulster the second, albeit with the assistance of some questionable decisions by the referee. From a Leinster perspective they will be disappointed in several aspects of their game particularly with how they dealt with the Ulster maul. Jenkins seems the real deal and a extremely good acquisition. All in all a very good win in atrocious conditions
I'll take those match points all day long. What an interpro. Needed every bit of that early lead, great fightback by Ulster. Also very much needed Ngatai's last gasp challenge. Jenkins a big factor for us in multiple areas. #ULSvLEI#BKTURC
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