4 November 2023; Charlie Shiel of Edinburgh kicks clear during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Edinburgh at the RDS Arena in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
Tommy O’Brien is a class act! Always hungry. Culhane great also.
Harry Byrne is again failing to live up to the hype unfortunately and will most likely be overtaken by prendergast soon enough.
Where has Tector gone?
(reply to Gavin) Peter Tracey
he’s still training away Gav. Just Prendergast has moved ahead of him. Deegan doing a Ruddock and all the dirty work that’s not seen.
Need to develop a 9 for me with McGrath injured and only JGP for big games. Foley did well last season but trying too hard this season so far with his kicking game. Just do the basics. Murphy had a good passing game when he came on. Best to do it now in these games and at least they’re getting experience. Boyle did well. Another area we need to develop.
Odran John O’Brien
Great outing again for Jack Boyle he’s getting better every game
Christy O’Connor
The game was riddled with mistakes from both sides. Very sloppy passing at times, we gave away some very cheap tries. In the end it was a good win. Barron was motm for me.
Richard Kennedy
Very happy with that. Bonus secured by 51 mins against a team stacked full of Scottish internationals. A young team getting quality game time.
Alan Murphy
I seemed to have watched a different game to most posts – we sit on the 22. Our line-out was a shambles, we gave away 3 scrum penalties and handling was really poor. Lots of weak shoulders for Edinburgh’s tries. Great win but really poor game.
Closer than it needed to be, Edinburgh will be disappointed to come away with nothing given starting lineups, took their attack too long to get going.
Good day for TOB yet again, also Harry, Jamie, overall D & great to see Culhane on scoresheet.
28 October 2023; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster in action against Marnus Potgieter of Hollywoodbets Sharks during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Hollywoodbets Sharks at the RDS Arena in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
22 January 2023; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster in action against George Horne of Glasgow Warriors during the United Rugby Championship match between Glasgow Warriors and Leinster at Scotstoun Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
Hard to make anything of this with such young team that was put out. It’s a learning curve, more than anything. Glasgow deserved the win
Dave Murray
Lots of soft scores leaked. Can only get better as the weeks go on 🤞🤞🤞
Craig Grehan
Lack of ruthlessness and aggression.
Frawley should’ve been at 10.
Or Prendergast …
We didn’t use the backs enough when we hit the 5m line and got punished by sloppy rucking.
Tackles were soft at times.
Chris McDonnell
Cant play rugby with a 10, 12, 13 and not a single one prepared to make a tackle. We created very little with the ball and how many times do we have to lose scores from boxkicking. Lineout was good, scrum was awful.
Bert McLoughlin
We were well outplayed at times but not giving a try without conclusive evidence was a turning point
Jamie Donohoe
Evans the Referee was absolutely shocking & completely incompetent.
That said Leinster leaked a lot of soft scores
Jamie Bermingham
Defence was very poor today and we had a number of chances on the Glasgow try line and let them slip. The decision to not allow Turners try was shocking as there was no solid evidence he was in touch, in fact it looked like the Glasgow player was keeping him in play
Got away from us at the end, losing it off restart after TOB try was key. Great outing from Glasgow took every chance that was offered,and plenty was offered. Lots of work ons for young Leinster side going into next week.#GLAvLEI
For this week’s TT, to honour his retirement confirmed on Wednesday, we’ve gone back to 2015 and an article I wrote on Ian Madigan as it was announced he would be leaving Leinster at the end of that season.
The date was September 11, 2010. Leinster defeated the Cardiff Blues 34-23 at the RDS Arena. Isa Nacewa was on exhilarating form that day and took home the Man of the Match award, but also catching the eye was a young outhalf named Ian Madigan.
From my seat in the Grandstand I had a perfect view of his first try in senior rugby and as you can see from the video, it was quite an impressive one. You had to admire the way the youngster backed himself to throw such a step at that stage of the game, when the visitors had fought back from an early deficit to get within touching distance and we had gone a long period without looking like troubling the scorers again.
But this was only the second match in the reign of a certain Mr Joe Schmidt at Leinster. The bonus point win was of course welcome to the RDS faithful, but we were still a bit concerned about how the lads were adapting to a new style of offloading, and when we went on to lose the next two on the bounce to make it just one win from our opening four, that concern naturally grew.
As we all know now, the Schmidt era really took off in earnest when BOD touched down in the closing stages against Munster at the Aviva – but then Isa was our starting number 10 with Johnny Sexton returning from injury on the bench.
By the end of the season however, Madigan had kept in touch with the Leinster matchday squad, and on that monumental day in Cardiff, he wore the number 22 jersey as Sexton led our almighty second half charge to victory over the Northampton Saints.
12 months later, the venue and the opposition were different but it was still Leinster triumphant in the final of Europe’s biggest competition, and once more Madigan wore the number 22.
2013 we did the seemingly unthinkable, failing to get out of our European pool. But we did get a reprieve of sorts in dropping down into what was then called the Amlin Cup, and at the quarterfinal stage Madigan got to wear his favoured 10 jumper as Leinster blew away Wasps away from home to reach the semifinals.
However, when it came to the final, which was actually in the RDS, while he avoided the number 22 this time around, he had to make do with 12 as Sexton was back to play outhalf, and it was the same a week later back at the same venue as we defeated the Ulstermen to finish off a unique treble of trophies.
That success signalled the end for both Schmidt and (for a couple of years anyway) Sexton at Leinster. It seemed the time was right for Madigan to step up and lead the line for us as it always appeared he would.
Skip ahead to the last day of May 2014. Leinster retain their Pro12 crown, but what jersey is Madigan wearing? 22.
And with Schmidt now heading the Irish coaching set up, despite Ian’s failure to nail down a regular starting role at Leinster as outhalf, he features heavily in Ireland’s matchday squads throughout the victorious 2014 & 2015 Six Nations campaigns. What jersey number is he wearing against France and Scotland respectively in those decisive final matches? Do I need to give the answer?
Finally, we have the most ironic fact of this whole bit I’m doing here. In Ireland’s final test match before his new contract is up for negotiation, Madigan actually gets to wear that 10 jumper for his country, although the circumstances are far, far from ideal.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, has ever considered pinning what happened against Argentina on him, but the reason I bring it up is that it signifies what incredible bad luck he has had over the years in the high-profile matches for both province and country.
There isn’t a single serious Leinster supporter who isn’t fully aware of the tremendous skill set at Madigan’s disposal…the consistent place kicking, the tough tackling, the speeding bullet of a miss pass, and we have all seen him display these in spades on numerous occasions.
If we must apportion “blame” for his decision to leave these shores, I don’t believe we can dump it all in one place, but you certainly can’t put any before the man himself.
It’s not his fault he arrived at senior level just when Johnny Sexton was reaching the peak of his powers. It’s not his fault he got injured at unfortunate times. It’s not his fault Joe Schmidt’s long-term plans with Leinster were curtailed, and that his successor was of a mind to give priority to a different style of out half.
And it is certainly not his fault that the ridiculous nature of the European rugby calendar is such that contract negotiations have to take place slap bang in the middle of the season meaning dozens of players across the continent have to see out a campaign with everyone knowing their future lies elsewhere.
But one thing is an absolute certainty. Ian “Mad-Dog” Madigan is a Leinster man through and through, and will always be considered as such. I don’t say that because he is a fellow “Rock boy” either. The province has worked hard over the years to grow its image as a “12 County Army”, and with stars like Darce, Shaggy, the Kearneys and Sean O’Brien we have seen that quality players can be drawn from all over.
What that proves most of all is that it’s your talent and attitude that make you a Leinster player, not where you come from nor where you went to school. And you haven’t heard Ian Madigan complain about his lot at the province over the years despite the misfortune. When he’s been injured, he has worked hard to come back. When asked to play 12, he gave everything. When asked to play 15, he gave everything. And even on all those massive occasions when asked to wear 22, he most certainly gave everything.
He has earned the right to go where he feels his rugby career will progress the most. If he feels Bordeaux is that place, he certainly won’t get anything from me but my full support. They seem to be an ambitious club in what is already a remarkably competitive league.
All we can hope for is that he gets the opportunity to take full advantage of his new surroundings, and if he is putting in the quality displays, that he gets the proper recognition when Ireland squads are named.
Posts similar to this one could have been written about JJ Hanrahan this time last year. They could soon be written about Simon Zebo or Robbie Henshaw. We all want our local heroes to play for our local teams, but we also must retain an acceptance of the realities of the modern professional game.
For now, I just have to say best wishes to Ian for the future; it must be a relief that it is all sorted and out in the open. What say the boys in blue give him the perfect send off in May. JLP
#ThanksMads #COYBIB
@HarpinOnRugby really appreciate your kind article. Top man. Hopefully go out with some silverware. Happy new year.
With one more weekend without an Irish men’s match ahead of RWC2023 I decided to take it easy on the content-creating front but I did agree to do a pod for Caolán Scully which was part of his preview series and looked specifically at Ireland’s chances.
In the pod I suggest that if Ireland should have “Adversity” as a buzzword we should also go with “Belief” as well, and just to get ahead of the jokes I pointed out that I know my accent makes it sound like I’m a rugby version of Tad Lasso and apparently one of Caolán’s mates agreed…
Anyway the pod was released as a joint project so it’s on my feed as number 272 but I’d also like to plug Caolán’s pod so if you haven’t heard it already check it out below.
HARPIN ON…IRELAND’S OPTIONS AT 5, 7 & 14
This week I am grateful to Caolán for letting me use his pod recording for getting two more instalmetns of my “Ireland’s options” series done, and I am also grateful to Cian “RugbyKino” O’Muilleoir for taking the time to record his bit on jersey number 7.
IRELAND’S BENCH AT RWC2023
There are only two positions left to do in our “Ireland’s options” series, I gave each contributor a choice of jersey numbers so the two that got left behind are 13 and 15 so I will do them myself in a video to be recorded Wednesday. I also did a brief TikTok on Ireland’s bench which you can see below, the plan is to do video like that every week throughout the season so you have been warned!
I’ve said it on Twitter/x and on the pod already but I literally can’t give enough praise to Leinster’s women’s squad over their Interpro title secured at Musgrave Park they had to do it the hard way yet ended up doing it in style.
I’ve also said this many many times before but I’ll keep repeating it until it happens…the provincial teams need to play more often throughout the season IMO. I know circumstances are different but a few friendlies with Scots and Welsh teams plus a home and away calendar for the Interpro itself must be doable.
PREDICTION SPREADSHEET
When we’re not calling him Rugby Kino here at Harpin Manor, Cian O’Muilleoir is The Prince Of Permutations as his tournament spreadsheets are legendary in that they allow you to plug in different scores to see what happens next.
He has worked with another Irish twitter rugby fan/legend Justin Deegan to produce one for RWC2023, just follow the instructions below to sample it for yourself…
Just save a copy to your own Google account, then plug in the scores and bonus points as they happen or as you predict and it’ll do the rest, all the way through to the finals. It includes most of the tiebreaker calculations and can handle head to head result extraction for up to 5 teams on tied points in any given group, for all the groups.
Almost as if to taunt us with one final reminder of how last season’s URC went just before the RWC kicks off, Munster have not only scheduled a men’s friendly with Leinster kicking off at 6pm on Friday (therefore finishing just as France v New Zealand gets underway), but if fans of the boys in blue are unable to travel we will have to pay at least €6 to Access Munster for the privilege. Since it’s money that technically goes to support Irish Rugby, it should be worth it but I’ll leave that determination with yourselves. I for one am very interested to see what kind of lineup we put out. And don’t forget there’s a second match set with Ulster taking place on Friday September 22 kicking off at 6:30pm at Navan RFC, tickets can be bought here.
🔝🐱🐴 UPDATE
It’s barely the beginning of September and the Top Quatorze is already three rounds in, because of course it is. I fully expect within the next couple of years the first round in a new season will actually take place before the previous year’s final, rule it out at your peril.
With the league’s penchant for teams skimping on away selections, it’s actually not that often that teams win or lose all of their opening three matches, and this year is no exception with only Stade Francais at the top and USAP at the bottom being perfect in their own way.
And because the World Cup is actually on French soil, they had to leave a massive gap between rounds 3 and 4 so it’s very difficult to speculate how the league is going to unfold from here but you whatever happens we’ll be following it all on this column throughout the season.
Round 1
Montpellier 26-15 La Rochelle
Perpignan 7-29 Stade Francais
US Oyonnax 36-17 Clérmont
Castres 24-23 Pau
Lyon 27-15 Toulon
Racing 92 23-18 Bordeaux
Bayonne 26-7 Toulouse
Round 2
Toulouse 38-13 Montpellier
Toulon 19-14 Bayonne
Bordeaux 25-23 Castres
Clérmont 38-14 Perpignan
Pau 19-17 Racing 92
La Rochelle 35-14 Lyon
Stade Francais 28-18 Oyonnax
Round 3
Bordeaux 22-17 Toulon
Clérmont 11-10 La Rochelle
Castres 37-0 Bayonne
Stade Francais 24-9 Montpellier
Pau 40-10 Lyon
Racing 92 59-10 Lyon
Oyonnax 21-27 Toulouse
Round 4
Sat October 29
Bayonne v Stade Francais
Perpignan v Pau
La Rochelle v Castres
Lyon v Clérmont
Montpellier v Racing 92
Toulon v Oyonnax
Toulouse v Bordeaux
NEXT BATCH OF HARPIN’
Back to full swing this week here at Harpin’ Manor, I’ll be working on that final video for the series on Ireland’s starting options this Wednesday, with just jerseys 13 and 15 left, then on Thursday our “Upcoming Rugby on Irish TV” post is back with a vengeance before we turn our full attention to Ireland v Romania with a preview featuring Mark Jackson on Friday, social media commentary throughout the match itself and of cours the wrap pod recording Sunday evening where we’re planning on attempting some time travel so be sure and look out for that,
As ever be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are. JLP
Earlier this week it was reported that Ireland skipper Johnny Sexton has been accused of three disciplinary breaches on the day of the Champions Cup final at the Aviva Stadium, and that an independent panel was going to convene to discuss the possibility of a sanction.
With online reporting being what it is these days, naturally the story was originally broken using this heading : “Exclusive: Sexton could be forced into early retirement with 24-week ban”. Obviously it’s the most basic formula being used there, namely choosing a headline that mentions the most extreme possible outcome to attract the most clicks and reaction. And I have to give extra points to the City AM team for including a perfectly teed up photo with the article, we can only assume Johnny here is saying something like “fine display of refereeing there Jaco!!!”.
Anyway if a reaction is what they wanted, then that’s definitely what they got. Well, first, let me give you mine.
I know there are many who will assume since I’m a Leinster supporter then I’ll somehow choose to defend these allegations, but assuming they’re true and he did say those things at different times, well, I can’t defend them. Of course there’s no excuse for saying anything to officials on the day of a match unless you are the nominated captain on the pitch while play is still going on, and even then it needs to be done respectfully.
We all understand the disappointment of any kind of a loss and that goes double when it’s a major final and possibly triple when a match goes the way that one did. But it should go without saying that we expect more from our leaders and all the way down to school children we want them to show respect to both opposition and officials especially in defeat.
But when it comes to the discussion over what kind of ban he’s going to receive, maybe we should all just back up a little. For one thing, reports of this incident started breaking within hours of it happening and before we had any actual details, in several corners of the internet he was proclaimed guilty from the get go. And I don’t just mean corners of the internet from countries outside of Ireland like the ones we’re due to face in the World Cup either.
Look, Johnny Sexton has always been a polarising force within the Irish bubble. And even when he’s wearing the green jersey, a lot of supporters find it very difficult to acknowledge his contribution to Ireland’s success over the years and only seem to speak up when he makes the wrong kind of headlines. And that’s fine, like I’ve said many times before, different people follow rugby for different reasons.
So while the online media have their own motives for suggesting this ban could rule him out of the World Cup, many seem to think there’s no chance he’ll get a ban simply because he is who he is and that the World Cup couldn’t do without him.
OK, well all of that speculation is fine, I guess, but I wonder if there’s any other method we can use to help us work out what kind of ban he could get for doing something like this? How about precedent? Have rulings been issued before for not respecting officials? And is there any way we can link those involved in previous rulings to this particular case?
Why am I bringing that up here? Well first of all, I have to point out that I don’t argue with that sentiment at all – I think ROG has done extremely well as a coach and definitely should be on the IRFU’s radar, if just a long-term one for now, only a fool would argue otherwise.
In November 2021, O’Gara was banned for two weeks for “showing disrespect to the authority of an official” during a match against Toulon.
He was then suspended for two weeks in April 2022 for “indiscipline” and “challenging the decisions of officials” in a game against Racing 92
Then in September 2022 it was six weeks for “lack of respect” and “action against an official” at Lyon.
Finally this fourth ban in November 2022 was for 10 weeks for “harming the best interests of rugby”
Am I comparing his four offences over the space of a year to Sexton’s three in one day? Maybe a bit, and maybe they are different circumstances in their own right, but while the incidents may not have happened in the same actual ball-park, they are definitely in the same topical one.
So I have to say I’m baffled as to why neither the online entity that originally broke the Sexton story, nor the Irish supporters that are so happy to point out the possible consequences, are able to at least offer the O’Gara situation up as a comparison, I mean even without the fact that they were on opposite sides that day at the Aviva Stadium, you could say their career paths have crossed a few more times over the years.
If it took four hearings for O’Gara to be banned for 10 weeks, then the case against Sexton will need to be really, really bad for his first to get him anything close to that. I’m not saying it’s impossible, and I’m not saying I’m at all happy about these reports and I wish he hadn’t done it, I just want to be sure that when we’re talking about it we’re using all the relevant information, and I’d say this was pretty relevant.
One thing I’m sure all Irish supporters agree on is that we hope that whatever the outcome of this matter, the effect on our World Cup chances is minimal. We’ll just have to wait and see.
We’re planning to go back to our Sunday night pod recording times this coming weekend, for now we’re going to look at the Irish Under 20s as they prepare for the Junior Rugby World Championships down in South Africa so don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to all our social media channels and in the meantime, be sure to enjoy your rugby wherever you are, stay safe everyone, slán. JLP
The true impact of James Ryan on this team is now fully understood. Better team over 80 minutes won, without Ryan we had no answer to Skelton, ref had a good game. This was the 2011 final won for a second star by a team dead and buried after the first quarter. Jack Conan was again superb.
Hugely disappointing. 17 points up and we stoped playing. Signs of panic Kicked so much ball away. Hard to see how this team progresses .Winning by 40 points each week is no preparation
Sometimes teams need to win ugly and grind a result, Leinster need to learn how to do this. No point taking a big lead and not knowing how to defend it
Hard luck Leinster folks. That was some start but LaR ground their way back in and then strangled Leinster with their power. I think they were helped in that by James Ryan’s absence (physicality and leadership), kicks out on the full, a blocked attempted clearance, some needless penalties / cards, and some wayward long kicking back to them. The slowdown in tempo from Q2 onwards helped LaR but hindered Leinster. Can’t understand why there wasn’t a drop goal attempt at the end; a try wasn’t needed at that stage.
HARPIN' ON RUGBY 
