Category: Match wrapup

480 : Leicester Tigers v Leinster wrap

12 December 2025; Jamison Gibson-Park of Leinster scores his side’s first try during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leicester Tigers and Leinster at Mattioli Woods Welford Road in Leicester, England. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Reiko’s 1st start

🏉 Joe McC

🏉 Defensive concerns

🏉 The road ahead

🏉 Paddy McC

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Cian O’Muilleoir (WhatsApp)

The more I think on that performance, the more I reckon the 1% is right. 

The previous big obvious things (scrum, lineout, discipline) are more or less fixed, certainly improved. 

Outside of that we’re getting into the right patterns and areas both sides of the ball, pretty much, but then… it falls apart. The reason differs. Sometimes it’s ruck resourcing. Sometimes it’s ball placement. Sometimes it’s offence or defence position or role confusion. Sometimes it’s accuracy/execution.

None of them feel like they’d be a massive issue to fix by themselves. But they’re all happening in every match like a random failure generator.

It needs fixing, and quick.

Darach Kennedy

An away win in Welford road. I’ll take that. Someone else can try and gather up some negatives.

Greg Kelly

Leinsters poor attack and sloppy execution continues. You wonder what’s really going on. We were the better team overall and they never really looked like scoring in the second half but our attack was woefully sloppy.

Irish rugby should be concerned overall with the loose head situation. Regardless of what happens referees seem to think we are weak there. There were some real garbage calls against McCarthy in the first half but as with Porter there is a perception.

Christy O’Connor

Another poor performance overall with some good individual performances. So many poor passes and spilled balls. At least our lineout was the best I’ve seen in a good while.

Doris needs to be careful moaning at the ref so much, the hit on Conan was a rugby incident and nothing more.

Our defense is not going to be good enough when we come up against better teams

Kevin Kelehan

Very happy that despite conceding two really well taken tries against the run of play the lads kept their belief and upped their work rate. The coming six weeks will make or break Leinster’s season, Ulster, Munster, Connacht, La Rochelle and Bayonne. Great to be heading into that run knowing that when the opportunity for players to go missing, they refused to take it.

Odran John OBrien

Brilliant win away from home but the Leinster attack is simply awful

anyone have Isa’s number? We could all do a whip around to persuade him to come back and coach

Chris McDonnell

If we could only put the straps Robbie henshaw has on his accordion on to a rugby ball, he might not drop the ball as much.

Craig Grehan

Win is a win. Grafted that one out

Tom Fingleton

Look at all the stats from tonight and the try return from the dominance . Tells you all really

Richard Collumb

4 points away, despite playing at times like they only met each other in the dressing room.

Eamon Saunders

Not a great team performance but again some very good individuals

Lorcán Murphy

The good news is they’re getting gritty away wins playing poorly with injury disruption. Can only get better

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

ROUND 2

Leicester Tigers 15–23 Leinster

Stormers 42–21 La Rochelle

Clermont 14–35 Sale Sharks

Sharks 28-23 Saracens

Munster 31–3 Gloucester

Bordeaux-Bègles 50–21 Scarlets

Glasgow Warriors 28–21 Toulouse

Cardiff 29–26 Ulster

Castres 33–0 Edinburgh

Harlequins 68-14 Bayonne

Northampton Saints 50-5 Bulls

Toulon 45-34 Bath

Bristol Bears 61-12 Pau

Round 3

Friday, 9 January 2026

Castres v Bath

Edinburgh v Gloucester

Saturday, 10 January 2026

Bulls v Bristol

Clermont v Glasgow

Leinster v La Rochelle

Sale Sharks v Sharks

Scarlets v Pau

Leicester Tigers v Bayonne

Sunday, 11 January 2026

Harlequins v Stormers

Toulon v Munster

Bordeaux-Bègles v Northampton Saints

Saracens v Toulouse

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “THE RISE AND RISE OF PADDY McCARTHY” (YOUTUBE)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (SUBSTACK) 

472 : IRELAND V AUSTRALIA wrap

2025 Quilter Nations Series, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 15/11/2025Ireland vs AustraliaIrelands Mack Hansen scores his sides third try of the match despite Australias James O’ConnorMandatory Credit ©INPHO/Gary Carr

🏉 Full-Mack at 15 

🏉 Options galore

🏉 Baird The Poacher

🏉 Smart decisions

🏉 Think inside the Boks

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

No guest this week, flying solo

FULL TIME TAKES

Kevin Kelehan

Questioned in recent weeks, accused of being a team in serious decline, players being told in the media they were past their sell by date, line out coach and best lock in Irish history told he was shyte at his job. Then we get the best Irish performance since RWC 2023 and one as unpredicted as smashing France in Marseilles in 2024. Australia absolutely failed to deal with the weather conditions and coughed up a lot of easy possession in the red zone but this was the Irish team giving Andy Farrell and Paul O’Connell a performance they’ve been owed for a while. Despite the absence of lions Joe McCarthy, Van Der Flier, Ringrose and Keenan the team was rejigged into a cohesive unit and its clear there is more depth in the squad than has been thought for a couple of years, players like Henshaw and Hansen look reinvented whilst McCloskey looks to be the most unlucky player in recent history in only getting short stints. Hopefully the team can match this performance again next week and hopefully the BOK evolution hasn’t moved on too much since last summer’s drawn series.

Adrian Hickey

Australia still in shock after the Lynagh/Ioane show last week I reckon. When our very sick, reintroduced fb Mack can help himself to a hattrick out of position says quite a bit. Ronan not cutting the mustard the last bit. Gus on bench at hooker next week to back up Dano or he has to do 80. Kudos to Sambo for the drop btw

Bert McLoughlin

A lot more cohesive this week and apart from poor discipline in the 1st half we should have kept their score lower

Kettlebell Padawen

Sam’s best game in green. Australia were shocking

David Ryle

Sam should have shut his detractors up but no they’re still nit picking his performance.

‪Rob Gardner‬ (via BlueSky)

JPG could give anywhere between 1-15 a good go.

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NOVEMBER SERIES WRAP

ITALY 14-32 SOUTH AFRICA

PORTUGAL 58-12 HONG KONG

ENGLAND V NEW ZEALAND

GEORGIA 38-17 CANADA

ROMANIA 18-26 USA

WALES 24-23 JAPAN

IRELAND 46-19 AUSTRALIA

FRANCE 34-21 FIJI

SCOTLAND 24-33 ARGENTINA

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

GUEST POST : “Who could replace Leo?” (blog)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (Substack)

464 : Leinster v Munster wrap

18 October 2025; Leinster players after their side’s defeat in the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Munster at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

🏉  Multiple issues

🏉  Jack’s boot

🏉  Beirne unit

🏉  No warnings

🏉  Back to drawing board

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Sarah Lennon

I feel for Cullen. All the riches in the world and none of them his. The team was disjointed, two dimensional and predictable. They played like strangers.

Munster, as good as they were, simply needed to do the basics well.

The end is nigh, for the team and for the ticket!

Kevin Kelehan

Munster came to Croker with a simple game plan and executed it, led by Tadgh Beirne who led from the front and dominated the breakdown, ending so many multi phase Leinster attacks with turnovers. Leinster were not cohesive and butchered so many decent attacks with bad handling. The ref was not test level, let Munster away with murder when not releasing the tackler going to ground, constantly half a yard offside at rucks, denied Josh van Der Flier a clear try and let a Munster deliberate knock on away as accidental. Leinster badly missed Joe McCarthy, Ryan Baird, Jack Conan, Hugo Keenan and Cealan Doris with Prendergast, Lowe and Snyman all extremely rusty. But hats off to Munster to playing to their game plan and executing scraps into 7 point scores, their new manager unlike Richie Murphy hit the ground full tilt in his first season.

Gavin Hegarty

I’m embarrassed by that performance. Lions and internationals on the pitch beaten by a team that just wanted it more.

I need to watch that penalty try again because from the Cusack stand it made zero sense. But that made no impact on the final score.

We thought the first two games were just blips,maybe not.

Colin Mehigan

We were missing key players and leaders (Doris, Conan, McCarthy, Keenan, Tommy OB, Baird etc). There’s too much hyperbole in modern sport and the aftermath of tonight from fan and media alike will be no exception.

I do have qualms about the Nienaber system which have been reinforced after that game but we did win a trophy 5 matches ago. Munster were due a win against us and they sensed our vulnerabilities before and during the game….now it’s time to see leaders step up for the rest of the season

Michelle Tobin

Injury count was horrendous on both sides. Having said that I’m happy tonight

Christy O’Connor

First off the better team by far won. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Nienabars tactics are awful. We are playing the same awful tactics that Van Graan did for Munster, stick it up the jumper and just try to barge through. We spent the majority of the 2nd half in their 22 and done nothing with it, not once did I feel confident that we would score. Superb defence from Munster but we never stretched them.

Felt sorry Frawley, was a brilliant tackle to deny the BP try only for the ref to make up some new law to give it.

Chris McDonnell

I have been saying this for years now, Cullen is not a head coach. He is a great servant to the club but simply has failed time and time again as coach. Pendergast didnt pick himself for ireland or leinster but simply isn’t any where near good enough at the minute and he may find it difficult to come back from this.

John Hyland

The breakdown was a free-for-all. Leinster lacked any pace or physicality. Crowley bossed our back three, and Prendergast was very poor. I’m not buying the ‘let him develop’ line. If he was good enough we would have seen it by now.

Conor Lowth

Actually refreshing to have a competitive Munster side back.

Leinster are on the decline the last couple of years and are persisting with mediocre players like Osborne, Frawley, Pendergast. These guys are rugby robots, slow with little flair , I fear for Leinster and Ireland

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “IRELAND’S NOVEMBER SQUAD”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

462 : Leinster v Sharks wrap

11 October 2025; Josh van der Flier of Leinster is tackled by Fez Mbatha of Hollywoodbets Sharks during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Hollywoodbets Sharks at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉  Cohesion back

🏉  Gunne firing

🏉  Josh the skipper

🏉  Sleeping giants

🏉  Josh the debutante

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CIARÁN DUFFY

FULL TIME TAKES

Gavin Hegarty

Normal (ISH) service resumes!

I thought Osbourne was great, most likely Irelands 15 for the autumn internationals in winter. Harry looked confident but did try a tad to hard in parts.

We were south lower and watched the ground covered by Baird to make a tackle, unreal!

Far from perfect but a step in the right direction

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “THE FRAWLEY DILEMMA”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

460 : Bulls v Leinster wrap

🏉  Heads not dropping

🏉  Attack is back

🏉  Handing them points

🏉  Tommy’s on fire

🏉  Half full or empty?

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CONOR CRONIN

FULL TIME TAKES

Kevin Kelehan

Better performance, should have got 2 bonus points out of it but was a game they had chances to win. After last weeks ill discipline this was a much better performance

Christy O’Connor

Cross field kicks killed us and there were a number of other times they could’ve exposed us, but luckily we escaped. Saying all that, very unlucky not to have come away with 2 points

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S WORKONS”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

458 : Stormers v Leinster wrap

26 September 2025; Luke McGrath of Leinster during the United Rugby Championship match between DHL Stormers and Leinster at DHL Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa. Photo by Shaun Roy/Sportsfile

🏉  Lack of attack

🏉  Sam’s kicking

🏉  In our defence…

🏉  Set-piece woes

🏉  And now, the Bulls

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

DAVID CORDIAL

FULL TIME TAKES

Gavin Hegarty

Two yellows in one game, how many did we get last season?

We looked rusty and disinterested but let’s not get carried away. First game of a long season, let just learn from it.

Kevin Kelehan

Kick up the arse first day of the new season, 2 cards in 4 minutes made the scoreline a hammering. It will get better from here

Chris McDonnell

Our coaches know the players who were available for the past 2 or 3 months and still we couldn’t win a lineout scrum or even score a point. Total failure from our coaching staff once again. Not one coach from our group can say his pre season work actually looked better than a shambles.

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LACKING LEADERSHIP”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

454 : Third Lions test & series wrap

Our guest : MARK JACKSON

I’d like to thank Mark and of course all the Harpin contributors over the course of the season as we wind down Season 6 of our humble pod.

We’re looking at one more recording next weekend looking ahead to the Women’s World Cup and otherwise our only content between now and our Season 7 premiere will be our weekly 80+ column which will continue posting on Wednesday.