Category: Match wrapup

498 : France v Ireland wrap

14 February 2026; Robert Baloucoune of Ireland dives over to score his side’s third try despite the tackle of Lorenzo Cannone of Italy during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and Italy at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Attack still misfiring

🏉 Fresh faces

🏉 Brava Italia

🏉 Super Stu

🏉 15s & 7s

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CONOR CRONIN

FULL TIME TAKES

Gerald Williamson

Quite frankly it was a wrestling match with Ireland just shading it.

Christy O’Connor

Lots of work needed to be done for next week. Sam is in a horrible position, Farrell is adamant about Sam starting, I’m not saying he’s a poor player, he’s just not ready. If any 10 can feel hard done by it’s Frawley. The championship is already over for us, so may as well test more players

John Kehoe

Ireland beat Italy by more points this year than last year

Greg McAuliffe

I thought once Crowley came on, we got a bit of an attacking shape back, which has been under Sam. Still not where we should be but the difference was obvious.

Michelle Tobin

Andy Farrell would do well to talk to Andrew Brown. Brown was so p*ssed off at the Irish performance last night despite the win. “A win is a win” is not the right mindset for the team that was formerly #1 in the world and should be aspiring to get back there, not barely beating Italy. We’re safe from 6th now but there are 3 big games left and I’m not confident

Ted Maher

I really really really hate to say it but Sam!

Chris McDonnell

3 of the 4 half backs are just not good enough. Doak for Casey and frawley and Murphy for Pendergast and Crowley.

Gavin Hegarty

Prendergast not good but then Crowley doesn’t take his chance and denies us a bonus point. Time to try Byrne.

Brian McKeon

Scotland did it last week, we did it this week, underestimated the Italians. Italy have lightening quick backs and a very strong pack.

I’ve never seen Tadhg Furlong get flying lessons in a scrum before today.

Ken Tancred PT

Ireland’s definitely in a rebuilding phase… It should have started last year except for the lions distraction. But Italy are starting to click so they so they have to take some credit

A worrying thing for me is how they team played under Casey and how they changed when JGP came on

Kevin Kelehan

Italy turned up and forced Ireland to work harder than they have for a long time against Italy. England will really target our scrum next week, what was the only blot on an otherwise really decent effort. I remain a huge Sam fan but not was clear that JGP and Crowley was a far better combination. Very decent debuts for Itzy, Balacoune and Edogbo with further enhancement of Timoney’s rep. 70% happy

Craig Boyd

Really poor, very one dimensional and Italy can feel really hard done by. V little to be positive about. Improved when Crowley and Gibson Park came on but missed out on the bonus point

Darragh Headen

2 yellows were harsh i taught, Italy were ferocious, will seriously test both England & France, good points were new debutants, and some great passing, we have concerns in the scrum. Crowley to start, Atmosphere looked desperate, too many there with no passion just in & out drinking & pissing like yo yo,s

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

Italy 18-15 Scotland  

England 48-7 Wales  

France 36-14 Ireland

Scotland 31–20 England  

Italy 13–20 Ireland  

Wales 12–54 France

Round 3 Fixtures

Sat 21 Feb

England v Ireland

Wales v Scotland  

Sun 22 Feb

France v Italy 

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TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “MEDIA NARRATIVES”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

496 : France v Ireland wrap

5 February 2026; Matthieu Jalibert of France scores his side’s second try despite the attempted tackle from Cian Prendergast of Ireland during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between France and Ireland at Stade de France in Paris, France. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile

🏉 Rucks & collisions

🏉 The three P’s

🏉 Après set pieces

🏉 Selections

🏉 Calls & non-calls

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

MARK JACKSON

FULL TIME TAKES

Craig Grehan

All in all. Good day out. Look we know we’re in transition and we’re not the numero uno team anymore. SA and France are. Very different teams. Who we need to figure out new ways to beat them.

Good things, our lineout outclassed and manhandled theirs.

Scrums without our big names in the front row definitely held their own.

Sam P silenced his can’t tackle haters (a bit) by hitting a fair few.

Stockdale can still be a threat.

When we move ball we can scare teams.

Cian P was immense.

We still gave France a good rattle fir 25 minutes.

The referees helped France by not seeing 2 forward passes, and a knock on by France.

And not the deliberate yellow one.

The not so good:

We kept kicking despite it not really working.

Despite our scrum and lineout platform, we looked game rusty, silly knock ons, not running hard.

Which is easily settled by picking game ready players.

Some sloppy defending.

Doris is our least aggressive backrow.

No leader on the pitch to say “this isnt working”.

The ref missing the above mentioned things haha

Odran John OBrien

France outstanding no one will come near to them playing like this

Kevin Kelehan

Fixed the perceived problems, scrum solid, gave away 3 penalties in the entire game, only one preventable, line out held up against French going after it. Sam Prendergast’s tackling was arguably the best of the Irish backs. Then they kicked and kicked and kicked when it was clear the French has superior aerial skills. 22-0 at half time and 29-0 down at nearly an hour and it looked like a hiding. Then they woke up and were unlucky the ref didn’t card Dupont when 29-14, they could with a man advantage have got a lot closer. Next game out through Edogbo in at 5, Furlong will be back, put Beirne in at 6 and hopefully the 3 larger ball carriers will get us more yards when we have the ball. France deservedly on their way to retaining their championship

Christy O’Connor

Can’t say I expected any other outcome on the result. The scrum done a lot better than I expected. We are well off the pace and Farrell needs to start picking more players that are in form rather than ticking with the same old faces. This could be the unraveling of Andy’s time in charge if he doesn’t get a grip on this.

Peter Mcconnell

For me it was the commitment in the tackle. For some reason French players were able to power through the tackle sufficiently to offload, or make more metres. In previous years the Irish tacklers have done a pretty good job of halting the attacking players. I don’t know if it is a lack of aggression on behalf of the Irish tacklers, or just a brute fore determination by the French, but I have no doubt it were we lost was at the contact.

Ann Marie Crean

Just not up to scratch 😒 😫

End of

Cormac Mannion

Good to see Cian P do so well, Milne too. The subs did very well when they came on and it did make a difference but France had taken their foot off the gas by that stage. Lineout and scrum were good.

Our defence is shambolic. Players don’t seem to know what they’re supposed to be doing and our attack plan was dire. We seem to look better when we have two playmakers on the field (Crowley and Sam), similar to Leinster when Sam and Harry were on the pitch at the same time.

Osborne is a fine player but looked rusty last night and has all the speed of an oil tanker when he’s turning. Stockdale – didn’t reproduce his early season form. Ringrose – barely saw the ball.

So much wrong (injuries aside) and the players looked jaded from the very beginning

Shaun Berger‬ (BlueSky)

Timoney was great.

Ire outplayed  and outfought in so many areas. But one thing I dont see mentioned much:

Did we even win one bloody aerial battle? Even when it looked like we caught it Fra seemed to end up with the ball.

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

ROUND 2

SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2026
Ireland v Italy, 2:10pm, Aviva Stadium
Scotland v England, 4:40pm, Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2026
Wales v France, 3:10pm, Principality Stadium

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TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “WEEKEND ROUNDUP”

80+ COLUMN 

494 : Leinster v Edinburgh wrap

31 January 2026; Scott Penny of Leinster, second from left, celebrates after scoring his third and his side’s fourth try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Edinburgh at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

🏉 Offload overload?

🏉 NIQ benefits

🏉 Death. Taxes. Penny.

🏉 Tector at 10

🏉 Luke’s leadership

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

TOM COLEMAN

FULL TIME TAKES

Christy O’Connor

Great result for the players that were playing. Thought Tector done well considering it’s been a long time since he had a run of games at ten.

Still a lot of the same issues with our attack, it’s very 1 dimensional and we need a lot of entries into their 22 to come away with some points

Cormac Mannion

We really are winning the hard way this season but a welcome win and another bonus point.

Still lots to improve on but when you think we are down to the bare bones in terms of players, it was a very satisfactory win

Gavin Hegarty

We made very hard work of it. Simple things that just didn’t work.

For example why did RG continue to try offloads when they never worked?

All teams now know they can easily unlock our shoot up defence by quick passing yet we still do it? Reko got caught out tonight.

Eamon Saunders

Good win again and great to see so much young talent being used

Kevin Kelehan

We have discovered the new and improved version of Mick Kiernan at 12 to fix Ireland’s place kicking problem, his name is Charlie Tector and he will be well ready for RWC 2027. The block down of the conversion on 80 minutes was very frustrating, Embra deserved a point out of that game and conceding it cost Leinster nothing

Dave Murray

A hard earned, but well deserved, 5 points for the 2nd/3rd string. Stormers losing again was pleasing too.

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URC WRAP

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TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S SEASON SO FAR” (YouTube)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (Substack)

France v Ireland preview (YouTube)

492 : Connacht v Leinster wrap

24 January 2026; Charlie Tector of Leinster scores his side’s third try despite the efforts of Caolin Blade of Connacht during the United Rugby Championship match between Connacht and Leinster at Dexcom Stadium in Galway. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

🏉 Comeback Kings

🏉 The gameplan

🏉 Opening night

🏉 Leinster negatives

🏉 Connacht’s form

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CIARÁN DUFFY

Post to Post blog

Ciarán’s fundraiser

FULL TIME TAKES

Eamon Saunders

Another win on the road glad to get the 5 points but much improvement needed going forward 👍

Greg Kelly

Connacht were plucky and obvious up for the occasion. They applied a lot of pressure in the opening hour but fell away a bit afterwards. They were looking for big moments but fell short of a real catalyst. Leinster were sputtering along and wasteful in attack…again. Ultimately Leinster were the better team and on the hour you always felt they would pull away. As has been said week after week if we do that against the top opposition we’ll get caned but but was enough against a spirited but limited Connacht team.

Kevin Kelehan

Ireland lost big tonight unless Jack Boyle does a Lazarus, have a good bet on England for the Six Nations. The Leinster scrum did amazingly, Niall Smyth passed his exam as did Sparrow and Jerry Cahir again proving the academy let more than Tadhg Beirne slip through their fingers. Charlie Tector again superb but one of the Connacht back row should have got man of the match for over an hour they had the upper hand. Delighted to take 5 points out of a decent Connacht shift.

Chris McDonnell

Another game where harry shows why he was Leinster’s 4th choice last season. He’s good defensively and can kick goals but he’s got nothing in attack.

James Gill

Harry 💯 % kicking might get him an Ireland start. Charlie Tector should b in the A squad. Prendergast was good for connacht but need a few more forwards badly. Leinster building nicely

Eamon Phelan

Sam illo can scrummage

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TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “IRISH 6N SQUAD”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

488 : Leinster v La Rochelle wrap

10 January 2026; Harry Byrne of Leinster celebrates after converting an 80th minute penalty to give his side a 25-24 victory during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leinster and La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

🏉 That start & that finish
🏉 More injuries
🏉 More ill discipline
🏉 Breakdown decisions
🏉 Vintage visitors

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Sheena Crean

A super match to attend, havent witnessed that atmos in the aviva in quite some time, but left feeling Leinster’s attack is soulless. Defensively strong but lacking ideas elsewhere. Joshua Kenny is a very exciting prospect, would be super to see him start a 6N game- maybe v Wales so that he doesnt get the same level of pressure overload that appears to be destroying SP (or perhaps SP simply isnt good enough, time will tell)

Eamon Saunders

That was close but great performance from Leinster considering we had so many big names missing

Cormac Mannion

Yet again we score early and then fail to do so for a huge chunk of the match. Gotta admire the grit but our ball presentation going into contact, our breakdown work and our ruck defence are utter garbage at the moment.

Fair play to JJ, he’s really growing into the role and it’s brilliant to see him and TOB burning players with sheer speed.

The third and fourth tries were great to see, pure instinct and well worked through the hands.

Balls of steel for Harry to nail that final kick but quite telling that Sam handed the ball to him.

La Rochelle wil be kicking themselves though. They butchered two certain tries

Conor Cronin

I’ll be doing a rewatch tomorrow before I judge this game completely, but I will say that from my seat it seemed like the ref had more impact on this game than he should have, and our choice to not go for points at 12-0 could’ve returned to catch us out, it would’ve put us 3 scores ahead and had an impact on their attitude to the game. Game management and captain decisions need a little attention for tight games like this

Vincent Duggan

Leinster lucky to get away with this one. La Rochell butchered 3 try attempts. Carley is an international standard ref he pulled Leinster for all the stuff they get away with in the URC, killing the ball a the breakdown and offside in midfield. Prendergast was responsible for two tries because of his inability to defend. Leinster were cut apart in midfield.

Tom Clarke

Given the injuries and then the injuries in the game that was a great win. A lot to work on defensively but the lads showed great fight and resilience.

Andrew Byrne

Looks like our depth at prop is better than we all thought. Fair play to Jerry Cahir off the bench, did a great job when he came on.

Billy Glynn

Two men playing their first H Cup two tries from kenny and brilliant from jerry Cahir AIL to H Cup 👏 great win with a bonus point can’t complain really.

Keith Bruce

Great game, La Rochelle didn’t take their chances and should have overrun Ireland, not looking good for Leinster in the six nations.

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

Round 3

Castres 20–43 Bath
Edinburgh 26–24 Gloucester
Bulls 49–61 Bristol Bears
Clermont 21–33 Glasgow Warriors
Leinster 25–24 Stade Rochelais
Sale Sharks 26–10 Hollywoodbets Sharks
Scarlets 38–47 Pau
Leicester Tigers 57–14 Bayonne
Harlequins 61–10 Stormers
Toulon 27–25 Munster
Bordeaux 50–28 Northampton Saints
Saracens 20-14 Toulouse

Round 4

Friday 16 January 2026

Pau v Bulls

Bath v Edinburgh

Saturday 17 January 2026

Sharks v Clermont

Bayonne v Leinster

Stormers v Leicester

Toulouse v Sale

Munster v Castres

Gloucester v Toulon

Sunday 18 January 2026

Bristol v Bordeaux

Northampton v Scarlets

La Rochelle v Harlequins

Glasgow v Saracens

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “Final round permutations” (YouTube)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (Substack)

484 : Munster v Leinster wrap

27 December 2025; Josh van der Flier of Leinster celebrates in the closing moments of the United Rugby Championship match between Munster and Leinster at Thomond Park in Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

🏉 Defending ✅

🏉 Scrum ✅

🏉 Game management ✅

🏉 Attack plan❓

🏉 Discipline❓

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CIARÁN DUFFY

Post to Post blog

Fundraiser link

FULL TIME TAKES

Richard Collumb

Close game, Munster pushed hard & Leinster defence improving. Harry best 10 we have.

Lorcán Murphy

A dogfight of a game which will stand to both teams and Ireland in the longer run. This was all about the result and who wanted it more

Dave Murray

Two very tough inter-pros and 9 points from them, we can’t complain about that. Our attack was very one dimensional, but its a tough defence that wins games in Thomond and we defended superbly. NB Leo with Zebo after the game was also a nice bonus

Louis Hoffman

Just about Fair result, few bruised bodies tomorrow. Ruck was a mess

Kevin Kelehan

Munster pushed Leinster bloody hard, Leinster defence was back where it needed to be. The second half against Ulster may be the time we say that Leinster’s season clicked and where the believe came to win when the chances aren’t there.

Gavin Little

Scrums are a mystery… we win penalty after penalty and Munster don’t get penalised, then in the second half the ref calls “use it” almost immediately on every scrum completely nullifying our advantage

Christy O’Connor

Started off brilliant and the intensity was great, it dropped off as the game went on though. Our defense was great and our attack is still very one dimensional.

The highlight of the night was Leo absolutely ripping Zebo in the interview after the game.

Gerald Williamson

The Leinster defense was impressive. It was a close game with not much free flowing Rugby due to the tight marking. The Ref did not have a bad game.

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BONUS CHAT : “2025 YEAR IN REVIEW” (YOUTUBE)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (SUBSTACK) 

482 : Leinster v Ulster wrap

19 December 2025; Rieko Ioane of Leinster dives over to score his side’s first try despite the tackle of Rob Baloucoune, bottom, and Jacob Stockdale of Ulster during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Ulster at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Self inflicted shit

🏉 Game management

🏉 Why we complain

🏉 Bench inflicted grit

🏉 The McCarthys

🏉[40:21 – bonus chat on Gibraltar Rugby]

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

RICHARD MIFSUD

FULL TIME TAKES

Tom Clarke

I could copy and paste my comment from last week. But I’ll ask the question again. How are the current coaching ticket bringing these players to the next level?

Gavin Little

Our basic skills used to be second to none, but now every phase feels like a risk. Confidence seems through the floor. Strangers playing with each other.

There used to be complaints that we’d peak too early, and maybe we will come good when it matters. At the moment that seems like a far way off.

John Jones

Still time to build into the season but something not working at the moment. I don’t know if it is just the lack of a proper pre-season together, or if there really is something off in the coaching/current coaching ticket? Still wouldn’t put it past them to put in a big performance Vs Munster though and kick on from there…

Kevin Kelehan

Very happy with Leinster reeling in a quality side last night, the fans expecting Leinster to go out week after week and put 50 points up and concede little more than a consolation try are unrealistic. A lot of credit to Richie Murphy who is getting a lot out of a side with few internationals but lots of guts and effort. I thought James Ryan was very unlucky to be carded for what looked like a fairly standard clear out. On to another game that can be lost in Thomond next week.

Johnny McGovern

I like the look of the Leinster winger Kenny . Stood up physically and has a sense of class about him . May be a bit inexperienced positionally at this level but he has Gaz and will only get better . Unfortunately Tector is not a centre ! Slipped off too many tackles . Gunne should have been brought on at half time too. Ritchie Murphy doing a great job up in Ulster clearly. With a bit more composure second half Ulster would have beaten Leinster . McCloskey and Steward had huge games .

Christy O’Connor

The only good thing lately is that we are winning games. However we cannot keep winning ugly and expect to win a trophy playing like this. Some serious damage is being done to the brand/style of Leinster and the longer it goes on the harder it will be to reverse it.

Craig Grehan

Ulster snatched a loss from the jaws of victory. Leinster very lucky.

3 out halves on the pitch throughout the whole game and we looked flat as feck. Ulster were solid, can’t take that from them.

Have we any centres?

Lineout looked sharper thank god.

How is Ryan not getting to grips with ruck entry?

We’ve also learned Harry byrne is in fact the better 10.

Eamon Saunders

I’m fed up at this stage of saying another poor performance but a win ,maybe I’m wrong but good teams win playing poor but a good performance is what we need

Gavin Hegarty

Dire.

Just dire.

How did we go from niling Glasgow and Quinns with huge scores in Europe and winning the URC last year to this type of performance? Confidence seems shit squad wide.

So many little mistakes. Unforced knock ons, losing every high ball, sliced kicks.

Techtor is a great player but was so far off his own pace. Penny was anonymous all game. Sam’s passing seemed to take an age to wind up.

Something needs to happen to salvage this season, we really didn’t deserve a win tonight.

Chris McDonnell

Dreadful kicking especially from mcgrath, pendergasts confidence is shot. Gunne was very good when he came on. Joe is a monster. Soroka was excellent, lowe is not playing well at all. Tectors first bad game. Less and less people are going to pay to see this brand of rugby. Boxkick after boxkick. Its an expensive hobby to watch leinster the least they can do is try to play good rugby

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URC WRAP

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TUESDAY

80+ COLUMN – limited version (SUBSTACK)

FRIDAY

MUNSTER V LEINSTER PREVIEW SHOW (YOUTUBE)

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

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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

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