Match wrapup – Page 3 – HARPIN' ON RUGBY

441 : Leinster v Glasgow wrap

7 June 2025; Dan Sheehan of Leinster celebrates after scoring his side’s first try during the United Rugby Championship semi-final match between Leinster and Glasgow Warriors at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

🏉 Dan & Tommy

🏉 Improved players

🏉 Setback recovery

🏉 Defence on point

🏉 Below par champs

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CONOR CRONIN

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Kevin Kelehan

The stadium was buzzing right from the first hit off kick off, the team seemed to feed off it, 32 points clear on 65 minutes having refused to let a decent enough Glasgow side play. Tom Clarkson and Tommy O’Brien were both superb today, Tom winning scrum penalties now and Tommy is so unpredictable. The confidence is back at exactly the perfect time to get it back.

Christy O’Connor

Definitely a much better performance than the last few weeks, I was expecting a tight game. Glasgow were never in it, we let them off easy a few times but we were never losing that game. Just hope we show the same attitude next week

Jackie McEachern

It seemed that Leinster showed great attitude from the start and several players really stepped up. I’m worried about all the missed kicks from Prendergast. But for now excited for the final next week!

Gavin Hegarty

Like do we have that little confidence in our attack that our first instinct is to kick, every time? Frustrating rugby and helping the opposition.

Clarkson had the game of his life and dominated their loose head.

Scot penny take a bow, he was everywhere.

A good win but we fell asleep in the last twenty and gave them tries.

If we stayed tuned in it would have been 50+.

Considering the injury list jvdf, Doris, furlong, henshaw, ringrose, Keenan) we did well.

Clarkson, Osbourne and the optometrist (tob) will Excell on the summer tour

Cuan Mulligan

Much better performance, however Sam is a weakness.. the flare and magic he showed late last year is no where to be found and he is weak in defence, Bulls will run down him all day next Saturday. Far more cohesive as a team, should make for a great game.

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “SAM’S KICKING & BULLS REVIEW”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

439 : Leinster v Scarlets wrap

31 May 2025; Hugo Keenan of Leinster scores his side’s fourth try, despte the tackle to Scarlets players Johnny Williams and Blair Murray, during the United Rugby Championship quarter-final match between Leinster and Scarlets at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

🏉 Kicking, the habit
🏉 Forcing it
🏉 Sam P at 10
🏉 Keen on Keenan
🏉 Still harpin’ on Leo

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

TOM COLEMAN

RICHARD MIFSUD

FULL TIME TAKES

Andrew Byrne

What’s the opposite of “peaking at the right time”? We look a shadow of the team we were a few months ago.

Cuan Mulligan

Something wrong in the camp, I think one has to start looking at the coaching. Sam P was better in the second half, but god awful in the first. He played like Ross Byrne, taking the ball standing still, and shovelling shite out the back. Makes me think its not the players, how can two very different 10s play almost identically.. how they are being coached.. he is a player full of flare. it looks like its been knocked out of him. Glasgow will feel very confident in coming and winning…

Gavin Hegarty

What the hell has happened to us? Against Quinns and Glasgow we were world class. Simply unplayable. Now it seems we can’t put anything together and look like a scratch side who just met in the changing room.

I really hate to say it but based on recent performances I have no confidence of any silverware this season.

Kevin Kelehan

The arrogance of fans expecting Leinster to skittle every side who comes to Dublin, at times there were unforced handling errors but credit Scarlets for turning up and forcing a good number of errors. After La Rochelle and Glasgow this is the third time this season a first choice Leinster have dogged out wins from games they could equally have lost. Onwards next week with Glasgow looking for third time lucky, vital that we don’t let them build the vibe that Leinster aren’t scrappers.

Lorraine Preston O’Connor

Are the players afraid to get injured before the Lions tour? There’s definitely something amiss!!!!

Hubert Gallagher

We looked disjointed and lacking in confidence. Trying to force things when we didn’t need to – giving away unnecessary turnovers instead of keeping the ball. At least we learnt to kick a few of our penalties. We try to entertain and play an expansive game without winning the right to expand. We need to do the simple things accurately, scrum, lineout, quick recycle and control the ball. Defensively something is very off – we’re leaking tries, often through individual mistakes – 2 people went onto one player leaving a gap and leading to a score.

You don’t become a bad team overnight but psychology especially big game psychology! Glasgow will be bursting to put one over on us – so we need to really cut the errors and work to control the game and field position.

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN INCL BONUS CHAT “THE LEINSTER CAPTAINCY”

437 : Leinster v Glasgow wrap

🏉 Stats v Vibes

🏉 Tremendous Tommy

🏉 Flat Track Bullies

🏉 The Ben Whitehouse Experience

🏉 In Our Defence

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CIAN O’MUILLEOIR

DAVID CORDIAL

FULL TIME TAKES

Gavin Hegarty

I’m not going to comment on whitehouse.

We have real talent in Leinster but for some reason this talent is not firing. On paper we were 40+ better than this team yet we couldn’t string any phases together.

Why do we want to defend? We just keep on aimlessly kicking the ball away. Madness.

Tommy O’Brien is class and has to be capped in Georgia/Portugal.

On a positive note on spiral from Sam has to be the best kick I’ve ever seen! Simple exquisite

Chris McDonnell

No real spark but effort was very good. Gunne passed well but didn’t really offer any threat, Sam is not controlling the game, loads of really good stuff but not really getting a grip. Boyle is a good one. What’s going on with furlong? Why is he on the bench if he’s not getting much needed game time.

Christy O’Connor

This proves that Frawley should’ve been given more time at ten.

Andrew Bailey

It’s a sad situation when you know once referee is announced that he will be awful. Whitehouse did not disappoint. Aside from that we have a problem at 10

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “THE URC QUARTERFINALS”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

435 : Leinster v Zebre wrap

10 May 2025; Ryan Baird of Leinster celebrates after scoring his side’s third try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Zebre Parma at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile

🏉 12 different tries
🏉 Tyler’s attack
🏉 Sam’s starts
🏉 That JB narrative
🏉 Improved forwards

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CONOR CRONIN

CIARÁN DUFFY

FULL TIME TAKES

Kevin Kelehan
Normal service is restored after last weeks slip

David Ryle
Better structure this week.

William Andrew
Flat track bullies. If they didn’t set up a drop goal, they have learnt nothing.

@harpinonrugby
Car thoughts after LEIvZEB #leinsterrugby #rugbytiktok #urc
♬ original sound – Harpinonrugby.blog

URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “THE LIONS SQUAD”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY

433 : Leinster v Northampton wrap

🏉 Top two inches

🏉 Saints on the march

🏉 D-construction

🏉 Selection issues

🏉 What next?

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

RICHARD MIFSUD & HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Cormac Mannion

Kept kicking the ball away and when we actually had a straightforward kick to draw level at 37-37 we went for the corner. Summed up our brainless play all evening. I’m really annoyed about how we played. Yet again we’ve faltered in a big match

Gavin Hegarty

Anyone else think henshaw was a huge weak link? He didn’t bring anything to the party.

Head to simani is a straight red

Yellow at the try line should be a penalty try

But we shouldn’t have been in that position.

Horrific first half that we shouldn’t have been that bad in.

Andrew Tynan

The ref giving a saints player a yellow card at the end but yet no penalty try? What?

Kevin Kelehan

Kicking the ball at Saints back 3 was never going to be a winner, Leinster were lucky to be in the game right to the end, tactically the approach did not play to Leinster’s strengths. Credit Saints they nailed 90% of their chances

Colette Caddle

They were the better side and deserved the win.

Christy O’Connor

Nienaber has to go for me, I’ve never liked his tactics and I was never hopeful we would win with his style. Yes we played better the last few weeks but against very poor opposition

Daniel James

I think we should’ve played at least the bones of this team against scarlets last week as I worry that the international are sometime undercooked. Also i think we need to win an URC before the champions cup and we have been focusing to much on getting that 5th star rather then winning our league then going for the star. The intensity from Northampton was incredible all game I expected them to get tired towards the end but they have it there all where as I thought we got tired at times and their scores seemed a bit easy.

Cuan Mulligan

Saints deserved the win. However some very dubious ref calls. The possible try at the end should not have been disallowed for the reason the ref gave, the corner flag is not in touch.. however Byrne was on the floor and it’s questionable if he is allowed to touch it down. About 2 or 3 plays before it, near their try line, I think Pollock goes off his feet crawling on his knees over our players and a second player in goes into take the ball… not sharing this to gripe.. if you leave your win down to ref calls you don’t deserve it.. but the reffing was poor

Jackie McEachern

Saints were very good (and it pains me to say that). But I don’t understand not starting Barrett.

And I’m not sure resting the starters leading up to these big games is a good strategy. I know it’s a physical game but we’ve seen time and time again where they come into the big matches rested but not cohesive.

Richard Collumb

Useless today & Tactics were terrible. That’s down to the coaches. Given team & budget the players & management get judged on performances in May & they aren’t good enough.

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NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “ANNUAL CULLENOSCOPY”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY (Substack)

431 : Scarlets v Leinster wrap

26 April 2025; Will Connors of Leinster is tackled by Taine Plumtree of Scarlets during the United Rugby Championship match between Scarlets and Leinster at Parc Y Scarlets in Swansea, Wales. Photo by Chris Fairweather/Sportsfile

🏉 Missed chances

🏉 Plumtree power

🏉 Defensive decline

🏉 Leadership lacking

🏉 No consolation

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CONOR CRONIN

FULL TIME TAKES

Jackie McEachern

Really poor from almost every perspective but hopefully just a bump in the road. I know we were missing many of the first team but there were still far too many errors and poor decisions.

Christy O’Connor

Scarlets line speed was brilliant, put us under lots of pressure and caused us to make so many mistakes, granted some were unforced. Better team won

Ollie Sinnott

Ross Byrne, Frawley, the Osbornes, Tector, Baird, O Brien and Mccarthy are a couple of steps down in quality from the first 23. Only player to improve their reputation this evening was Jack Boyle and Soroka.

Bert McLoughlin

People whinging about team selection pisses me off! Apart from what’s coming next week, the team out on the field today were good enough to win the game. BUT they made way too many errors and didn’t deserve to win the game.

Congratulations to Scarlets, they played really well and deserved to win that game

Greg Kelly

Scarlets came out needing the 5 points. They were hungry and quite simply Leinster we not. Fair play to the Scarlets, they were well worth the win and showed great composure given that Leinster have a habit of clawing back games. It looked like Leinster had both eyes on Northampton and a lot of the players knew that their knockout involvement going forward was over.

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN INCLUDING FRONT 5 VIDEO

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY

429 : Leinster v Ulster wrap

19 April 2025; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster evades the tackle of on his way to scoring his side’s first try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Ulster at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Late late change

🏉 Terrific TOB

🏉 Coach killers

🏉 Defensive stands

🏉 Triple Dan

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CIARÁN DUFFY

Post to Post blog

DAVID CORDIAL

FULL TIME TAKES

Christy O’Connor

Tommy is flying, definitely in with a great shout to be playing in the cup games. Will definitely be on the irish summer tour

Greg Kelly

Tommy O’Brien looking like the real deal these days

Michael Branagan

Great result. Porter needs to be “seen to be in control”. He’s throwing penalties away, 50:50 calls, that are damaging us and his reputation. I do think it’s harsh on a number of fronts but he has to “ease back” as it were. For a little while.

William Andrew

Ulster had a lot go against them, but still hung in there.

Some unfortunate, some self inflected.

Leinster were good but you can see some players are not quite the standard of the 1st squad.

Others are pushing on. Highlights were the chip to Dan and Gunn delaying his pass to Dan.

Smart play

Warren Doyle

Right person won man of the match. Class act. Well done Tommy O’Brien.

John Peeters

Only one comment; is RG ok?

URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER PLAYER PROFILES PT 1”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN INCLUDING FRONT 5 VIDEO

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY

427 : Leinster v Glasgow wrap

11 April 2025; Dan Sheehan of Leinster scores his side’s seventh try during the Investec Champions Cup quarter-final match between Leinster and Glasgow Warriors at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Glasgow’s poor exits

🏉 Sam’s spirals

🏉 Leinster’s D (again)

🏉 Mangan’s Euro debut

🏉 Jordie’s everything

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

TOM COLEMAN

RICHARD MIFSUD

FULL TIME TAKES

Greg Kelly

We put on a show but we learned nothing and didn’t sharpen our edges. When Byrne replaced Sam there was a noticeable drop off in incision and tempo. All in all we played an hour of solid rugby and then pulled up in the last 20 to save legs.

Chris McDonnell

Just too good. Noticeable drop off when we changed our half backs.

David Ryle

Wasn’t a scoreline we were expecting. But Glasgow were missing half of their starters.

2 weeks on the bounce teams kept scoreless.

Cuan Mulligan

Loved the term.. Leinster Double Bagel

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S BEST IMPORTS”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN INCLUDING FRONT 5 VIDEO

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY

425 : Leinster v Harlequins wrap

Josh van der Flier of Leinster scores his side’s fourth try during the Investec Champions Cup Round of 16 match between Leinster and Harlequins at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

🏉 Quins purple patch

🏉 Some Leinster tries

🏉 More tries

🏉 Even more tries

🏉 Shutout

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CIARÁN DUFFY [Post to Post Sport blog]

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

David Ryle

I thought it was going to be a hard day at the office on the first 10 mins. I think the held up ball knocked the wind out of them.

Kevin Kelehan

Quins turned up, sadly only for 10 minutes, great to see JVdF back to his rampaging best, Ringrose lethal in defense and incisive in attack and Jordie Barrett’s team first and self second distribution showing why he was signed.

Chris McDonnell

As complete a performance as I have seen in ages.

Alan Murphy

Quins over 80 mins were never going to win that. Not taking the 6 points on offer for two kickable penalties in the first 10 mins was really naive. Aimless kicking to a Leinster back 3 was naive. Kicking all their restarts to the same space in the first half was naive. Very poor from a last 16 team. I hope they get rid of this round in future as very average teams are winning one game (Ulster) in 4 in the ‘group’ stages and making the knockouts. Others staggering in with 2 wins from 4. Go straight to the quarter finals in future.

Christy O’Connor

Dragons would’ve caused us more problems. I expect a much tougher game next week. I reckon Glasgow will beat Leicester and Glasgow will definitely give is a tough game

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “EPCR QUARTERFINAL PREVIEW”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN INCLUDING FRONT 5 VIDEO

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY

423 : Sharks v Leinster wrap

29 March 2025; Max Deegan of Leinster makes a break during the United Rugby Championship match between Hollywoodbets Sharks and Leinster at Hollywoodbets Kings Park in Durban, South Africa. Photo by Shaun Roy/Sportsfile

🏉 Low expectations

🏉 Toothless Sharks

🏉 Bridge pass

🏉 The Max Deegan All-Stars

🏉 Holding on

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CONOR CRONIN

DAVID CORDIAL

FULL TIME TAKES

Bert McLoughlin

Not really a great game for a neutral but I’m not neutral, great win. Max was superb

Kevin Kelehan

Noon last week hoped for 2 points out of both games, last week ahead for 83 minutes and just caught in the end by a super dogged Bulls side and this week won a proper dogfight. The scores weren’t spectacular, but players like Deegan, Soroka and Penny never stopped working, the depth that Leinster have is embarrassing. To take 5 points from a trip they have struggled on in recent seasons is really encouraging

Cormac Mannion

Fantastic win. Frawley still doesn’t seem to have recovered his mojo after last autumn, albeit he was great for Penny’s try

Bernie Cunningham

Grt win, boys left it all on the pitch, delighted for the younger lads and to bring home 4pts from SA brill.👏👏

Eamon Saunders

Great performance from such a inexperienced bunch at this level given the opposition 💪👏👏

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URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S CHAMPIONS CUP 23”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN INCLUDING FRONT 5 VIDEO

THURSDAY

THROWBACK THURSDAY