22 March 2025; Fintan Gunne of Leinster offloads to teammate Jordie Barrett during the United Rugby Championship match between Vodacom Bulls and Leinster at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria, South Africa. Photo by Shaun Roy/Sportsfile
Italy were solid and pumped, only for the cards they may well have won this game, Ireland were good in spells but a lot of unforced errors, something you did not see in the 2022/23 season
Eamon Saunders
Sorry to say but the second best team won today and sad to say the the ref and TMO were bad 5 mins looking at a knock on and 5 seconds looking a a perfect try
John Hyland
(reply to Eamon Saunders) I totally disagree. Ireland played poorly but they were not the second best team
Cormac Mannion
We looked badly coached today. Zero inventiveness and unsure in defence. Far too many unforced errors
Angela Cassin Jackson
Tough game but a win is a win. 4 out of 5 wins and a triple crown a lot to be proud of. Well done Ireland as usual they represented their country wonderfully 💚☘️💚☘️💚☘️💚
Gavin Hegarty
We were shit at the things you can’t coach. Bad knock ons and handling errors. Really not like us.
We looked unfit and unmotivated.
Crowley left too many points out there
,this is meant to be his strength. 2/5 just isn’t good enough.
Sean MacDonnchadha
Thank god this hobble towards the end of the tournament has come. Gameplan needs an overhaul, skill levels need to come up, fitness looks an issue, depth needs to be built, attack needs to be less reliant on just set piece plays and most importantly confidence needs to be rebuilt.
Monica Keeler
Lets just applaud the lads ..and our 3 Retirees Cian, Peter and Conor..we better regroup before next year…Dont see many Lions in our squad.. oh and no way Lowe was in touch 🤬
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Game lost in first 20 minutes. We didn’t achieve the points to counter the French flair. What came after was very predictable.
Gavin Macarthur
France came to play rugby and they are a fantastic team. The Irish squad can learn a lot from this kind of defeat – at least the openings for the younger players are starting to appear. It is never good to see ‘supporters’ leaving the stadium early – poor form.
Cuan Mulligan
France deserved the win. However…. Odd decision about POM been taken out, French player then runs through that hole. Ref shouting at France to use the ball 3 or 4 times, well over 5 seconds and nothing. Conor Murray upright and we drive him over the line, utterly confusing strategy, should have got him to ground and gone again. Be interesting to get the stats of how many no tries Ireland have by been held up…
Ger Ecki
Another crunch match lost and lost comprehensively…..Another poor performance when challenged. Slams lost 2 years running by losing one crucial match. Got away with it last year by being over feted for winning the Championship…..not so lucky this time. Losing Lowe at the beginning meant we lost our only reliable backline try scorer but they lost DuPont so all bets were off. Ireland collapsed and didn’t fire a shot. Those last 2 trys were gifted by an exhausted French who knew they had the job done….
James Griffin
Outmuscled all day long. We didn’t have the power to break their defence or stop their offence.
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1 March 2025; Charlie Tector of Leinster on his way to scoring his side’s fifth try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Cardiff Rugby at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
CORRECTION – On the pod I say Leinster’s lead in the URC is 12 points, I’m more than happy to update that it is actually 13! Apologies for the error.
Ultimately a great result. Bit sticky for a while there. Excellent 2nd half and score just before halftime critical. Scrum excellent. Cardiff a dynamic team not the taken lightly.
Kevin Kelehan
That Tommy O’Brien hit just before he was subbed was worth 7 points having saved a certain try with an easy run up to the posts, Cardiff were decent out wide and made a match of it. Great to see younger players like Jack Boyle and Charlie Tector growing into battle hardened options for tougher contests.
Martin Lynch
Was at the match. Sloppy 1st Half . Lots of possession poor execution. 2nd half was totally different. Sharper Faster Better . Well Done and lots of Debutants.
👍🏉💙
Chris McDonnell
Some really good stuff. Excellent to see so many of the young players do so well.
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Wales were so much better today, played with width and offloaded really accurately. Doris certainly missed and Ringrose’s mistimed tackle didn’t help. Likely France only 3 points behind us after this weekend which makes a win essential in 2 weeks time.
Peggy Sibbald
Well done Ireland..but hats of to Wales they played a massive game of Rugby 👏👏👏
Craig Grehan
That was an epic battle. Sloppy but epic. I think it will stand to us better than if we’d gone out and hammered them. Not that it was gonna happen. Fair play Wales. But fair play Ireland for sticking it out and showing the grit between the teeth
Michelle Tobin
Scrum was an unmitigated disaster. We were lucky not to concede a yellow for the repeated penalties. So many players will watch that performance back and be embarrassed. Some dreadful stuff. A few bright sparks, Osborne, Lowe, Conan and Beirne but plenty of others sub-par.
Greg Kelly
Ireland were poor but did the job when needed. In fairness had we played well for 60 mins of that game we would have won comfortably and I think we allowed Wales to play well. Was surprised Ringrose was upgraded to red but there was some really bizzare interactions between referee and TMO in that game 🤷♂️
Jackie McEachern
Grateful for the win. We missed Doris, hoping he’s back for France and also hoping Conan’s injury isn’t serious. I thought it was a little strange that Crowley wasn’t brought on until so late in the game.
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HARPIN' ON RUGBY 