485: Leinster v Connacht preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST

Leinster: 15. Ciarán Frawley, 14. Tommy O’Brien, 13. Hugh Cooney, 12. Charlie Tector, 11. Joshua Kenny, 10. Sam Prendergast, 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Andrew Porter, 2. Dan Sheehan (c), 3. Thomas Clarkson, 4. Joe McCarthy, 5. Brian Deeny, 6. Diarmuid Mangan, 7. Will Connors, 8. Jack Conan

16. Gus McCarthy, 17. Jack Boyle, 18. Rabah Slimani, 19. Conor O’Tighearnaigh, 20. Max Deegan, 21. Josh van der Flier, 22. Luke McGrath, 23. Harry Byrne


Connacht: 15. Sam Gilbert, 14. Chay Mullins, 13. David Hawkshaw, 12. Bundee Aki, 11. Finn Treacy, 10. Josh Ioane, 9. Matthew Devine

1. Denis Buckley, 2. Dylan Tierney-Martin, 3. Finlay Bealham, 4. Joe Joyce, 5. David O’Connor, 6. Josh Murphy, 7. Cian Prendergast (c), 8. Sean Jansen

16. Eoin de Buitlear, 17. Billy Bohan, 18. Fiachna Barrett, 19. Darragh Murray, 20. Paul Boyle, 21. Ben Murphy, 22. Harry West, 23. Cathal Forde


BKT United Rugby Championship 25/26 – Round 9

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : TG4, Premier Sports 1 & URC.tv


Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU)

AR 1: Keane Davison (IRFU)

AR 2: Chris Lough (IRFU)

TMO: Olly Hodges (IRFU)

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❓



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.

Get in the conversation yourself by leaving

your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle

in Leinster & Ireland matches on our Facebook page


URC WRAP


NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

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]


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

Get in the conversation yourself by leaving

your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle

in Leinster & Ireland matches on our Facebook page


URC WRAP

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

80+ COLUMN – limited version (SUBSTACK)

FRIDAY

MUNSTER V LEINSTER PREVIEW SHOW (YOUTUBE)


481: Leinster v Ulster preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST


LEINSTER :

15. Ciarán Frawley 14. Joshua Kenny 13. Rieko Ioane

12. Charlie Tector 11. James Lowe 10. Sam Prendergast 9. Luke McGrath

1. Jack Boyle 2. Gus McCarthy 3. Rabah Slimani4. Brian Deeny

5. James Ryan 6. Alex Soroka 7. Scott Penny 8. Jack Conan (c)

16. Dan Sheehan 17. Paddy McCarthy 18. Tadhg Furlong 19. Joe McCarthy

20. Max Deegan 21. Fintan Gunne 22. Harry Byrne 23. Ruben Moloney


ULSTER

15. Jacob Stockdale 14. Rob Baloucoune 13. Jude Postlethwaite

12. Stuart McCloskey 11. Werner Kok 10. Jack Murphy 9. Nathan Doak

1. Angus Bell  2. Tom Stewart 3. Tom O’Toole 4. Harry Sheridan

5. Charlie Irvine 6. David McCann 7. Nick Timoney (c) 8. Juarno Augustus 

16. John Andrew 17. Sam Crean 18. Scott Wilson 19. Joe Hopes

20. Bryn Ward 21. Conor McKee 22. Jake Flannery 23. Ethan McIlroy


BKT United Rugby Championship 25/26 – Round 2

Friday, December 19, 2025

Aviva Stadium

KO 7:45pm

Live on : TG4, Premier Sports 1 & URC.tv


Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU)

AR 1: Andrew Fogarty (IRFU)

AR 2: Tomás O’Sullivan (IRFU)

TMO: Olly Hodges (IRFU)

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


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

Get in the conversation yourself by leaving

your own thoughts each week after the full time whistle

in Leinster & Ireland matches on our Facebook page


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) 


AI doing me wrong, Mad Dog & Englishmen, opinions on opinions

Saturday, December 13, 2025

Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.

As promised last week, the Christmas decorations are now up in the Pagano household, and I have even resorted to AI to festivize the logo for the time of year that’s in it.

Speaking of AI, I’m afraid I have to hang my head in shame when it comes to our latest preview show on YouTube. When I talk of producing content I often joke about having a “Harpin’ Legal Department” or “Harpin’ Graphic Department” assuming most people know my tongue is firmly in my cheek as I type. The reality is that apart from my excellent group of contributors who join me on pods and take part in our WhatsApp group, the different hats are generally worn by my good salf.

Which means I have come to resort to AI more and more for research to save time, and sadly the same ways AI photos often come out with 6 or 7 fingers on each hand, the data I ask for can be wildly inaccurate.

The Preview show follows a specific template each week, and one mini segment involves looking at the other matches in the round of the weekend for the tournament Leinster or Ireland are playing in that weekend. When it’s Champions Cup time, I do try to include all the Irish provinces which means I have to also keep tabs on the Challenge Cup.

So when setting up the graphic for the video, rather than go to the official Challenge Cup site like I should have done, I relied on AI to provide me with the list of games and for some reason I was told Ulster were playing against the Dragons while Connacht were playing the Cheetahs.

Both were totally wrong, their opponents were in fact Cardiff and Black Lion respectively, and it’s way too late to fix it. I only noticed there was egg on my fac when I was researching for my weekly Dublin FM slot and it dawned on me that Connacht couldn’t possibly be playing away from home two weeks in a row.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ENTIRE ARTICLE ON SUBSTACK

479: Leicester Tigers v Leinster preview

Our guest : MARK JACKSON


LEINSTER :

15. Jimmy O’Brien14. Tommy O’Brien 13. Rieko Ioane 12. Robbie Henshaw

11. James Lowe 10. Harry Byrne 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Paddy McCarthy 2. Rónan Kelleher 3. Tadhg Furlong 4. Joe McCarthy

5. James Ryan 6. Jack Conan 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris (c)

16. Dan Sheehan 17. Jack Boyle 18. Thomas Clarkson 19. Diarmuid Mangan

20. Max Deegan 21. Luke McGrath 22. Sam Prendergast 23. Ciarán Frawley


LEICESTER TIGERS

15 Freddie Steward 14 Adam Radwan 13 Will Wand

12 Solomone Kata 11 Ollie Hassell-Collins 10 Billy Searle 9 Tom Whiteley

1 Nicky Smith 2 Jamie Blamire 3 Joe Heyes 4 Cameron Henderson

5 Harry Wells 6 James Thompson 7 Tommy Reffell (c) 8 Joaquin Moro

16 Finn Theobald Thomas 17 Archie van der Flier 18 Will Hurd 19 Tom Manz

20 Sam Williams 21 Ollie Allan 22 Orlando Bailey 23 Joseph Woodward


Investec Champions Cup 25/26 – Round 2

Friday, December 12, 2025

Mattioli Woods Welford Road

KO 8pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1


Referee – Pierre Brousset (Fra)

AR1 – Vincent Blasco Baque (Fra)

AR2 – Julien Caulier (Fra)

TMO – Tual Trainini (Fra)

Harpin’ on…Leinster’s season so far

“Welcome to our latest bonus chat, if you missed our podcast looking back at Leinster v Harlequins be sure to check it out on Apple, Spotify and all the other usual places. I was joined on the pod by Tom Coleman who’s last appearance was way back on September 21st, right before Leinster’s season kicked off in Cape Town so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to give an overview of Leinster’s season so far – well Tom, after 6 rounds of the URC and 1 game into the latest quest for that 5th star, how have we been doing?”

477 : Leinster v Harlequins preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST

Our guest : MARK JACKSON


LEINSTER : 15. Jimmy O’Brien 14. Tommy O’Brien 13. Garry Ringrose 12. Ciarán Frawley 11. Jordan Larmour 10. Sam Prendergast 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Paddy McCarthy 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Thomas Clarkson 4. RG Snyman 5. Joe McCarthy 6. Jack Conan 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris (c)

16. Rónan Kelleher 17. Jack Boyle 18. Tadhg Furlong 19. Diarmuid Mangan 20. Max Deegan 21. Luke McGrath 22. Harry Byrne 23. Rieko Ioane


HARLEQUINS : 15. Cameron Anderson, 14. Cassius Cleaves, 13. Oscar Beard, 12. Luke Northmore, 11. Cadan Murley (c), 10. Jarrod Evans, 9. Will Porter

1. Boris Wenger, 2. Jack Walker, 3. Harry Williams, 4. Kieran Treadwell, 5. Stephan Lewies, 6. Zach Carr, 7. Will Evans, 8. Tom Lawday

16. George Turner, 17. Will Hobson, 18. Pedro Delgado, 19. Joe Launchbury, 20. Lucas Schmid, 21. Lucas Friday, 22. Jamie Benson, 23. Bryn Bradley


Investec Champions Cup 25/26 – Round 1

Saturday, December 6, 2025

Aviva Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1


Referee : Craig Evans (WRU)

AR1 : Adam Jones (WRU)

AR2 : Ben Breakspear (WRU)

TMO : Keith David (WRU)

Harpin’ on…the Champions’ Cup contenders

Every Tuesday we post a “bonus chat” from our Sunday evening wrap pod recording, here’s the latest one.

This is the lead-in : “Next weekend sees the opening round of the Champions Cup, and rather than engage in the annual complaints about the format which doesn’t seem to be moving the needle with the organisers, we thought instead we’d start our coverage by looking at the various contenders for winning the 2026 final in Bilbao, which Leinster fans won’t need reminding is where we won our fourth, and crucially our most recent, star. I suppose David before you list your contenders from around the continent I should probably ask, are Leinster one of them?