Category: Six Nations

329 : Ireland v Scotland wrap

2024 Guinness Six Nations Championship Round 5, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 16/3/2024 Ireland vs Scotland Ireland celebrate winning the 2024 Guinness Six Nations ChampionshipMandatory Credit ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy

🏉 Late late change

🏉 Defences on top

🏉 Tentative lead

🏉 Tackle count showing

🏉 Champions

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

TOM COLEMAN & RICH MIFSUD

FULL TIME TAKES

Jamie Bermingham

Well we got the win and that’s great, but it’s back to the drawing board not just for SA but for next year as well.  Delighted with the win though 😂

Kevin Kelehan

Won the game and the championship, was happy to see Ireland come through yesterday with Keenan and Ringrose off the pitch from the start against a Scotland side a lot stronger out wide than in tight. What England has exposed is Ireland need a second row size 6 to compliment Van Der Fliers speed, Ireland are only pressured by teams with a weight advantage 4-8. Fix that weight deficit whilst retaining poachers like Doris and Van Der Flier and Ireland will reach the next level.

Craig Boyd

Job done, our expectations have all changed so today was a bit of an anticlimax. All the same what a great team they are.

John O Halloran

Great to get the wins and the championship but big tests and rejigging needed.

England and Scotland were well up to that Irish attack.

The Scottish 6 was excellent.

Alastair McDermott

I was hoping to see Andy Farrell bringing his kids out on the pitch to celebrate

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

ROUND 5

WALES 21-24 ITALY

IRELAND 17-13 SCOTLAND

FRANCE 33-31 ENGLAND

UNDER 20s

ROUND 5

IRELAND 36-0 SCOTLAND

WALES 27-15 ITALY

FRANCE 31-45 ENGLAND

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328 : Ireland v Scotland preview

Our guest : NEIL ‘KEEGO’ KEEGAN

www.keegolaughs.com

Apologies Up Front on Apple Podcasts

IRELAND : 15. Hugo Keenan 14. Calvin Nash 13. Robbie Henshaw 12. Bundee Aki 11. James Lowe 10. Jack Crowley 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Andrew Porter 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Tadhg Furlong 4. Joe McCarthy 5. Tadhg Beirne 6. Peter O’Mahony (c) 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris

16. Rónan Kelleher 17. Cian Healy 18. Finlay Bealham 19. Ryan Baird 20. Jack Conan 21. Conor Murray 22. Harry Byrne 23. Garry Ringrose

SCOTLAND : 15. Blair Kinghorn 14. Kyle Steyn 13. Huw Jones 12. Stafford McDowall 11. Duhan van der Merwe 10. Finn Russell (cc) 9. Ben White

1. Pierre Schoeman 2. George Turner 3. Zander Fagerson 4. Grant Gilchrist 5. Scott Cummings 6. Andy Christie 7. Rory Darge (cc) 8. Jack Dempsey

16. Ewan Ashman 17. Rory Sutherland 18. Elliot Millar-Mills 19. Sam Skinner 20. Matt Fagerson 21. George Horne 22. Cameron Redpath 23. Kyle Rowe

Guinness Six Nations 2024 Round 5

Saturday, March 16, 2024

KO 4:45pm  Aviva Stadium

Live on: Virgin Media One

Referee: Matthew Carley (Eng)

AR1: Karl Dickson (Eng)

AR2: Christophe Ridley (Eng)

TMO: Marius Jonker (SA)

327 : England v Ireland wrap

2024 Guinness Six Nations Championship Round 4, Twickenham, London, England 9/3/2024England vs Ireland Irelands James Lowe scores a try Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Andrew Fosker

🏉 Straight on back foot

🏉 Somehow ahead

🏉 The Earl Of Twickenham

🏉 Last gasp

🏉 Title still on

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

PÁDRAIG KELLY

FULL TIME TAKES

David Monahan

England had their best game in about 3 years and only beat us by a point. Lads gave everything and just a bit off and that’s what happens. Suppose there is a reason we’ve not seen back to back grand slams in 30 years

Ciara Lennon

Big wake up call for Ireland. England came to play and played the better rugby on the day. They never let Ireland settle. Too many handling errors from Ireland. Too many penalties conceded. I love Peter O Mahony but 2nd yellow card for a captain in one tournament is just not good enough. He needs to get a better example. Should Murray have kicked it away with 90seconds on the clock? Probably not but at thr end of the day, Ireland were just out played

Craig Boyd

In simple terms England should have been out of sight, Ireland in no way deserved the win. That being said they got themselves in a position were they should have won but can’t help but thinking when Murray kicked the ball away with 90 seconds to go that he offered England the perfect opportunity for them to win the game. Did he not trust his forwards to see out 90 seconds?

Jamie Bermingham

So much arrogance from the media in the build up and then after both tries we didn’t put any pressure on them. England came to play rugby and got the win simple as

Big Joe Shep

• England were exceptional today and outplayed us in everything.

• It was a poor day at the office and it happens but as a collective, we didn’t turn up I’m afraid

• An aging Murray with a wasted box-kick in the last embers of the game was woeful buddy!!! Give the ball to your opponents who have dominated the entire game, require only a Pen is NOT what this Ireland team does. I’m afraid he’s way way out of kilter with THIS Ireland team and it ultimately cost us!! 🤷‍♂️😥🏉

• All that said, we lost by 1 Pt and that shows how good we are….. We go again next week and put Scotland to the sword!!!

James Griffin

Far too much talk about how much Ireland would win by during the lead up. And blaming Murray is just provincial shite. He didn’t give away penalties, drop passes, or miss tackles. A little bit of honesty wouldn’t go astray. Wake up call, big time!

Gavin Hegarty

So disappointing. Mainly because it wasn’t how we should play. First four minutes were great but then we dropped off and honestly if England were better they would have put us away. You’d think Murray with his ‘experience’ would know how to close out a game. His box kicking is infuriating yet he still does it to no benefit.

Better team won, we just didn’t show.

Kevin Kelehan

England could have been out of sight after 20 mins, Ireland had the game won around 78 minute but lost it, se la vie. Arsen Wenger spoke of great teams playing badly but winning, thats where Ireland need to get

Colin McConaghie

If people properly analysed the Welsh game this performance was coming. We created very little against a very limited Welsh team and our back line looked one paced and lacking creativity. The Bundee bash it up played straight into Englands hands. It showed on the two occasions we actually passed wide we scored.

Penalty count far too high and poor kicking from Lowe and then Murray gifted easy possession to run back at us and score.

We are still a very good team and will likely win the Championship but the over hype has been embarrassing and we are still far too over reliant on our “first choice” players.

https://twitter.com/KavanaghCk/status/1766558670928679032?s=20

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

ROUND 4

ITALY 31-29 SCOTLAND

ENGLAND 23-22 IRELAND

WALES 24-45 FRANCE

ROUND 5

SAT MAR 16

WALES V ITALY

IRELAND V SCOTLAND

FRANCE V ENGLAND

UNDER 20s

ROUND 4

ITALY 47-14 SCOTLAND

ENGLAND 32-32 IRELAND

WALES 12-45 FRANCE

ROUND 5

FRI MAR 15

IRELAND V SCOTLAND

WALES V ITALY

FRANCE V ENGLAND

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326 : England v Ireland preview

Our guest : CIAN O’MUILLEOIR

IRELAND : 15. Hugo Keenan 14. Calvin Nash 13. Robbie Henshaw 12. Bundee Aki 11. James Lowe 10. Jack Crowley 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Andrew Porter 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Tadhg Furlong 4. Joe McCarthy 5. Tadhg Beirne 6. Peter O’Mahony (c) 7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris

16. Ronan Kelleher 17. Cian Healy 18. Finlay Bealham 19. Iain Henderson 20. Ryan Baird 21. Jack Conan 22. Conor Murray 23. Ciaran Frawley

ENGLAND : 15. George Furbank 14. Immanuel Feyi-Waboso 13. Henry Slade 12. Ollie Lawrence 11. Tommy Freeman 10. George Ford 9. Alex Mitchell

1. Ellis Genge 2. Jamie George (c) 3. Dan Cole 4. Maro Itoje 5. George Martin 6. Ollie Chessum 7. Sam Underhill 8. Ben Earl

16. Theo Dan 17. Joe Marler 18. Will Stuart 19. Chandler Cunningham-South 20. Alex Dombrandt 21. Danny Care  22. Marcus Smith 23. Elliot Daly

Guinness Six Nations 2024 Round 4

Saturday, March 9, 2024

KO 4:45pm  Twickenham

Live on: RTÉ2, ITV1

Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia)

AR1: Andrea Piardi (Italy)

AR2: Craig Evans (Wales)

TMO: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)

323 : Ireland v Wales wrap

2024 Guinness Six Nations Championship Round 3, Aviva Stadium, Dublin 24/2/2024Ireland vs WalesIrelands Bundee Aki breaks away from Dafydd Jenkins of Wales Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Ben Brady

🏉 Early Welsh D

🏉 Ace Aki Again

🏉 Who throws a shoe?

🏉 Turnover Tadhg

🏉 Bonus Point Beirne

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CIARÁN DUFFY & KRISTIAN ROSS

Check out Ciarán’s pod Post To Post Sport here

FULL TIME TAKES

Kevin Kelehan

Wales definitely better than most expected, Ireland will need to be more disciplined in Twickers but can get a bonus point win if they iron out the errors. Was delighted to see Frawley score a super try

Colin McConaghie

We need pace in the backline to get to the really top level. Possibly a bit complacent today but Lowe was really poor with his kicking and will cost us against a better team

John Clavin

A couple of big referee decisions didn’t go Ireland’s way. But, a 24 point win in the 6N and we’re all a bit disappointed in the performance…. Heady days for Irish Rugby.

Christy O’Connor

Very sloppy 2nd half. Ref was inconsistent, but it was our own fault that we made such hard work of it.

Wales deserve some credit for not giving up.

Carmel Daly

Not perfect but technically they held Wales scoreless only for penalty try given. Job done 👍

Greg Kelly

If we’d done that any other year we’d be jumping for joy. I think it’s a sign of what we expect from this team that people are nit picking the performance.

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

ROUND 3

IRELAND 31-7 WALES

SCOTLAND 30-21 ENGLAND

FRANCE 13-13 ITALY

ROUND 4

SAT MAR 9

ITALY V SCOTLAND

ENGLAND V IRELAND

SUN MAR 10

WALES V FRANCE

UNDER 20s

ROUND 3

SCOTLAND 17-30 ENGLAND

IRELAND 43-8 WALES

FRANCE 20-23 ITALY

ROUND 3

THU MAR 7

WALES V FRANCE

FRI MAR 8

ITALY V SCOTLAND

ENGLAND V IRELAND

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322 : Ireland v Wales preview

Our guest : NEIL “KEEGO” KEEGAN

www.keegolaughs.com

Apologies Up Front on Apple Podcasts

IRELAND : 15. Ciaran Frawley 14. Calvin Nash 13. Robbie Henshaw 12. Bundee Aki 11. James Lowe 10. Jack Crowley 9. Jamison Gibson-Park

1. Andrew Porter 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Tadhg Furlong 4. Joe McCarthy 5. Tadhg Beirne 6. Peter O’Mahony (c)7. Josh van der Flier 8. Caelan Doris

16. Ronan Kelleher 17. Cian Healy 18. Oli Jager 19. James Ryan 20. Ryan Baird 21. Jack Conan 22. Conor Murray 23. Stuart McCloskey

WALES : 15 Cameron Winnett 14 Rio Dyer 13 George North 12 Nick Tompkins 11 Josh Adams 10 Sam Costelow 9 Tomos Williams

1 Gareth Thomas 2 Elliot Dee 3 Keiron Assiratti 4 Dafydd Jenkins (c) 5 Adam Beard 6 Alex Mann 7 Tommy Reffell 8 Aaron Wainwright

16 Ryan Elias 17 Corey Domachowski 18 Dillon Lewis 19 Will Rowlands 20 Taine Basham 21 Kieran Hardy 22 Ioan Lloyd 23 Mason Grady

Guinness Six Nations 2024 Round 3

Saturday, February 24, 2024

KO 2:15pm  Aviva Stadium

Live on: RTÉ2

Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy)

AR1: Karl Dickson (England)

AR2: Gianluca Gnecchi (Italy)

TMO: Eric Gauzins (France)

321 : Welsh Rugby – What Went Wrong? by Seimon Williams

Version 1.0.0

Ahead of Ireland v Wales and in the latest from our Opposition View series, I spoke to Seimon Williams, author of “Welsh Rugby – What Went Wrong?” about the most frustrating issues from the past decades, the best way forward and of course how he feels Saturday’s match will go.

Our guest : SEIMON WILLIAMS

GwladRugby blog

Buy the book here

BLURB

The 2022-23 season may just be the bleakest in Welsh rugby history. Accusations of misogyny, sexism, racism and homophobia against the Welsh Rugby Union led to resignations, independent inquiries, Senedd intervention and rushed governance reform. Budget cuts, strike threats, uncertainty for players, embarrassing defeats and the dismissal of the national coach presaged another poor Six Nations campaign.

This book looks at the issues which have seen Welsh rugby stumble from crisis to crisis over the past 40 years. At how a nation which led the rugby world in the 1970s declined into the fractured, riven, divided rugby nation of today. At how occasional successes at club, regional and Test level were achieved despite the system, not because of it, and did little more than paper over the cracks. At, fundamentally, what went wrong.

318 : Ireland v Italy wrap

2024 Guinness Six Nations Championship Round 2, Aviva Stadium, Dublin, Ireland 11/2/2024Ireland vs ItalyIrelands Jack Crowley scores his sides opening try Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

🏉 50 club grows

🏉 Sluggish Azzurri

🏉 Offloads galore

🏉 Set piece dominance

🏉 The Lowe Show

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

TOM COLEMAN (50th cap) & JAY LONG

FULL TIME TAKES

Lee O Farrell

Two Six Nations games, two new records (biggest away win against France and first time holding Italy to zero points). The future’s looking pretty good right now…

Kevin Kelehan

Dan Sheehan may well end up as top try scorer. Job done 5 points and on to stiffer tests ahead.

Hubert Gallagher

Feel underwhelmed and unfulfilled after that! In some respects a great result with 6 changes and holding Italy to zero – and they were lucky to even get that – but at same time we were a bit disjointed, looked less fluent than French game and left a lot of points out there! Having said that no-one player badly but I think a lot could play better. Crowley, Henshaw, Keenan, Conan, Lowe and McCarthy were notably good.

Christy O’Connor

Glad I didn’t get tickets for this. Atmosphere was awful. I know we were expected to win, but the Irish rugby fans have to be one of the worst. I’ve seen more life in a funeral parlour.

Some great performances from Lowe, Conan and big Joe. Crowely is doing well, made some silly mistakes but it’s great that it doesn’t phase him.

Greg Kelly

Italy just parked the bus. Fairly poor spectacle for the 6 nations overall.

Ireland were a bit error strewn at times but tough to really hit your straps when the opposition don’t light a fire under you.

Eamon Saunders

A workman like performance but a win is a win ,some mistakes but a win none the less 👏👏

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

ROUND 2

SCOTLAND 16-20 FRANCE

ENGLAND 16-14 WALES

IRELAND 36-0 ITALY

ROUND 3

SAT FEB 24

IRELAND V WALES

SCOTLAND V ENGLAND

SUN FEB 25

FRANCE V ITALY

UNDER 20s

ROUND 2

SCOTLAND 14-29 FRANCE

ENGLAND 28-7 WALES

IRELAND 23-22 ITALY

ROUND 3

FRI FEB 23

SCOTLAND V ENGLAND

IRELAND V WALES

FRANCE V ITALY

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317 : Ireland v Italy preview

Our guest : CIAN “RUGBY KINO” O’MUILLEOIR

IRELAND : 15. Hugo Keenan 14. Calvin Nash 13. Robbie Henshaw 12. Stuart McCloskey 11. James Lowe 10. Jack Crowley 9. Craig Casey

1. Andrew Porter 2. Dan Sheehan 3. Finlay Bealham 4. Joe McCarthy 5. James Ryan 6. Ryan Baird 7. Caelan Doris (captain) 8. Jack Conan

16. Ronan Kelleher 17. Jeremy Loughman 18. Tom O’Toole 19. Iain Henderson 20. Josh van der Flier 21. Jamison Gibson-Park 22. Harry Byrne 23. Jordan Larmour

Italy : 15 Ange Capuozzo 14 Lorenzo Pani 13 Juan Ignacio Brex 12 Tommaso Menoncello 11 Monty Ioane 10 Paolo Garbisi 9 Stephen Varney

1 Danilo Fischetti 2 Gianmarco Lucchesi 3 Pietro Ceccarelli 4 Niccolò Cannone 5 Federico Ruzza 6 Alessandro Izekor 7 Manuel Zuliani  8 Michele Lamaro (C)

16 Giacomo Nicotera 17 Mirco Spagnolo 18 Giosuè Zilocchi 19 Andrea Zambonin 20 Ross Vintcent 21 Martin Page-Relo 22 Tommaso Allan 23 Federico Mori 

Guinness Six Nations 2024 Round 2

Sunday, February 11, 2024

KO 3pm Aviva Stadium

Live on: Virgin Media One

Referee: Pierre Brousset (Fra) Luke Pearce (Eng)

AR1 : Mathieu Raynal (Fra)

AR2 : Luc Ramos (Fra)

TMO: Eric Gauzins (Fra)

316 : France v Ireland wrap

2024 Guinness Six Nations Championship Round 1, Orange Velodrome, Marseille, France 2/2/2024France vs IrelandIrelands Joe McCarthy with Maxine Locu of FranceMandatory Credit ©INPHO/Ben Brady

🏉 Jack Friday

🏉 Les Deux Jaunes

🏉 That’s “Big Joe” to you

🏉 Irish confidence

🏉 Wonderful Wolfpuppies

THIS WEEK’S GUESTS

CONOR CRONIN (50TH CAP) & MARK JACKSON

FULL TIME TAKES

Rich Mifsud

Intensity ✅, performance very good but quite a few work ons eg scrum etc (perfect scenario for Faz & Co), our D Nienaberesque perhaps (happy to be proved wrong) it must have felt like a horrible cloying rash for the French, France were made to look like 💩 for long periods. 

Players: the best compliment I can give Big Joe is he’s the kind of player you grudgingly admire but simultaneously hate if he’s playing against you, Jamo’s best performance for ages, Hugo continues to be class, ditto Doris and Bundee, pack as a whole performed, Robbie’s best outing for a while, Nash not really tested, Crowley solid ish but need loads of experience. JLo 🤌🏻 

Bench ✅

Gavin Hegarty

Territory 49-51 and a scoreline of 17-38. Incredible.

Don’t know if France were that poor or if we just outplayed them.

And also that’s twice in two years Doris has played aldritt off the park. Simply unreal.

Kevin OCeallaigh

A terrific team performance, with some great individual efforts (Lowe, big Joe, Bundee) and good captaincy in dealing with some ‘interesting’ decisions. However, a result like that has to credited in large part to how the 10 controls the game. This was Crowleys best performance in green by a mile. Will stand to him for the rest of the 6N.

Josephine Boyd

A brilliant performance from our boys in green an excellent start to the championship.great game from our new lads on the team.☘️💚👏🏈🇮🇪.

Monica Keeler

The World cup final that should have been…hey ho..great start…keep it going lads..in my eyes the best in the world 💚

John Hyland

Watch the scrums again. Atonio was boring in and literally scrummaging vs Sheahan. Porter gets pinged again. The IRFU needs to grow a pair and present the video evidence to World rugby. Teams are obviously buying penalties against Porter. NZ got 4 key penalties in the World Cup because of it. Come on IRFU, GROW A PAIR!!

Colin McConaghie

80-85% superb. Got sloppy for 10 minutes. Biggest plus was the line out which was back to its best.

I think we can actually play better but won’t get too many better score lines than that

John O Halloran

Stunning performance, I said Ireland by5 this morning. The lineout and all round front 5 work was up a massive amount, the back 3 as abrasive as ever.

Crawley passed the pressure test ,individual decisions and discipline excellent. A lot of positives.

Wayne O’Brien

I thought we would lose narrowly. To win and by such a margin – unbelievable. Great attacking intent with room to improve by not letting teams in as was the case last night.

Jack Woods

Awesome performance. Great in defence at times. Very good start to the championship. France weren’t allowed to show their “flair” at times but it still came to the game at times.

William Andrew

Stunning win in France, ref was a homer but Ireland took him out by being so good, they made him irrelevant.

Oh if only our line out had functioned that well in the WC.

Ireland were full on for 80 and the bench came on like a pack of rabid dogs held back too long.

Celebrate those victories ✌️ they do not come around too often.

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

ROUND 1 

FRANCE 17-38 IRELAND

ITALY 24-27 ENGLAND

WALES 26-27 SCOTLAND

ROUND 2

SAT FEB 10

SCOTLAND V FRANCE

ENGLAND V WALES

SUN FEB 11

IRELAND V ITALY

UNDER 20s

ROUND 1

WALES 37-29 SCOTLAND

ITALY 11-36 ENGLAND

FRANCE 31-37 IRELAND

ROUND 2

FRI FEB 9

SCOTLAND V FRANCE

ENGLAND V WALES

IRELAND V ITALY

HARPIN MATCH WRAPS

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