HARPIN' ON RUGBY

Summary

In this week’s Harpin writeup I talked about the Player Of The Match performance of Jamison Gibson-Park, so I thought I’d use this pod to expand on those thoughts and joining me is Big Joe Shep, who has a thing or two to say about scrum halves and box kicking but just about manages to put them aside for a decent chat on the Irish-qualified Kiwi and where he might fit down the line for both Leinster and Ireland.

Harpin Leinster v Dragons writeup > http://www.harpinonrugby.net/2020/10/leinster-35-dragons-5.html

Three Blokes a Ball & BOD > https://www.facebook.com/thethreebodrugbygroup

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Summary

With a new season about to kickoff, I assembled a panel of fellow Leinster fans for our first ever pod of 4 to discuss the careers of recently retired Leinster stars as well as looking ahead to the futures of the boys in blue in particular and league in general.

This week’s guests…

Conor Cronin (aka @ccbooms on Twitter)

Richard Mifsud (@RichMif)

Kevin O’Brien (@johnshine89) – check out Kev’s recent Harpin post titled “Whether it’s the Euro loss or the perfect Pro14, Leinster shouldn’t over-react”

Also, here’s a little rant of mine from earlier in the week titled “Sarries seems to be the hardest topic”

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Summary

Well you won’t need me to remind you that last weekend didn’t exactly go to plan for Leinster fans, and joining me on the pod this week to find the positives is Neil ‘Keego’ Keegan who shared some thoughts from his own writeup which can be found over at TheCouchPunditIreland.com.  We also discuss whether or not Leinster’s season as a whole was defined by this result as well as a brief look ahead to the rest of the Champions Cup as well as the Six Nations.

Our Leinster v Saracens writeup is here > http://www.harpinonrugby.net/2020/09/leinster-17-saracens-25.html

Keego’s writeup here > https://thecouchpunditireland.com/2020/09/22/the-irish-exit-europe-but-it-is-not-the-end-of-days/

Jeff & Keego’s pod on the US Presidential election is here > https://anchor.fm/whatsthestorywith

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Summary

To start the build up to Saturday’s Heineken Champions Cup quarterfinal, in the latest of our “Opposition View” series of chats I invited Saracens fan Debbie Knight onto the pod to talk about how she came to follow them, what the salary cap and Owen Farrell situations were like from her side, and also how their starting XV might look at the weekend.

Debbie has her own sports writing blog here > debsknigsport.com and can be found on Twitter here > https://twitter.com/debsknig

ICYMI check out our Guinness Pro14 final writeup here > http://www.harpinonrugby.net/2020/09/leinster-27-ulster-3.html

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Summary

To start the build up to Saturday’s Guinness Pro 14 final, in the latest of our “Opposition View” series of chats I invited Ulster fan Ian Frizzell onto the pod to talk about the last meeting LEIvULS a couple of weeks ago, that amazing comeback in Edinburgh, and how he reckons they’ll line up at the Aviva this weekend.

You’ll find Ian on Twitter here > https://twitter.com/rava_ian

Our Leinster v Munster semifinal writeup is here > http://www.harpinonrugby.net/2020/09/leinster-13-munster-3.html

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Summary

For the third season in a row, Leinster meet our old friends from down the N7 in the Pro14 semifinal and although it will be in a deserted Aviva Stadium as opposed to a hopping RDS, it still promises to be a classic.  In the latest from our new series of “opposition view” chats I had Munster fan Michelle Tobin back on the pod to look at how she feels their chances are of getting the better of us this time around.

2021 Lions Tours can be booked from Rugby Travel Ireland here > https://rugbytravelireland.com/lions-tour-2021-south-africa/

Michelle Lions 2017 tour blogs > http://www.harpinonrugby.net/2017/06/a-lions-tour-diary-by-michelle-tobin-1.html

Our Ulster v Leinster writeup is here > http://www.harpinonrugby.net/2020/08/ulster-10-leinster-28.html

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Summary

I’ve said it before but I have no problem saying it again…it is awesome to have the rugby back.  We’ve done plenty of harpin on Leinster’s narrow win over Munster last weekend – in case you missed our writeup you can find it here.  Now it’s time to turn our attention to the match against Ulster on Saturday evening, and providing us with an opposition view is long time Ulster fan Ian Frizell, or @rava_ian as he is known on the Twitter machine.  We discussed what went wrong against Connacht and also what players could feature at the Aviva next time around.

Follow Ian Frizell on Twitter here > https://twitter.com/rava_ian

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Summary

So here we are, just days away from the return of interpro rugby.  Of course the uncertainty is still there, of course we’ll all be knocking on wood while clutching a rabbit’s foot with fingers crossed between now and Saturday evening, but that can’t stop us from looking forward to the big kickoff and what I’d like to do with these pods for the next while is to chat to a fan of Leinster’s next opponents about how their team’s season is looking going into the weekend.  That means Munster are first up, and I think you can safely say that my guest Michelle Tobin (@CorkSeashell) is a fan!

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Summary

With the return of Leinster Rugby finally within reach, I have finally plucked up the courage to defy superstition and start harping on them once more.  Already this week I wrote a post on the blog looking at our sequence of matches over the coming months and for this latest pod I invited long time Leinster fan and Harpin contributor Conor Cronin to pick his best matchday squad to put us in with a shout for more silverware.

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Summary

My guest this week is Brendon Shields, who provides brilliant analytics for clubs at all levels of the game via his site Rugbycology.  A South African based in Queensland, Brendon talked to me about the post-COVID version of Super Rugby in Australia with a big top of the table clash coming this weekend,  and we also discussed the current state of the sport down there from media coverage and popularity to plans for its future.

Brendon Shields can be found on twitter here > https://twitter.com/rugbycology

And his excellent rugby analytics site Rugbycology can be found here > sites.google.com/view/rugbycol

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