512: Leinster v Edinburgh preview


LEINSTER : 15 Hugo Keenan 14 Tommy O’Brien 13 Rieko Ioane 12 Jamie Osborne 11 Jimmy O’Brien 10 Harry Byrne 9 Jamison Gibson-Park

1 Andrew Porter 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Ryan Baird 6 Jack Conan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)

16 Gus McCarthy 17 Alex Usanov 18 Thomas Clarkson 19 Brian Deeny 20 Max Deegan 21 Luke McGrath 22 Ciarán Frawley 23 Robbie Henshaw


EDINBURGH :15 Piers O’Conor 14 Darcy Graham 13 Matt Currie 12 James Lang 11 Malelili Satala 10 Ross Thompson 9 Charlie Shiel

1 Pierre Schoeman 2 Ewan Ashman 3 D’arcy Rae 4 Marshall Sykes 5 Grant Gilchrist (c) 6 Liam McConnell 7 Dylan Richardson 8 Ben Muncaster

16 Jerry Blyth-Lafferty 17 Boan Venter 18 Paul Hill 19 Glen Young 20 Freddy Douglas 21 Ben Vellacott 22  23 Jack Brown


Investec Champions Cup

2025/26  Round of 16

Sunday, April 5, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1


Referee Luke Pearce (Eng) 

AR1 : Hamish Smales (Eng) 

AR2 : Joe James (Eng) 

TMO : Andrew Jackson (Eng) 

Citing Comm : Wejdane Limame (Fra)

511 : Leinster v Scarlets wrap

27 March 2026; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster scores his side’s third try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Scarlets at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile


🏉 Wonderful wingers

🏉 Backup 9s

🏉 Sam’s future

🏉 Fits and starts

🏉 Scrappy Scarlets


RICHARD MIFSUD


FULL TIME TAKES

David Lawlor

We strolled through Europe last season and came out with a disappointing defeat in the semi’s. This year we’ve been way below that level but we’re still in a decent spot in Europe and the URC. Hopefully with Ryan, Conan, Keenan and Baird to come back in the next few weeks things might improve. Osborne at 12 is the future.

Liz Power

I was bored out of my skull. There was a mass exodus around us between 65 and 70 minutes. Getting to the bar/train was more appealing than watching it

Christy O’Connor

That first half is one to forget. Very poor over all, we had a couple of moments of great play early in the 2nd half but it became stuttery again. JGP has made a number of passes this season that we’re intercepted, luckily the majority never led to tries. JJ Kenny and Tommy O’Brien were in great form.

This has been are poorest season in a long long time, if we win anything I’ll be shocked. The only thing we’ve been consistent with this season has been our ill discipline

Tom Clarke

Need to up the performance big time for next Sunday.

Richard Collumb

Nienaber is our Steve Borthwick.

Cormac Mannion

I thought we could rely on “muscle memory” for the next few matches and Farrell’s influence would still have an effect on the performances. Well that theory went out the window very quickly. The discipline of the team was an absolute disgrace in the first half. Countless penalties and zero defensive alignment.

The attack wasn’t much better. The team lived off raw talent rather than the coaching. It’s awful to watch and the more I see, the more I’m reminded of the 2014-2015 season under MOC. Quite a few players looked disinterested tonight

Kevin Kelehan

This game was always going to be imperfect trying to re-integrate the blue Irish players en masse. Thankfully the second half was better, bodes well for the more important games against Embra and Ulster at Ravenhill. The attendance below 13,000 is however a real worry for financial planning of the game next season, need to be getting much bigger crowds than this

Bernie Cunningham

Overall a patchy performance, lots of errors trying too hard at times. Need to up our game next wk…6/10

Gavin Hegarty

Good few of these players were firing under Andy Farrell two weeks ago. Now they are rudderless and dull. How is this possible? Something seriously wrong in UCD.

Louis Hoffman

We won’t win anything this year.

Chris McDonnell

Can’t play rugby without an outhalf. The best 2 outhalves in the club are frawley and tector. Pendergast is broken and needs to be given time off.  3 seasons ago Cullen should have done the decent thing and walked away. The man is deluded if he thinks he’s not the problem.

Michael Byrne

Harry Byrne and Frawley aren’t getting enough time at 10, no point in investing time with Frawley at 10 now with a move Connacht, Leinster will regret that decision. Harry Byrne needs game time, its going to cost us when we face tougher opposition. We were very nearly full strength and should have put Scarlets away early. They really came to play so it was a decent win but 3 years ago that game would have been over in 20 minutes.

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URC WRAP


NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S BEST XV”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 


510 : Leinster v Scarlets preview


LEINSTER : 15 Jimmy O’Brien 14 Tommy O’Brien 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Jamie Osborne 11 Joshua Kenny 10 Harry Byrne 9 Jamison Gibson-Park

1 Andrew Porter 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Brian Deeny 6 Max Deegan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)

16 Gus McCarthy 17 Jerry Cahir 18 Rabah Slimani 19 Conor O’Tighearnaigh 20 Alex Soroka 21 Fintan Gunne 22 Sam Prendergast 23 Robbie Henshaw


SCARLETS : 15 Blair Murray 14 Tom Rogers 13 Joe Roberts 12 Johnny Williams 11 Ellis Mee 10 Joe Hawkins 9 Dane Blacker

1 Kemsley Mathias 2 Harry Thomas 3 Archer Holz 4 Sam Lousi 5 Max Douglas 6 Jarrod Taylor 7 Dan Davis 8 Fletcher Anderson (c)

16 George Roberts 17 Sam O’Connor 18 Henry Thomas 19 Jake Ball 20 Tristan Davies 21 Archie Hughes 22 Ioan Jones 23 Macs Page


BKT United Rugby Championship

2025/26  Round 14

Friday, March 27, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 7:45pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1, URC.tv


Referee: Aimee Barrett-Theron (SARU)

AR 1: Peter Martin (IRFU)

AR 2: Chris Lough (IRFU)

TMO: Quinton Immelman (SARU)

509 : Glasgow v Leinster wrap



🏉 Gone in 11 minutes

🏉 Struggling attack

🏉 Confusing calls

🏉 Defensive concerns

🏉 They were Warriors



FULL TIME TAKES

Cormac Mannion

I know people will say we were missing a load of internationals but so were Glasgow! Also, that squad of players last night had been training together for the last few weeks. You wouldn’t have thought it. Some of the handling skills were downright shocking. Zero intention shown in tackling at times. No real defensive alignment, no defensive patterns.

The attack ran out of ideas every time it went past 3-4 phases. Shovel it sideways and eventually basketball pass out to a forward loitering on the wing.

Sam didn’t have a great game but he didn’t have much to work with. Slow ruck ball and McGrath was very slow distributing to him with a number of hospital passes. He really was having to force the game at times and needlessly kicked the ball away because he ran out of options

We look badly coached and the shape of the team reminds me of the latter stages of Gary Ella’s and MOC’s tenures … the awful defence under Ella and the dire attack under MOC.

Our only hope is the returning internationals retain the “muscle memory” from Farrell for the rest of the season

David Lawlor

Discipline was a killer but falling off tackles like that is what you expect to see from the half time minis. Pack Reiko off now and use Henshaw, Ringrose and Osborne in midfield for the rest of the season. Snyman should only be used off the bench as an impact sub. Major questions to be asked over Sam’s ability to control big games.

Gordon Addie

Glasgow are regularly in the top spots in the URC every season, so should never be taken for granted that Leinster go and win away to Warriors, theyve lost plenty in Glasgow over the years. The surprise was how emphatic the victory was given Glasgow were arguably missing about 12-13 starters and had a 2nd string pack out, while Leinster fielded a team with several Lions, a Springbok and an All Black. The sides will look very different next time they meet likely in a knock out game but Glasgow will fancy they can upset them again.

Liam Brosnan

Leinster were a great team, now they are a good team. Other teams have improved, it’s cyclical. They are not contenders for champions cup but they are the best irish side

Kevin Kelehan

Glasgow are a different side to last season, much stronger, we’ll be back in Scotland for the semi in the Champions Cup assuming both sides don’t slip up. Discipline cost Leinster this match, not good enough, on 13 men conceding 26 points and chasing the game after that. Leo needs to field a near full strength side next week as the lack of match continuity was glaringly obvious in this defeat. Some of the more excitable fans showing their true colours after this game, you don’t turn on specific players and or the coach when you lose away to the top team in the league.

Greg Kelly

We used to win these games at a canter. You have to wonder what has changed? Ioane can head home now as he is not the calibre of marquee player required. Snyman has been poor the last few games and it seems teams are now wise to his offload game. Sam’s confidence has been shredded by the 6 nations and we looked soft upfront tonight. We need to be competitive in these international windows otherwise it’s uphill in the playoffs

Craig Grehan

Are we all neglecting the fact we’d a team of irish internationals not playing ?

Let’s not forget.

Why are we not playing Osborne? Ringrose? Gibson Park? Captain Doris? Van Der Flier? McCarthy? Ryan? Furlong? Sheehan?

Dont gimme the “International rest” crap.

We’d Conan and Kelleher there.

Big games need big calls.

We’re a team of softies at times

Richard Collumb

Coaching ticket not up to it. Prendergast needs a break & discipline needs improving

Chris McDonnell

The step up in attack when frawley came on was massive. To think he was driven out of the club is baffling. I’d say Lancaster can’t believe his luck.

The coaching ticket needs to go. The 3 stooges are dragging us from bad to worse. Cullen claims to love the club, if he really did he’d admit he’s out of his depth and walk away.

Christy O’Connor

I’ve said it a million times now, we have gone backwards under Nienabar and Bleyendaal. Ulster players deserve their spots in the Irish team, they are playing much better rugby, they’re playing how we used to play before we lost Lancaster.

Absolute shite rugby style. Clueless in attack. More fun watching paint dry

Louis Hoffman

Cullen and Nienaber must go.

Dreadful

But to see that kn*bjockey Zebo delighted that a Scottish team beat an Irish one. What a jerk

Odran John OBrien

Time for the coaching team to change

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URC WRAP


NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “WOMEN’S 6N PREVIEW”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 


508: Glasgow v Leinster preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST

LEINSTER : 15 Hugo Keenan 14 Joshua Kenny 13 Rieko Ioane 12 Robbie Henshaw 11 Jimmy O’Brien 10 Sam Prendergast 9 Luke McGrath (c)

1 Alex Usanov 2 Rónan Kelleher 3 Thomas Clarkson 4 RG Snyman 5 Brian Deeny 6 Jack Conan 7 Will Connors 8 James Culhane

16 John McKee 17 Jerry Cahir 18 Rabah Slimani 19 Conor O’Tighearnaigh 20 Max Deegan 21 Scott Penny 22 Fintan Gunne 23 Ciarán Frawley


GLASGOW : 15 Josh McKay 14 Kyle Rowe 13 Johnny Ventisei 12 Stafford McDowall (c) 11 Ollie Smith 10 Dan Lancaster 9 George Horne

1 Patrick Schickerling 2 Gregor Hiddleston 3 Fin Richardson 4 Alex Craig 5 Alex Samuel 6 Euan Ferrie 7 Sione Vailanu 8 Macenzzie Duncan

16 Seb Stephen 17 Rory Sutherland 18 Sam Talakai 19 Jare Oguntibeju 20 Ally Miller 21 Angus Fraser 22 Jack Oliver 23 Adam Hastings


BKT United Rugby Championship

2025/26  Round 13

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Scotstoun Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1, URC.tv


Referee: Adam Jones (WRU)

AR 1: David Sutherland (SRU)

AR 2: Ciaran Stark (SRU)

TMO: Aled Griffiths (WRU)

502 : Cardiff v Leinster preview


LEINSTER : 15 Jimmy O’Brien 14 Joshua Kenny 13 Rieko Ioane 12 Robbie Henshaw 11 Ruben Moloney 10 Harry Byrne 9 Fintan Gunne

1 Jerry Cahir 2 John McKee 3 Andrew Sparrow 4 Alan Spicer 5 Brian Deeny 6 Max Deegan (c) 7 Scott Penny 8 James Culhane

16 Gus McCarthy 17 Alex Usanov 18 Rabah Slimani 19 RG Snyman 20 Josh Ericson 21 Luke McGrath 22 Charlie Tector 23 Andrew Osborne


CARDIFF : 15 Cam Winnett 14 Jacob Beetham 13 Harri Millard 12 Ben Thomas 11 Mason Grady 10 Callum Sheedy 9 Aled Davies

1 Rhys Barratt 2 Liam Belcher 3 Javan Sebastian 4 Josh McNally 5 George Nott 6 Alun Lawrence 7 Dan Thomas 8 Taine Basham

16 Daf Hughes 17 Danny Southworth 18 Keiron Assiratti 19 Rory Thornton 20 Evan Rees 21 Johan Mulder 22 Ioan Lloyd 23 Tom Bowen


BKT United Rugby Championship 25/26

Round 12

Friday, February 27, 2026

Cardiff Arms Park

KO 7pm

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


Referee: Sam Grove-White (SRU)

AR 1: Ben Whitehouse (WRU)

AR 2: Carwyn Sion (WRU)

TMO: David Sutherland (SRU)

496 : France v Ireland wrap

5 February 2026; Matthieu Jalibert of France scores his side’s second try despite the attempted tackle from Cian Prendergast of Ireland during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between France and Ireland at Stade de France in Paris, France. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile


🏉 Rucks & collisions

🏉 The three P’s

🏉 Après set pieces

🏉 Selections

🏉 Calls & non-calls


MARK JACKSON


FULL TIME TAKES

Craig Grehan

All in all. Good day out. Look we know we’re in transition and we’re not the numero uno team anymore. SA and France are. Very different teams. Who we need to figure out new ways to beat them.

Good things, our lineout outclassed and manhandled theirs.

Scrums without our big names in the front row definitely held their own.

Sam P silenced his can’t tackle haters (a bit) by hitting a fair few.

Stockdale can still be a threat.

When we move ball we can scare teams.

Cian P was immense.

We still gave France a good rattle fir 25 minutes.

The referees helped France by not seeing 2 forward passes, and a knock on by France.

And not the deliberate yellow one.

The not so good:

We kept kicking despite it not really working.

Despite our scrum and lineout platform, we looked game rusty, silly knock ons, not running hard.

Which is easily settled by picking game ready players.

Some sloppy defending.

Doris is our least aggressive backrow.

No leader on the pitch to say “this isnt working”.

The ref missing the above mentioned things haha

Odran John OBrien

France outstanding no one will come near to them playing like this

Kevin Kelehan

Fixed the perceived problems, scrum solid, gave away 3 penalties in the entire game, only one preventable, line out held up against French going after it. Sam Prendergast’s tackling was arguably the best of the Irish backs. Then they kicked and kicked and kicked when it was clear the French has superior aerial skills. 22-0 at half time and 29-0 down at nearly an hour and it looked like a hiding. Then they woke up and were unlucky the ref didn’t card Dupont when 29-14, they could with a man advantage have got a lot closer. Next game out through Edogbo in at 5, Furlong will be back, put Beirne in at 6 and hopefully the 3 larger ball carriers will get us more yards when we have the ball. France deservedly on their way to retaining their championship

Christy O’Connor

Can’t say I expected any other outcome on the result. The scrum done a lot better than I expected. We are well off the pace and Farrell needs to start picking more players that are in form rather than ticking with the same old faces. This could be the unraveling of Andy’s time in charge if he doesn’t get a grip on this.

Peter Mcconnell

For me it was the commitment in the tackle. For some reason French players were able to power through the tackle sufficiently to offload, or make more metres. In previous years the Irish tacklers have done a pretty good job of halting the attacking players. I don’t know if it is a lack of aggression on behalf of the Irish tacklers, or just a brute fore determination by the French, but I have no doubt it were we lost was at the contact.

Ann Marie Crean

Just not up to scratch 😒 😫

End of

Cormac Mannion

Good to see Cian P do so well, Milne too. The subs did very well when they came on and it did make a difference but France had taken their foot off the gas by that stage. Lineout and scrum were good.

Our defence is shambolic. Players don’t seem to know what they’re supposed to be doing and our attack plan was dire. We seem to look better when we have two playmakers on the field (Crowley and Sam), similar to Leinster when Sam and Harry were on the pitch at the same time.

Osborne is a fine player but looked rusty last night and has all the speed of an oil tanker when he’s turning. Stockdale – didn’t reproduce his early season form. Ringrose – barely saw the ball.

So much wrong (injuries aside) and the players looked jaded from the very beginning

Shaun Berger‬ (BlueSky)

Timoney was great.

Ire outplayed  and outfought in so many areas. But one thing I dont see mentioned much:

Did we even win one bloody aerial battle? Even when it looked like we caught it Fra seemed to end up with the ball.

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

ROUND 2

SATURDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2026
Ireland v Italy, 2:10pm, Aviva Stadium
Scotland v England, 4:40pm, Scottish Gas Murrayfield Stadium

SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2026
Wales v France, 3:10pm, Principality Stadium


NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “WEEKEND ROUNDUP”

80+ COLUMN 

495 : France v Ireland preview

Our guest : HUGO GORDON


IRELAND : 15 Jamie Osborne 14 Tommy O’Brien 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Stuart McCloskey 11 Jacob Stockdale 10 Sam Prendergast 9 Jamison Gibson‑Park  

1 Jeremy Loughman 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tom Clarkson 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Tadhg Beirne 6 Cian Prendergast 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)  

16 Ronan Kelleher 17 Michael Milne 18 Finlay Bealham 19 James Ryan 20 Jack Conan 21 Nick Timoney 22 Craig Casey 23 Jack Crowley


FRANCE : 15 Thomas Ramos 14 Théo Attissogbe 13 Nicolas Depoortere 12 Yoram Moefana 11 Louis Bielle‑Biarrey 10 Matthieu Jalibert 9 Antoine Dupont  

1 Jean‑Baptiste Gros 2 Julien Marchand 3 Dorian Aldegheri 4 Charles Ollivon 5 Mickaël Guillard 6 François Cros 7 Oscar Jegou 8 Anthony Jelonch  

16 Peato Mauvaka 17 Rodrigue Neti 18 Régis Montagne 19 Hugo Auradou 20 Emmanuel Meafu 21 Leni Nouchi 22 Baptiste Serin 23 Kalvin Gourgues


Guinness Six Nations 2026 – Round 1

Thursday, February 5, 2026

Stade de France

KO 8:10pm

Live on : Virgin Media 1


Referee: Karl Dickson (RFU)

AR1: Angus Gardner (RA)

AR2: Jordan Way (RA)

TMO: Ian Tempest (RFU)

FPRO: Richard Kelly (NZR)

494 : Leinster v Edinburgh wrap

31 January 2026; Scott Penny of Leinster, second from left, celebrates after scoring his third and his side’s fourth try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Edinburgh at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile


🏉 Offload overload?

🏉 NIQ benefits

🏉 Death. Taxes. Penny.

🏉 Tector at 10

🏉 Luke’s leadership


TOM COLEMAN


FULL TIME TAKES

Christy O’Connor

Great result for the players that were playing. Thought Tector done well considering it’s been a long time since he had a run of games at ten.

Still a lot of the same issues with our attack, it’s very 1 dimensional and we need a lot of entries into their 22 to come away with some points

Cormac Mannion

We really are winning the hard way this season but a welcome win and another bonus point.

Still lots to improve on but when you think we are down to the bare bones in terms of players, it was a very satisfactory win

Gavin Hegarty

We made very hard work of it. Simple things that just didn’t work.

For example why did RG continue to try offloads when they never worked?

All teams now know they can easily unlock our shoot up defence by quick passing yet we still do it? Reko got caught out tonight.

Eamon Saunders

Good win again and great to see so much young talent being used

Kevin Kelehan

We have discovered the new and improved version of Mick Kiernan at 12 to fix Ireland’s place kicking problem, his name is Charlie Tector and he will be well ready for RWC 2027. The block down of the conversion on 80 minutes was very frustrating, Embra deserved a point out of that game and conceding it cost Leinster nothing

Dave Murray

A hard earned, but well deserved, 5 points for the 2nd/3rd string. Stormers losing again was pleasing too.

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URC WRAP


NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S SEASON SO FAR” (YouTube)

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN (Substack)

France v Ireland preview (YouTube)


493 : Leinster v Edinburgh preview


Leinster : 15 Andrew Osborne 14 Joshua Kenny 13 Rieko Ioane 12 Ciarán Mangan 11 Ruben Moloney 10 Charlie Tector 9 Luke McGrath (c)

1 Jerry Cahir 2 John McKee 3 Andrew Sparrow 4 RG Snyman 5 Brian Deeny 6 Max Deegan 7 Scott Penny 8 Diarmuid Mangan

16 Gus McCarthy 17 Alex Usanov 18 Niall Smyth 19 Conor O’Tighearnaigh 20 Josh Ericson 21 Will Connors 22 Fintan Gunne 23 Hugo McLaughlin


Edinburgh : 15 Harry Paterson 14 Malelili Satala 13 Wes Goosen 12 James Lang 11 Duhan van der Merwe 10 Ross Thompson 9 Ben Vellacott

1 Boan Venter 2 Jerry Blyth‑Lafferty 3 Paul Hill 4 Callum Hunter‑Hill 5 Glen Young 6 Ben Muncaster 7 Freddy Douglas 8 Magnus Bradbury (c)

16 Harri Morris 17 Mikey Jones 18 Ollie Blyth‑Lafferty 19 Tom Dodd 20 Connor Boyle 21 Charlie Shiel 22 Cammy Scott 23 Piers O’Conor


BKT United Rugby Championship 25/26 – Round 11

Saturday, January 31, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1, URC.tv


Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR)

AR 1: Eoghan Cross (IRFU) 

AR 2: Shane Gaughan (IRFU)

TMO: Matteo Liperini (FIR)