Tag: Rugby Union

Throwback Thursday – Ireland v Wales 2018

We’ve already looked back at the French and English contests from the 2018 Slam so it’s only right and proper that we keep that going ahead of the visit of the Welsh to Dublin too. A couple of starters from 8 years ago are wearing the exact same numbers on Friday…can you spot them?

Wales : 15. Leigh Halfpenny 14 Liam Williams 13 Scott Williams 12 Hadleigh Parkes 11 Steff Evans 10 Dan Biggar 9 Gareth Davies

1 Rob Evans 2 Ken Owens 3 Samson Lee 4 Cory Hill 5 Alun Wyn Jones > CAPT 6 Aaron Shingler 7 Josh Navidi 8 Ross Moriarty

Replacements: 16 Elliot Dee 17 Wyn Jones 18 Tomas Francis 19 Bradley Davies 20 Justin Tipuric 21 Aled Davies 22 Gareth Anscombe 23 George North.

Natwest Six Nations 2018 – Round 3

Saturday, February 24, 2018

KO 2:15pm

Aviva Stadium

Referee – Glen Jackson (New Zealand)

Assistant 1 – Pascal Gauzere (France)

Assistant 2 – Matthew Carley (England)

TMO – Rowan Kitt (England)

Click here if you’d like to read my preview, but for the record my prediction was for an Ireland win by 1 to 3 pts…

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH…

“Our defence was too narrow.”

Whatever about the merits of that statement, my question is…how can that be the very first thing someone says about this match???

Alright, hang on…I know it’s the first thing I’M saying about this match, but I’m merely quoting a straw keyboard warrior. You know what I mean 😉.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE ON SUBSTACK

80+ column : March 4

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

  • WRAP OF A WRAP
  • RUGBY’S ASHES
  • AS YOU WERE
  • DROPPING THE DROP
  • RENNIE’S REMIT
  • CLICKBAIT OF THE WEEK
  • COACHING BY REFS
  • SAY OOH LA LA, LUKE MCGRATH
  • LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
  • TROLL PATROL
  • COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Schools Cup)
  • NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

Since we cut from two guests on the wrap pods to one, having the same guest two out of three weeks has been a rarity but that’s how things turned out for the Cardiff pod and since Conor Cronin also chipped in to the 500th episode it means he earned three caps in as many weeks which I doubt has ever happened.

Unfortunately that one dull fact is more interesting than anything that actually happened in the URC match at Cardiff Arms Park but still Conor did a great job analysing what went wrong; I reckon it’s worth a listen if you missed it, click here to do so.

RUGBY’S ASHES

An “identical exhibition trophy” is set to be used for the remainder of the championship

New Six Nations trophy required after fire damage

RTÉ.ie

Not really a crazy story I suppose, fires happen, but I have to say I’m intrigued by the article simply saying “The fire, reported to have taken place in Ireland, led to no injuries…”.

Eh, maybe since you’re the Irish national broadcaster you might want to follow up on that? Where in Ireland? How did the fire start? To be fair if those details WERE in the article I probably wouldn’t pay them much mind, but they are still conspicuous by their absence and it leaves me an itch that needs scratching.

Plus all the talk of a new trophy being “forged” gave our WhatsApp group the perfect opportunity to run a host of Tolkien themed memes…

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL COLUMN ON SUBSTACK

Friday night sh*te, not so super defending & flag foibles

Saturday. February 28, 2026

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.

Needless to say I’m not in a very good mood this morning, mostly because Leinster got beaten last night of course, but also because it was a really, really, truly awful game of rugby. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m not saying that due to sour grapes, it really was a long, arduous 80m watch although since Leinster got beaten, I’d say it did provide sufficient Friday evening viewing for the majority of those watching!

But that’s what wrap pods are for so I’ll try to put the frustration aside for the moment and leave it until Sunday to do the tortuous rewatch. No point in sharing a link to the preview this week, but to get a sense of how I was feeling before this match here is my latest spot on Dublin South FM…

Anyway, enough about all that. This time last week instead of doing this article I was sitting in the car recording my part of our 500th episode special. It was eventually an enjoyable experience, but not before I got through the process of downloading/editing/re-uploading which took literally hours longer than it should have. Do check it out if you missed it, you’ll find the YouTube version here.

Speaking of this Broken Play article, I see I missed the 1 year anniversary of it – the first edition was scribbled on February 9, 2025. That’s unusual for me as in general I’m good at keeping track of such things, but anyway I have to say I enjoy doing them and as long as I can drag myself out of bed at this ungodly hour on Saturdays I’ll keep it up for the foreseeable.

I just remembered there’s Super Rugby on, so it is now accompanying me and Chiefs v Crusaders isn’t a bad contest to have on in the background. Chiefs have just taken a 14-0 lead but we all know that means nothing in this comp, defences were shaky anyway but with a gagillion Law “trials” meant to “speed up the game” anything is possible.

This week I want to touch on a subject that is, well touchy. Last night’s disappointment for Leinster in Cardiff brought to an end an extremely enjoyable week on social media for me. Any big win for my team has me in a good mood, but England? In Twickenham? When we thought our chances were slim at best? Magical.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE ON SUBSTACK

502 : Cardiff v Leinster preview

Our guest : NEIL “KEEGO” KEEGAN

www.keegolaughs.com

Apologies Up Front on Apple Podcasts

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)

Throwback Thursday – Ireland v England 2011

This week we go back to yet another Ireland win over England, just because.

Technically our choice of Throwback Thursday match should be based on our NEXT featured match, but, well, Twickenham. Nuff said. Let’s harp on that some more, shall we.

So there I was, writing my weekly 80+ column (one back here on the Substack feed) and I brought up the time it got leaked that England had produced a load of Grand Slam winning t-shirts ahead of their visit to Dublin, only to forget to do the most important thing, namely actually winning said Slam.

All of which inspired me to hark back to my writeup of that match in the Aviva Stadium. It was a time when Declan Kidney’s good will from his own 2009 Slam was starting to wear off…in this 2011 Championship we had already struggled to beat Italy & Scotland and lost to France & Wales before the English rocked up to our shiny new D4 home for the first time.

We all know what happened, yet I assume we all enjoy remembering what happened same as any other time we beat them, so here are the starting lineups followed by the writeup…

IRELAND

15 Keith Earls 14 Tommy Bowe 13 Brian O’Driscoll (c) 12 Gordon D’Arcy 11 Andrew Trimble 10 Johnny Sexton 9 Eoin Reddan

1 Cian Healy 2 Rory Best 3 Mike Ross 4 Donncha O’Callaghan 5 Paul O’Connell 6 Seán O’Brien 7 David Wallace 8 Jamie Heaslip

16 Seán Cronin 17 Tom Court 18 Leo Cullen 19 Denis Leamy 20 Peter Stringer 21 Ronan O’Gara 22 Paddy Wallace

ENGLAND

15 Ben Foden 14 Chris Ashton 13 Matt Banahan 12 Shontayne Hape 11 Mark Cueto 10 Toby Flood 9 Ben Youngs

1 Alex Corbisiero 2 Dylan Hartley 3 Dan Cole 4 Louis Deacon 5 Tom Palmer 6 Tom Wood 7 James Haskell 8 Nick Easter (c)

16 Steve Thompson 17 Paul Doran-Jones 18 Simon Shaw 19 Tom Croft 20 Danny Care 21 Jonny Wilkinson 22 David Strettle

RBS Six Nations – Round 5

Saturday, March 19, 2011

KO 5pm

Aviva Stadium

Referee – Bryce Lawrence (NZL)

SLAM, DENIED. FAITH, RESTORED.

Professional rugby union has evolved into so much more than an 80-minute slosh in the mud at the weekend. It’s now a process that begins the previous Monday morning.

As well as all the general work to be done on the training pitch and in the weights room, there’s DVDs to be analysed, charts to be drawn and top-secret code sequences to be created.

But when all is said and done, the real work behind everything associated with a team begins in just one square foot of real estate…the noggin of the head coach.

And for me, the most satisfying aspect of Ireland’s slam-denying victory at the Aviva Stadium was that it was clearly the culmination of a superior week’s preparation from Declan Kidney, who totally outfoxed his opposite number.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON OUR SUBSTACK

501 : England v Ireland wrap

21 February 2026; Jamison Gibson-Park of Ireland scores his side’s first try, despite a tackle of England’s Joe Heyes, during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between England and Ireland at the Allianz Stadium in Twickenham, England. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Whiskey, neat

🏉 Leaders in the pack

🏉 Brick wall D

🏉 Super Ulstermen

🏉 Chariots low

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

HUGO GORDON

FULL TIME TAKES

Wayne O’Brien

The type of performance that will put a lot of confidence gas back in the tank

Tom Clarke

Much better performance. Some of the bigger players really stepped up. Have to give Farrell credit. Thought McCloskey was incredible. Jaimo, Joe and Dorris were brilliant too. Don’t think there was a bad performance in fairness.

Greg Kelly

Irelands performance was beautifully summed up by McCloskey running Marcus Smith down like the terminator

Gerald Williamson

Well deserved win by a country mile. The hunger is back in the team and Andy Farrell has shut those “doubting Thomas “.

Richard Collumb

Would never have thought they could do that. Brilliant all round performance (scrum still needs work), but tactically got it spot on vs England and great execution

Christy O’Connor

That performance was long overdue, we can’t pretend there’s still a lot to work on but that’s a huge step in the right direction, hopefully we can build on this now

Gavin Hegarty

Were we that good or were England just that bad? I think we just dominated them into their mistakes. They were rattled from minute one and couldn’t react.

Pollock was nonexistent for them, perhaps he should check his pulse now?

It’d be typical of England now to fire borthwick if they finish fourth. It’d cost them a lot to get rid of him and get someone else in but who would be the contenders?

Chris McDonnell

The difference passing the ball makes.

That’s 2 years in a row we have battered England

Craig Grehan

In farrell we trust.

The things we’ve been working on clicked and went our way.

Oh, and McCloskey is an animal.

Craig Boyd

Great to prove the doubters wrong (including myself). Particularly delighted as an Ulsterman that the Ulster boys have backed up their recent performances #mccloskeyrollingbacktheyears

Bert McLoughlin

The lads were hungry for the win and England didn’t have any answers for it

Eamon Saunders

That complete performance that we have been looking for and what a place to deliver 🇮🇪🇮🇪

John O Halloran

Handy run out for the lads. 😉.

Jokes aside, I had Ireland by 3 to 7 max and I was being very optimistic.

I didn’t see that level of performance coming. A superb response and result.

Barbara Gaffey

Always that extra niggle versus England and proving the naysayers wrong! The pressure worked to our advantage this time and it all finally clicked. Absolute class! 🙌🔥💪

Hywel Davies

Not looking forward to the next match

Tony Doyle

Chariot on fire for the second week in a row

CLICK HERE FOR THE REAL-TIME REACTIONS FROM

THE HARPIN WHATSAPP GROUP THROUGHOUT THE MATCH

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

SIX NATIONS WRAP

Italy 18-15 Scotland  

England 48-7 Wales  

France 36-14 Ireland

Scotland 31–20 England  

Italy 13–20 Ireland  

Wales 12–54 France

England 21-42 Ireland

Wales 23-26 Scotland  

France 33-8 Italy  

Round 4 Fixtures

Fri 6 March

Ireland v Wales 

Sat 7 March

Scotland v France

Italy v England

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “IRELAND’S NEXT OPPONENTS”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

499 : England v Ireland preview

Our guest : NEIL “KEEGO” KEEGAN

www.keegolaughs.com

Apologies Up Front on Apple Podcasts

IRELAND : 15 Jamie Osborne 14 Robert Baloucoune 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Stuart McCloskey 11 James Lowe 10 Jack Crowley 9 Jamison Gibson‑Park  

1 Jeremy Loughman 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 James Ryan 6 Tadhg Beirne 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)  

16 Ronan Kelleher 17 Tom O’Toole 18 Finlay Bealham 19 Nick Timoney 20 Jack Conan 21 Craig Casey 22 Ciarán Frawley 23 Tommy O’Brien

ENGLAND : 15 Freddie Steward 14 Tommy Freeman 13 Ollie Lawrence 12 Fraser Dingwall 11 Henry Arundell 10 George Ford 9 Alex Mitchell

1 Ellis Genge 2 Luke Cowan‑Dickie 3 Joe Heyes 4 Maro Itoje (c) 5 Ollie Chessum 6 Tom Curry 7 Ben Earl 8 Henry Pollock

16 Jamie George 17 Bevan Rodd 18 Trevor Davison 19 Alex Coles 20 Guy Pepper 21 Sam Underhill 22 Jack van Poortvliet 23 Marcus Smith

Guinness Six Nations 2026 – Round 3

Saturday, February 21, 2026

Twickenham Stadium 

KO 2:15pm

Live on : RTÉ2

Referee: Andrea Piardi (FIR)

AR1: Pierre Brousset (FFR)

AR2: Gianluca Gnecchi (FIR)

TMO: Matteo Liperini (FIR)

FPRO: Mike Adamson (SRU)

498 : France v Ireland wrap

14 February 2026; Robert Baloucoune of Ireland dives over to score his side’s third try despite the tackle of Lorenzo Cannone of Italy during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and Italy at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

🏉 Attack still misfiring

🏉 Fresh faces

🏉 Brava Italia

🏉 Super Stu

🏉 15s & 7s

THIS WEEK’S GUEST

CONOR CRONIN

FULL TIME TAKES

Gerald Williamson

Quite frankly it was a wrestling match with Ireland just shading it.

Christy O’Connor

Lots of work needed to be done for next week. Sam is in a horrible position, Farrell is adamant about Sam starting, I’m not saying he’s a poor player, he’s just not ready. If any 10 can feel hard done by it’s Frawley. The championship is already over for us, so may as well test more players

John Kehoe

Ireland beat Italy by more points this year than last year

Greg McAuliffe

I thought once Crowley came on, we got a bit of an attacking shape back, which has been under Sam. Still not where we should be but the difference was obvious.

Michelle Tobin

Andy Farrell would do well to talk to Andrew Brown. Brown was so p*ssed off at the Irish performance last night despite the win. “A win is a win” is not the right mindset for the team that was formerly #1 in the world and should be aspiring to get back there, not barely beating Italy. We’re safe from 6th now but there are 3 big games left and I’m not confident

Ted Maher

I really really really hate to say it but Sam!

Chris McDonnell

3 of the 4 half backs are just not good enough. Doak for Casey and frawley and Murphy for Pendergast and Crowley.

Gavin Hegarty

Prendergast not good but then Crowley doesn’t take his chance and denies us a bonus point. Time to try Byrne.

Brian McKeon

Scotland did it last week, we did it this week, underestimated the Italians. Italy have lightening quick backs and a very strong pack.

I’ve never seen Tadhg Furlong get flying lessons in a scrum before today.

Ken Tancred PT

Ireland’s definitely in a rebuilding phase… It should have started last year except for the lions distraction. But Italy are starting to click so they so they have to take some credit

A worrying thing for me is how they team played under Casey and how they changed when JGP came on

Kevin Kelehan

Italy turned up and forced Ireland to work harder than they have for a long time against Italy. England will really target our scrum next week, what was the only blot on an otherwise really decent effort. I remain a huge Sam fan but not was clear that JGP and Crowley was a far better combination. Very decent debuts for Itzy, Balacoune and Edogbo with further enhancement of Timoney’s rep. 70% happy

Craig Boyd

Really poor, very one dimensional and Italy can feel really hard done by. V little to be positive about. Improved when Crowley and Gibson Park came on but missed out on the bonus point

Darragh Headen

2 yellows were harsh i taught, Italy were ferocious, will seriously test both England & France, good points were new debutants, and some great passing, we have concerns in the scrum. Crowley to start, Atmosphere looked desperate, too many there with no passion just in & out drinking & pissing like yo yo,s

CLICK HERE FOR THE REAL-TIME REACTIONS FROM

THE HARPIN WHATSAPP GROUP THROUGHOUT THE MATCH

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

SIX NATIONS WRAP

Italy 18-15 Scotland  

England 48-7 Wales  

France 36-14 Ireland

Scotland 31–20 England  

Italy 13–20 Ireland  

Wales 12–54 France

Round 3 Fixtures

Sat 21 Feb

England v Ireland

Wales v Scotland  

Sun 22 Feb

France v Italy 

NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “MEDIA NARRATIVES”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 

497 : Ireland v Italy preview

Our guest : CIARÁN DUFFY

Post to Post blog

IRELAND : 15 Jimmy O’Brien 14 Robert Baloucoune 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Stuart McCloskey 11 James Lowe 10 Sam Prendergast 9 Craig Casey

1 Jeremy Loughman 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tom Clarkson 4 Joe McCarthy 5 James Ryan 6 Cian Prendergast 7 Caelan Doris (c) 8 Jack Conan

16 Ronan Kelleher 17 Tom O’Toole 18 Tadhg Furlong 19 Edwin Edogbo 20 Tadhg Beirne 21 Nick Timoney 22 Jamison Gibson‑Park 23 Jack Crowley

ITALY : 15 Lorenzo Pani 14 Louis Lynagh 13 Tommaso Menoncello 12 Leonardo Marin 11 Monty Ioane 10 Paolo Garbisi 9 Alessandro Fusco

1 Danilo Fischetti 2 Giacomo Nicotera 3 Simone Ferrari 4 Niccolò Cannone 5 Andrea Zambonin 6 Michele Lamaro (c) 7 Manuel Zuliani 8 Lorenzo Cannone

16 Tommaso Di Bartolomeo 17 Mirco Spagnolo 18 Muhamed Hasa 19 Federico Ruzza 20 Riccardo Favretto 21 David Odiase 22 Alessandro Garbisi 23 Paolo Odogwu

Guinness Six Nations 2026 – Round 2

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Aviva Stadium 

KO 2:15pm

Live on : Virgin Media 1

Referee: Hollie Davidson (SRU)   

AR1: Matthew Carley (RFU)   

AR2: Luc Ramos (FFR)   

TMO: Ian Tempest (RFU)   

FPRO: Tual Trainini (FFR)