Babbling 'brook

The Ulster front-row provided one of the best Irish Provincial scrum performances against Sharks in the pivotal URC game in the Kingspan last night. Tom O'Toole has promised a performance of this level for a couple of seasons but this was the real thing with opposition provided by three Springbok o...

Dave Cahill wrote: ↑May 21st, 2022, 4:53 pm I think we should all lose our sh!t because a guy who is shorter, lighter and older than a guy we ran into the ground last week is available

Not shorter, but yes, slightly lighter. More powerful on a pound-for-pound basis than Meafou though, and a much better all-round rugby player.

If he is back for the final, the one comfort is that he is such a huge man that he needs to play very regularly to stay fully match-fit. He becomes unfit more quickly than most others and probably wouldn't be firing on all cylinders in the final after just one sub appearance the week before.

Possible 42-man squad: LP (3): Porter, C.Healy, E.Byrne (Kilcoyne injured) HK (4): R.Kelleher, D.Sheehan, Herring, Heffernan TP (4): Furlong, Bealham, O'Toole, Milasanovich (give Milasanovich a go, he covers both sides, is 130kg and we already know all there is to know about Marty Moore) LK (6): Ja....

But if you lost one of the three hookers to serious injury in 12 months time, who would be the replacement? That the strongest reason to take four to NZ in July Dave Heffernan, on the evidence of Farrell's squad selections to date. Can any of Tracy, McKee, Delahunt, Tierney-Martin, D. Barron, Buckl...

Buckley should have been allowed to use his best asset as a powerful ball carrier/good handler of the ball from number 8. Billy Vunipola in physique, but taller. He broke the first tackle a very high percentage of the time, absolute beast of a man. Ruined by trying to force his 6'5" frame into ...

carlow man wrote: ↑May 15th, 2022, 4:12 pm West kicked everything last year, couldn't kick snow off a rope today!!

He's always been a dodgy kicker to be honest. They lost the final last year because of him. You'd think with their budget they could get a half-decent goalkicker!

We'll just have to see how Racing and La Rochelle come thru tomorrow. As was mentioned earlier, Skelton is already out for the rest of the season, it seems. That's very significant if true. The physical dominance he and Antonio alone secured for them last year was extremely decisive. I know they ha...

Very precise, even spectacular at times, in attack. Breakdown work, handling, offloading, passing, absolutely superb. Ambitious, scintillating stuff. Scrum is a concern, especially against another mammoth team (whether Racing 92 or La Rochelle) in the final. Maul defence also a concern. Restarts cou...

riocard911 wrote: ↑May 14th, 2022, 4:16 pm Lowe dots down again! Johnny converts from the sideline. 30-10. 51 mins. Think we have this.

One 3-pointer would make the gap four scores and the game would be up. But if they score a try next and bring it back to two scores, it's not completely out of reach.

Leinster should be more ahead, Toulouse have done nothing and have 10 points. Have to indulge the cliché and say first score after half-time is crucial.

Surprising about Morrissey, if he got up to 103 or 105kg (u-20 weight is 98kg), he could be a handy, athletic, line-out jumping 6.

For all the talk this week about how incredible DDA is (Shaggy & GT on Second Captains were particularly effusive) he wasn't good yesterday. Those two kicks were absolute shockers. DDA was probably their worst player actually. The young generation of forwards stood up very impressively in parti...

By my reckoning the Toulouse pack against Munster might be the biggest ever fielded in rugby. Combined pack weight of 987kg, almost a metric tonne! If Mauvaka had started ahead of Marchand at hooker, they would have been 1,002kg... From 3 to 8 they were 6'4", 6'10", 6'8", 6'6", 6...

A lot of the All Blacks are in unbelievable form again. I’m thinking of Clarke and Rieko Ioane in particular but there are loads of them all over the park and there’s depth everywhere with the possible exception of prop. Tricky to get selection right for the short and medium term is going to be rea...

Have a look at the edited highlights - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh26JHpaV5I - and one can see Roos, just as the maul, which caused the ref to award a penalty try, collapses, clearly punching a Leinster player on the ground. I think it's Scott Penney, who gets digged. The incident happens on ...

wixfjord wrote: ↑April 23rd, 2022, 8:36 pm

neiliog93 wrote: ↑April 23rd, 2022, 8:36 pm The instant yellow for Josh Murphy for minor and innocuous contact in the air in the line-out was a farce. Very home-biased ref.

It wasn't though. We were on a warning and it was a blatant penalty.

Yes it was definitely a penalty but the contact was minor and a safe landing came after.

The instant yellow for Josh Murphy for minor and innocuous contact in the air in the line-out was a farce. Very home-biased ref. Overall, a good performance from a young and callow team. Big games from Rhys, Penny, Frawley and Osborne. Dunne and Josh Murphy battled gamely. McKee and Barron held up w...

Match Preview It's the commentator's nightmare Leicester v Leinster in the Champions Cup quarter-final! But before then there's a two week tour of South Africa in which most of Leinster's front-liners won't be involved. Leading the URC table by ten points with just three games to go Leinster seem c...

It's well established we've lost three times in the knock-out stages in recent years because of lack of beef and power in the pack, especially at second-row. There's the weakness of the model right there.