Babbling 'brook

he's alrite

May come off as sour grapes after the fact, but I have always been a proponent of giving top half of the qualifying teams opponent selection as well as home field advantage. Seed 1 can select 6, 7 or 8, and so on, with 4 always having to play 5 so as to give the bottom teams an incentive to improve ...

Supporters really shouldn't underestimate the issue altitude poses. ABs and Super sides have a meticulous logistics plan when travelling to SA, that has necessarily developed over the years of Super Rugby/Rugby Championship. Seeing as Leinster management couldn't even get visas done properly, it see...

Henderson incident a salutary lesson for Irish supporters that accidents happen in rugby.

Fan with smartphone wrote:
snip

I disagree on some of it, but see your point. More of this and less of the other garbage.

Not sure why you keep bleating on about this BF - I think we have agreed that most people here accept that Peyper is not a bad man, just a bad ref. Virtually no one has questioned his integrity. Nonsense. Re-read this thread and then explore other media. It is atrocious. Right up there with us vs W...

So O'Sullivan agreed that the ref was not deliberately unfair against Ireland. No argument. I believe there would be few on here who disagreed with that. One or two do and that is potentially understandable when it isn't the first time Peyper reffed a game where we lost a player to a dangerous high...

Eddie O'Sullivan chatting with Murray Kinsella made some excellent comments regarding ref's performance and the reaction to it on The42 rugby show. His views pretty much reflect mine. His advice to look at situations with the jerseys reversed and comments about the pace of the game creating unfortun...

Tut tut blues_fan, claiming the high moral ground. A little lesson in morality for you. An old saying "Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" This referee was fooled in the 6Ns game between France and Ireland last season - he failed to protect the Irish players against flag...

Disappointing reaction from some Irish fans. Criticise a man's performance, challenge his decisions and competence, but it is absolutely appalling to not just question his integrity, but to stridently declare his integrity breached based on nothing more than what he does on the pitch. Peyper gave a...

Disappointing reaction from some Irish fans. Criticise a man's performance, challenge his decisions and competence, but it is absolutely appalling to not just question his integrity, but to stridently declare his integrity breached based on nothing more than what he does on the pitch. Peyper gave a...

Disappointing reaction from some Irish fans. Criticise a man's performance, challenge his decisions and competence, but it is absolutely appalling to not just question his integrity, but to stridently declare his integrity breached based on nothing more than what he does on the pitch. Peyper gave a ...

Marvelous defensive effort from the ABs. Just kept everything out. Ref hammered them and they still got up and made tackle after tackle. Need to work on discipline for next week. Anyway, I was starting to wonder if this team had ticker without McCaw leading them. This performance shows me it's build...

This is my most anticipated ABs game in years. Even more than ABs in SA or the '15 RWC final. Had a few shocks around NZ both literal and metaphorical recently. Everyone here is fizzing about this game. Can only imagine what Steve, Kieran and the boys are thinking given the bad news at home. Such an...

'Grats to Ireland. I'm actually happy it was Ireland to break the streak, and in some style. When your team gets hammered like that you just have to admire it.

Here's to another 100 years

One thing I've noticed is that when defending, the AB's concede a lot of penalties. In the Rugby Championship their opposition took the 3 point option nearly all the time when near the All Black 22 (e.g South Africa 5 penalties when they lost 57-15, Australia 3 penalties when they lost 29-9). The p...

Yous are sooooooooo lucky to have him.

Had a blast watching that. 'Grats to Connacht.

Also, how the **** does Connacht 1st5 end up playing for the USA of all places?? What is going on with Irish talent evaluation. That is a giant blunder letting him slip through. Almost as bad as Auckland.

It's one hideous exercise in commercialism and money-making from start to finish these days. Don't see it being scrapped while it's such a cash cow for so many. Why is this always trotted out as a bad thing? Doesn't make sense, especially so for rugby which has governing bodies that are 'owned' by ...

Earls is the weak link in the backs.
I'm more nervous than yesterday.. amazing stuff.
CMON F***N IRELAND!