Babbling 'brook

that French centre is pretty aceballs

Them joining the 6N deserves a thread in itself, but you have the issues with will it be 7 teams which will mean bye weekends for one country who will then have their local club derby games that weekend, which damages the 6N brand. Are all the nations going to agree to that? Will be a 6 team compet...

I think we should acknowledge Nick McCarthy coming out because it's obviously a big deal for him and I'm sure he'll be acutely aware of the reaction to it so it'd be good to show him some support. Huge respect to him for doing it and it's great to hear that he feels happier in himself now :happy cl...

He probably won't get one, but Skelton deserves a very lengthy ban for his deliberate act of foul play.

neiliog93 wrote:Happy that the Stormers won, they actually try to play expansively at times. Bulls are a very negative teams and Jake White is an unpleasant person.

Found him to be anything but last week, very polite and gracious post match

But I agree, the team that tried to play the most rugby deservedly won

And if the Union were to bring him home, he won't be playing for Leinster

tigerburnie wrote: ↑June 18th, 2022, 5:27 pm Well we won it, not pretty, but I'll take a 3-0 win over 33-34 loss any day.

Congrats TB!

Does anybody give a continental who wins the final tomorrow? I give a trans-continental! I want the Bulls to win - met a fair few bulls fans pre and post match and they were all very pleasant and I'd rather be knocked out by the eventual champions than the eventual runners-up, small comforts I know!

paddyor wrote: ↑June 17th, 2022, 3:19 pm Nearly a decade without a title, must be a bit nervy tb. Best of luck tomorrow

Yep, don't let those imperial stormtroopers win - may the force be with you!

And Osbourne will probably continue to get gametime in the back 3 too. I think we'll see a lot of our outside backs wearing multiple numbers from 11 - 15 (and some at 10) over the course of the season. Positional flexibility with a broad range of competence will allow them to play an even more unst...

I was under the impression you had to have Maori ancestry to play for them, a minimum of one grandparent or something like that and their website says the following Originally team selected was ‘loosely’ governed in terms of heritage, but now all players must have Māori whakapapa or genealogy confi...

If memory serves Croft didn't make the original squad to the surprise of a lot of the English rugby media, he was a replacement for Quinlan when he got banned. Munster supporters decided it was all a big conspiracy to get him on the tour and that filtered into the mainstream irish support somewhat

But do the opposition even come into it as regards eligibility for your team? We could say it's not the senior representative side of the IRFU versus the ABs as well then, and select whoever we want against them too, no? The opposition definitely come into it - WR sanctions these games according to...

I can't get on board with your reading of it, Dave. I was looking at Regulation 8. A player has to be eligible to represent "the senior fifteen-a-side National Representative Team, the next senior fifteen-a-side National Representative Team and the senior National Representative Sevens Team of...

Would Marshall still be Irish eligible? I'm guessing not. Purely on a technical basis it wouldn't matter against the Maori Really? Surely he'd still have to be Irish-eligible to play for Ireland? - even if it wasn't a capped game. He just wouldn't count as being 'captured' by Ireland afterwards. Re...

Māori All Blacks Squad: *denotes new caps Props Tamaiti Williams - Ngāpuhi (Canterbury/Crusaders) Ollie Norris - Ngāpuhi (Waikato/Chiefs) Marcel Renata - Ngāti Whānaunga / Ngāi Takoto (Auckland/Blues) Jermaine Ainsley* - Te Rārawa / Te Arawa (Otago/Highlanders) Tyrel Lomax - Muaupoko / Ngāi Tūhoe (T...

Mick Doyle once famously and controversially stated that the scrum was merely a way of restarting play. He's not actually wrong. Scrums are only directly awarded as a means of restarting play after an "error", not foul play A knock-on or throw forward, apart from at a lineout. A knock-on o...

leinsterforever wrote: ↑June 15th, 2022, 1:08 pm Would Marshall still be Irish eligible? I'm guessing not.

Purely on a technical basis it wouldn't matter against the Maori

I really don’t understand this either. I can’t remember the source but a while back a journalist mentioned that we’d be able to take a bigger squad (I think the figure was 43 but I’m not certain) and they were very sure about it. Perhaps there’ll be some “injury concerns” over the next week and we’...

Its a very good squad I think. The only players who could feel a wee bit hard done by are Ross Byrne and Nathan Doak I reckon, but I can see why they aren't there.