Babbling 'brook

The big names have a much smaller affect on the budget than is generally given credit. The academy lads are on buttons. It's the middle tier where the damage gets done, quietly. Everyone thinks about the star getting half a mil, it's the 4 players quietly getting €200k without doing all that much m...

Any updates on Culhane? Started the season with a really strong endorsement from the coaches but haven’t heard about him in a long time. I heard he was injured in January. Looking in the academy thread Mildy mentioned he was injured on the 9th of April and training for the first time in a while on ...

McDonald is on loan. I believe the previous poster was mixing him up with Moore.

Is Colm Reilly injured?

He was out for 12 weeks, then came back for 2 bench appearances before disappearing again.

I liked what I saw of Murphy.

I probably would have cut Foley (too injury prone) for him personally. I agree through that we couldn't carry 4 senior scrumhalves.

Going up against the Lions and going up against the Stormers isn't some sort of pointless task. A weaker team than we sent out last week beat the Lions last year. The team we sent over to play the Stormers two seasons ago – the season they won the URC - wasn't anything like our strongest team eithe...

sunshiner1 wrote: ↑April 21st, 2024, 10:26 am How is Marmion doing there as a matter of interest?

Firmly second choice.

4 starts and 17 bench appearances.

Even if the Bulls lose to Sharks, they end up on 66 points (69-70 if they beat them). Glasgow will end up with about 68 points. We end on 68 if we lose to Stormers but win all the other games, including beating Ulster away the week after a hypothetical European final and week before the URC quarter...

Nail on the head Dexter. Just a bad day at the office. I think you can only call out the selection if you looked at the team yesterday and thought "this side isn't good enough to win". I don't think many did. Well the bookies seemed to be confident they weren’t good enough to win. I was s...

Matthew Devine putting in a bit of a masterclass in his first start for Connacht.

I think he has to have elevated himself to second choice 9 now.

yellabelly1961 wrote: ↑April 20th, 2024, 6:04 pm

Dexter wrote: ↑April 20th, 2024, 6:03 pmThanks Munster

Explain please?

Munster beat bulls. That means that we are much more likely to finish top 2 (and indeed more likely to finish 1st) that we would have been had Bulls won.

22-29 5 minutes left. Casey HIA and Murray limping.

Munster to worry about scrumhalf.

Cullens crazy , yes crazy selection decisions could leave us with nothing again this year. He got it badly wrong v Munster last Yr and got it wrong again today . Why not send stronger squad for 1 game here? We will be down to 3rd by next wk. We will have to see what we are made of now with games on...

The Doc wrote: ↑April 19th, 2024, 1:58 pm Northampton must be delighted they got us away (financially speaking)

Semi final money goes to epcr and the teams get prize money for getting to the semi finals.

Most teams are financially happy to get us in qf or round of 16.

There are 12.5k season tickets. We sold c. 42k seats for the Leicester game and just managed to sell out a quarter final against our sworn enemy in a massive match. Who in their right mind thinks we should be playing matches in Croke Park? I presume they will change their mind once they see how bad...

did the outrage over central contracts start after Sheehan got his CC or after Barrett chose to come to Ireland, instead of France or Japan for his sabbatical? There was some bitching and moaning about Sheehan (not because of Sheehan, no one will say he doesn't deserve it) but for the effect it has...

did the outrage over central contracts start after Sheehan got his CC or after Barrett chose to come to Ireland, instead of France or Japan for his sabbatical? There was some bitching and moaning about Sheehan (not because of Sheehan, no one will say he doesn't deserve it) but for the effect it has...

Would be almost unprecedented for a player at McCarthy's stage to move, no? A guy just heading into Year 2 Academy? Was Sam Illo in the leinster academy before he headed to Connacht. I can't find any good sources other than the Connacht website claiming that he was. If he was he would have been goi...

Would be almost unprecedented for a player at McCarthy's stage to move, no? A guy just heading into Year 2 Academy? Was Sam Illo in the leinster academy before he headed to Connacht. I can't find any good sources other than the Connacht website claiming that he was. If he was he would have been goi...

curates_egg wrote: ↑April 17th, 2024, 8:17 am We better not be losing Paddy McCarthy.

Agreed. I'd do a lot to keep McCarthy.

curates_egg wrote: ↑April 17th, 2024, 8:17 am I would argue he is also our best backrow in the lineout, and is up there with POM.

I think Baird is better at the lineout. Otherwise I completely agree with you.