Babbling 'brook

It is a interesting question. How would the IRFU feel about Connacht knocking one of the big 3 out of the HCup? Would it be seen as a healthy development? It almost happened a few years back when Ulster were going through their dark ages. Did it really though? Or were the media just filling pages. ...

Ulster's issues go well beyond their injury issues (which obviously are a factor). They look low on confidence and their work at the ruck isn't up to scratch. Anscombe has his work cut out to steady the ship and get these guys playing with confidence once again. I haven't enjoyed the last few perfo...

If Tuohy comes through this match alright could he come back into contention for the Ireland match? DOC just such a waste of a cap at this stage. Tuohy was pretty quiet against Glasgow, I get the impression that he's still finding his feet after his injuries, I'd say his return will have come to la...

Paddy Wallace is my moronometer. Hes sifted out an awful lot of chaff from wheat for me. Agreed, he has performed the same useful role for me for many a year now! I think Paddy can come back to play for Ulster - he's getting on a bit, but he still has a nice turn of pace and quick feet, and was in ...

If Tuohy comes through this match alright could he come back into contention for the Ireland match? DOC just such a waste of a cap at this stage. Tuohy was pretty quiet against Glasgow, I get the impression that he's still finding his feet after his injuries, I'd say his return will have come to la...

Just read today's article and couldn't believe what I was reading. Is that the one entitled 'Criticisms are warranted but we didn't get rub of the green' - which should more accurately have been entitled 'Criticisms are warranted, but Criticisms aren't really warranted'? It was kind of nonsense, I ...

Complete clear out! New guy brings his own people and team that he trusts It has to be. No question. Some sort of attempted IRFU fudge is just not good enough - e.g. losing Kidney and Smal, bringing in Ruddock, but retaining Kiss and Foley, or some such. Clean sweep, with a head coach given carte b...

Good post. Just one thing: gets on my nerves- "dog days" is a metaphor for the height of a career, etc. not it fag-end. As in the dog days of high summer are the period in late July to early August when supposedly the star Sirius is in the sky and adds it heat to the sun's efforts. I thin...

I honestly believe that we have seen a wasted opportunity over the last few years. With the players we have had over the last decade we should have won more. EOS brought us success similar to Cheika in Leinster. But what we needed to follow that was a Joe but instead we got a Deccie. I completely a...

I've never been overly enamoured of the Irish rugby press corps, but this past week has seen it plunge to heretofore unknown depths - from the painstaking yet unconvincing pre-emptive groundwork in defence of the (assumed) selection of ROG to the absolute nadir that was Conor George's hastily scrawl...

It goes a long way toward explaining the goldfish-like* memory of the print media. I think these effects (primacy and recency) do indeed go a long way to explaining the mad swings in media sentiment in most of the world - in Irish rugby the situation is different, and probably even worse, in that b...

It goes a long way toward explaining the goldfish-like* memory of the print media. I think these effects (primacy and recency) do indeed go a long way to explaining the mad swings in media sentiment in most of the world - in Irish rugby the situation is different, and probably even worse, in that b...

Something to bear in mind is that when we (all of us) consider a series or list of observations, we have a cognitive bias in favour of the first observations, and the most recent. So what happens is that we mentally overweight these observations, and underweight the intervening ones. And on top of t...

On a point of order - Ulster don't have "5 NIQs". We have 4 plus a project. And contrary to what one might think, our NIQs have clocked up 15% of minutes played this season - less than Munster's 17% (Leinster is a good bit lower - if you exclude Roux and Goodman as theroetical 'projects' i...

Thats a seriously impressive Wales team actually not impressive so much. I saw a recent thread on the UAFC had a look at the stats, and while we're all down on Kidney for his rubbish ratio of wins in charge of Ireland, around 53%, in the same period, Wales have won just 45% of their matches! And th...

Oh I forgot: Declan Kidney is an incompetent, inept, provincially biased rugby dinosaur who is unfit to coach the Irish team.

I really want Ireland to win this 6 nations (obviously, as every year) but it scares the hell out of me that if they somehow managed it a la 2009 that Kidders would get another contract - which would be a disaster. I am struck by the same dreadful thought - there's a good thread about this on UAFC ...

This is a list of some of the players who have been involved with the 20s at 1 stage or another. not sure how many are still involved George Cullen, George McGuigan, Ryan Furniss, Jake Caulfield, Conor Joyce, Alex O Meara, Thomas Harty - exiles but played with ulster/connacht in interpros Sean O Br...

I actually agree with you. O'Sullivan hasn't done anything at club level and it's five years since he's coached a highly rated team. Just as the press started feeding us with the line that Mike Ross isn't a good prop, they feed us that O'Sullivan is an excellent technical coach. Where's the recent ...

I agree that the tone of the coverage of Ross in the last week or so has been a disgrace, regardless of what the truth is about relations between him and the coaches, the volume of snide needling has been so much that as a matter of professionalism, not to mention common decency, I'd expect one of t...