‘Tis a cruel, cruel championship that makes you play the same very, very good side two weeks in a row.
Ulster somehow managed to pull off an away win against Toulouse, but nearly threw it away at the end.
What was so scary about the champions?
- Their seven-foot (or nearly) line-out stealer
- Their incredible counter-rucking
- Their loosey-goosey attack
- Their more than solid defence
- The World Player of the Year™
We face them this weekend at Ravenhill, but they are going to be revved up, I reckon. The score was 20-26, and that’s not a comfy cushion (‘No! Not the comfy cushion!’)
Read on for the other fixtures.
Onna telly this week
Friday 15th April
| Leinster v Connacht | 17:e0 | BT Sport 1 |
| Bristol v Sale | 20:00 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 16th April
| Chiefs v Moana Pasifika | 05:35 | Sky Sports Main Event |
| Highlanders v Hurricanes | 08:05 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Western Force v Waratahs | 12:30 | Channel 4 / BT Sport 2 |
| La Rochelle v Bordeaux | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Munster v Exeter | 15:00 | BT Sport 2 |
| Leicester v Clermont | 17:30 | BT Sport 2 |
| Scarlets v Dragons | 19:35 | S4C / Premier Sports 1 |
| Ulster v Toulouse | 20:00 | BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 17th April
| Saracens v Cardiff | 13:00 | BT Sport 2 | ||
| Racing 92 v Stade Français | 15:30 | BT Sport 2 |
Ovally Balls 
This is awesome. JC was an absolute legend.
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Ex-Bok Pedrie Wannenburg killed in a car crash in the States. Helluva player and didn’t always get the kudos he deserved.
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Christ: https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union/61181441
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Been a couple of instances in the Canes-Reds match where a defender has made no attempt to intercept the ball but knocked it down, but backwards and the ref has said play on? Makes no sense that if a player tries to intercept – an attacking move – he risks a card and potentially a penalty try, but slap it backwards with no attempt to catch it and you’re tickety-boo?
FD will be having a fit, with the Reds having had an overlap and ending up conceding a penalty.
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Deebs/Thaum – Jebus that’s a horrible story. Hope his son pulls through.
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Craigs – yep. Hard to know what to say about it.
Watching the Welsh derby. It’s 3-0 at HT.
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Ospreys woke up in the second half. 6-22 at FT.
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Apparently everyone else is still asleep.
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Hi there!
Saracens – Exeter in 20 minutes!
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…………..great thread
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Couldn’t see much of the thread … Twatter won’t let you look far for ‘free’ any more.
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Grassroots rugby update:
Last session of the season for the Under 8s (kids born in 2014) today. The youngsters did some fun games, which gave me the chance to slope away for a couple of quick ciggies, before they split into two teams to take on two sides made up of parents. I togged out and dazzled for about 3 minutes (oh, the lines I picked! I was like a very old Phillipe Sella) before feeling horribly ill and trying to hide on the wing.
I observed a strange effect: the kids are unbelievably knowledgeable about the laws of the game when the other side does something wrong but completely ignorant when it’s against them. Highly impressive to see such essential rugby skills at such a young age.
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We got back from our holiday yesterday – Beara was amazing and then we spent a night in Cork. Watched the Bulls run away from Bennetton and the Sharks just get past Leinster on the scoreboard despite biffing them up front. The URC table is tremendously close with just 4 points separating 2nd and 8th. Scarlets can still sneak in but it’s set up for some exciting final round games – which’ll take place 3 weeks after the penultimate week. Grrrr.
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We were there in Cork and so went down to see my, well, here it gets complicated. My granny’s dad was from West Cork and we met his brother’s granddaughter and her family. So she’s my 2nd cousin once removed, one generation up from me, although we’re almost exactly the same age.
We’d last met , oy, 30 years ago but have always got on well. Her dad, my granny’s cousin, lives with them now. He’s 98 now and apart from bad hearing is well up to it mentally. He was a huge fan of my great-grandfather, his uncle, who was the Ireland rugby international.
Anyway, we walk into the house and he say hello and he says, ‘God, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen you. Did you see the game last night?’ ‘No, I know Munster won.’ ‘Oh, yes, we went there to Belfast, and that’s not an easy place to go and won and we were missing 7 international players. 7. It was an amazing performance.’
Later he asked where we’d stayed in Cork and I said near UCC and Fitzgerald Park. He then launched into a tale about watching the 1953/54 All Blacks play at the Mardyke – ‘that place was always a swamp’ – against Munster and how after 20 minutes it was like watching 29 All Blacks playing and one Munster lad in red.
That took him to an Irish trial game he’d seen at the same ground and how Jack Kyle came off the field spotless but you could never drop Kyle.
So then I mentioned that we see Ollie Campbell about once a month. ‘Ah, yes, Campbell. A good player but I always preferred the Munster man what was his name?’ ‘Tony Ward.’ ‘That’s right. Tony Ward. Well, he was a Leinster man, a Dublin man, sure enough, but he played all his rugby in Limerick so he’s one of ours.’
Later he got on to talking about the Beamish family from Dunmanway. And that’s a tale.
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Best game of rugby I’ve seen in a long time. Well worth an hour and a bit of your time:
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@TomP
Interesting trip and encounters….
At this end, got back from a trip and straight into the Junior Interpro – we requested to host one in 2020 and it was cancelled, so finally 2 years later we got to put on Munster vs Connacht (only players in junior clubs allowed). We only got 6 weeks notice that it was formally going ahead but I think we did pretty well.
Got about 250 paying customers, put up a marquee and had beers, and BBQ, and most important a large number of people volunteered to cook food, pull pints, clean up, act as “hosts”, organise the parking, guard of honour, ball boys etc – it was great to see all parts of the club contribute and attend – in the past it’s been 5-10 people doing everything. And of course, weather was great – it would have been much less successful if it had been lashing rain.
Connacht won 19-17 with last minute try but key moment came at 14-7 to Munster early in the 2nd half. They got a kickable penalty and opted for the posts, and the 10 changed his mind for some unknown reason and tried to go cross field to the right wing. Ref pulled it back and from resulting free-kick, Connacht made a great break and ended up with a converted try to level scores – 10 point turn around.
Connacht were on the front-foot thereafter, and only some poor decision making/passing stopped them scoring well before the winning try.
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OT – unless it’s Frosted Wheats I’m not interested.
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I watched the Eng vs Ireland wimmins game at the weekend. Fantastic performance and very high quality rugby. Proud that we’ve done it etc etc, but I hope that other nations sort out pro contracts for their players too though. The Irish team are back in their day jobs today.
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Be more English. A sentiment for our times.
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Craigs – it was put on the telly about 5 or 10 mins before the end. HId behind sofa. There’s only one Pro team there.
Apparently the first half wasn’t that bad, but then there was a red card or summat.
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Thaum – mmmm don’t think the red made any difference. Like I said, I hope the other unions take notice of this and offer up proper contracts.
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Pro contracts are only part of the issue here – after 2 years of Covid, IRFU really doesn’t have any cash. But there’s a confusion here – we’re trying to run 7s and XVs out of same panel, when we all agree that they are effectively different games. Hence, because there was a 7s tournament on, we made seven changes to starting XV.
Another issue – I see – is that a lot of the women have come from other sports – ie GAA – as adults. So, even fully fledged internationals show a degree of naivety that you’d not see with players who’ve come up playing rugby from minis. Highlights showed our 15 Eimear Considine looking completely at sea as an English maul inched over the tryline – you could see she’d no idea where or how to bind onto the maul to try to prevent it moving forward. Ended up on her knees and the maul almost fell on top of her.
We need to expand the player base from minis upwards – my own club are doing ok with this – and rely a little less on adult cross-code recruits – this is a long term process. Pro contracts will help but they’re not a magic bullet. What’s killing us right now is scrum and lineout – lineout especially.
In the 6N, Ireland lost narrowly to Wales (overpowered in tight/maul), lost away to France – decent last 60 after poor first 20, beat Italy who beat Scotland handily and held England to half-time. There’s some green shoots….but first steps would be to split 7s and 15s – it’s asking too much for the players to “serve 2 masters”
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OT
just for you:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/jul/23/half-man-half-biscuit
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@slade
DId you mean this more modern one? The bit about scattering the ashes is fantastic.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/apr/27/half-man-half-biscuit-fanatical-followers-ashes-wirral-dukla-prague-tranmere-rovers-subbuteo
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oops – yes
great story anyway………..
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Something for the French speakers, a preview of a couple of games coming up, including my old team.
It’s been 28 years since I left and I’m struggling with the speed of the speech to be honest. I recognise the accents, though.
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Thaum, looks like there are only a few standing tickets behind the goal left for the Embra Ulster game at the weekend. It’s not a big capacity, 7800, but the proximity to the pitch means it gets loud for the players.
I don’t expect Embra to win, so I can relax a little and enjoy it.
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What a pity I won’t be in Embra at the weekend!
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Tiptoes in.
Posts prog video.
Tiptoes out again….
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Not the Jackson 5, I’ll say that much.
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Not even the Osmonds.
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More likely to nick the wheels of your car though
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@OT
Well, that’s an deeply buried memory you’ve dredged up there with “Our Kid” ….two when you add the reference to Glynn Poole and the implied reference to “Junior Showtime”
Begs the question – what were you searching for that this came up?
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Liverpool’s finest…………………………or not
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@trisk
Something to counter the prog stuff BB posted. I also learned tragically that in late 2020 Tony Baccino (the tall dark haired lad) passed away.
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Spain kicked out of the 2023 RWC so Romania get to play Ireland, Scotland and South Africa. Big test for coach Andy Robinson and his lads.
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It wasn’t THAT bad a song, was it?
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BB – dunno, didn’t listen. ;-)
Didn’t listen to the other one either, mind.
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No banjos, honest.
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I listened to it. Prefer this one.
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Both more rocky, and more proggy, and decidedly more fishy.
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Am pretty sure the only Marillion song I’ve ever heard is Kayleigh. And I’d like to keep it that way.
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Dismissing a band because of one song from almost 40 years ago? You are missing out on some great stuff, Thaum.
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SBT – if you’re going for fishy stuff, this is better. (They had a decent drummer by this point).
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Spain getting kicked out reminds me that ‘Pro went on for about 10 years on the injustice of one or other team getting stuffed by a mistaken citizenship rule/claim, but I can’t remember if Spain were the victims that time?
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