513 : Leinster v Edinburgh wrap

5 April 2026; Thomas Clarkson of Leinster streches to scores his side’s sixth try during the Investec Champions Cup match between Leinster and Edinburgh at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile


🏉 The 60m rollercoaster

🏉 Harry kicking on

🏉 More TOB worship

🏉 Reiko

🏉 Edinburgh



FULL TIME TAKES

Tom Clarke

Pretty poor despite the win. Disjointed and sloppy really. Not much else to say.

Sandra Seery

We’re a 2nd half team and we proved it tonight

Donna Malone

Quarter final bound 👌👏👌👏

Peter Tracey

The only good thing was the defence. If they didn’t give three intercepts and one blocked kick they wouldn’t have conceded.

Christy O’Connor

My comments I’ve posted from almost any of our games this season is pretty much the same and I’m guessing it will be the same for next week’s game because we are not improving

Richard Kennedy

Need to stop throwing risky passes in our own half. Otherwise it was a very solid performance in attack and defence

Cormac Mannion

Too much off-the-cuff stuff which led to soft scores conceded. Quite frankly, our handling skills aren’t good enough to play that type of game. Our defensive alignment breaks down after a couple of phases. We haven’t looked that loose a team since Ella back in 03-04.

Richard Collumb

A better team would kill us. We are going backwards in terms of how the players are doing vs when with Ireland.

For a defence minded coach Nienaber not showing on pitch

Dave Murray

Very soft scored given away again tonight. This style isn’t suiting us and that isn’t going to change. I have doubts we can win the big one this season, even before tonight. Bordeaux and Toulouse look too good to stop imho.

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CHAMPIONS CUP WRAP

ROUND OF 16

Bath 31–22 Saracens
Toulon 28–27 Stormers
Glasgow Warriors 25–21 Bulls
Toulouse 59–26 Bears
Harlequins 17–26 Sharks
Bordeaux Bègles 64–14 Leicester Tigers
Leinster 49–31 Edinburgh
Northampton Saints 49–41 Castres Olympique


NEXT HARPIN’

WEDNESDAY – 80+ COLUMN 


512: Leinster v Edinburgh preview


LEINSTER : 15 Hugo Keenan 14 Tommy O’Brien 13 Rieko Ioane 12 Jamie Osborne 11 Jimmy O’Brien 10 Harry Byrne 9 Jamison Gibson-Park

1 Andrew Porter 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Ryan Baird 6 Jack Conan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)

16 Gus McCarthy 17 Alex Usanov 18 Thomas Clarkson 19 Brian Deeny 20 Max Deegan 21 Luke McGrath 22 Ciarán Frawley 23 Robbie Henshaw


EDINBURGH :15 Piers O’Conor 14 Darcy Graham 13 Matt Currie 12 James Lang 11 Malelili Satala 10 Ross Thompson 9 Charlie Shiel

1 Pierre Schoeman 2 Ewan Ashman 3 D’arcy Rae 4 Marshall Sykes 5 Grant Gilchrist (c) 6 Liam McConnell 7 Dylan Richardson 8 Ben Muncaster

16 Jerry Blyth-Lafferty 17 Boan Venter 18 Paul Hill 19 Glen Young 20 Freddy Douglas 21 Ben Vellacott 22  23 Jack Brown


Investec Champions Cup

2025/26  Round of 16

Sunday, April 5, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1


Referee Luke Pearce (Eng) 

AR1 : Hamish Smales (Eng) 

AR2 : Joe James (Eng) 

TMO : Andrew Jackson (Eng) 

Citing Comm : Wejdane Limame (Fra)

511 : Leinster v Scarlets wrap

27 March 2026; Tommy O’Brien of Leinster scores his side’s third try during the United Rugby Championship match between Leinster and Scarlets at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile


🏉 Wonderful wingers

🏉 Backup 9s

🏉 Sam’s future

🏉 Fits and starts

🏉 Scrappy Scarlets


RICHARD MIFSUD


FULL TIME TAKES

David Lawlor

We strolled through Europe last season and came out with a disappointing defeat in the semi’s. This year we’ve been way below that level but we’re still in a decent spot in Europe and the URC. Hopefully with Ryan, Conan, Keenan and Baird to come back in the next few weeks things might improve. Osborne at 12 is the future.

Liz Power

I was bored out of my skull. There was a mass exodus around us between 65 and 70 minutes. Getting to the bar/train was more appealing than watching it

Christy O’Connor

That first half is one to forget. Very poor over all, we had a couple of moments of great play early in the 2nd half but it became stuttery again. JGP has made a number of passes this season that we’re intercepted, luckily the majority never led to tries. JJ Kenny and Tommy O’Brien were in great form.

This has been are poorest season in a long long time, if we win anything I’ll be shocked. The only thing we’ve been consistent with this season has been our ill discipline

Tom Clarke

Need to up the performance big time for next Sunday.

Richard Collumb

Nienaber is our Steve Borthwick.

Cormac Mannion

I thought we could rely on “muscle memory” for the next few matches and Farrell’s influence would still have an effect on the performances. Well that theory went out the window very quickly. The discipline of the team was an absolute disgrace in the first half. Countless penalties and zero defensive alignment.

The attack wasn’t much better. The team lived off raw talent rather than the coaching. It’s awful to watch and the more I see, the more I’m reminded of the 2014-2015 season under MOC. Quite a few players looked disinterested tonight

Kevin Kelehan

This game was always going to be imperfect trying to re-integrate the blue Irish players en masse. Thankfully the second half was better, bodes well for the more important games against Embra and Ulster at Ravenhill. The attendance below 13,000 is however a real worry for financial planning of the game next season, need to be getting much bigger crowds than this

Bernie Cunningham

Overall a patchy performance, lots of errors trying too hard at times. Need to up our game next wk…6/10

Gavin Hegarty

Good few of these players were firing under Andy Farrell two weeks ago. Now they are rudderless and dull. How is this possible? Something seriously wrong in UCD.

Louis Hoffman

We won’t win anything this year.

Chris McDonnell

Can’t play rugby without an outhalf. The best 2 outhalves in the club are frawley and tector. Pendergast is broken and needs to be given time off.  3 seasons ago Cullen should have done the decent thing and walked away. The man is deluded if he thinks he’s not the problem.

Michael Byrne

Harry Byrne and Frawley aren’t getting enough time at 10, no point in investing time with Frawley at 10 now with a move Connacht, Leinster will regret that decision. Harry Byrne needs game time, its going to cost us when we face tougher opposition. We were very nearly full strength and should have put Scarlets away early. They really came to play so it was a decent win but 3 years ago that game would have been over in 20 minutes.

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URC WRAP


NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “LEINSTER’S BEST XV”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 


Slaves to the algorithm & football Prague-matism

Saturday, March 28, 2026

Hi there, welcome to Broken Play, aka my Saturday morning Substack scribbling, and since you’re here, if you haven’t already, please hit the subscribe button if you don’t mind.

It’s another week when I write this AFTER our feature match of the weekend has been played – thankfully this time it was a win for my team, a bonus point one to boot.

At halftime I was approached by Huw Griffin, aka “HG Rugby” who was over for his first visit to the Aviva Stadium. He asked me what I thought of the first half, I gave my honest opinion that the Scarlets impressed in the first quarter but Leinster eventually grew into it and that we really needed a strong 10m spell after the break. I guess he was impressed with this response…

To be clear I was professing expectations rather than predictions but thankfully the boys in blue didn’t let me down at least for that spell. It certainly wasn’t a perfect performance but myself and Rich Mifsud will go over all that for the wrap pod recording on Sunday evening.

I feel bad I wasn’t able to chat to Huw after the match for his account as he requested, but I had to leg it at fulltime, I definitely owe him an interview at some point.

Here’s what I was thinking before kickoff, courtesy of my Dublin South FM slot after the 5pm news on Friday…

What I’d like to focus on this week is a disgusting post I saw on Facebook, sadly by another one of my fellow online creators.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL POST ON SUBSTACK

510 : Leinster v Scarlets preview


LEINSTER : 15 Jimmy O’Brien 14 Tommy O’Brien 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Jamie Osborne 11 Joshua Kenny 10 Harry Byrne 9 Jamison Gibson-Park

1 Andrew Porter 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Brian Deeny 6 Max Deegan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)

16 Gus McCarthy 17 Jerry Cahir 18 Rabah Slimani 19 Conor O’Tighearnaigh 20 Alex Soroka 21 Fintan Gunne 22 Sam Prendergast 23 Robbie Henshaw


SCARLETS : 15 Blair Murray 14 Tom Rogers 13 Joe Roberts 12 Johnny Williams 11 Ellis Mee 10 Joe Hawkins 9 Dane Blacker

1 Kemsley Mathias 2 Harry Thomas 3 Archer Holz 4 Sam Lousi 5 Max Douglas 6 Jarrod Taylor 7 Dan Davis 8 Fletcher Anderson (c)

16 George Roberts 17 Sam O’Connor 18 Henry Thomas 19 Jake Ball 20 Tristan Davies 21 Archie Hughes 22 Ioan Jones 23 Macs Page


BKT United Rugby Championship

2025/26  Round 14

Friday, March 27, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 7:45pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1, URC.tv


Referee: Aimee Barrett-Theron (SARU)

AR 1: Peter Martin (IRFU)

AR 2: Chris Lough (IRFU)

TMO: Quinton Immelman (SARU)

80+ column : March 25

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

  • WRAP OF A WRAP
  • THE IMPORT-ANCE OF BEING REIKO
  • PROJECT HAIL MARY’S
  • JACK OF ONE CLUB
  • BEN AND GONE
  • ACCUSED
  • WOMEN’S 6N PREVIEW
  • [EXTRA STORY]
  • LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
  • TROLL PATROL
  • COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Super Rugby)
  • NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

It’s always a pleaseure to have Cian “RugbyKino” O’Muilleoir on the pod, since he was doing his own show MudderRucker that follows women’s rugby along with also-friend-of-the-pod Ailbhe O’Nolan his opportunities to appear have been limited to say the least. Obviously it was a shame that his appearance had to be for a bad Leinster loss, of course, but still there was a job to be done picking apart what went wrong and he did an excellent job as ever. If you missed it, click here to check it out.



THE IMPORT-ANCE OF BEING REIKO

“…he hasn’t added any clear and obvious lift in quality to ‘the big show’ the east coast province are so used to delivering.”

Why Rieko Ioane is struggling to match Barrett’s X-factor impact for Leinster

Nick Bishop – Rugbypass.com

We touched on this for the wrap pod and clearly we’re not the only ones who noticed.

Two factors to consider before continuing…first, I’m wary of accusations of “import blaming”, something that has been known to happen at clubs not doing well throughout all team sports. We also have to acknowledge that it was highly unlikely that Reiko’s career cameo at Leinster was never going to come close to that of Jordie Barrett’s – although the similarities between them are plentiful, there are also plenty of differences so to expect the same output would have been crazy.

All that said, he has hardly set the world alight for us. It’s true, his intercept and pass on the run to JJ Kenny for our opening try in Scotstoun was quality, but when you wear that blue 13 jumper in particular you are expected to fulfil defensive duties as well and he was found wanting for more than one of the tries Glasgow made look all too easy.

To be perfectly honest, were I to pick an elite matchday squad for Leinster right now, even leaving out those injured, I can’t find a place for Reiko, which surely calls into question the value for money we’re getting for him.


CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE ON SUBSTACK

509 : Glasgow v Leinster wrap



🏉 Gone in 11 minutes

🏉 Struggling attack

🏉 Confusing calls

🏉 Defensive concerns

🏉 They were Warriors



FULL TIME TAKES

Cormac Mannion

I know people will say we were missing a load of internationals but so were Glasgow! Also, that squad of players last night had been training together for the last few weeks. You wouldn’t have thought it. Some of the handling skills were downright shocking. Zero intention shown in tackling at times. No real defensive alignment, no defensive patterns.

The attack ran out of ideas every time it went past 3-4 phases. Shovel it sideways and eventually basketball pass out to a forward loitering on the wing.

Sam didn’t have a great game but he didn’t have much to work with. Slow ruck ball and McGrath was very slow distributing to him with a number of hospital passes. He really was having to force the game at times and needlessly kicked the ball away because he ran out of options

We look badly coached and the shape of the team reminds me of the latter stages of Gary Ella’s and MOC’s tenures … the awful defence under Ella and the dire attack under MOC.

Our only hope is the returning internationals retain the “muscle memory” from Farrell for the rest of the season

David Lawlor

Discipline was a killer but falling off tackles like that is what you expect to see from the half time minis. Pack Reiko off now and use Henshaw, Ringrose and Osborne in midfield for the rest of the season. Snyman should only be used off the bench as an impact sub. Major questions to be asked over Sam’s ability to control big games.

Gordon Addie

Glasgow are regularly in the top spots in the URC every season, so should never be taken for granted that Leinster go and win away to Warriors, theyve lost plenty in Glasgow over the years. The surprise was how emphatic the victory was given Glasgow were arguably missing about 12-13 starters and had a 2nd string pack out, while Leinster fielded a team with several Lions, a Springbok and an All Black. The sides will look very different next time they meet likely in a knock out game but Glasgow will fancy they can upset them again.

Liam Brosnan

Leinster were a great team, now they are a good team. Other teams have improved, it’s cyclical. They are not contenders for champions cup but they are the best irish side

Kevin Kelehan

Glasgow are a different side to last season, much stronger, we’ll be back in Scotland for the semi in the Champions Cup assuming both sides don’t slip up. Discipline cost Leinster this match, not good enough, on 13 men conceding 26 points and chasing the game after that. Leo needs to field a near full strength side next week as the lack of match continuity was glaringly obvious in this defeat. Some of the more excitable fans showing their true colours after this game, you don’t turn on specific players and or the coach when you lose away to the top team in the league.

Greg Kelly

We used to win these games at a canter. You have to wonder what has changed? Ioane can head home now as he is not the calibre of marquee player required. Snyman has been poor the last few games and it seems teams are now wise to his offload game. Sam’s confidence has been shredded by the 6 nations and we looked soft upfront tonight. We need to be competitive in these international windows otherwise it’s uphill in the playoffs

Craig Grehan

Are we all neglecting the fact we’d a team of irish internationals not playing ?

Let’s not forget.

Why are we not playing Osborne? Ringrose? Gibson Park? Captain Doris? Van Der Flier? McCarthy? Ryan? Furlong? Sheehan?

Dont gimme the “International rest” crap.

We’d Conan and Kelleher there.

Big games need big calls.

We’re a team of softies at times

Richard Collumb

Coaching ticket not up to it. Prendergast needs a break & discipline needs improving

Chris McDonnell

The step up in attack when frawley came on was massive. To think he was driven out of the club is baffling. I’d say Lancaster can’t believe his luck.

The coaching ticket needs to go. The 3 stooges are dragging us from bad to worse. Cullen claims to love the club, if he really did he’d admit he’s out of his depth and walk away.

Christy O’Connor

I’ve said it a million times now, we have gone backwards under Nienabar and Bleyendaal. Ulster players deserve their spots in the Irish team, they are playing much better rugby, they’re playing how we used to play before we lost Lancaster.

Absolute shite rugby style. Clueless in attack. More fun watching paint dry

Louis Hoffman

Cullen and Nienaber must go.

Dreadful

But to see that kn*bjockey Zebo delighted that a Scottish team beat an Irish one. What a jerk

Odran John OBrien

Time for the coaching team to change

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URC WRAP


NEXT HARPIN’

TUESDAY

BONUS CHAT : “WOMEN’S 6N PREVIEW”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 


508: Glasgow v Leinster preview

ALSO AVAILABLE AS A PODCAST

LEINSTER : 15 Hugo Keenan 14 Joshua Kenny 13 Rieko Ioane 12 Robbie Henshaw 11 Jimmy O’Brien 10 Sam Prendergast 9 Luke McGrath (c)

1 Alex Usanov 2 Rónan Kelleher 3 Thomas Clarkson 4 RG Snyman 5 Brian Deeny 6 Jack Conan 7 Will Connors 8 James Culhane

16 John McKee 17 Jerry Cahir 18 Rabah Slimani 19 Conor O’Tighearnaigh 20 Max Deegan 21 Scott Penny 22 Fintan Gunne 23 Ciarán Frawley


GLASGOW : 15 Josh McKay 14 Kyle Rowe 13 Johnny Ventisei 12 Stafford McDowall (c) 11 Ollie Smith 10 Dan Lancaster 9 George Horne

1 Patrick Schickerling 2 Gregor Hiddleston 3 Fin Richardson 4 Alex Craig 5 Alex Samuel 6 Euan Ferrie 7 Sione Vailanu 8 Macenzzie Duncan

16 Seb Stephen 17 Rory Sutherland 18 Sam Talakai 19 Jare Oguntibeju 20 Ally Miller 21 Angus Fraser 22 Jack Oliver 23 Adam Hastings


BKT United Rugby Championship

2025/26  Round 13

Saturday, March 21, 2026

Scotstoun Stadium

KO 5:30pm

Live on : Premier Sports 1, URC.tv


Referee: Adam Jones (WRU)

AR 1: David Sutherland (SRU)

AR 2: Ciaran Stark (SRU)

TMO: Aled Griffiths (WRU)

507 : Ireland v Scotland wrap

14 March 2026; Jamie Osborne of Ireland scores his side’s first try during the Guinness 6 Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and Scotland at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile


🏉 Beirne & the backrow

🏉 Jamie O

🏉 Tartan resistance

🏉 Squad depth

🏉 What’s next


MARK JACKSON


FULL TIME TAKES

Cormac Mannion

Bizarrely we looked stretched out wide despite adding more pace in the backs. However, we.absolutely smashed Scotland up front. Really happy with how we’ve progressed over the last four weeks and we were missing so many players.

We looked far better coached today whereas Scotland lost their heads a few times

Louis Hoffman

Defence won us that game despite the score, almost nullified totally a great Scottish backline

Gavin Hegarty

When, in the history of any tournament, has each team come out happy?

France: winners

Ireland: good tournament and hugely improved after a disaster start. Triple crown

Scotland: retain Calcutta cup, 3/5 a good return

Italy: beat England for the first time. 2/5 a good return

England: salvaged a lot of pride in their loss to France and showed a turn

Wales: finished bottom but showed they are coming back to what world rugby needs

Just my Sunday morning thoughts!

Rugby was the real winner yesterday

Gerald Williamson

The Irish defense when under pressure from Scottish attacks performed exceptionally well. The subs bench made quite an impact particularly Darragh Murray’.

Bernie Cunningham

Ireland just a grt performance, Scotland just couldn’t handle Ireland in all aspects of the game today. COYBIG

Christy O’Connor

Brilliant performance, when will the Scots learn not to give us fuel before our games (Darcy Graham Ireland are there for the taking) 🤣

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SIX NATIONS WRAP

Italy 18-15 Scotland  

England 48-7 Wales  

France 36-14 Ireland

Scotland 31–20 England  

Italy 13–20 Ireland  

Wales 12–54 France

England 21-42 Ireland

Wales 23-26 Scotland  

France 33-8 Italy

Ireland 27-17 Wales 

Scotland 50-40 France

Italy 23-18 England

Ireland 43-21 Scotland

Wales 31-17 Italy

France 48-46 England


NEXT HARPIN’

ST PATRICK’S DAY

BONUS CHAT : “6N TEAM OF THE TOURNAMENT”

WEDNESDAY

80+ COLUMN 


506: Ireland v Scotland preview


IRELAND : 15 Jamie Osborne 14 Rob Baloucoune 13 Garry Ringrose 12 Stuart McCloskey 11 Tommy O’Brien 10 Jack Crowley 9 Jamison Gibson‑Park

1 Tom O’Toole 2 Dan Sheehan 3 Tadhg Furlong 4 Joe McCarthy 5 Tadhg Beirne 6 Jack Conan 7 Josh van der Flier 8 Caelan Doris (c)

16 Rónan Kelleher 17 Michael Milne 18 Finlay Bealham 19 Darragh Murray 20 Nick Timoney 21 Craig Casey 22 Ciaran Frawley 23 Bundee Aki


SCOTLAND : 15 Blair Kinghorn 14 Darcy Graham 13 Huw Jones 12 Sione Tuipulotu (c) 11 Kyle Steyn 10 Finn Russell 9 Ben White

1 Pierre Schoeman 2 George Turner 3 Zander Fagerson 4 Max Williamson 5 Grant Gilchrist 6 Matt Fagerson 7 Rory Darge 8 Jack Dempsey

16 Ewan Ashman 17 Rory Sutherland 18 Murphy Rae 19 Alex Craig 20 Magnus Bradbury 21 George Horne 22 Kyle Rowe 23 Harry Jordan


Guinness Six Nations 2026

Round 5

Saturday, March 14, 2026

Aviva Stadium

KO 2:10pm

Live on : Virgin Media One


Referee: Luke Pearce (RFU)

AR1: Angus Gardner (RA)

AR2: Damian Schneider (UAR)

TMO: Andrew Jackson (RFU)

FPRO: Ian Tempest (RFU)