ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

• WRAP OF A WRAP
• REF BASHES REF
• FRAWL-WAY
• ROG ON HOW ‘TOULOUSE’
• 2026 6N HURDLES
• WEATHERING THE STORMERS
• HARPIN’ ON…2025 IN REVIEW
• LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
• TROLL PATROL
• COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Celtic Challenge)
• NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

Given the time of year that was in it I was prepared to do a “solo” wrap pod for the Munster match but thankfully Ciarán Duffy was able to step in.

Please do check out his fundraising page for the charity As I Am and contribute if you can, here is some info there but there’s a lot more on the end of the link…

As I Am carry out vital work in Ireland for autistic people and their families. This includes:

• Providing necessary and appropriate help to austic people
• Providing support for family members and carers of autistic people
• Educating people on the realities of autistic people
• Challenging stigma and disinformation around autism
• Helping autistic people live a fulfilling life

Normally for these Front Five segments I go out of my way to find topics that are far removed from our Harpin’ feature matches since we cover those on the podcasts, but I really had to make an exception for this one.

On the Munster v Leinster wrap I did speak to the over the top reactions to the refereeing on the socials, ones that suggested the questionable calls only went against Munster, but then I read this article were Owen tells the keyboard warriors to hold his beer. A contributor in the Harpin WhatsApp group said it best…

I was frankly shocked to discover the author is a former head of referees for the IRFU, given how firmly he flung a neophyte referee under the bus

And the fact that it is a respected referee doing the criticism, particularly at a time when we are supposedly meant to be protecting officials from abuse, compounded all of my other complaints re the content…

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL COLUMN ON SUBSTACK

ON THIS WEEK’S COLUMN…

• WRAP OF A WRAP
• THORNY FORMAT
• HOW ‘TO LOSE’ POINTS
• RAZOR & ROG?
• COCKERS OUT
• ANDREW’S GAAFFE
• LOWE & BLEYENDAAL ON LEINSTER’S ATTACK
• THE RISE AND RISE OF PADDY MCCARTHY
• LEINSTER SQUAD UPDATE
• TROLL PATROL
• COMPETITION UPDATES (incl Japan League One)
• NEXT HARPIN’

WRAP OF A WRAP

This week’s wrap pod was probably our shortest ever, so much so that I added a sample of the bonus chat to the end to give it a few extra minutes. I still think myself & Hugo covered the win in Leicester pretty comprehensively, though I think in future I’ll aim to go a bit longer. The pods were pushing an hour last season, which was too much, but I think under 30m is going too far in the other direction. Takes a while to bed in a new system I guess, although I can’t believe this was the THIRTEETH Sunday night recording of the season already – have we really been going for a quarter of a year???

Anyway ICMYI you can have a listen here.

Thorinho doesn’t think he’s the first to discover the format flaws in the comp is he? Fans have been railing on it for years now, as have I been, well, I suppose you could say “defending it” though that’s not quite the case. I think it would be better to say that my problems with it seem to be different to everyone else’s.

I really don’t get the whole fixation with “being easy to qualify for the knockouts” which appears to be the biggest bugbear. While I do agree that 24 teams are too many (especially when the team finishing 3 from bottom of the Premiership gets in) the fact that you can lose one match and still reach the round of 16 isn’t as ridiculous to me as it is to some.

Because should you qualify this way, you will face an away challenge in that Round of 16 to a team that has probably won all their matches, and thus you will either not go any further, or you can produce a headline making result.

The Round of 16 has replaced rounds 5 & 6 of the pool stages under the old method, which to my mind was equally ridiculous and when there were only 8 qualifiers out of 24 or 20, teams selecting weaker sides was still an issue.

Where the problem lies for me is the fact that the competition is scattered throughout the season in blocks. Two matches here, two there, with domestic matches in between, plus of course the massive Six Nations-sized gap where it’s possible for clubs to go into the knockout stages with a very different squad to that which contested the pools.

I have always argued on these pages that rugby tournaments should be played in one block no matter what the format, and what the Northern Hemisphere season does is force coaches to choose between competitions when it comes to selecting their squad, and frankly I can’t blame them when they more often than not prioritize qualification for next year’s Champions Cup over success in this year’s.

To be fair, I would still be in favour of reducing the amount of teams, but I also have sympathy with the EPCR over the small amount of dates available for the pool stages. Since COVID the Premiership & 🔝🐱🐴 seem reluctant to give the two dates back so assuming the Champions Cup absolutely MUST make do with just 4 rounds, my proposed changes would be a reduction to 18 clubs as well as something I can’t believe I’m suggesting.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the rugby blazers has been an over-reliance on copying what football does and expecting it to be as lucrative. Just look what they did to rebrand the Heineken Cup, making it look almost identical to the Champions League with a similar logo and even playing an “anthem” before matches. Most crucially they tried to mimic the sponsorship model in the hope that it would attract multiple sponsors when instead they can barely get one for the main event and can’t seem to get any corporate interest at all in the Challenge Cup.

But for me the one thing from soccer they could borrow is a recent change to a “Swiss model” of pool stage, namely one big league table for all the clubs as opposed to separate pools. This takes away a glitch found last year in a pool which included Bordeaux and Toulouse, as well as one that could possibly happen again in Leinster’s pool along with the Stormers, whereby a team can win all their matches yet still fall outside the top 4 seeds. IMO this is a much more “ridiculous” outcome than one win scraping you into a likely Round of 16 tonking.

There could also be a realignment of prize money making mere qualification for the competition less lucrative and offering more for reaching the final eight, putting more jeopardy on the round of 16 assuming there has to be one.

But I’m sure the debate will go on.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL COLUMN ON SUBSTACK