Babbling 'brook

New season ticket holders will be ahead of the general public when it comes to getting season tickets in the new RDS.

If you want a chance at one of the new seats you pretty much will need to have one.

JvG was a political master. It was never his fault. He had a first season, then he needed a full season with preseason, then he had new assistant coaches and they needed time. There was a clearout or two along the way. Next thing you know he was there 6 years and it was still give him time to see if...

Connacht pay fairly low salaries apparently.

So there probably isn't that big a difference between academy and squad for some lads.

Still strikes me as funny that Illo skipped academy and is a senior player for 3 years. He played U20s with Boyle and Lasisi who did 3 years in the academy.

A lot of those players came later in his stint and were maybe more reactive.

Some of these players looked a lot better after he left. Not all, some did better. He tended to pick limited players with competitive spirits, akin to MOCs picking AIL ahead of raw youth.

Players were recruited to fill slots on the depth chart that don't exist anymore.

It'll be a while before we know for sure whether the academy success rate has changed or that was a blip.

GT having a go at fans and atmospheres again, shocker.

Cheers Neil. I guess the risk was a tradeoff to make other things fit.

It's fortunate that I'm not in the audience affected by this.

It'll be sad to see Ed Byrne going, but it's probably the right call given the way the age profile worked out. He's been an underrated player so hopefully he lands somewhere he's valued. He'd easily slot into the Munster or Ulster squads and he has a brother playing for Newcastle. I thought Cosgrave...

Don't rent a car.

The tourist stuff at the Vatican is closed on Sundays.

We like to beat ya, but no one else is allowed.

Most Leinster fans support provinces when they're not playing another province.

Even if we didn't we still want a financially strong Munster that contributed loads of players to the Ireland team.

Yeah, it was hugely frustrating. All the more so as Munster shifted to putting more and more resources into the meat grinder. The best next step that Munster could take is focusing on getting players prepared for the national team. There's no glorious future built on guys like Coombes,O'Donoghue and...

We got away with some better results than expected sending weakened teams to SA but it was always a risk. When it goes wrong it goes properly wrong. There was some good play but it only takes a little loose play when the opposition are in a clinical mood. We were lucky last year coming back against ...

Japanese Rugby thread

I've never known a huge amount about what goes on over there but I hadn't realised quite how many stars they had over there until I saw this article: https://www.rugbypass.com/news/ardie-sa ... sour-note/

I thought it was only a few marquee players.

PeteIRL wrote: ↑April 22nd, 2024, 10:18 am Ah, I see. Yeah, the Carbery one in particular seems to have been an unmitigated disaster. I thought Curate's post was referring more to stuff since he left Ireland.

Carbery was by far the biggest success of those moves, and it was still a wheelie bin on fire being carried away in a flood.

Joe Schmidt had conversations with Carbery, Jordi Murphy and Jack McGrath where while says he didn't tell them to move but they went straight of those meetings and immediately arranged moved. Ross Byrne and some others came under a lot of pressure but pushed back. I have no issue with Schmidt wantin...

Good post. I think Leinster are more focused on developing players with athletic potential. Munster pick based on short term. The Wycherleys were combative and effective right from the start. But also with obvious ceilings. That's not new, Duncan Williams, Archer etc. Remember that Wycherley was pil...

The prep for this game was one of the biggest weeks in recent Leinster history.

So much emotion last week, it went wrong this week 3500km away and 1800m higher against a decent side who are strong at home.

It sucks. But we learn and move on.

The source of this rumour about Boyle is someone who joined a few days before the LAR game. Maybe just treat like a tourist for the moment. Have you heard otherwise on Boyle? I'd be delighted to be wrong on this one, but I'm not the only one who has heard it on here, and then also separately being ...

Milne played tight and loose for the U20s, so he could cover. The other option is flying out McGuire or McCarthy.

If the travelling squad is 5 props we can't really send anyone else back early without bringing in cover.

No way that was clear and obvious. Shocking call Amazing how clear and obvious something is when you have to replay it over 10 times. And it's still wasn't clear to me that he played it first or that he was deliberately knocking down a pass. But then I thought Stockdale made a fair attempt to catch...