Babbling 'brook

I cannot see Murray starting over JGP in this match, well though he played against Tonga. We'll be looking to play at the highest possible tempo and JGP is key to that. Murray will have a part to play though for sure. Last time we played South Africa, Murray did indeed start, but he went off injured...

I got this one wrong.

Surprised we are not leaning in to our squad more, and very surprised some players look set for zero playing minutes for the tournament. That I did not see coming. I wonder was it a bit unnecessary to play so many frontliners v Romania?

I don't agree Riocard. Somebody else may have the stats on this but the only world cup I can recall where we didn't get our full squad on the pitch over the course of the pool matches (excluding things like late call ups and emergency cover) was in 2007, and it was considered to be a contributor to ...

I would think the selection will look very similar to what CiaranIrl has suggested, though I have a feeling Conan and Sheehan will be in 'a week too soon' territory, and maybe Kilcoyne and Henshaw too. I'd be pretty certain Farrell will want to give match time to everyone who hasn't featured yet. He...

Devastating defeat. One that rips the heart out of you. I posted after last year's final to say that it was one of those defeats that you never quite get over, well this feels like another one, but even worse, because we were at home, were so far in front and because we lost last week too. It remind...

We can do this. We’re in our home patch. We’ve a great team. We beat Toulouse to he here. They beat Glaws and Exeter. The media have made them out to be monsters this week. Our lads will have a siege mentality going. We’re going to come out primed for battle. See yis there. Be f*cking loud.

COME ON!

Just listened myself there and it's quite a good discussion between Gerry, Matt and Joe on OTB. They talk about the points myself and Flash have been debating around the edginess in last year's performance, Matt appearing to agree with my thinking (for better or worse!) that the pressure of being ho...

They're pretty isolated from that. I honestly think the heat, the venue in France (virtually a home game for La Rochelle) and the fact that La Rochelle were brilliantly coached and played out of their skin were the deciding factors. Some of the commentary on winning a European cup is off the wall a...

I think the narrative that we would just show up and win last year is coming from elsewhere. We were playing a team we'd previously lost to in France in searing heat, no serious commentator and certainly not the players thought that was going to be easy/a gimme, quite the opposite. I remember how s...

Greetings all. A few thoughts from me before this gargantuan game. Nerves are almost unbearable, the week is crawling along. The loss at the weekend has made it even slower and more tortuous. I thought Gordon D'arcy's piece today summed it up quite well. It really stung. Anyway, enough of that, we h...

I have to say I thought the sin binning of the Maori wing for the 'deliberate' knock on seemed incredibly harsh, though I was delighted to get it. The touch judge wasn't convinced by it and nor was I. I couldn't really understand the question about 'could he regather the ball'. The player made an at...

Under pressure decision making not to go for 7 and settle for 3 continuously is not what this team has been doing this season but we did yesterday. Ultimately is it a mix of nerves and just trying to cling on and do enough rather than having the confidence to go out and win it in style ? Who knows ...

I haven't posted on here in a long time but I was following the comments on here in the week and after the game and a lot of salient points have been made. My two (or three) penn'oth... 1. It was painfully gutting. An absolute sickener, I think this will go down as one of those uber-painful defeats ...

Voted for Heaslip. Sheer bloody-minded will to win on his part almost dragged us to a European final. Not too many players have had stellar campaigns but he has been a big player all season. Toner & Cronin had solid campaigns.

I noticed during the England Match, that the choke tackle was not really used. To me it looked like the English players were making a determined effort to get nice low body positions so they wouldn't be held up, but I do wonder if in fact it was an Irish ploy to not utilise the choke tackle and ins...

Sexton didn't break into the Leinster team until he was 23 and that was because Contepomi got injured. This is one of the strangest misconceptions I see / hear repeated ad nauseum, as though Sexton made his debut in the Heineken Cup semi final against Munster. Sexton broke through when he was aroun...

The pass was forward. This business of the trajectory of the ball should only be relevant where the passer has momentum, which he gets from running at pace, which means the pass will drift forward over the ground even if thrown backwards relative to himself 'backwards out fo the hands'). If a player...

On the Folau thing, I think it would have been a penalty but the referee was playing advantage and went back for the original penalty, which was from a more favourable angle than the would-be-Folau incident. I don't think you'd ever get a penalty try for an incident like that, there are just too man...

The mid-game/half-time interviews are so bad. It's such gimmickery, they offer nothing in the way of insight. The lines of questioning are laughable and what are the coaches going to do other than offer platitudes? When Munster were losing to Ospreys earlier this season they managed to get a mid-fir...

The game in Bath swung when we brought on Eoin O'Malley. We dominated them for most of the game in spite of playing ordinary stuff, but kept letting them off the hook. O'Malley unlocked the door and we scampered up the pitch to score the match-winning penalty after he put somebody through a gap. We ...