Babbling 'brook

15: Ciarán Frawley (82) 14: Rob Russell (28) 13: Liam Turner (27) 12: Charlie Ngatai (22) 11: Andrew Osborne (1) 10: Harry Byrne (64) 9: Luke McGrath (206) 1: Cian Healy (273) 2: Lee Barron (16) 3: Thomas Clarkson (36) 4: Brian Deeny (16) 5: Jason Jenkins (34) 6: Diarmuid Mangan (1) 7: Scott Penny ...

ronk wrote: ↑April 18th, 2024, 10:07 pm I'll call it the Investec Cup or the Heineken Cup, but I won't call it the Champions Cup.

What if we win again, and we're the champions?

It used to be just the European Cup. Of course, the Safas throw a spanner in that works.

theres been rumours about every leinster loosehead outside of Porter. There’ve even been rumours about him: moving back to tighthead. We can’t keep them all. We have the Irish 1-2, a player well along the path to development who looks like he’s about to break through, a seasoned pro with internatio...

Murray Kinsella has a bit of a Quickening of his own - albeit only focused on the provinces. He does include the following interesting line - not unexpected I suppose. https://the42.ie/6357093 They have yet to officially confirm the squad they’ve brought to South Africa, but some front-liners have ...

Someone wants to give us a big bag of cash in return for naming a trophy after them. How very dare they. No problem with that. I don't see why this award has suddenly been renamed though. I doubt there's a big bag of cash for this award and the sponsors have no role in deciding it. I checked and al...

God I hate this ever creeping commercialism. Unless I am mistaken this award has never before been named after the sponsor. It was the European player of the year or the EPCR player of the year. Why is it necessary to ram the sponsor down our throats? EDIT - Mods can we change the title to European...

fourthirtythree wrote: ↑April 18th, 2024, 12:43 pm
Dupont has mainly shown how good he is by his absence this year.

He's started every single Champions Cup game for them this season...

God I hate this ever creeping commercialism. Unless I am mistaken this award has never before been named after the sponsor. It was the European player of the year or the EPCR player of the year. Why is it necessary to ram the sponsor down our throats? EDIT - Mods can we change the title to European ...

The Grand Final is June 22. Ireland play in Pretoria on July 6th. URC knockout attendances are terrible anyway. Having to travel wouldn't be that big a deal. Going all out to have easier URC knockouts didn't do a lot for us in recent years. We don't need to sweat it. Fair enough if you think that p...

paddyor wrote: ↑April 18th, 2024, 1:56 am Seems like a troll but there's a rumour .

I’d get rid of the rest of that post if I were you.

Munster love Coombes, there's no way it would be a good move. Can see him being surpassed by Gleeson pretty quickly to be honest. Yeah, Gleeson looks the real deal, unlike Coombes. But you never know how players are going to develop after u20s: Deegan being a case in point. I assumed he’d be on a f...

I thought it had been under-established, to be honest. They beat us quite handily in the semi-final three years ago, but that game was competitive [18-16 to La Rochelle] until the 68 minute mark. The other three games have been tight, the two finals incredibly tight. This game was done and dusted, ...

Could just go to 20 central contracts, max 7 per team, minimum 2-3 and tier them so that a gold label player (say Beirne) gets 3 years and a provincial quota alone (say Casey) gets 1-2 year. Or 18 or 16 or whatever That would seem to maximise the negatives of central contracts (centrally funding pl...

I think the point (when pushed) for a lot of the contract qouta believers is that yes Leinster players should be offered contracts after they have filled their quota but it should be accompanied with a move to a province were a contract vacancy exists. They either take it or leave it. I’m not sayin...

Could just go to 20 central contracts, max 7 per team, minimum 2-3 and tier them so that a gold label player (say Beirne) gets 3 years and a provincial quota alone (say Casey) gets 1-2 year. Or 18 or 16 or whatever That would seem to maximise the negatives of central contracts (centrally funding pl...

Nobody told Gerry that we were going to sign Jordi Barrett, Gerry starts giving out about how many central deals Leinster have. To quote Roy Bland, "You scratch my back, I'll drive your Jag." It has to hurt GT that his adopted province are now also rans in Europe. He added some obligatory...

TB retired at 29 after a 5 year injury ruined run with Munster. He did coaching badges while still at Munster. That doesn’t make him any older. If you’re good enough etc etc Though I went for a job interview two weeks ago with someone who was younger than me. First time. He was much younger too. Ve...

We better not be losing Paddy McCarthy. Wouldn't like to lose Brownlee either, but I would be upset if we lose McCarthy. Such a prospect. I rate Deegan very highly and don't want to lose him but believe he would be absolutely mad to stay at Leinster. He has had his best season ever and hasn't been g...

My goodness but aren't new coaches getting very young? Like Guards I suppose. TB retired at 29 after a 5 year injury ruined run with Munster. He did coaching badges while still at Munster. That doesn’t make him any older. If you’re good enough etc etc Though I went for a job interview two weeks ago...

They always quote prices before teams are announced and then change them once they are. They probably have a fair guess at the likekly squad and they also use previous years results in calculations. I’d say they don’t have a rashers of the squad. Regardless, I wouldn’t see Lions as favourites. It’s...