Babbling 'brook

Unlike other major rugby leagues in world rugby, it’s all in the one country,

Appreciate the drive by on the Prem, there.

Interesting perspective but I would think a different conclusion would be drawn if you weight by time training vs time in games.

Edit: faod, I think rolling the dice on selecting your first(ish) match day squad is still worth doing.

Skelton a doubt for the game against Fiji tomorrow.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/ ... uad-pool-c

Just shows once again how desperate lads are to stay here and fight for their place, despite the depth of talent in the squad. We take the environment that's been created for granted. Easy for fans to do, but it must be apparent to players that no one leaves Leinster to get better. I have kids here...

Yeah, Leinster has a bigger and more concentrated population than Munster. Yet per capita attendance is higher in Thomand than in the RDS throughout the year. This suggests that Munster have an advantage of having a population that, on average, is more interested in rugby. In the past this more tha...

There are actually two narratives being pushed, from different sources. One is our southern cousins' claim about demographics; the other is the English beef with our allegedly unfair budget. The English will always complain when they get consistently beaten by us: an Irish side beating English teams...

Oldschoolsocks wrote: ↑April 13th, 2023, 12:52 pm I wouldn’t be ringing the death knell of English rugby just yet.

They’ve a huge population a massive tradition.

Absolutely, as we've all no doubt learned recently, the main determinant of success on the pitch is de demagrafics, and they have that going for them, now as ever before.

Very late to this but as someone who comes here as a lurker mostly, it has been on my mind for sometime just how much MI adds to the site and justifies me coming back. There is literally no way to pay for the insight he provides on the pipeline of potential Leinster players, and MI does it pro bono....

Has anyone watched the Analyst Eye with Murray Kinsella on youtube? I have been really enjoying it the last couple of weeks and think the analysis is excellent. But more specifically this week they focussed on the lineout for Leinster. Basically they showed a number of major lifting errors in the f...

London Irish just beat the Saints in the Gardens. They could just play with freedom as the great fear of relegation has been removed.

Dave Cahill wrote:

Ruckedtobits wrote:Have no recording of that. Anybody know where I can get a stream replay?

Up on acrossthetasman.com already

Any other sources, do you know? I'm not a member at acrossthetasman.

He has played at 10 far more than he would've with us, has kicked well, gotten MOTM in a big Euro game and been nominated for a big individual award. I would say that so far, the reality is it has been a good move. Absolutely - for him, Munster and Ireland. Just because we are/might be aggrieved at...

(It is a nice article, btw, he always comes across really well. But he must have the patience of a saint to keep hearing about healing those wounds etc.)

The year is 2100. Stewart Lancaster, having discovered the secrets of immortality and shared them with a grateful world, has become the greatest hero in history. He addresses a crowd of cheering people, taking questions one by one. "Stewart, can you tell us how you felt, crashing out of your ho...

Read an article in the French media calling Ringrose 'probably the best centre in the world'. Wouldn't agree with that statement yet but high praise indeed. He was masterfully good yesterday. Always had the sense that Ringrose was underrated outside of Ireland. Those team of the week things that ev...

Agreed on both points. I'm not having a pop at Connacht just my impression was that they were nowhere till Lam cam along, then were superb and won the league, then went back to nowhere. Glancing at their record (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connacht_Rugby#Pro14_2) that is harsh - their decline from...

Attacking Connacht? I didn't intend to. They had that epic season under Lam when they were deserving winners of the league but since then they seemed to have regressed to where they were before. Mind you, I saw them last week for the first time in ages and they were superb - maybe that is now standa...

The Ireland coach has 3.5 provinces to choose from (Connacht still a work in progress). That is tough enough - any less than that is a real problem. So we need a strong and competitive Munster. Running Munster at a loss is worth it for that alone. In fairness to them, even when they are relatively s...

Better side lost tonight, George let umpteen forward passes go. Then there was penalty after the knock on that wasn't. Sickener. Don't think the ref called a knock on. But it was a penalty. It was a penalty for picking up the ball after his own player had knocked it on, only he hadn't. That moved p...

tomthefan wrote:Better side lost tonight, George let umpteen forward passes go. Then there was penalty after the knock on that wasn't. Sickener.

Don't think the ref called a knock on. But it was a penalty.