Babbling 'brook

Matfield might be worth signing just to break our hoodoo with SH locks (Sykes, EOD, Finnegan, Byrnes, Williams) The other alternative is sign Northern Hemisphere locks. That Scots lad at Clermont looks a bit tasty......;-) Hugonaut, great post on Caldwell, you nearly had me convinced......;-) The U...

And as for our 'luck' with injuries, well this was our list of unavailables for last Saturday Not considered due to Injury: Mat Berquist, Shane Horgan, Brian O’Driscoll, Dominic Ryan, Simon Shawe, Eamonn Sheridan, Luke Fitzgerald, Kevin McLaughlin, Andrew Conway, Jonathan Sexton We're just lucky th...

hugo i said munster have the ability to play like that every game, hardly the same as saying that we will play like that every game. Imo munster have a good chance of pushing on from here and are in with a very good shot of making the final. That munster team is very new and is missing a few player...

I agree, but i also think we are not far from a great performance. Which might not come with the 6n around the corner. I also think it is worth mentioning that munster went out in the group stages for the first time since 98 last season, but managed to be the first team to qualify for a qf this sea...

He has signed a year deal with Sharks back home. I think the smart move would be for Leinster to bring Caldwell back from bath. Disappointing that the Sykes move didn't work, my Saffer mates rated him very highly as a footballing lock. Doubly disappointing for both Leinster and Ireland in a problem...

He has signed a year deal with Sharks back home. I think the smart move would be for Leinster to bring Caldwell back from bath. Caldwell has a season and a half to run on his contract with Bath. I doubt they'd want to let him go, even if we [Leinster] offered to buy the contract out - he has been v...

In light of the results of provincial competition – namely three of the four provinces qualifying for the HEC knock-out stages – I'm hopeful of a championship win. I've a lot of faith in Les Kiss as a coach, and I think he'll do a good job as an attack coach I think a victory in France is a huge ask...

Savage performance from Munster, absolutely first-rate stuff. So many positives to take from that game.

Three out of the four provinces qualified for the quarter-finals, the fourth having just beaten the first-placed team in the Aviva Premiership. Some stuff ...

Fascinating selection. It's tempting to 'hear footsteps' [so to speak] in light of the IRFU announcement on NIQ players, Declan Kidney's recent announcement on squads and this morning's article re: Munster chasing an in-contract Rhys Ruddock. I'd imagine that once we had the win over Glasgow away, a...

Shaggy is a prince. He has been shamefully forgotten by a lot of the hacks this season [especially in the greasy Indo] when they're referring to Drico's surgery or Munster's injury problems. He's the top try-scorer [69 tries] and the most-capped [203 caps] player in the history of the province, as w...

Rhys Ruddock being linked with Munster by GT in IT today Not sure he'd get much more game time there than here which is the only thing he would move for He can only play 6 and Munster have Peter O'Mahony there plus Leamy to come back (although I'd rate Ruddock ahead of them) Munster would have to d...

Scott wrote:

simplythebest wrote:The short sightedness of tipping Nathen overboard at the end of last season, will be revealed, I fear.

IRFU showed him the door not Leinster

There is no way in f*ck we wanted to get rid of Nathan Hines.

Comer Toes wrote: Kidney has taken the inpenetrable man of mystery rubbish to another level. He is obsessed with politics and PR shields.

Well said, indeed. Some of the selection decisions are impossible to follow - on a logic or form basis.

Tackle-bag. What about Paddy Wallace? It's time for Ulster to move on from Wallace in my view. He'll be 33 this year and he plays in a position in which Ulster have two outstanding young prospects in Spence and Marshall. He's not even a Pro12 standard outhalf and never has been; even if he was, you...

Leaving Gilroy out of both squads is possibly the worst call of Kidney's tenure. If we were being adventurous and looking towards the future, there would be a strong argument in favour of starting him for the Italy game at least. His record of 12 tries in 29 starts for Ulster, at the age of 20, spe...

The Nagle and Conway selections are pure whimsy and must irritate some of the players left out. Conway has had two starts this season [admittedly owing to injury] and Nagle has had one – and he's had no serious injury problems. O'Mahony has played 14 games, with 12 starts [including 4 HEC starts and...

Perhaps it's just me but should one of the squads not have Jamie Hagen's name in it? Deccie playing favorites, simple as that. Irritating and frustrating call by Kidney. We need more tight heads training at a high level, not less. Bunter Archer has started fewer matches and played less minutes this...

For legibility's sake. Ireland Squad: Forwards: Props: Tom Court (Malone - Ulster); Cian Healy (Clontarf - Leinster); Mike Ross (Clontarf - Leinster); Paddy McAllister (Ballynahinch - Ulster)* Hookers: Rory Best (Banbridge - Ulster); Sean Cronin (St.Mary's College - Leinster) Second-rows: Leo Cullen...

tate wrote:Cave is out for 6 weeks, according to twitter.

Ugh. That's unlucky. Six weeks might mean he's back in time for our penultimate match against Scotland [10 March].

cormac wrote:
Damian Browne only signed a 1-year deal with Leinster.

I thought he was on a 2-year deal. My mistake. We might be signing him up for another one, seeing how things are panning out on the second-row front!