The Lions : Playing Only For Pride?

Now I don’t exactly want to put a dampener on all the hype surrounding the Irish & British Lions’ (considering the makeup of the squad I insist on saying it in that order) tour to South Africa, but I believe the odyssey’s place in the Grand Scheme of World Rugby needs examination for a moment.

Imagine this fictional scenario if you will. Say the three SANZAR nations put together a joint squad and sent them to Ireland so they could play a test series against our national team. Sure, that would be quite an event, right?

But there’s one snag … the tour would happen in the months of December and January. In other words, RIGHT before the Six Nations.

You’re an Irish fan through and through. How would you expect Declan Kidney to approach the series with the tourists? Would it be (a) go all out for victory and hang the consequences, or (b) go softly softly and try out some youngsters since you’ll need your star players for the Six Nations which is a priority for you and the fans.

I’d be very surprised if you plumped for (a).

Though I’ve no doubt that the Springboks won’t want to lose the test series, especially since they were the last of the southern hemisphere giants to do so, but are we SURE they’re going to give it their all right before they try to break the All Blacks’ four-year stranglehold on the Tri Nations?

And if it’s true that they won’t quite be firing on all cylinders, just how seriously can we take the actual matches themselves?

To be honest with you, I think these Lions tours are way, way over-hyped, and the true honour to be derived from them is actually being selected in the first place. What happens after that is little more than an end-of-season jaunt to a far-away land.

Not that I won’t be watching as much as I can of the tour, grant you, but only with a more realistic perspective than Sky Sports’ numerous promo ads would have me believe.

One thing is for certain…no matter how big Victor Matfield and the other South African second rowers may be, I can’t see any of ‘em trying to spear-tackle the Lions skipper this time around…

Next from the stable...

Here's an interesting snippet from the June09 Irish edition of Rugby World. Looks like one to watch for the future.

Tomorrow I plan to post my opinions on the whole concept of the Lions Tour. It's not too flattering either.

Leinster-19 Leicester-16

THE 19-16 LEINSTER RISING

Cometh the hour, cometh Jonathan Sexton.

Early in the season, I’ll freely admit, I was the 23-year-old’s harshest critic – not because I doubted his ability, only his readiness for the highest stage. You won’t find a happier man than me to be proven wrong.

Sky’s commentators may have awarded the man-of-the-match honours to the mercurial Rocky Elsom, but I think if a real Irish network was covering the match as should have been the case, Sexton would have gotten the nod out of sheer relief that there seems to be a worthy successor to ROG ready to step up to the big occassion.

His kicking both from the hand and from the tee was nigh-on flawless. Even when he miskicked, as he did with the winning penalty, it seemed to go over. But also he showed a maturity in choice of options when receiving the ball from Whittaker that definitely wasn’t part of his game before Christmas, that’s for sure.

What can be said about his massive punt of a drop goal other than it was world-class??? I never thought I’d see anything to match Paul Warwick’s brace against the Ospreys in the quarterfinal but there we had one at Murrayfield.

My contention going into this match was that if we played like we did in Croke Park and Leicester matched their Twickenham showing from last week, we’d win comfortably. As it turned out, they kept their end of the bargain and although we were a notch or two below the semifinal display, we still had enough in reserve to stay ahead of our English opposition.

There was always going to be a spell where the Tigers got near our line, but in the end they needed an extra man on the park to cross over for a score. Dan Hipkiss’ strong burst through the middle got them into the danger zone, Stan Wright’s over-zealous tackle of Vesty got him sin-binned, and Shane Jennings had to be sacrificed which as always going to give them an edge in the loose which they capitalized on for Woods’ try.

Still, even 13-9 down at the break, I wasn’t too worried. Even when when Dupuy stretched it to 16-9. I knew we had a try in us, and that surely the bursts of speed from the likes of Rocky and Heaslip would pay dividends, and sure enough we got there and Jamie touched down and although the scores were now level we were back in the ascendancy.

Then, however, I started to worry, because our boys looked knackered from the 65th minute onwards. It was the end of a long season. Players were carrying the ball into tackles with little or no support and getting isolated which wasted good ball more than once.

Luckily, Leicester were tired as well and Sexton’s kick seemed to have been willed over the bar by the thousands of travelling Irish fans.

They may have gotten back at us late on if Vesty’s own kicking from the hand hadn’t become so poor. On three occassions he had chances to give his side possession in our 22 and each time he barely made the halfway line. That is food and drink to even a battle-weary Leinster defence which could smell their first major trophy.

And what a feeling it was when Nigel Owens' left arm was hoisted into the air after the 80 minutes were up to show we had a penalty and fittingly it was Sexton who ended the 2008/09 season in the best possible fashion.

One side note…I can’t say I’m a fan of this rubbing and opponent’s head when they’ve made a mistake, as Castrogiovanni did to Wright as he was walking towards the sin-bin. I hope that doesn’t become a regular feature in the sport.

But when all is said and done, my Leinster are the Champions of Europe, though our neighbours from the south will no doubt remind us that we’ll need another one to match them overall. Bring on next season so!!!

Saturday’s Order Of Business

• 7am, get up, feed Junior
• 7:30am, go for morning walk, sporting Leinster jersey & cap, of course…
• 8:30am, have brekkie, watching Super14 semifinal, Chiefs v Hurricanes
• 10:30am, stick on Ireland’s Grand Slam DVD to have on in the background until time to leave
• 11am, feed Junior
• 12noon, make sure DVR is set to record the match from Edinburgh
• 3pm, hopefully babysitter will have arrived, and it’s off to Gleesons I go
• 4pm, hopefully ensconced in Gleesons with a pint & a good vantage point
• 5pm, kickoff…GO ON THE LEINSTER!!!!

 

Only Fate can determine the timetable after then…

Leicester scouting report

Although a few technical hitches with my DVR player meant I missed the last ten minutes, I saw enough of Leicester’s narrow 10-9 Guinness Premiership final victory over London Irish on Saturday to form an opinion on what to expect Leinster’s opposition next Saturday.

• First, it was nice of the Tigers to dress like the Cardiff Blues out of respect for the ridiculous manner in which they won the Heineken Cup semifinal.
• Sam Vesty, their outhalf, looks like the kind of person who is going to annoy me whatever he does and whomever he plays for.
• No question, Dan Hipkiss is their danger man, though on Saturday he’ll face probably the best pair of tackling centres European rugby has ever seen.
• Equally no question, Julian White is a thug in the loose who makes Quinlan look like an altar boy. Watch for his swinging arms at Murrayfield.
• Surely we have no better man to be our captain on the day than Leo Cullen – who himself skippered the Tigers on 10 occasions?
• And just how weird will it be for Geordan Murphy to lead out his team against his home province? True, he has lived in Leicester all his college- and senior rugby-playing life, but it would take some man not to let what victory would mean to Leinster fans affect him just a little.

To summarize, one fact appears certain. If the Leinster that played at Croke Park show up at Murrayfield and find themselves facing the Leicester Tigers that played at Twickenham last Saturday, then it will be a banner day for the Irish.

Having said all of that of course, we must factor in the pressure of the day, the Tigers’ excellent Heineken Cup pedigree plus our own lack of it, which makes it a relatively even matchup with perhaps the Englishmen shading it on paper as favourites.

Roll on 5pm Saturday for what should be an amazing 80+ minutes of rugby (and please PLEASE no penalty shoot-outs!!!)…

Draw Your Own Conclusions

Normally, if I’m going to bitch about something, I like to have an alternative ready to offer.

So when I decided I wanted to go on a rant about the ridiculous ways we’ve seen drawn cup rugby games decided in recent weeks, I gave myself a couple of days first to see if I could come up with an alternative.

One thing is for sure – the methods with which both the Heineken Cup semifinal AND the AIB League final were decided are NOT the ways to go, and surely should never be seen again in senior rugby.

What annoys me about the Shannon/Clontarf match is that, though you may find it hard to believe, I actually agree that the Munster side should have won, but not by the means they did.

Scorer of the first try?  Nonsense.  And it’s such complete nonsense that the players didn’t even know about the rule, the message had to be relayed onto the pitch while they were playing!!!

Here’s a rule that at least makes sense…when you have a competition that has been first run on a round-robin basis as most rugby club competitions are, if extra time can’t separate the teams, and neither has scored more tries than the other, then how about awarding the cup to the team with the better season record?

THEN all you have to do is MAKE SURE everyone knows this rule BEFORE the game begins.  I’d do this by making a tannoy announcement right before kickoff.

Shannon’s 52 league points and 2nd placed finish would thus better ‘Tarfs 51 and 4th place and the League trophy would once again go south, everyone would know what was going on, and there could be no complaints.

Now…before I move on to the Heineken Cup, I have one quick question for the IRFU…

WHY WAS THE ATTENDANCE AT THOMOND PARK SO GODDAM POOR FOR YOUR SHOWPIECE CLUB FINAL???????  Someone took their eye off the ball, for sure.  Wouldn’t that have been an opportunity to distribute free tickets to, say, schoolboys from both the Shannon and Clontarf catchment areas and give them a day out to create a better atmosphere???

Anyway, to the Heineken Cup.  I think I have this worked out as well. 

The quarterfinals can be done much like what I’ve outlined above…you have seeding already determined, so why not use them.

As for the semifinals and the final, why not play “next score wins”??? 

If you’re worried about injuries, sure its’s the end of the season anyway PLUS if a game is tied then surely the last few minutes are next score wins anyway, so why not prolong the excitement?

Allow whatever substitutions the teams want – maybe, as I think Jeremy Guscott suggested, reduce it to 10-a-side to open up the play a bit, but I definitely I believe that if a drop goal or penalty kick DOES determine the victor who gets the spoils, at least they would need to have played some rugby union to get to that point.

So let’s get some uniformity across the rugby world and not see farces like Cardiff and Limerick again lads!!!

Leinster-45 Scarlets-8

SCARLEH FOR ‘EM!!!

The visiting Welshmen never really had a chance at the RDS on Friday night, did they?

Their season virtually over, facing a Leinster squad riding the crest of a wave after Croke Park and even having the audacity to put out their strongest available XV.

That has to have been a hat-tip to the fans, who were witnessing the last competitive game in Ballsbridge for the 2008/09 season, and not one of us that were clad in blue was disappointed.

I must admit the actual match itself was lost in my memory by the numerous pints of Guinness I had afterwards in various drinking establishments, but one thing I know for sure is that the boys thoroughly deserved their resounding victory and appeared hell-bent on giving us our money’s worth. As if, of course, they hadn’t already done that six days earlier…

By the way, my Croker 09 jersey was a huge success. I couldn’t even take a leak without someone saying something about it! To anyone who prints names and numbers on jerseys, I want a percentage of any profits you make since Friday on that particular combo!!!

I have a thing or six to say about the AIB final but should have more time to word it properly tomorrow.

Farewell Felipe

If we sent this year’s campaign forward to next season, then tonight’s match at the RDS would actually have some meaning.

Starting next year, there will be a top four playoff to determine the Magners League champion, so the way things stand now, although our southern cousins are guaranteed to finish top of the table, Leinster would be keen to win so they could finish second and give themselves a home semifinal.

As it works out, although the match itself lends itself more to my “Meaningless League” description, the occasion is of course very significant.

Not only is it our last home game of the season, it’s a chance to celebrate last Saturday’s excellent result (which as you can see I have marked by embellishing my jersey), and Michael Cheika appears to have appreciated this by picking virtually the same side to face Stephen Jones and the Scarlets that lined out at Croker.

Also, it’s a chance, even though he’s not actually playing, to say goodbye to surely Leinster’s greatest ever non-Irish player, Felipe Contepomi, whom noone can blame for taking Toulon’s money for next season.

Should be a great night down in D4 – I can’t wait. Hope they’ve gotten in some extra Guinness kegs for me…

Bragging Rights…

If a Munster fan asks you the time, always give this reply…

“TWENTY-FIVE TO SIX.”

Leinster-25 Munster-6

PREPARE.  BELIEVE.  DELIVER.

Wasn’t that just the most impressive display you’ve ever seen?

And I’m referring, of course, to my skills of prediction, when I said that Leinster could win if they got Luke Fitzgerald the ball to hand AND matched their defensive display they showed against Quins.

I suppose the display of rugby by the boys in blue wasn’t bad either…

Seriously, though, to the match itself, what impressed me most is that although the first ten minutes went exactly the way the last two derby encounters went, Leinster were able to pick themselves up and find their way to their gameplan.

Though their intent was shown right from the kickoff as Rocky Elsom literally flew into his first tackle, soon after we were making simple mistakes and giving away easy possession and I for one was sitting there thinking it was to be a long evening.  These feelings were compounded when Contepomi missed his opening kick.

But something seemed to stir within the Leinster ranks at that point.  They were able to dig deep and show a determination not to capitulate and reinforce their “ladyboys” tag.  This was first demonstrated by the Argentine's unlikely drop goal to open the scoring.

This new belief was also shown, albeit with negative results, by Cian Healy when he received his yellow card.  There was no way we were going to match Munster on the day without our forwards getting right down there in the muck with their opposite numbers and duking it out.  Healy is just a bit inexperienced at covering it up, that’s all.

Still, it was in that ten minutes Healy was off the park that we showed our mettle, and with the drop goal making it a 3-3 tie over that period, there really was no looking back afterwards.

Now I was as disappointed as the next guy when Felipe limped off, particularly as it could have been his last ever appearance in blue and gold, but for some reason I had feelings of confidence in his replacement Sexton, despite the fact that I’ve been bemoaning him all year for not being ready, and despite the fact that he missed his first kick after coming on.

He seemed to be as comfortable with his ability as the rest of Leinster’s 22-man squad on the day, and as wonderful as the link up between Nacewa and d’Arcy was for the opening try, what I will always remember is the way Sexton got right up in his predecessor O’Gara’s face right after the touchdown to celebrate.

Naturally, no Leinster fan in their right mind would have thought an 11-6 scoreline was enough at halftime, but the moment that broke the match was when we FINALLY involved our wingers in a backline passing move and between them Horgan and Fitgerald bamboozled their Munster counterparts and actually had them up against the wall.

Now it was time for our famed defence from The Stoop to kick into gear.  What absolutely incredible tackling we displayed, particularly from Heaslip, Drico and the most unfortunate omission from the Lions Squad, Gordon d’Arcy.  Had he been playing since the beginning of the season, or even if McGeechan had postponed his announcement to next week, he would definitely be travelling to South Africa.

And so we held out a momentous dozen-plus-phase attack in our 22 from the reigning Heineken Cup holders, and shortly after we had the game’s crowning moment, the piece-de-resistance, which Hollywood script-writers couldn’t have imagined better.

I mean – how fitting was it that the two most renowned Munster players, ROG and POC, would try to link up on a pass only for it to be pinched by BOD who then sprints the length of the pitch for the clincher???

Now, it’s time to address a certain Mr Alan Quinlan.  I watched RTE’s replay of the game Saturday evening (owing to newborn-baby-inspired-lack-of-social life) and I can tell you this – the man was not merely guilty of gouging Leo Cullen’s eye.  He was throwing punches at virtually every ruck, and the fact that Sky’s cameras caught his transgressions so blatantly gives the Lions selectors a real headache over the coming days.

While on the one hand, Quinlan should definitely be punished, you have to ask yourself if his style of aggression could be just what the Lions need against the World Champions in June?

The best compromise, in my view, would be to ban him, but only from future Heineken Cup matches since the infringements happened in that competition.

But enough of what happens to Munster players.  It’s what lies ahead for my Leinster squad in Edinburgh on May 23 that takes precedent.  Sadly it is unlikely that I will be able to travel, but you can be sure that I will be watching every kick of the action from start to finish whether it be against Cardiff or Leicester.

Congratulations yet again to Michael Cheika and the boys for delivering such a world class performance which on its own must surely make everyone who bought a season ticket, for both this campaign AND next, feel like they’ve gotten their money’s worth and more.

Celebration

Whatever the result today at Croke Park, the occasion itself will be a fitting celebration for what has been a banner year for Irish rugby.

Of course I WOULD say that, being a fan of the underdogs!!!

But the thing is, Leinster shouldn’t be underdogs.  Our squad is every bit as impressive and talented as that of our nemesis.

The only problem for the boys in blue over the past few seasons has been a failure to deliver the goods on demand.  Once this season we did it, when we annihilated London Wasps at the RDS, but any other time we were required to go the extra mile we’ve been found wanting.

Here’s what I want to see today – a similar 80-minute defensive display to the one we showed at The Stoop, plus a more adventurous series of backline moves that doesn’t merely involve the wingers, particularly Luke Fitzgerald, by kicking into the corners.

Even if we finish on the losing side today, I want to at least be able to say we played our part in proving just how dominant Ireland is in Eurpoean rugby at the moment.

COME ON THE LEINSTER!!!!!!!!