Happy New Year

Is it possible to recreate the past 12 months for Leinster/Ireland rugby?

Sure it is!

But whatever happens, nothing can take 2009 away from us.

Although I usually hate reading them when others do them, I fully expect you all to rush over right now to my main blog and read my list of favourite top 5 sporting memories of the last decade.

No prizes to readers of this blog for guessing the top two by the way...

Thanks again for following my humble postings and no doubt there will be many more in 2010.

JLP

Leinster-15 Ulster-3

COLD TURKEY

Armed with all the usual seasonal puns for this post, and given our demolishing of the Scarlets, I was expecting this to be a Christmas cracker in which we’d knock the stuffing out of our visitors.  Instead we were served up something more resembling cold turkey.

Setanta’s commentators seemed to spot an entertaining quality in this contest from their booth that I just couldn’t see from my seat in the Grandstand.  I reckon the fact that the score at 45 minutes was the same as it was at fulltime says it all.

Of course it has to be said that Leinster will have an elephant in their room for the next few weeks with the crucial Heineken Cup pool match in Reading on the horizon, so despite the fact that we had our best lineup on the park while the northeners were without Ferris, Trimble, Wallace and for the first half Humphreys, there are blessings to be counted in four league points and no injuries.

In fact you have to wonder if the LettinOn Irish will take heart from Ulster’s performance.  They clearly came to Dublin with a mentality similar to Mick McCarthy’s Wolves when they played at Old Trafford a few weeks ago…and they very nearly earned themselves a bonus point for their defensive trouble.

Leinster’s success has been built around their prowess when their opponents have the ball…but it seems they struggle when opponents give them a taste of their own medicine.

The two tries we did get on the day needed strokes of luck and genius respectively for their execution…D’Arcy’s offload to Kearney was clearly forward for the first try, while Rob was clearly back to his high-kicking best as he caught his own Garryowen and quickly offloaded to Heaslip who steamed down the touchline to be able to give his Sheareresque salute before touching down.

But you can’t fault Cheika’s men for hanging in there in the Magners League…to be second at the halfway stage is just fine and with Connacht away on Saturday and current table-toppers Glasgow to follow, we’ll have every opportunity to improve on that before the bigger contests come around.

Leinster-39 Scarlequins-7

AWESOME v AWFUL

I can’t decide whether Leinster’s second bonus-point hammering of the Scarlets in as many weeks was a result of us being awesome or them being awful, so I guess I’ll have to go with a combination of both.

Sure, the visitors started brightly enough, yet despite being in our half for most of the first twenty minutes, they still found themselves ten-nil down.

And even though Rob Kearney had his worst outing at 15 this season, he still helped himself to two tries.

The backs got all the glory in the scoring department, with two more each from both Drico and Darce plus a post-interception sprint the length of the pitch for Shaggy.

As for detractors of Shaun Berne, well there were still some rumblings of discontent around where I was shivering/sitting in the new stand but the way I saw it, he had a big part to play in at least three of the seven tries and deserves as much credit for this outing as he did last week.

In fact there’s not much more you can say about this team performance in that they carried on where they left off at halftime in Parc y Scarlets, and got the job done.

Maybe the crucial difference between the two sides was the respective home support. Both squads had a few injuries, but Leinster were more than able to allow for them, and having full houses every week helps give you the financial clout to do it. Can’t say the same for the Welsh regions I’m afraid!

Out of respect to our vanquished opposition yesterday, I’ll keep this post short and include a picture from the one try they did score via Rhys Priestland, in the hope that they can bounce back and take some group points off the LettinOn Irish in the next round.

Anything to make our job easier at the Madjeski Stadium, where this Pool is bound to be decided.

Same again, please!

Can’t do much more than ask for a repeat of last week’s return from the Irish provinces, can we?

But is it possible?

Well, on paper, Munster and Ulster seem to have the biggest challenges by far.

As for the boys in blue, well, all you can say is that if they play like they did last week, you can’t see anything other than another 5-point haul.

But here’s where the home-and-away element of the Heineken Cup rounds 3&4 come into play.  Apart from Lions tours, this notion of playing the same club two weeks in a row doesn’t happen too much elsewhere in senior rugby these days.

So you can be sure the focus of the Scarlets coaching staff has been to plug all the holes they left exposed next week, and target at least a losing bonus point on Saturday, since with the Irish at home and out-of-contention Brive away matches to come, they’re by no means out of the mix.

And like I said last week, even with a maximum ten points for us from our next two home matches, chances are we’ll still need a result from the Madjeski Stadium in what will no doubt be the tie of Round 6.

All of which makes tomorrow afternoon’s RDS encounter all the more intriguing, and I for one can’t wait. 

My request of “Same again, please!” will not only be directed at the Irish provinces but also at the hard-working staff at the Heineken counter beside the South Stand ;-)

COME ON THE LEINSTER!

Scarlequins-7 Leinster-32

PREPARE. BELIEVE. DELIVER. (Part II)

What a way to cap off a Grand Slam weekend by the four proud provinces of Ireland! But I’ll let bloggers from outside the Pale rave about their own results if you don’t mind…

Hmmm…Leinster win a crucial Heineken Cup contest in convincing fashion with an out-half who didn’t exactly have the fans’ full confidence. Don’t know about you, but I’m getting déjà vu from Croker in May!

That’s not the only reason I’m using the same heading for this post as I did for that momentus semifinal. For yet again we were treated to a performance which was clearly the culmination of a long process of preparation for which the bulk of the credit must go to head coach Michael Cheika.

After the Autumn International series everyone was ‘Sexton this’, ‘Sexton that’ and rightly so. He showed us what he could do in the green jersey against the world’s best, and it was awesome.

But then came the injury. Not too serious for Ireland’s sake, but at the time we Leinster fans were crestfallen because we thought we had no backup for our Heineken Cup double header with Kthlnethli.

Was there justification for our doubt? Sure there was. Shaun Berne had hardly set the world alight in either the Magners League OR the B&I Cup this season, so it seemed we had a gaping hole at a pivotal position.

What did Cheika do? First, he used the new “Top 4” system in the Magners League and sent a team of babies over to Newport. They got hockeyed, but his key players remained fit and we’re still well in contention when that competition reaches its business end.

Then it came time to announce the squad. We were all : “Who’s gonna be outhalf? Nacewa or Berne?” Debate was rife amongst the Babbling Brook forum, with the consensus seeming to be that while Isa would be better at the position, since he wasn’t much of a place kicker AND he was needed in the back three, we'd have to settle for Shaun.

Coach Cheika agreed with the choice of Number 10, but in his press conference, he not only spelled out different reasons, he made it clear to everyone…

The first person that I would have told that we were having a look (at Matt Giteau) was Shaun. He, like us, understands that the more quality players we have available the better chance we have of winning any game. So it's not just a matter of this week, there are other weeks to go after this. So if we take another injury in the backline - we're missing Luke Fitzgerald and Jonathan Sexton - you're starting to lose a good chunk in the backline. It's about having the playing resources for the big games, not for the development games when you try different things. These are games that we have to win.

So instead of letting the debate rage on before the makeup of the XV was formalized as would normally happen, he dealt with the Giteau thing AND publicly gave his replacement out-half his full backing.

From the kickoff at the Parc y Scarlets, the boys in blue showed that their gaffer’s confidence was more than justified. From Cian Healy at 1 to Rob Kearney at 15, the team produced a display that showed that even with no Sexton, no Jennings, no Fitzgerald (and of course no Elsom), we’re very much a force to be reckoned with in this tournament again.

And Berne himself was in my book every bit as impressive as Ronan O’Gara had been the night before.

What’s that? You don’t want read my descriptions of our four tries, you’d rather see them again yourself? No problem…just go here.

All clear evidence that the preparation had been spot-on, so full credit to the coaching staff. It’s clear the Aussie has this whole European rugby calendar with its long layoffs down to a T.

Not that this result means we’re a cert for the quarterfinals, by a long chalk. Having done the sums, I see that even if we get a maximum ten-point haul from our next two home matches in this Pool, chances are we’ll still be required to get a result at the Madjeski Stadium to finish top.

At least we know we’ve the right man at the helm to get us ready for the challenge.

Must. Win.

Tell me honestly, I can take it.  Have we, as fans of Leinster and Munster, become smug sons-of-bitches who feel we have some kind of god-given right to win trophies?

Yeah, thought so.  Just checking.

Well, whether you look at it from the inside for the outside, these back-to-back clashes with the Scarlets and Perpignan respectively are definitely “must-win” ones for both provinces IF they feel, as all their fans did when the season kicked off it has to be said, they can taste Heineken Cup glory again this year.

As for a closer look at Leinster’s team, well, I guess it would look a whole lot better with the names Sexton, Fitzgerald and Jennings in the mix, but the squad was been put together for depth so now is the chance to show it.

Besides, I’d fancy any team with the names D’Arcy and O’Driscoll at 12 and 13, whatever the makeup of the rest of the 23.

Much will be made of our weaknesses at No 10 but I have a feeling Shaun Berne will be up for these encounters, even if he won’t bring to the table what Jonny Ten would have done.

My biggest concern will be in the pack.  Much like Ireland’s needs against the Springboks, it’s very important we at least keep our opposition close on the scoreboard right up to the final quarter, and where we may fail to do this would be with penalty- and yellow-card-magnets such as Healy and Hines so hopefully they can focus their aggression.

Not that any Irish province is going to have it easy this weekend by a long shot.  Even Connacht, the our only unbeaten representatives in Europe, won’t find it easy against Premiership strugglers Worcester.

Yet despite the challenge ahead, the only province I predict will fail this weekend will be Ulster – I fear Les Pinks may be too strong for them over 80m minutes.

But what the hell do I know?  Well one thing is that it’s going to be an exciting two weekends of rugby whatever happens!

NG Dragons-30 Leinster-14

MEN OF GWENT, BOYS OF LEINSTER

No disrespect to the Dragons, but it has to be said, on most rugby weekends Leinster’s loss in Newport would look a lot worse on paper than did Munster’s in Swansea to the Ospreys.

This week, however, there’s a levelling factor…the teams the two Irish provinces sent to Wales.

I sounded like an owl when I read Leinster’s teamsheet…after every name saying “Who?” but it was clear what Michael Cheika’s motives were – having lost Jonny Ten for the crucial home-and-away series with the Scarlets in the Heineken Cup, he saw the points at Rodney Parade as expendable so he could wrap the rest of his first team in several layers of cotton wool.

So there’s no real point in getting technical about the gaping holes in Leinster’s defence in the first half of this encounter…not only had they not played competitively together before, they are unlikely to do so again anytime soon, even for the ‘A’ side, so we can chalk this game in the ‘experience gained’ column and take refuge in that we’re the only Irish team in the top four so we can focus on the Heineken Cup knowing we still have some eggs in the Magners basket for later in the year.

Not a whole lot you can say about the actual performance of the lads…I sat through the whole thing and I think everyone made mistakes even the seniors like Jackman and O’Kelly, but at least they won the second half 8-6 I suppose!

But the eating that will prove this pudding that Cheika has created won’t come till next week when we see how our strong 1st XV perform at Parc y Scarlets. Should be quite the contest, and hopefully our weakness at backup outhalf won’t be cruelly exposed.

Baa Baa (All) Black Sheep

This is a strange weekend in the European rugby calendar.

The Autumn Internationals are over, but they’re not…we still had the Boks/Wallabies All-Star Xv…er, I mean, the Barbarians, against the All Blacks at Twickers yesterday, and the Magners League is back in action, but in many ways it’s not, since Round 8 is little more than a training exercise for most of the clubs for the crucial home-and-away Heineken Cup matches to come for the next fortnight.

And yet we faithful oval ball supporters are supposed to accept the slight dip in standards regardless, and I for one have done my best to structure my weekend around the action in amongst all the family stuff and the X-Factor endurance so I can watch the action.

Of course the game at Twickenham was an entertaining spectacle, with Bryan Habana’s superb hat-trick the highlight, but apart from the colours of the jerseys and the actual victors on the day I found it hard to find too many comparisons with the 1973 encounter.

First of all, you had the ridiculous sight of the Baa-baas actually going for a 3-point penalty. Quite right for the crowd to boo.

But surely the reason the pundits love to harp on about the 73 match, complete with “the” try, is that the Barbarian team was mostly made up of home players? With the exception of Jamie Roberts and a few Italians, the majority of the players were from the southern hemisphere, and in a sport that is so steeped in tradition, I got the sense that the wool was being pulled over the paying spectators’ eyes in many ways.

Meanwhile in the Magners League it hasn’t been a good weekend for the Irish provinces so far, and with bottom of the table Connacht going to Cardiff and my Leinster sending their younglings to Newport, it doesn’t look like it will get much better.

Just what the hell is happening at Munster? Not only do their jerseys make them look like Liverpool FC, their league season is starting to look like theirs as well! And I have to say, I baffled at the way Tony McGahan was “rewarded” with a new contract during the week. Surely these decisions should be made over the off-season? Makes it all look a bit suspect when the team loses it’s fifth competitive fixture in only the first weekend in December!

Have to say it reminds me of Eddie O’Sullivan getting his contract renewed before a World Cup ball was even kicked in 2007.

Then there’s ROG. I don’t want to gloat over his poor form, because even with the Rise of Jonny Ten this season, he’s still a vital cog in Ireland’s plans to defend their Grand Slam in the New Year, and I definitely hope McGahan & Kidney between them can help him get his mojo back.

As for Ulster, they were all kinds of awful at Ravenhill on Friday night. Must’ve been a real sickener for the home fans who braved the atrocious conditions to watch them give Dan Parks kick after kick after kick.

Maybe I was premature in dropping my “Meaningless League” nickname, as it is clear that the first half of the competition is treated with virtual indifference by the IRFU, WRU and SRU respectively.

I mean, no real disrespect intended, but the presence of both Scottish clubs at the top of the table is testimony to that for anyone who looks at the history of the competition objectively!

But that could all change this afternoon if Leinster’s kiddies do the biz at the Dragons. Could be an interesting end to an unusual weekend of rugby.