Bring. It. On.

Time to consign my Leinster jerseys and t-shirts to the wardrobe, and with it the various flags that adorn the upstairs window and my car.

With the exception of a scheduled match with the Scarlets and a possible re-scheduled one with Glasgow, the Magners League and Heineken Cup take back seats as the highlight of the European rugby calendar, which curiously takes place smack bang in the middle of the season, kicks off at Croke Park a week from Saturday.

So I guess it’s only proper to tweak the aul’ blog as well to show I’m willing to put my blatant Leinster bias to one side for a few weeks.  WELL…maybe I won’t be able to help myself favouring the BODs and the Heaslips ahead of the O’Leary’s and the O’Connells, but sure that’s all part and parcel, isn’t it?

And you can be sure I’ll be posting my thoughts on a regular basis throughout the campaign, which for me will culminate in a stag weekend in Limerick for the final weekend of matches.  Too much to hope for a second successive Grand Slam to be on the line by then?

As always, the order of play has a part to play in the progress of the tournament, so here’s all the details on the extremely unlikely off-chance that you haven’t already cleared your schedule…

Saturday, 06 February 2010

Ireland v Italy, 14:30

England v Wales, 17:00

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Sunday, 07 February 2010

Scotland v France, 15:00

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Saturday, 13 February 2010

Wales v Scotland, 14:00

France v Ireland, 16:30

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Sunday, 14 February 2010

Italy v England, 14:30

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Friday, 26 February 2010

Wales v France, 20:00

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Saturday, 27 February 2010

Italy v Scotland, 13:30

England v Ireland, 16:00

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Saturday, 13 March 2010

Ireland v Wales, 14:30

Scotland v England, 17:00

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Sunday, 14 March 2010

France v Italy, 14:30

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Saturday, 20 March 2010

Wales v Italy, 14:30

Ireland v Scotland, 17:00

France v England, 19:45

LettinOn Irish-11 Leinster-11

FOLLY MALONE

Events at Twickenham proved one thing for sure…to get the luck of the Irish, it’s not enough to merely call yourself Irish.

Poor Chris Malone just had one of those games.  And let’s be honest, we’ve all had them playing sports one time or other.   When no matter how many different ways you look back over it and try to find alternative summaries, you always come back to the simple truth : “If it weren’t for me, we’d be in the last 8”.

Leinster for their part played like a team who wanted to do the bare minimum for fear of injuring any of their 6 Nations stars, and they succeeded in that.  With the exception of Gordon d’Arcy finding some world-class lines, we seemed happy to hold on to possession when we had it without breaking too much sweat.

The “home” team, however, seemed to have their gameplan just right, and set about “out-Leinstering Leinster” from the start, keeping it tight throughout doing their best to thwart us whenever they could.

And their lineout prowess was just as impressive as it had been in the RDS in October, consigning Bernard Jackman to the bench before halftime.

Now call me a biased Leinster fan all you want, and that’d be ok because I definitely am one, but it really did seem that Nigel Owens was giving every 50-50 call to the home side, particularly in the second half, when he and his touch judge missed Mapusua being well in front of the kicker at one stage, and also there was a suspicion of a forward pass right before Malone’s try.

But despite the fact that he got all 11 of his side’s points, Chris Malone will always be remembered for the 17 points – 1 inexplicable conversion, 2 penalties and 3 dropgoals [the fourth miss was only after a loss of sanity by Rob Kearney following the third one] – he failed to get, and you can be sure that right now it REALLY sucks to be a LettinOn Irish fan.

I mean…when the draw was made for this competition and the Irish were drawn with the reigning champions, had a time traveller appeared and told their supporters 3 facts…(a) Leinster won’t beat you, (b) They’ll still win the group AND get a home quarterfinal, and (c) You won’t qualify for ANY form of European quarterfinal, they’d have found that pretty hard to believe, wouldn’t they?

But that’s precisely what happened, and once again it was an almost perfect weekend for the four proud provinces of Ireland, with only poor Ulster being cruelly denied a playoff spot of any description.

And now we know the makeup of the semifinals as well, it seems that all roads to Paris lie through French clubs for our Irish representatives, definitely for Leinster anyway.

Well for sure it won’t be easy, but I’m comforted by one thing…the French clubs will be less likely to play with the approach the Guinness Premiership sides have used against us, and when we’re allowed to play our game, we’re always in the contest. 

But of course as happens every year in the ludicrous stop-start format of the European rugby season, we can’t even begin to analyse the quarterfinals properly until we assess the walking wounded from the Six Nations campaign.

So all we can do right now is ditch our provincial flags, unite under the compromise-IRFU-designed one and cheer Declan Kidney’s men towards a second successive Grand Slam!  Bring it on!

Operation : Home Drawn In Quarters

In the last three rounds of this season’s Heineken Cup, our scarlet-clad Welsh Celtic cousins have turned our qualification status from “definite maybe” to “maybe definite”, and this weekend, all will be decided in what promises to be a thrilling series of matches.

Being the numbingly nonchalant number-nerd that I am, I have run the rule over the various groups to try and determine just how Leinster’s fortunes could go over the next few days.

Caution…the remainder of this post could very well result in blood trickling out of your ears…

Before I embark on the confusion surrounding all the various permutations, let me first state one simple mathematical fact…ANY KIND OF WIN FOR LEINSTER AT TWICKENHAM GUARANTEES US A HOME QUARTERFINAL. You can take that to the bank.

The only teams that could possibly do level or better than 24pts would be Munster or Toulouse, which means we’d be a top 3 seed.

The complications begin should we fail to win on Saturday evening, and much depends on the other results so here we go…

First of all, it’d be nice to first be absolutely mathematically certain of a spot in the last 8, which ain’t yet so.

Now I KNOW the only way the LettinOn Irish win our Pool now is if they take maximum points and we take none, but wouldn’t it be nice to know at kickoff that even that wouldn’t knock us out of the tournament altogether?

Ironically, our southern nemesis can do this for us by beating Northampton in any way shape or form on Friday night. If they don’t, then the Munsters’ 20 points becomes a total for the other 2nd-placed qualifiers to match or beat, and all attention must turn to the fascinating Pool Three.

When both Ospreys v Leicester and Viadana v Clermont kickoff at 1:30pm on Saturday, the French side will sit in 3rd place in the pool. Despite that, they’re odds-on favourites to finish top.

Viadana’s record to date is played 5, lost 5, and a points difference of MINUS173. Add to that the fact that Clermont (whose backs coach is taking over from Cheika in the summer) are by far and away the best try scorers in the Top 14, then it’s safe to assume they’ll return from Italy with a 5-point haul.

This means that it will come down to the winner at the Liberty Stadium to see who joins them in the quarterfinals.

But who wins Pool Three matters nothing to Leinster. What DOES matter is the fact that unless Ospreys and the Tigers draw, yet another 2nd-placed finisher will probably have 20pts or more.

So this is why the match at Thomond Park is so crucial. Home win, we’re definitely in the last eight. Away win or draw, and no draw at the Liberty, we’ll have a little cause for anxiety on Saturday evening.

Now that we’ve sorted out the matter of qualification, how about our chances of losing at Twickers and still getting a home quarterfinal?

OK…here’s where the ear-bleeding happens.

Pools One and Three are definitely going to have winners with at least 21 points. That means if we lose to the Irish, our points total needs to be better than the winners of at least two from Pools Two, Four and Five.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to nitpick every single possibility, but I will say this…

If we lose in Twickenham, with or without bonus point, yet still win Pool Six, we need two from these three French sides to lose over the weekend-Stade in Edinburgh on Sat, Biarritz at home to Glasgow & Toulouse in Sale on Sun-to get a home quarterfinal.

Now MY ears are bleeding!

And having said ALL of that, Leinster lost two Pool games last year AND had an away quarterfinal, and how did that turn out?

Here’s to a great weekend whatever happens. I will be glued to the big screen in Sinnotts bar in downtown Dublin, that’s one permutation I can guarantee!!!

Leinster-27 Brive-10

SUPER OFFLOAD TAKES A LOAD OFF

There’s a good chance I’m the only Leinster fan on the planet who had negative thoughts about Brian O’Driscoll’s last-gasp try at the RDS.

The reason?  Some urgent though not life-threatening family business required me to forego travelling to the game in person, and the crucial score, preceded as it was by a cracking offload by Shane Horgan, happened right in front of where I would have been sitting (I can even see the faces of two of my mates in the above photo).

But despite that missed opportunity, what a weekend it was for the Irish provinces, and I suppose the best results went to both Connacht and Leinster, with the former booking their place in the quarterfinals and the latter getting a massive favour from the Scarlets yesterday.

I was forced to watch RTE’s highlights package that evening and have to say I was a bit annoyed they weren’t able to show footage from the Showgrounds in Galway.

And I was also bemused by reports that Leinster hadn’t played too well on the night.  Perhaps that is true, but they got the result.  Once in a while it’s ok for us to put a Munster spin on things you know!  If they had played the same way with the same outcome it would no doubt have been a “typical display of southern grit and determination”!

Besides…considering we had Sexton and Jennings back after prolonged spells on the sidelines, AND we had a frustrating couple of postponements over the cold snap while our visitors, albeit with 11 starting changes from their last Top14 match, have shown good form of late in their domestic league so signs of rust in our performance would be understandable.

So the way things stack up now, both Leinster and Munster require any kind of victory in their final matches to ensure a home quarterfinal, and that’s as good a position as any team who lost their first game in this competition can ask for.

I mean no disrespect to Ulster’s chances of progressing in the Heineken Cup when I say this, but with this year’s new format which has three HCup pool runners-up parachuting into the Amlin Challenge Cup, the possibility of having ALL FOUR provinces in the two European finals is a distinct possibility!

Of course that’s a pipedream, but it’s also a reflection of the confidence that is all around in Irish rugby at the moment, and hopefully we’ll get some more good results next weekend so the good vibes can be brought through to the Six Nations!

Ulster-15 Munster-10

CALLING A SPADE A SHOVEL

No Leinster game to review so I must avert my eyes north to Ravenhill for some rugger blogging this weekend…

I’m closing my eyes and trying to imagine how I’d feel right now if Leinster had lost 6 from their first 14 competitive games in the season, including a 30-0 thrashing at the hands of our nemesis.

Yeah, I’d call that a nightmare of a start to a 2009/2010.

Yet down at Thomond Park they’re not only remaining upbeat, they’re rewarding their coach with a new contract.

Now of COURSE you can never write off Munster. Of COURSE they’re still more than capable of winning both Magners League AND Heineken Cup crowns this season.

But you can say what you like about what can happen in the future; when you consider the standards the two top Irish provinces have set over the years, even Leinster’s return of 4 defeats from 13 contests is disappointing, so that doesn’t say much for what’s happening down south.

The sheer arrogance of the Munster team at Ravenhill was unbelievable. Not only do they send a second string side, but when only 15-0 down with a penalty right under the posts and more than ten minutes left in the FIRST half, they go for the try rather than break the duck-egg.

They DID realise this wasn’t a Barbarians-style exhibition game, right?

The one try they did get was thanks to a Keystone-cops-style series of fumbles after Humphreys was actually able to make a tackle yet proceeded to leave the ball for JDV to pick up and score.

Well at least the home side appreciated the importance of the occassion. I mean no disrespect to Brian McLaughlin’s charges when I criticise their opponents because they were well up for this game and reaped the reward, much like they did when we travelled up there.

Having said that, their leading lights were in the forwards, with Tom Court winning MOTM and Ferris crushing anyone who went near him, and I have to say having seen him play several times this season, The Bearded One just doesn’t seem to have the game to make the step up to the next level yet I’m afraid.

But my point about Munster is this – not only was this a derby match, but they had already lost four out of their previous nine contests and I think that considering they’re reigning champions of this league they could have at least shown some desire NOT to make it a fifth.

And it has to be said, their failure to register a point in the second half says as much for their own attitude as it does for Ulster’s resilience.

I’m sorry, but Munster were very poor! I’d say it if it were Leinster (and I have done this season), so I’m saying it now!

Yet having read some posts since full time on munsterfans, they’re all still mesmerised by doing the double over Perpignan in the Heineken Cup. Yes, they were good results BUT ONLY when you factor in Munster’s poor form before then. How many HCups have the Catalans won again?

I know I sound like a sneering Leinster fan, and maybe in some ways I am, but I can only call it as I see it, and as much as I want my boys in blue to do better than our southern cousins, I’d much rather do it knowing they’re playing the style of rugby that won them so much success, and to be perfectly honest, since Declan Kidney left the big chair down at Thomond, I just haven’t seen it.

Now that I’ve gotten all THAT off my chest of course, they’ll probably go and win every match they play till the season’s out. But joking aside, that’s pretty much what they need to do now to save this season given those that have gone before.