The Official Irish Rugby Thread

Well….we still need to see how long France can sustain. You must remember, we peaked in 2018 and shat the bed in 2019. The same thing could very well happen to France. They have a tough 2023 six nations ahead also. Let’s see what injuries they’ll pick after a gruelling 2022/2023 club season also. And with the luck of the way the pool fixtures are scheduled, we should be able to play our cards right to force the quarter final opponents of our choosing (Fra or NZ).


lol
 
The great thing about the last 8 weeks or so is it shows anyone from the top 10 teams can beat anyone else.

Prospect of a very exciting rugby world cup ahead
Yep, very much so and I still can't get past Scotland finally getting their act together and getting out ahead of SA or Ireland.


The player eligibility for countries is having an impact already. Kerr-Barlow the Australian born Kiwi has become eligible for Australia. He was the 9 at La Rochelle. He played in the 2015 final for NZ, which is mad.
Yer wan Brown played for the Irish Women's team in Japan last Saturday and there's a few more in the pipeline, which you can somewhat understand but it doesn't sit right with me.

Big fan of it for the Pacific Islanders though.
 
Can anyone else fathom what the fuck the IRFU is playing at with this mini tour of South Africa?

The more I think about it, the dumber it seems. It's highly disruptive to the Irish provinces, making them less likely to be in the final running at the end of the season, risking Champions Cup qualification.

They're playing against opposition that will be worse than URC standards.

None of the frontline players are expected to go.

So what will it achieve? At best, it might show that some players cope better with being thrown into a random team at short notice than others. Certainly playing against 3rd rate teams won't tell you a damned thing about how ready those players are for international competition.

I'd expect it to heavily impact on Munster and Ulster, probably not so much Leinster because they have so many first choice players.

Maybe giving a few of those players a run out against New Zealand or during critical 6 nations games might have been an idea instead?
 
Can anyone else fathom what the fuck the IRFU is playing at with this mini tour of South Africa?

The more I think about it, the dumber it seems. It's highly disruptive to the Irish provinces, making them less likely to be in the final running at the end of the season, risking Champions Cup qualification.

They're playing against opposition that will be worse than URC standards.

None of the frontline players are expected to go.

So what will it achieve? At best, it might show that some players cope better with being thrown into a random team at short notice than others. Certainly playing against 3rd rate teams won't tell you a damned thing about how ready those players are for international competition.

I'd expect it to heavily impact on Munster and Ulster, probably not so much Leinster because they have so many first choice players.

Maybe giving a few of those players a run out against New Zealand or during critical 6 nations games might have been an idea instead?
It looks to me like a non-solution to a real problem.
'We really need to cross this river'
'Ok, we'll build a bridge'
'We don't have enough for a bridge'
'Shit. A pier will have to do'.
'It'll be a really short pier'
'It is what it is'.
 
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have match tickets and flights booked..group of 4 of us going from London. Must book a hotel or Airbnb now in the next few weeks. Was there in 2011 but would have to do a bit of retracing of our steps on googlemaps to tell you where we drank and dined
 
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