Hands In The Ruck

… anyone arrives here and thinks I’m slacking, what with the World Cup coming up and all that, for the foreseeable future, my rugby ramblings will be recorded at The Fear of God, a site I set up specially for the World Cup.  

And as a bonus, it’s not just me, but lots of other writers too! 

Munster Rugby Supporters Club is now open for new associate members until 20 July. Associate members get all the benefits of full membership, just without the automatic access to tickets for the big matches. Benefits include: 

• Supporters Club Membership Card.
• Munster Rugby Supporters Club Gift.
• Magners League Season Tickets at attractive discounted prices (subject to availability)
• Associate members form the waiting list for full membership which has the benefit of entitlement to purchase tickets for home pool Heineken Cup tickets.
• Access to Heineken Cup tickets for away pool games, and play off stages. Also access to any other Munster knock-out games - NB: Subject to availability.Priority based upon season ticket
• Full access to our exclusive Discount Scheme of over 50 companies. 
• Special Discounts of up to 20% on selected Munster Rugby items. 
• 10% discount in online shop of Munster Rugby Store
• Entitlement to purchase any exclusive garment/product which may be sold by the club during the season
• Regular news updates via email. 
• You will receive our Monthly E-zine Newsletter - Red Alert 
• Members can vote for the Munster Rugby Supporters Club Player of the Year 
• You will be able to attend all activities organised by the Munster Rugby Supporters Club. These include Meet & Greet players evenings, Pre-Match Functions, Meeting points for away matches.
• Regular competitions in Red Alerts and by email
• Access to Munster TV
• Priority for Magners League match tickets that may become available
• You will be entered once into the Giant Lottery operated by the Supporters Club this season. You may wish to purchase additional entries to the lottery by pressing the Purchase Items tab above at any time before the lottery closing date.  

 

 For more information, click here.  

Well, I’d rather they get tough draws than there be no Heineken Cup.

Munster find themselves in with current champions London Wasps, The Llanelli Scarlets and Clermont Auvergne. There are two good revenge matches there, as there is unfinished business with both Wasps and Scarlets. Wasps beat Munster in the semi-final in Lansdowne Road in 2004 and the sides haven’t met since. Scarlets knocked Munster out last season at the quarter-final stage.

Both sides are beatable. Wasps barely deserved their win of the tournament last month, and a fresher Leicester would have beaten them handy enough. Scarlets were the better team on the day in the quarter-final, but that will count for nothing when the two teams next meet. The unknown quantity are Clermont Auvergne. By all accounts they did very well in the French league last season, but last season’s French League isn’t this season’s Heineken Cup. We won’t know how they are shaping up till the competition actually starts. Overall, I reckon Munster will get out of that group.

Leinster are in with Leicester, Toulouse and Edinburgh. Leicester are going through a bit of a choppy period at the moment, with a new coach coming on board and several player leaving. Two of the players on the way out have been very effective for the Tigers, namely Shane Jennings and Leo Cullen, both of whom are on their way back to Leinster. Toulouse aren’t the force they once were, but they will not roll over easily. Leinster need to hockey Edinburgh home and away, as that is a monkey they have been carrying around for far too long. If they don’t they will have great difficulty qualifying.

Ulster have Bourgoin, Gloucester and the Ospreys. They will struggle to qualify, as usual, and probably won’t make it.

The Irish rugby season came to an end on Saturday evening, when Ireland lost 16-0 to Argentina in Buenos Aires. In reality, this was nowhere near being the first choice Irish XV for any competitive international, so the defeat shouldn’t be taken to badly to heart.

The two games in the series were simply exercises in testing the strength-in-depth of the Irish squad. The bad news is that we have shag all, and what we have has shag all experience of international test rugby. Eddie should have been grooming his team of understudies well before this series. Surely Eoin Reddan should have been given a chance in the Six Nations? What on earth was the point of bringing League-convert Brian Carney along? He was brought in by Munster as late-season cover for Shaun Payne and Christian Cullen, and at almost 31 years of age, is hardly a prospect for the future.

A full-strength Irish squad should get past Argentina in the World Cup. By the time we meet them, hopefully we will have upset the hosts and come through without too many injuries. It would be an awful shame to beat France and then lose to the Argies, missing out on top spot in the group. Hopefully that will not come to pass.

I admit to having lost impetus for writing about Rugby over the last month or so. Both Munster and Leinster had made tame exits from the Heineken Cup, and it looked like the competition itself was in danger of disappearing altogether.

Good news arrived today, when it was announced that agreement had been reached on the future running of the competition, and that it would go ahead as normal next season with the top-drawer clubs from England and France.

Had the Heineken Cup disappeared, it would have been a catastrophe for Irish Rugby. The three provinces that contest it every year would have lost considerable revenue. There would have been a flight of top class players from the IRFU to clubs abroad, which would have undone all the good work accrued under the central contracting system. The redevelopment works at Thomond Park and Donnybrook would have been wasted, because both developments were based on future Heineken Cup requirements.

We can now look forward once again to top class club rugby for the Irish provinces. Hopefully, next season Munster will be able to repeat the success of 2006.

Following decisions by the English and French clubs to take no part in next season’s Heineken Cup, it looks like the competition is doomed.

This is a terrible pity, because in its short history, the competition had become arguably the greatest club rugby tournament in the world. It quickly established itself as the trophy to win, and the roll-call of winners is a formidable collection of clubs and provinces.

After several seasons of coming agonisingly close, Munster finally got to hoist the trophy over their heads last season. The cup had become their great obsession, and the passion it generated among the fans established them as the most recognisable followers of any team in Europe.

A sad day for Rugby.

The quarter finals of the Heineken Cup saw both Munster and Leinster away from home this weekend. A home fixture in the quarter finals is an enormous advantage, and so it has shown to the detriment of the two Irish provinces.

Both sides were missing their captains and their most effective players. Paul O’Connell was out for Munster with an injury he picked up in the Six Nations Match against Scotland. His place was taken by Mick O’Driscoll, himself only coming back after an injury. Also missing were two of Munster’s most effective backs, Barry Murphy and Shaun Payne. No Payne, no gain, you might say, as his sure hands underneath the the high ball were sorely missed last night. Munster simply couldn’t match the intensity of Llanelli, and the Welsh side continued their unbeaten march through the Heineken Cup campaign.

There was something just not quite right about that match. It seemed to lack a sense of occasion that it might otherwise have exhibited. A Friday night fixture, playing against a Welsh team, Munster playing in an anaemic shade of blue… it was like a Magners League match. Knockout matches should be played on a Saturday or Sunday to allow the atmosphere to develop.

Leinster followed their fellow countrymen out of the competition this evening after a very poor performance against Wasps. Their forwards had nothing to offer, and the Wasps defence was allowed an extraordinary amount of latitude by the ref’s interpretation of the offside law, allowing them to smother any creativity from the Leinster backs. Leinster’s back line was missing Brian O’Driscoll, and even though Kieran Lewis tried manfully to fill the Great Man’s boots, it was clear to see that O’Driscoll was sorely missed. Two of Wasps’ tries were lucky. Eoin Reddan had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time to intercept a sloppy Leinster pass and he caned it to the line untouched. In the second instance, Haskell scored even though Reddan had obviously knocked the ball on when clearing it out of a ruck.

But that is not to say that Wasps didn’t deserve their victory. They clearly has Leinster worked out and when they had the opportunity, just cut them to shreds. They even scored two tries when Lawrence Dallalglio was in the sin-bin.

There endeth Irish provincial interest in this season’s Heineken Cup. There are still plenty of Irish players involved, including the aforementioned Reddan and Simon Easterby of Llanelli, not to mention the numerous Irish contingent at Leicester. Speaking of whom, this is the team that I will now support to win the Heineken Cup. They are of course, Munster’s great rivals and have been our nemesis on more than one occasion, but they are a great club and the mutual respect between Munster and Leicester is immense. They would be worthy winners of this year’s Cup.

Let us never speak of this weekend again.

Fuck.

So close. Yet it might as well have been a light year away.

Why did we not win the Championship this year? How did the French sneak in and win it by default? Was it because we let the Italians in for a soft late, late try in Rome on Saturday? Was it because of a dodgy decision that saw a 20/80 decision go the way of the French in the last play of their match against Scotland?

No. None of the above. It was because Ireland lacked the ruthlessness to close the French out in Croke Park in the second round. When we were four points ahead with two minutes to go, it looked like we were home and dried. From where I was sitting, it looked like the French could batter at our defence all day and and night and not get through. But a momentary lapse in concentration let them in, and that’s what did it. I have no doubt that if Brian O’Driscoll and Peter Stringer had started that day, we would have won, and won comfortably. O’Driscoll’s absence meant that three of our back line were playing in unfamiliar positions, and this dulled our cutting edge. Also, it should be remebered that O’Driscoll’s strength as a defender is at least equal to that as an attacking player, and this was sorely missed. Add to this Stringer’s fast ball out of the ruck and his marshalling of the forwards, skills that Isaac Boss simply doesn’t have. If he did, he’d be a contender for the All-Blacks No 9 jersey.

Once again, this should have been Ireland’s year. Last year, in my review of the Six Nations, I wrote the following:

Finishing second and winning the Triple Crown has for sure taken away the pressure Eddie O’Sullivan was feeling after the Autumn series débacle. He is now secure in his position as national coach until after the World Cup next year. But in truth the Irish team has been standing still for some time now. Since the Five Nations became Six in 2000, Ireland have come twice four times (two of those times losing out on points difference), and third three times. There have been four Grand Slams in that period, two for France and one each for England and Wales. Not wanting to sound ungrateful or anything, but Ireland should have won the championship at least once in that period, certainly in the last three seasons.

So what sort of shape are we in for the upcoming World Cup? Compared to some of our neighbours, we are in an enviable position, with an experienced, settled squad. However, we lack the strength in depth in key areas that would make us genuine contenders for the title. For the last three World Cups, we have been poxed to be in the same group as Argentina. The Argies are a tough side, and because they are not in an established annual international competition like the Six Nations or the Tri Nations, means that they are something of an unknown quantity come World Cup time. Our tour there in the summer will hopefully give us the measure of them, but equally it could work the other way and they could learn how to pick our lock from the two tests in the summer.

The key match is of course, against the French on 21 September. Whoever wins that should top the group, and face either Scotland or Italy in the quarters. Whoever comes second in the group will face the All-Blacks in Cardiff, and they may as well have the plane home on standby in Cardiff airport, with the engines ticking over.

So this is Eddie O’Sullivan’s biggest challenge between now and then - how to beat the French. It can be done, as England showed just over a week ago. We need to have a full strength squad, and a mental toughness that heretofore has been lacking in our previous encounters with the cheese-eating surrender monkeys. There will be no wanting for motivation, as the Irish players will want sweet revenge for the French nicking the Six Nations from under their noses. And what could be sweeter than effectively putting the French out of the World Cup in their own back yard?

After the French defeat, Eddie was quick to say that Grand Slams don’t come easy. Well, he’s right in one respect. They don’t come easy of you’re Ireland. But overall, is a Grand Slam as rare an event as The Big E would like us to believe?

I have gone back over the results at the official RBS 6 Nations site, and gathered up some stats. Since 1990, there have been ten Grand Slams won, in seventeen seasons. Four each for England and France, and one each for Scotland and Wales, they are as follows:

1990 Scotland
1991 England
1992 England
1995 England
1997 France
1998 France
2002 France
2003 England
2004 France
2005 Wales

Six Slams in the nineties, and four so far in the noughties. Go back a bit further and see what comes up:

1980s - 4
1970s - 4
1960s - 2
1950s - 3
1940s - 1 (Ireland’s last one - in 1948 - hooray!!)

So, they’re not as rare as Eddie makes out.