QuoteIts been confirmed as a bad cramp and he should be back for their next match.Originally Posted by endabob1
Looked like a bad knock he picked up at the weekend, from personal experience I thought it looked like ligament damage but there's been no confirmation from SARFU
Its been confirmed as a bad cramp and he should be back for their next match.
Very bad news for Ireland and especially Ulster that Rory Best will miss the entire season. It's not a position that we're blessed with much depth in and if anything was to happen to Flannery now we'd really be in trouble.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
Three year ban for Richards. Good enough for him, involved in 4 similar cover-ups!!!
Last edited by Paddy Garcia; 17/08/2009 at 10:48 PM.
Not sure I agree with this. It's something that has gone unpunished in rugby for a lonmg long time. Players deliberately draw blood to elicit substitutions all the time and I'd safely say that every professional side has done it over the years.
Richards and Harlequins main crime was being so blatant about it.
They are being made an example of as a deterent, i have no issues with that.
Agreed. However a ban of 3 years is pretty draconian. Richards was a great player, and a fine coach. He is not the only one to do this or to have done this and wont be the last.
I see the Irish teams have gotten off to a shaky start in the Magners. All of them lost in the first round, but some better performances escept for Connacht last Friday. It seems to be getting better as a tournament each year which is great. Its better standard than the English premiership now.
De Villiers landed in Cork yesterday. What a signing!! I believe this guy is going to make a massive contribution to Munster and the Heineken Cup in general. It's probably going to mean a winger role for Keith Earls, but hey, how bad.
A Munster side for the Heineken Cup opener now could read:
Paul Warwick; Doug Howlett, Liefemi Mafi, Jean De Villiers, Keith Earls; Ronan O'Gara, Tomas O' Leary; Marcus Horan, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes; Paul O'Connell, Donncha O'Callaghan; Alan Quinlan, David Wallace, Denis Leamy.
Subs: Denis Fogarty, Julian Brugnaut, Mick O'Driscoll, Neil Ronan, Peter Stringer, Barry Murphy, Felix Jones.
Thats a serious team if it all clicks.
Munster top of the table after two games. I'll take that especially with how they performed over the two games. Very shakey performances with way too many errors. A top class team would have seriously punished Munster today especially. There is alot of work to be done before they meet Perpignan.
Reports in the weekend papers suggest that RTE and TG4 will secure the rights to show the Magners League in a 4 year deal to begin next season. Good news for me - bringing the provinces to a wider audience and all........also surely Setanta is now on it's last legs.
Any thoughts?
if they loose that people have no real reason to buy it anymore? it would be sad to see it go thou
Excellent news (even if many of the games are already available free via BBC2 Wales and S4C (with English commentary via the red button)). What happened with the Scottish deal, which setanta also had.
Edit - STV has a highlights show for scotland, plus the two derbies live
Last edited by Macy; 05/11/2009 at 9:12 AM.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
Feck that, Ulster and Connacht can forget about coverage if RTE are in charge.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
Alot of people saying with RTE showing it the amount of coverage is to seriously decrease. They are only going to show 1 match a weekend supposedly with maybe a highlights package too. Setanta currently shows around 4 matches (if not more) a weekend plus a highlights program. If you don't have BBC Wales/Scotland or S4C you won't have alot of Magners league to watch.
Sure the Setanta coverage is myopic towards Leinster and Munster already.
Munster v Ulster a few weeks ago, Donal Lenihan was on punditry. His comments about Ulster were few and far between and it felt like an Irish team playing a foreign side(insert appropriate joke here).
But at least you'd be able to watch Ulster games in that instance. I've heard that TG4 might be sharing the rights. If that's the case there'd likely be two games live per weekend.
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No posts on yesterdays game?
Poor enough performance for 60 minutes, but really focused for the last 10-15when they had to.
Its been said for at least 2 years than if Hayes goes we are in serious trouble and yesterday did nothing to dispell that. We were embarrassed in the scrum by what is generally accepted to be the worst scrummaging nation out of the 6/tri nations. God help us if we don't improve drastically before the Boks. Healy can only improve with more game time, hopefully he gets another 80mins on Saturday. Another game will benefit Hayes and Flannery as they were understandably rusty.
I thought O'Gara answered his critics fairly soundly, good line kicking and reasonable territorial stuff.
Our rucking was very poor, body angles too high and no aggression. Add in Kaplan's usual pedantry and the result was that Pocock and Palau dominated the breakdown. Heaslip and Ferris are barnstormers in the loose but are going to have to learn to get stuck in quicker rather than loitering in midfield.
Before Fitz got injured I'd have liked to see him or Earls play at 12 against Fiji. Wallace has good hands and a clever brain but he doesn't break the gain line enough and doesn't free up enough space for O'Driscoll.
That'd be similar to the BBC Wales/ S4C arrangement, although S4C usually have another 2 games. Personally, I'd say it'll be the scottish clubs that miss out rather than Ulster or Connacht - Irish v Welsh games will get priority as the TV companies will be able to pool resources.
If you attack me with stupidity, I'll be forced to defend myself with sarcasm.
Good analysis there ORA, but Australia have bulked up their front row considerably, their taking note of what's required & I thought/think Kaplan never has a clue about how to ref the scrum, there was a lot of shenanigans going on. Cian Healy needs game time at this level, it's the only way he'll learn, we need to start blooding younger lads in the front row or we'll be buried by everyone in the next world cup, we were poor enough in this area in the last one.
Having seen Earls out here in the Lions series I think he has a huge future but again we need get him game time at this level
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