Sunday, December 11, 2016

Three bonus point wins for Ireland this weekend!

 
 Dylan Hartley (picture http://bit.ly/2gAwFvz )

Irish rugby is pumping right now...just the three bonus point wins against great (or formerly great ) French and English sides.

I didn't see the Leinster match, I caught a bit of the highlights, and the one big lowlight of the whole thing, the red card for Dylan Hartley. It was an obvious straight red.. and I hope Sean O'Brien 
comes out of it OK. Dylan Hartley just doesn't seem to be able to control himself in certain situations,, he's totted up 54 weeks in bans so far. Do we need special rules for a problem child like Hartley. surely once you get to a certain level of bans they should start to become exponential...or you get banned for good. And maybe that would be for his own good too, before he really hurts someone.

Anywayr, we ended up with a bonus point win, with the only downside being that we are rapidly running out of fly halves. Options for next week at a pinch are Noel Reid and Isa Nacewa - who in fairness would be fantastic.

Ulster played out of their socks to beat Clermont, one of their best performances in years. You can just see the confidence pumping through players like Jackson and Henderson, they just get better and better. Tommy Bowe is looking sharp, and they seemed to be getting their combinations right in the pack. It would have been ideal not to let Clermont get the four try and losing bonus points - but they are Clermont after all!

Munster were just epic aginst the Tigers..absolutley owning them the whole match. Their defense is outstanding, and there's very few sides that will be able to bash through them - so you are going to have to be smart and kick well, and keep the ball away from their loose forwards. Munster could seriously go all the way in the Champions Cup this year in this type of form.

Finally, Connacht put in a battling performance, but too many errors just killed them. In the circumsatances, they did well though. Wasps must have 100X their budget, and it's been a tough week for Connacht with the news of the departure of Pat Lam. Their line out was a shambles, and their insinct in broken play was off - when to run, when to pass, when to offload. Their scrum was awesome though, and when the ball stuck they looked dangerous. Marmion was excellent, and Nepia Fox-Matamua was a machine. Wasps got the bonus point, but this match won't make the highlight reel for the season.

It's good times for Irish rugby though - how well are you going to have to play to make the Irish team now?

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