Tri Nations Finale - Desperate attempt to talk up a dead rubber plus Irish Magners League in extreme brief

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/rugbyhair/4425632748/

The Tri Nations 2010 wraps up on Saturday as the All Blacks take on the Wallabies. The All Blacks and the Wallabies, having joined forces to inflict a vicious tag team assault on the Springboks, to conspire with referees, to ridicule their coach ( well I may have done a bit of that myself), and worst of all to hurt their feelings, now turn on each other.


The All Blacks have already won the Tri Nations, the Bledisloe Cup, and by a clear margin the smuggest team of the tournament. The Wallabies have at least managed to scrape into second place leaving the Boks on the bottom of heap, battered, embittered, injured and receiving counselling ( apart from those that are suspended or sectioned under the mental health act). Not that I’m bitter or anything. It’ll actually be a relief to watch a Tri Nations match where the Springboks aren’t playing funny buggers and annoying the living daylights out of me.

The AB’s have wisely gone with a young fresh looking team to widen their talent pool and get more back up depth sorted out. Only the ball boys are younger than the Wallabies at the moment so no changes for them apart Drew Mitchell who drops out through injury. The AB’s are supremely confident, but no Dan Carter, lots of young players, overconfidence, earthquakes at home and playing away spells trouble to me so I’m going with the Wallabies by 5.

Here are the teams if you’re interested:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/4110697/Dagg-Vito-Cruden-handed-All-Blacks-starting-spots

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=10672222

Magners League on TV

Edinburgh v Munster TG4, 19:05 (Fri)

Leinster U Cardiff Blues RTE2, 18:30 (Sat)

It’s a pretty handy looking Leinster team hoping to redeem themselves after last week's damp squib, good to see BOD back in action in the run on team.

LEINSTER:
15: Luke Fitzgerald 14: Shane Horgan 13: Brian O’Driscoll 12: Fergus McFadden 11: Isa Nacewa 10: Jonathan Sexton 9: Isaac Boss 1: Heinke van der Merwe 2: Richardt Strauss 3: Mike Ross 4: Nathan Hines 5: Ed O’Donoghue 6: Sean O’Brien 7: Shane Jennings CAPTAIN 8: Jamie Heaslip REPLACEMENTS: 16: John Fogarty 17: Cian Healy 18: Simon Shawe 19: Mariano Galarza 20: Dominic Ryan 21: Eoin Reddan 22: Ian Madigan 23: Eoin O’Malley

Munster are also looking pretty strong and should come up trumps against Edinburgh (although the Scots are making an irritating habit of pooping Ireland’s party).

Munster: F Jones; D Howlett, J Murphy, S Tuitupou, I Dowling; P Warwick, P Stringer; W du Preez, D Varley, T Buckley; D Ryan, M O'Driscoll; A Quinlan, N Ronan, D Leamy capt. Replacements: D Fogarty, M Horan, J hayes, D O'Callaghan, P O'Mahony, T O'Leary, R O'Gara, D Barnes.