Last gasp draw for Leinster, things get murky at Thomond Park, and the Ba Ba's triumph

Fergus McFadden from http://bit.ly/hmlZzb

Scarlets 17 - 17 Leinster

Munster 16 - 9 Cardiff Blues

Ospreys 33 - 16 Edinburgh



Scarlets 17 - 17 Leinster

I was out fishtailing in my car for most of the match and so I only caught the last ten minutes of this. Having said that, I think I saw exactly the right ten minutes. Or maybe I saw exactly the right 9 minutes, two awesome flowing tries from Leinster, followed by an absolute howler from Sexton. A legendary howler from Sexton. When he wakes up sweating in the night, he’ll see his fumble over and over again. Let’s hope that he’s got his kicking and catching blues out the way in time for next week. In the bits I saw Fergus McFadden and particularly Sean O'Brien were in hugely impressive form. O’Brien must be breaking the door down into the Ireland team.

Scarlets are an exiting looking outfit, not stuffed with Welsh stars, but stuffed with performing Welsh players.

Barbarians 26-20 South Africa

The Barbarians scored a good win here over a disjointed Springbok side. The Ba Ba’s scored three tries in the first 20 minutes through a porous defence. , then Boks made a come back in the second half to make the score look respectable. It was a second string Bok side, and apart from a good run out for Elton Jantjies, no one put their hand up for the 1st team, I’m starting to feel really old skool here though – in the olden days the touring team used to play their full team, never kick penalties, and played against mainly Northern Hemisphere players. These days it’s half strength squads, a host of overseas players, and more cautious play all round. This is the way it was:

Munster 16 - 9 Cardiff Blues

A couple of things stood out in this match. The first was the sight of Tony Buckley charging along, ball in one hand, Paul Tito upside down in the other, with another Blues player hanging on for dear life. The second was Paul O’Connell back in red on the pitch again. The third was what I didn’t get to see which was the last ten minutes of the match, as Munster built up a lead and then cannily let the fog out. The Blues could easily have scored two tries in the last 5 minutes (and probably did for all we know) and no one would have been the wiser. The commentary, as gaeilge, wasn’t shedding too much light on the proceedings either. Did Thomas O’Leary get on? I didn’t see him, but then Jonah Lomu probably made a guest appearance as well. Munster had an indifferent first half, then did enough in the second to bag the points.

So two out of two for the two Irish provinces hard enough to play, with softies Connacht and Ulster postponing their matches.

Exiles

It was another glum day at the Madejski Stadium as the Tigers ran out 23-14 winners. That’s 5 losses on the trot now, come on Irish wake up! Their front row is looking extremely dodgy at this stage, can Faan Rautenbach finally be put out to pasture please?