3 Out Of 4 Through to 1/4's But Hard Games Ahead

January 25th,2010

Author: Shane Byrne
Final Year: 1989
Biography: Shane Byrne (1989) won 41 rugby caps for Ireland in 2005 he travelled to New Zealand with the Lions where he featured in all three tests. He retired from professional rugby in 2007 when he returned from playing with Saracens in England.He recently hung up his boots permanently, after spending the last two seasons with Blackrock, where he started playing senior rugby 18 years ago! Shane is currently Head Of Operations (Ireland), at Global Development Group and resides in Wicklow.
URL: http://blog.ireland.com/n/blogs/blog.aspx?webtag=itb_shanebyrne

Isn’t it ironic that probably the team that were playing the best attacking rugby at the weekend, are the only side not to get though!
Declan Kidney will have to do some serious thinking when picking his team, Trimble and Boss are in great form at the moment and will have to be close to getting starting positions back.

Unluckly Ulster miss out on all cups
And with the results on Sunday, Ulster don’t even get the chance to impress in the Challenge cup, missing out by the narrowest of margins.
No such problems for Connacht, top seed sees them playing bottom qualifiers Bourgoin at home.They have a far better record against French sides so will be happy, as long as this momentum keeps up.

Tale of two outhalfs!
With both Munster and Leinster it was a real tale of two outhalves.
Amazing the similarities between the games, Both Geraghty and Malone had absolutely stinkers!
Both had the opportunities to easily win the games and failed in spectacular style.
Geraghty is, as we all know now, not a kicking outhalf, he likes to attack but they for some season tried to put Munster on the back foot, a game alien to him.
Malone is a kicking outhalf but was just having a shocker.

Coaches need to show some balls!

To me it comes down to the coaches having the balls to make the decision and to take them off the pitch.
In important games like that, when it’s obvious they can’t do their job they need to be replaced. Cheika showed that when he took Jackman off in the first half! Could that be the start of the end for the big man?
Both teams were very flat and they both looked much more vulnerable than the week before.
Ironically for the Reds, POC getting the yellow card was just the spice they needed to fight off the English, it was probably their best 10 minute spell in the game and killed off the fightback.
D’arcy the only one putting it in
Leinster will be thanking their lucky stars that Gordon Darcy turned up!
Of both teams, he was the only one that played like there was something really at stake, again great stuff for the 6 nations.

Leo out for the count!
Did anybody see Leo getting laid out just before the try?
If you can go back and have a look, he goes into the ruck hard, like he does and then Hala'ufia, the Irish No.8 I think it was, came in and whacked him one, he was out cold for a bit! Couldn’t believe it was missed.
You have to say that it’s bloody great that there is a chance for an all Paddy weekend in Paris, for the final!
I was surprised that draw went our way but the ¼’s final fixtures didn’t!

Thomond effect gone for Northampton
Northampton will be chomping at the bit to get another go at Munster and the usual Thomond effect will mean nothing now, as they nearly did the job on their last outing.
It’s going to be a bloody hard game, taking into account the fact that they will pretty much be together the whole time until that game, whereas Munster will lose the guts of its senior squad to Ireland.
The scrum will as always be a concern for Munster, they must get the ball in and out asap, the old channel one ball!

Clermont not the side Leinster would have wanted
Of all the French sides, I would have preferred to have not gotten Clermont, they have so many foreign players in their squad that the old French don’t travel thing doesn’t really apply!
They are top of their league and playing strong XV man rugby.
As opposed to a particular piece of the game that needs to be fixed, Leinster just need to work their internal demons out and turn up and play.

They certainly didn’t last weekend, I knew early on that something was up when I started to see BOD not going into tackles and missing a few, he’s usually a good barometer.
One thing for sure, if either of them make it to the final (both please!) they will have done the hard yards and will be ready for any challenge.

Leicester objection, watch this space
Although as a foot note to all this, we should all be watching the objection that Leicester have put in against the Ospreys for having 16 men on the park for a spell.
Could be one last twist to the ¼ final draw!!