Another clean sweep weekend for the Irish teams

January 19th,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

Great week end all round, Munster keep their reformation going with a complete demolition of a very poor Treviso, Leinster took a bit of time to get going, but in the end they got the job done against Brive, Ulster keep their hopes alive with a hard fought win against Edinburgh in terrible conditions and Connaught remain our leading province by already qualifying for the playoffs! But the most important result of the weekend didn’t involve any local Irish team!

London Irish result thrills Leinster
When London Irish feel asleep after being 22-10 up against Scarlets and ended up losing 31-22 it handed Leinster the initiative in pool 6, the Blues now only need to stop Irish scoring 4 tries to qualify.
If you saw that game, it was a classic case of them thinking that’s the job done, big game next week, they will be kicking themselves!

Leinster themselves were certainly suffering a bit from the lack of game time during the bad weather with a huge amount of unforced errors in the first half.But as the score board started to tick over they woke up and played some classic rugby in the 2nd half. So many players had fantastic games, obviously Heaslip, then Darcy, McLaughlin (Rocky who!). But to me Shane Horgan is continuing his reinvention of himself with another high octane game!
When he caught that ball near the touch line in the 1st half and instead of taking the easy option of going into touch, he turned and stepped into the oncoming tacklers to keep the ball alive, I thought shows where not just his but Leinster’s whole mind set is! Penalty not his fault though!!
It was great to see Brive really turn up, especially in defence. With the fantastic Pophem leading them in the contact arena, they made Leinster work hard for their scores, which was exactly what they needed.

Jennings or O'Brien?
Where do you sit now in the Jennings/O’Brien debate?
Personally I would be going with O’Brien, who at the moment has more game time and it showed.
Jennings played well but he was just not a sharp as usual, it will come but Sean really made a impact when he came on and should continue there.

Treviso failed to show for Munster game
There’s loads I'd love to say about the Munster game with them scoring a brilliant 6 tries but the whole game was overshadowed by how really bad Treviso were! Gone were the team that troubled all in this group at different stages.
The most important thing that can be said about the game was the fact that this was exactly the game that Munster needed at this stage in their campaign, they were able to flex their muscles and there were some great performances.
Earls was his attacking best, getting 2 tries to boot! Good to see de Villiers getting into his form for the Reds, he wasn’t rated as one of the best centres in the world for nothing.

O'Connell and O'Callaghan stand tallest!
But I thought that the two second-rows shone through more than anyone else, not only in the usual way they do their jobs but both appeared regularly in open play and even did vital linking in plays leading up to tries, with Donners nabbing one himself!
It going to be a hard bloody game for them next week and I’d say they are happy to have the game at home.
The way they are playing their only weakness remains the scrum and this will be attacked, it is a concern but they have enough in the armoury to overcome this.
You'd need to have the brain power of Stephen Hawking to work out all the permutations that would need to come into play for Ulster to get to the play offs, but the important thing is that there still is a chance!

Ulster played weather smartly
They played a fantastic power and patience game, the weather was terrible and they played it brilliantly.
All they can do is play their best and hope other results go their way, it would be a pity if it didn’t happen but it does look like a step too far.

Connacht - Irelands leaders, first to qualify!
Connacht are through!
Two tries saw them remain in total control of their fate. The result never looked in doubt as they lashed into Montpellier.
Their form has been great in the Challenge Cup and if they get the points next week away in Madrid, which they should, they will be seeded in the top one or two, a fantastic effort.
And yes, it does bode well for the Six Nations to come, so maybe don’t shout it just yet, let's whisper it... yes it could be another fantastic year!