The UAFC

When you consider all that has happened in the past few weeks its hard not to attribute significant IRFU involvement in proceedings. The "removal" of DMF running in parallel with Burns move to Munster. The swift appointment of RM as interim head coach, along with the emergency deployment ...

Bundee is the player of the tournament so far. Won't go down well with some. The Engerlish think it is Arundel. The win on Sat does have echoes of Ferris inspired Ireland beating a strong Aussie side in the group stage in 2011 only to go out with a whimper against an average Wales team Kidney reall...

Herring will go ahead of Stewart. AF talked about Stewart as being one for the future. Earls ahead of Stockdale. Stu will miss out as more versatile options to make up the numbers. TOT and Hendy on the plane. From an outside perspective I think Stockdale will go. Thought he had a good game, the try...

Stuart Lancaster, and fairplay to him for saying it in an age of pc and boring media-trained interviewees, set out his stall yesterday, saying it’s nothing to do with demographics, just coaching, and I do agree. Should make for some interesting team talks in the next fortnight, would love to see th...

Interesting to read the comments as a Leinster fan. Was in the south stand, uncovered and sodden, fan wise the Ulster fans around us were good fun -one or two had obviously been on the sherbets since the 11 o’clock train down but it was very good natured. Was good craic in the bars afterwards too. L...

[/quote] Our biggest weapon is their complacency- their fans anyway. Plug will have any complacency bate out of them tbf and refer to 2019. [/quote] Leinster fans attitudes irrelevant at the end of the day. Don’t think any Leinster player will be complacent, they’ll be tuned in. Not sure 2019 releva...

Did anyone up there enjoy anything of the Six Nations? Thought not. Quite enjoyed Scotland - more chance of an Ulster born player kitting out for them ATM.... To be fair Dub, McCloskey aside, I doubt even the most one eyed Ulster fan could argue the toss, Hendo aside if fit, and Beirne has the uppe...

They should have another look at Jean Kleyn or possibly Niall Murray from Connacht.
Playing as well as anyone listed above

Two games in and how many tackles has Ringrose missed? Must be near double figures. Any non-Leinster man would be getting lambasted. Not a peep. Ringrose has missed 4 times the amount of tackles that Stu has (8-2). Granted he has played more minutes but those stats would see McCloskey dropped. That...

Irish bench were fantastic. Henderson came in at the right time (after Beirne got injured mind you). Tom o’toole had a starter, fantastic player when he plays like that, but I don’t think he had any scrums, so it suited him. Amazing handling from both teams considering TOT came on with 20 to go. Su...

[/quote]Agree with much of what you write although the original post is not a gripe that there are ulster players being overlooked, we are only too aware of our own players limitations. Also disagree that these things are cyclical. That may have been the case in the past but with professionalism and...

I support Ireland but (if they win a World Cup) it will be absolutely galling listening to O’Driscoll, Heaslip, Horgan, D’Arcy et al waxing lyrical about the Leinster factor. It will also copper fasten the approach of favouring Leinstermen right from professional level right through school boy leve...

Wales 23 v Ireland named today. Halfpenny; Adams, North, Hawkins, Dyer; Biggar, T Williams; G Thomas, Owens (capt), Francis, Beard, Alun Wyn Jones, Morgan, Tipuric, Faletau. Baldwin, Carre, Lewis, Jenkins, Reffell, Webb, O Williams, Cuthbert. Lots of experience up front there, but the average age o...

Healy straight in for the Jocks. Says a lot about the state of Scottish Rugby. Good player but that's only because of injuries, not shown the form to merit it as he hasn't been playing much. He was the 10 for a lot of the early season games Munster lost. He'll get 20 minutes against Italy and they'...

He will start for Ireland, though. He has been awful. Not sure about that, SMcC is the man in possession & Henshaw is not available. He did nothing wrong in the AI's and he is not a red card machine. Aki should be going to tackle school with Owen Farrell. I suspect there is more to this, if the...