The UAFC

Twitter speculation that the new shiny Pro 16 will be on Sky Sports.

Yes please!

BT please so all rugby on one subscription.

TopPoster wrote: ↑Sun Mar 14, 2021 4:13 pm BT please so all rugby on one subscription.

Here, here! Don’t want to go back to the Sky robbers!!

Leinster v Munster Final confirmed for Saturday March 27th with 5pm KO at RDS. Live coverage on Premier Sports 1, Eir Sport 1 & TG4.

Strange to note, that despite Ulster's failure to reach the final, in terms of our regular season win loss record, the 20/21 season has been our most successful to date by a distance.

If we beat Zebre the record will be 14-2 or 87.5%.
Even if Zebre were to win, the success rate would be 81.2%.

For comparison the record in the 2006 title winning campaign was 15-1-4 (77.5%)

The regular season record in 2012/13 was 17-1-4 (79.5%)

There seems to be a much bigger gap between the top teams (Ulster, Munster, Leinster) and the rest so a higher percentage win is to be expected. Failure to reach the final shows how daft the competition is. Surely a pair of semi-finals would have been appropriate to allow us to lose to Leinster in the final.

My footy team, PNE, have just lost a league game for the 19th time this season.

I’m grasping a conference runners up berth with both hands.

https://www.independent.ie/business/iri ... 13592.html

As per the Ulster Zebre thread, Eir in financial trouble and withdrawing from bidding for new Pro 12/14/16 tv deal. Most likely it will be on Sky Sports next year with perhaps free to air deals for the likes of TG4/S4C.

Tommy Bowe might be heading back to Getaways.

justinr73 wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 1:22 am Tommy Bowe might be heading back to Getaways.

For a minute I thought, English Championship, Japan? Then the penny dropped.

solidarity wrote: ↑Tue Mar 16, 2021 7:59 pm There seems to be a much bigger gap between the top teams (Ulster, Munster, Leinster) and the rest so a higher percentage win is to be expected. Failure to reach the final shows how daft the competition is. Surely a pair of semi-finals would have been appropriate to allow us to lose to Leinster in the final.

2nd best attack. 2nd best defence , 2nd best points difference and 4 points per game.

Very harsh when you look at those stats.

Having said that Ulster were less than impressive in quite a few of those games.

I think the truth lies somewhere between the Pro 14 consists of teams based on players who form the Intenational teams for their countries while the English and French have bigger leagues but most of the teams and squads are padded by larger numbers of foreign players., The richer the club the better that padding becomes and thus there is a similar gap between the best and worst teams in the leagues.

The effect of the padding can at times be to the detriment of the International team players become over hyped because they play for a successful team whose success is based on the quality imports . Would Farrell be as highly thought of playing for Worcester rather than Saracens ?

I see that someone thinks I complain too much about cheating Leinster -- You have the wrong end of the stick there I complain about referees,who fail call Leinster to account for their cheating,

The trouble with referees is not that they make mistakes, the game and the Laws of the Game are such that a referee can see a ruck and has a choice of three or four infringements -- off the feet, in from the side, failing to release , failing to rollaway after a tackle --any or all may occur at any breakdown . If he penalises one of the offence he can't be faulted.

But it is the failure to apply the laws which make the game dangerous --- boring in a scrum -- calvary charges , pre binding blocking ,jumping foot or knee up into an on coming player, forearm hand offs , lack of hand offs -- charging at players -- these make the game dangerous and they are offence which go unpenalised week after week game after game.

They are also offences which have made the game less open .

So Scarlets join Leinster, Ulster, Munster, Connacht and Ospreys in Heineken Cup for season 21/22. Cardiff Blues and Glasgow/Dragons could also qualify, once they confirm whether it is 6, 7 or 8 sides who qualify.

Mad Mike Adamson has got the final on Saturday...bold call by the league.

Referee: Mike Adamson (SRU, 51st Championship appearance)
AR1: Sean Gallagher (IRFU)
AR2: Chris Busby (IRFU)
TMO: Joy Neville (IRFU)