Andrew Conway, the youngest player in the Leinster senior squad, is on his way to Munster next season.
Amidst the media furore, recriminations, denials, Twitter shit-slinging and overuse of the word ‘floodgates’ that surrounded Johnny Sexton’s move to Racing Metro, another ground-breaking move has gone largely under the radar. Continue reading
The Mole is back, three weeks into the domestic season, just like an international. Is the player management program of any benefit? We’re not sure either, so let’s just ease back into things and see how we get on. Continue reading
Jeremy Staunton: not only could he have been a contender, he should have been a champion. How Irish rugby failed one of the most talented players of his generation is still beyond me.
The Mole read an anecdote about Jeremy Staunton on a message board about four or five months ago, and it has stuck with him since: an Irish rugby fan was at Welford Road with his English Tigers fan mate for a Premiership game, and Staunton was introduced off the bench relatively early in the match. “Great, Staunton,” the Tigers fans said to his mate, “no more tries.” Continue reading
Mick O’Driscoll leads his team off the pitch at the Liberty Stadium. Munster had just suffered their worst defeat in eight years in his last game for the province he represented more than two hundred times. He deserved better.
The Mole is like a dog with a bone, and that bone is a broken record. Engrish rangruage, forgive-eness preeze. Continue reading
Would you recognise this man without trademark blue scrum cap? Quality player. Picture: Huw Evans (Murray!)
The end of an era. This match brought to mind the game against Toulouse where Mick Galwey pleaded with his team mates to keep it under 50. Munster managed to restrict the Ospreys to 45 but that will be of scant consolation over a long, barren summer. Continue reading
One picture tells the tale of a whole season.
Munster confirmed a semi-final date against the Ospreys in Liberty Stadium with a facile win over a half-baked Ulster side full of youngsters, but injuries to Paul O’Connell and Damien Varley will seriously hurt their chances of success. Continue reading
Fogs Jnr is out of Munster and off to Aurillac, the Jeremy Davidson-coached Pro D2 outfit. There's been a lot of movement in the Munster squad this season – and probably more to come – but this is a curious one.
Munster hooker Denis Fogarty is off to Aurillac at the end of the season. Aurillac currently play in the Pro D2 [France's professional second division] and are coached by former Ulster, Ireland and Lions second row Jeremy Davidson. They’re not doing too well at the moment and are currently stuck in eleventh place of a sixteen team league, having won less than half their matches. Continue reading
Ivan Dineen’s blistering performance when allowed off the bench against the Scarlets was an enjoyable feature of a mistake-ridden game and hugely encouraging for fans of the player. To describe Dineen as a peripheral figure over the last two seasons is to do injustice to those peripheral figures in the Munster squad … in truth, with just one start in his Munster career [and that coming a full eighteen months ago] he had more or less slipped off the radar entirely. Continue reading
The Heir Apparent. But when does his reign start?
Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Young Caine: I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Caine: No.
Po: Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?
Caine: Old man, how is it that you hear these things?
Po: Young man, how is it that you do not? Continue reading
Dan Tuohy (26) takes on Simon Zebo (21) in an emblematic image that shows the differing age profile between the two teams.
The Mole has written before about how the failings of the Munster Academy in the second Declan Kidney era are now affecting the fortunes of the province. While Kidney handed over a hard-nosed championship team to Tony McGahan in June 2008, things weren’t quite so rosy under the surface. Continue reading
