In the early pre-season, Mole Towers got a glimpse online of one of rugby’s most outrageous sights, but what with all the hubbub and clamour of the World Cup, followed by a typically enthralling Heineken Cup group stage, we forgot all about it. Continue reading
You’d have to have a hard, hard heart – or be an Ulster fan – not to find this funny. Nathan Hines manages to keep Stephen Ferris, Johann Muller and Pedrie Wannenberg [as Gorilla Monsoon would have said, “weighing in at a combined weight of 709 lbs”] out of the game for a good thirty seconds … and all on his own!
There’s hanging out of someone’s jersey, and then there’s this phenomenal bit of scallywagging. One of the great nuisances of the professional rugby era has just painted his masterpiece.
Zoooooom!
Munster turned in a phenomenal second half performance that crushed the spirit of Northampton for the second time in four months and sent a tremor of fear down the spine of any and all prospective opponents in the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup. Continue reading
Former copper Paul Ackford is presented as a journalist whose articles are straight to the point with a hard line in incisive questioning. If we allow his reputation to precede him, Ackford’s sub-editors have some explaining to do. Continue reading
Leinster eased into a home quarter-final fixture in an odd sort of game against last year’s Top 14 runners-up, Montpellier. Saturday lunchtime at the RDS is better than Sunday brunch at Firhill, but not by much; Leinster have kicked off four of their six group games before 2pm, which doesn’t do much for the atmosphere. Coupled with the lack of big-name opposition – and to speak frankly, outright quality – in the group, it has been a relatively undistinguished qualification campaign compared to last season’s block-busting efforts against the best that the English and French could muster. Continue reading
Billy Holland: just when I thought I was out, they ... pushed me further out.
The Mole was watching the Munster vs Treviso game at Thomond Park on the idiot-box a couple of weeks ago, and was struck by one selection call in particular. Niall Ronan hobbled off just before halftime, and he was replaced by … Donncha O’Callaghan. Continue reading
He'll be airbrushing people out of team photos next
You’d imagine that Declan Kidney actually talks to his players some of the time. Is that just me? Am I way off? Continue reading
Yawn. Sorry Richard, you were saying something about the refereeing of the breakdown ...?
Richard Cockerill sings the same sad old song in the aftermath of Leicester’s heavy defeat to Ulster at Ravenhill. Continue reading
Wodger Wilson Weturns
Roger Wilson is on his way back to Ulster. He’ll return home from Nortampton at the end of this season on a three year deal that’ll see him up to his 33rd birthday, and probably his retirement from the game. Continue reading
Leinster must be very, very glad to get away with four points from Firhill on a day that the machine did not function all that well. Sean Lineen’s men showed ferocious hunger, picked up all the scraps from the champions’ table, and feasted on them. Continue reading
Digging Like a Demented Mole 