Fickou punches above his weight and is a good ball carrier. You’ll hear a lot more about him in the years to come.
The committee room negotiations have dominated the conversation so far but the on-pitch action begins this evening and will remind everyone of what a great tournament this is. The Heineken Cup provides a step up from each of the domestic leagues and is a good chance to see if the young guns can convert from potential into a first team fixture. Continue reading
I’m the boss, I’m the gaffer and at the end of the day what I say goes.
I like Rob Penney, I think it’s hard not to. The press like him, which is important because their portrayal of him colours the public’s perception. Penney gives good copy and is enthusiastically positive, most of the time. Continue reading
Even for The Mole, there has almost been surplus coverage of the Heineken Cup final in Twickenham. Ulster and Leinster have been analysed, examined and dissected in such depth that it is very difficult to consider any angle that would contribute anything further in the search for clues as to which team might have the ascendency in this game. Continue reading
Having produced some weighty previews for the two semi-finals [and here] , there’s not a whole heap new to say about the two Irish provinces competing for the Heineken Cup on Saturday.
The Mole was fortunate enough to do a postgrad with a number of interesting, well-rounded people. At the weekends, they would pursue pleasant, sociable activities. The Mole would play matches of a Saturday and spend most Sundays hungover, like a good ol’ stereotype. What would it be like to pursue pleasant, sociable activities with well-rounded people? Where would the nerves come into play? That blood pumping, stomach churning switched-on feeling of a Saturday morning that served as a precursor to the main event. You’d miss it. Continue reading
Vintage Drico.
In a raucous and colour-drenched Stade Chaban-Delmas, Leinster edged out French heavyweights Clermonts in an absolute dogfight of a semi-final. Continue reading
Ruan Pienaar was the Magner's League Player of the Season in his first term with Ulster, and was in a different class than everybody else on the Lansdowne Road pitch.
Ulster and Edinburgh played out a fast-paced semi-final in front of their boisterous supporters, and while the end-game wasn’t quite as tense as the final score would suggest, everyone in Lansdowne Road got their money’s worth. Continue reading
Heaslip dots down under the sticks in the 2010 quarter-final classic. Given that it's only a couple of weeks more than two years later, the two teams are dominated by the same players who took the field in that stormer of a game. That night it was Leinster who hung on by the slenderest of margins, even given home field advantage ... will it go the other way this time around?
The Clermont Auvergne vs Leinster semi-final pits two of the best teams to grace European competition in the last five years against each other in a winner-takes-all match. As Shane Horgan said on Sky Sports’ The Rugby Club last night, “This is a Heineken Cup semi-final. You don’t get anything for finishing within seven points.” Continue reading
Vern Cotter and Joe Schmidt know each other well and have worked together in the past. If they had a 'good cop/bad cop' routine, I'd imagine that Vern was the 'bad cop'.
One month ago, Vern Cotter took les Jaunards to the South West of France for a dress rehearsal of their Heineken Cup semi-final against Leinster. 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
Digging Like a Demented Mole 