Lurching Leinster, magic Ulster, and wobbling Wallabies

(Picture http://bit.ly/QfMWkp)

I had to work late on Friday night, so that ruled out watching the Leinster game, then I had it on the hard drive – and, oh no, the kids deleted it so I didn’t get to see them getting pumped by Connacht. Leinster chops and change every week, scrum half is a problem, but lads, sort it out! Fair play to Connacht, even if it was Dan ‘Evil’ Parks, the nemesis of Leinster and Ireland on numerous occasions, who did a lot of the damage. Now, I wish I’d recorded the Ulster match instead – what a result! And that’s without a host of their big names. I watched bits and pieces of the Munster match – they are going two step forwards, one and half steps back at the moment. ROG is not playing great still, and that magic offloading game they had last weekend absent. Result for Treviso, and Zebre did well as well.

I watched the Springboks sort out Australia quite to my satisfaction on Saturday. I was amazed with how easily they did it – I know Australia were shipping injuries like rats leaving a sinking ship, but the Boks were hardly threatened at all. Look at what happens when you pick a fly half who doesn’t kick all the time. Their goal kicking was ordinary to say the least, otherwise it would have been a thumping for Aus. A player at the top of his game is Francois Lowe, his work on the ground, tackling and linking play between forwards and backs is pretty well faultless. Also in superlative form is Bryan Habana, who is a handful all over the pitch. Australia look down and out – they put in a decent 5 minute spell at the 60 minute mark, apart from that, they just didn’t look like they wanted to be there.

The AB’s wrapped up the Championship in fine style by smashing the Pumas in Argentina. The Pumas tried to open things up a bit, and paid the price. They have come on a lot over the last 6 weeks, and will be looking for their first win next weekend against the Aussies. The Al Blacks looked fairly flat in their last two games, but with Carter back in the seat it was business as normal again. Looking forward to that last game against the Springboks!

RaboDirect PRO12
Newport-Gwent D'gons 32 - 12 Edinburgh 
Connacht 34 - 6 Leinster 
Cardiff Blues  19 - 48  Ulster 
Glasgow 22 - 19 Zebre
Benetton Treviso 22 - 20 Scarlets 
Ospreys 30 - 15 Munster
Rugby Championship
Argentina 15 - 54 New Zealand
South Africa 31 - 8 Australia