Thursday, March 5, 2015

Another clean sweep for Ireland coming up in the PRO12!

 Wiehahn Herbst
Wiehahn Herbst (picture http://bit.ly/1Gok0TP)

Last weekend was a pretty good weekend for the Irish sides in the Pro 12, Munster went top after beating Glasgow, Connacht massacred Treviso, Ulster sorted out the Scarlets, and  Leinster got an away draw at the Ospreys. Of course, the Dragons, after beating Leinster away two weeks ago, followed up last week with a loss to Zebre. Zebre! Can you not do things in the right order please?

This week is a preview to next weekend, with all the Irish sides in action against Welsh sides.  Leinster are away to the Scarlets, both teams shorn of their internationals. And as we know that under Joe Schmidt, all Ireland places are on a first refusal basis for Leinster, we are missing  about a whole team, and half our bench. We can still put out a pretty good side however, and on the basis that these guys are playing together as is for the third week running, I’d say that a bit of polish may finally develop on the crappy form they’ve been showing, so a win for me. They have Shane Jennings and Jack conan back in selection contention, and I fancy that Rhys Ruddock will be trying to force his way back into the Irish team.

Connacht travel to Cardiff, with the Blues still fresh from hoofing their Kiwi coach. You should have hung on guys, look at Gatland, Schmidt and Lam. And with Mils Muliaina back I think that they’ll win too!

Munster travel to the Ospresy, fancying they’ll go one better than Leinster did, and I can see that, as the Ospreys are the hardest hit Welsh side by the 6N. Dave Kilcoyne will be pressing his case for a return to Ireland.

Finally, Ulster go to the Dragons, for an eminently winnable match, which they should win, no problem. They’ve just lost Luke Marshall for 5 weeks and  Roger Wilson for a week after citings, but they have Wiehahn Herbst back, and Paddy Jackson will be back in training soon.

Finally, I see the IRFU is bidding for the women’s world cup 2017, it’d be great if we got that!

Guinness PRO12
Friday, March 06
Glasgow Warriors vs Zebre    19:35
Cardiff Blues vs Connacht    19:35
Saturday, March 07
Ospreys vs Munster    14:40
Scarlets vs Leinster    17:15
Benetton Treviso vs Edinburgh    18:00
Sunday, March 08
Newport Gwent Dragons vs Ulster    16:00

No comments:

Post a Comment