Eddie O’Sullivan today announced his team to play France in their 2004 RBS Six Nations opener in Paris on Saturday. Paul O’Connell has been named as captain due to the fact that Brian O’Driscoll remains injured. The team shows 4 changes to the team that lost to France in the World Cup in October. Gordon D’Arcy, Tyrone Howe, Anthony Foley and Shane Byrne all come into the side.
The BBC is reporting that Alan Solomons, Ulster’s highly recommended coach looks set to move to Northampton, to replace former All Blacks coach Wayne Smith who is returning to the New Zealand setup. Solomons position had been a source of much rumour, as reported here before and the Ulster branch had tried hard to get Solomons to stay, but it appears they may have failed.
Munster prop Marcus Horan has been ruled out of Saturday’s Six Nations opener against France, due to a back injury. Eddie O’Sullivan has called Justin Fitzpatrick and Simon Best into the squad as replacements for Horan.
With Ireland’s Six Nations campaign about to start, and with Munster and Connacht flying high in the European competitions never has there been more demand for Irish rugby news. With this in mind, today sees the launch of Irish Rugby Now! Irish Rugby Now! is Ireland’s only rugby site dealing exclusively with all levels of Irish Rugby from Schools Rugby to Six Nations. Irish Rugby Now! aims to be the first stop on the web for any Irish Rugby Fan.
With Leinster being unable to play Argentinian international Felipe Contepomi during the Heineken Cup pool stages due to a clerical error, and having been knocked out of the Heineken Cup, it looked like Irish fans wouldn’t see Contepomi in European competition this year, but now Contepomi has been cleared to play for Connacht in the remainder of their Parker Pen Challenge Cup campaign.
Connacht today lost by 40 points to 17 against Celtic Warriors in an exciting at the Brewery Field. Connacht started brightly going 17 - 3 ahead, but at half-time Celtic Warriors had hauled back the deficit to be level. Two tries, and Neil Jenkin’s boot gave Warriors 23 points in the second half to give them the victory.
Munster recieved a huge scare last night against second-from-bottom Borders. At the break Munster went in trailing the Scots, who had a 21 points to 8 half-time lead. In the second half despite being severly depleted with players on Six Nations duty managed to get back in front and win the game by 29 points to 21.
Ulster beat Llanelli last night to replace them as Celtic League leaders. Ulster won the scrappy encounter at Ravenhill by 10 points to 9. This result continues Ulster’s unbeaten home record but there wasn’t much quality in their preformace.
Leinster were always going to be up against it for their clash against Gwent last night. Leinster who haven’t been in the greatest form recently had to contend with being without 10 players who had been called up for Ireland. This coupled with Gwent Dragons formidable 100% home record in the Celtic League made thw task of beating Gwent extremely difficult.
With eight Munster players in the Irish 22 to play France, Alan Gaffney has been forced to select a new-look side for the game against The Borders in Musgrave Park on Friday night.