Following Ireland’s dissapointing showing in this year’s Six Nations, many commentators had felt that the number of Irish Lions would be far lower than first expected. However Ireland instead following today’s announcement are represented well in the squad of 44. There are 11 Irish men on the squad and also Brian O’Driscoll will be the captain of the team when they play their first game against Argentina in Wales on May 23rd.
>Following this weekend’s Celtic League matches things are as tight as ever for the third and fourth placed Irish sides in the competition. Ulster lost on Friday night against Cardiff despite having a huge amount of posession. Thankfully for Ulster today Connacht also lost against the Ospreys in Galway. Connacht may end up rueing not getting a bonus point with a missed conversion with only a few minutes left being the difference between them getting the point and not getting it.
This weekend sees Munster take on The Borders in Scotland while in Galway Connacht will face this year’s league winners, The Ospreys. The Connacht match is on Setanta Ireland which is what NTL subscribers and Sky Subscribers in Ireland recieve. Thankfully for Munster fans there is a way to get Setanta UK and watch the Munster match.
Following yesterday’s confirmation that Declan Kidney would be leaving the province, today brings the confirmation that flanker Shane Jennings is set to leave for Leicester.
Today has been an extremely busy day in terms of Irish Rugby news with changes happening all round, mainly to do with Declan Kidney’s switch from Leinster to Munster.
Following yesterday’s interviews for the job of Munster coach, it is being widely reported that Declan Kidney is the new Munster coach. Kidney left Munster to become Ireland assistant coach three years ago and became Leinster coach last August.
With last weekend’s dissapointing events hopefully fading quickly from everyone’s memories, it’s time to return to the Celtic League where qualifying position for the Heineken Cup and for the Celtic Cup are still left to be decided. Mark McCall has named his Ulster side to take on Cardiff.
At this stage Munster, Leinster and Connacht have all named their sides for this weekend’s Heineken Cup matches. Alan Gaffney announced his Munster side this morning and it was pretty much as predicted. Despite all the injuries the side still contains a huge amount of experience and almost all the team are past or current Irish internationals.
The Heineken Cup restarts tonight and I’m sure everyone will be glued to their TV to see whether Northampton can cause a huge upset when they face Toulouse. From an Irish point of view there’s nothing much happening but the three provinces in action this weekend should announce their squads today.