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.

Meanwhile Leinster have recieved the boost of having both Gordon D’Arcy and Shane Horgan fit for their match against Leicester. The downside is that D’Arcy appears to be only fit enough to start on the bench.

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.


There’s some bad news for Connacht fans with the news that Jason Robinson will be able to play against them on Saturday. Meanwhile nobody is quite sure what is going on in the Leicester camp with coach John Wells upsetting Austin Healey by dropping him ahead of their Heineken Cup clash with Leinster.

This weekend sees the return of European Rugby following the break for the Six Nations. Three of the four Irish provinces are in action. First up on Saturday it’s the turn of Connacht in the semi-finals of the European Challenge Cup, then later that evening Leinster will be looking to bury the ghosts of their past performances in the competition when they take on Leicester in Landsdowne Road. Finally on Sunday all eyes will turn to San Sebastian, Spain, where Munster are set to face French giants Biarritz. All in all it’s set to be a massive weekend of European Competition.

• Connacht V Sale Sharks
  
  The first province in action is Connacht. Controversy has shrouded the fixture as initially Sale were to play at home in the first leg but they seem to have lied their way into having the first leg away. Connacht will be riled up because of this but I think Sale, who are flying in the Zurich Premiership at the moment, will be far too good for Connacht and they are rightly favourites to beat Connacht and to win the Tournament. The match is on Sky Sports 2 at 1pm.
• Leinster V Leicester
  
  Next up is arguably the biggest game of the weekend, and certainly the most difficult to call. Leinster will be taking on Leicester at home but this seems to be scant reward for Leinster’s impressive form in the Pool stages of the competition. Leicester only scraped out of the ‘Pool of Death’ which contained Wasps and Biarritz, thus setting up a quarter-final with number 1 seeds Leinster. The match is too difficult to call with Leicester appearing to be slight favourites on Betfair. The match is far too tight to call for me and I’m just going to tune in on Saturday at 17.15 to catch all the action.
• Biarritz V Munster
  
  The weekend finishes with Munster’s trip to Spain to face Biarritz. Biarritz qualified in impressive form out of the toughest Pool in the competition. They beat Leicester at home and away, while also beating Wasps on one of their encounters. They have talent such as Betsen and Yachvilli which other teams would kill for. Munster on the other hand have an ageing team and if that wasn’t bad enough they’ve suffered a ridiculous amount of injuries including new signing Brian Lima. Munster however will have an extremely large travelling support and will be well up for the game. It will be extremely difficult and victory would need a performance bigger than the ‘Miracle Match’ but it is a possibility. The only way to find out will be to watch on RTE or Sky Sports at 15.00 on Sunday.

Munster’s Ronan O’Gara who picked up a leg injury last night against The Dragons has been ruled out of Munster’s Heineken Cup clash with Biaritz. The good news however is that should Munster progress to the semi-finals O’Gara will be able to play.

• Ulster finally put some daylight between themselves and Connacht when they beat the Borders by 17 points to 13 last night at Ravenhill. While they are now 3 points ahead of Connacht they’ll be very dissapointed that they weren’t able to beat bottom placed Borders by more. However Connacht have a more difficult final two matches so Ulster will be confident of claiming the final Heineken Cup spot.
• Meanwhile Munster were left counting the cost of their win away to The Dragons by 24 points to 8. Ronan O’Gara picked up what looked like a bad knee injury just before half-time. This will be a huge concern for Munster ahead of their Heineken Cup quarter-final next weekend.
• In Dublin, Leinster warmed up for their Heineken Cup clash with Leicester Tigers by beating Llanelli Scarlets by 31 points to 25. Leinster can mainly thank the boot of out-half David Holwell who kicked 8 penalties to see them to victory.

• The Brian Lima mystery has continued today with his supposed arrival in the country. Since this was officially announced earlier in the week we’re going to wait until we see a picture of him in a Munster shirt before we believe it.
• The other notable piece of news is Eric Elwood’s announcement of retirement from the game. Elwood has been a terrific servant of the game and will be looking to finish his final season by helping Connacht to Heineken Cup qualification.

• Munster have announced their team to take on The Dragons at Rodney Parade tomorrow evening. The match will see the return of all their internationals with the exception of Paul O’Connell who will miss out due to his suspension. More confusing however is the story of Munster’s new signing Brian Lima. Lima had been scheduled to arrive last Tuesday and some reports said he had even completed his medical, but today it was announced that he is arriving tomorrow. The late arrivial will mean he will not play with Munster before the quarter-final with Biarittz
• In Leinster news Gordon D’Arcy is included in their side to take on Llanelli on Friday. Leinster will obviously be hoping D’Arcy will be fit and well for the Leicester match the following weekend.
• Meanwhile Ulster will see the return of their international stars Kevin Maggs and David Humphreys when they take on Friday against The Borders.

Word is creeping out that Paul O’Connell will be available for Munster’s trip to San Sebastian for their Heineken Cup quarter final on April 3rd. O’Connell has been at a hearing today related to an incident between him and Rob Sidoli last weekend in Cardiff.


No official announcement has been made but all the rumours are saying that O’Connell will recieve a two week ban with with a back-dated effect, meaning it will finish the day before the quarter-final.

Leinster held off Connacht to complete a double over Connacht this season and open a gap between themselves and The Dragons in the race for third place in the Celtic League. Meanwhile the losing bonus point that Connacht picked up in the 21 points to 26 defeat moves them one point ahead of Ulster in the race for the third Irish Heineken Cup spot.

Ireland’s hopes of winning the Six Nations were dashed this evening when Wales saw off Ireland’s challenge by beating them by 32 points to 20. Ireland never really got going until Eddie O’Sullivan made wholesale changes with about 30 minutes left to play.


At this stage Ireland were trailing significantly, but the introduction of David Humprheys into the backs and Munstermen, Marcus Horan, Donncha O’Callaghan and Frankie Sheehan into the forwards, gave Ireland new life and they scored two tries.


Questions have to be asked about Eddie O’Sullivan’s extremely conservative selections, and the game plan of kicking despite having some of the most exciting backs in the competition.