Tom Savage
“He wouldn’t get too carried away. Each game is a learning experience for him – because you kind of forget how young he is – so he knows that every game he plays is bigger than the previous one. He’ll take advantage of every opportunity but he knows himself there’s stuff to work on.” The…
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The headlines are Rory Scannell’s, and rightly so. Kicking the winner with the clock gone red from forty-five metres out against your biggest in-conference rivals is the kind of stuff you dream about doing when you’re a kid (and a back). The images of Scannell’s kick and the resultant celebration are the ones that’ll be…
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“Munster’s best performers on the day both came from outside the province. Tadhg Beirne … what are the other Munster pack members doing when this guy is doing his stuff?” – Neil Francis, Irish Independent. If you bought the Irish Independent on Sunday you’ll have seen the above in the aftermath of Munster’s win over…
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“Feck off Scrumcap, you’re no good,” bellowed the man in the red woolly hat into the cold Cork night air. His friends chuckled. Everyone else in the terrace shifted awkwardly. Duncan Williams had just knocked on the ball at a ruck and the crowd had gone silent – after the groans, that is. Every stadium…
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I played at #7 for most of my days slogging in rugby so it’s safe to say that referees and I don’t really get along all that well. There’s respect for them, sure, in so far as if they send me off I’ll leave the field, or award a dodgy penalty against me I’ll walk…
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It’s the time of the year for overreaction. Whenever Munster play Leinster, a fever seems to descend on the rugby press of this great nation of ours and, all of a sudden, what has become a fairly commonplace annual loss in Dublin in early October morphs into something more “significant”. I throw those air quotes…
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As a Corkman writing for a Limerick paper, I’m careful not to tread on sensitive inter-county lines when pressing send on this column. I try not to mention the inherent superiority of Barry’s Tea to whatever tea it is ye drink in Limerick, for example. I don’t mention how the River Lee is just straight…
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Is it bordering on heresy to say that this Munster squad is as deep as it’s been since 2008? Maybe heresy isn’t the right word – pressurising, perhaps, would be more suitable. After all, if we’re to compare this squad, quality wise, with the Heineken Cup-winning squad of 2005-2008 we have to also look at…
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The road that took Joey Carbery from the leafy surrounds of Ballsbridge to the Cratloe Road was a little more convoluted than the M7 but the end result was the same. Carbery in Limerick, in Munster, and primed for a shot at the Irish #10 jersey that would have been structurally impossible in a Leinster…
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This game against the Ospreys in the Guinness Pro14 has more significance than the September billing might suggest. After last Friday’s loss in Glasgow, Munster arrive in Cork this week with some things to rectify – some of them are old problems, some of them are new, but all of them are within the ability…
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