Ireland have made only one change to the squad that started the England game for this Saturdays match against Wales.

It’s not really much of a surprise that Kidney has decided to ease Ulsterman Andrew Trimble out of the squad to make way for the returning Rob Kearney as the Ireland supremo appears to have little regard for the northern Province these days.

What is surprising is that he also appears to have little regard for any sort of development as, even in this fairly meaningless match, Ireland continue to select the oldest side in international rugby.

Ireland: G Murphy, Bowe, B O’Driscoll, D’Arcy, Earls; Sexton, O’Leary; Healy, R Best, Hayes, O’Callaghan, O’Connell, Ferris, D Wallace, Heaslip. Replacements: Kearney, O’Gara, Buckley, Cullen, Jennings, Cronin, Reddan.   More ... (456 words, 1 image)

Following several inter Canary Island beach tournaments over the last 5 years, Lanzarote have decided that the first one they host will be an open invitation to anyone interested in escaping the cold & wet of the British & Irish isles for a long weekend of sunshine, beer and a spot of beach rugby.

Open to all ages, shapes & sizes but forget the tag belts, this is full-on contact stuff on a smaller pitch, but without the boots, so remember to trim your toenails.

The San Bartolome council are backing the event, so there’ll be decent facilities on hand, and the prize giving event will be followed by a beach side BBQ.   More ... (195 words, 2 images)

You can view Week 26 results here.

This week it’s back to the RBS Six Nations with Internationals on Saturday and Sunday. I’ve also included the three remaining British and Irish Cup fixtures with Ulster Ravens requiring a bonus point win against Aberavon to go through to the knock out stages in style.

One point for each match where you correctly predict the winner, five points if you correctly predict a draw and we’ll give out a bonus point for each group of three matches that you get correct.

Predictions to be in by 6:00pm Friday 12th March.   More ... (229 words, 1 image)

Friday night last and beyond:

Ulster were crop.

The referee was crop.

Rugby is crop.

Alright it’s the UAFC school of constructive rugby criticism for initiates, so let me put some meat on this crusty bone. The guts of this are covered in Dewi’s match report and to avoid any claims of plagiarising I can say hand on heart they are my own miniscule thoughts and reasoning written in my inimitable style. The thought that contract talks and players coming and going struck me as a reason for some of the poor display by Ulster as a team.   More ... (1782 words, 1 image)

Ulster served up another poor league performance last night at Parc-y-Scarlets where the sum of the whole was so much less than the sum of the individual players.

It was a poor performance in team work, made all the worse by the fact that they were outplayed, with embarrassing ease, by a second string Scarlets side, quite possibly the worst Welsh side in the Magners League.

Ulster’s form in the league, were they have won only one out of the last six, is all the more worrying in that during that sequence they managed to win three out of four Heineken Cup games, the only loss being the farcical re-arranged fixture against Stade Francais in Brussels, no Paris!   More ... (635 words, 1 image)

Ulster Head Coach Brian McLaughlin has named his starting XV, plus replacements, for Ulster’s Magners League fixture, against Scarlets, at Parc y Scarlets, this Friday 5th March, kick off 7.05pm.

After a home draw with Dragons in their last Magners League outing, Ulster head to Parc y Scarlets sitting in 6th place on the league table, with Scarlets 8 points behind in 9th position.

Commenting on the fixture, Ulster Coach Brian McLaughlin said:

“It is going to be an exceptionally tough game, the Scarlets at their home ground, in the Magners League. It doesn’t matter who you play at this stage, all these games are tough to win.   More ... (434 words, 1 image)