So, it has emerged by chance or by design and that Leinster is the supposed destination of double World Cup winning Lock RG Snyman, initial reports a few weeks back linked the lock with a move to Bath to link up with Johan Van Graan but now the focus has shifted to the east with Leinster apparently in the market for reinforcements in the second row.

Jason Jenkins is apparently off for a new challenge at the end of the current year. Of course this is still only speculation and we have been here before with Keith Earls supposedly off to join Saracens back in 2018 only for him to sign fresh terms with the IRFU. If it does come to pass that Snyman makes the move to Leinster. It will continue the trend of players switching sides.

The likes of Trevor Hogan, Paul Wallace, Brian O Meara, Stephen Keogh and more recently Joey Carbery have made the move from Munster to Leinster or vice versa. Rugby is a short career and given the rotten luck that Snyman has had with injury in his time with Munster suffering two ACL injuries in his 4 years with Munster.

The likelihood of Munster keeping Snyman after the end of the current season was slim anyway and when the choice of Kleyn or Snyman was made it was Jean Kleyn signing on until summer 2025. The likely destinations at that point would have been a SA URC team or Bath in The Premiership, even another term in the Pro League in Japan where he spent a few years prior to the 2019 World Cup.

As I say, it is only speculation but one does feel once it makes its way into the public domain, only time is the main sticking point of making any announcements either way. That process may have to be sped up for the sake of the player and clubs involved.

Rugby as we know is only a short career and only a small few make it to their late 30s in the modern game like Jimmy Gopperth and Jonathan Sexton, they are exceptions certainly not the norm.

More power to Snyman and his representatives for working away on a deal to bring him to his new destination wherever that may be, be that the Rec with Bath, The RDS with Leinster or elsewhere….

The 2023 Champions Cup gets underway this Friday with Connacht in action against Bordeaux Begles and then Ulster and Munster spring in action on Saturday with Ulster playing Bath at the Rec with Munster taking on Bayonne in Thomond Park.

Leinster play last season’s winners La Rochelle on Sunday  who won’t have Ronan O Gara in the coaches box as he serves a one game ban and will have to sit in the stand like last season when Ulster’s home with fixture with La Rochelle was moved from Belfast to Dublin owing to poor weather.

All four provinces have started the URC in decent form and will fancy making it 4 from 4 on opening weekend but the opposition that each side will face will be stiff competition and those sides will have designs on starting the campaign on a positive note themselves.

Connacht will know they can’t allow what happened against Leinster happen more often and that is getting pipped late on in games. A number of key signings like Joe Joyce who played with Bristol Bears previously and JJ Hanrahan who has returned to Ireland after a spell in France with Clermont Auvergne.

The additions of John Muldoon and Scott Fardy has strengthened the coaching staff in Galway and that will help Peter Wilkins keep up the good momentum build up over recent weeks barring last weekend vs Leinster.

Connacht will know a win at home would be the ideal start and to stand any hope in the revamped Champions Cup you need to win at home and then take your chances away from home as its now only 4 group games instead of 6 as was the case previously.

Ulster will go to the Rec to face Johan Van Graan’s Bath side that has picked up a few key wins in the past couple of rounds in the Premiership.

They seem to be going places slowly under Van Graan who again has dipped into the South African market for a few signings with Thomas Du Toit who spent 3 months on loan at Munster a few season ago before returning to South Africa, couple that with Finn Russell at 10 and things are beginning to shape up for the boys from the Recreation Ground.

For Ulster it will be key for them to come away with some points from the opening away day if they can’t win the game come away with a losing bonus or even a try bonus and it will be considered a good day’s work. Of course they won’t look to come away with slim pickings, they will go all out to gain at least 4 match points and see where that might leave them for week two at home in the Kingspan.

Munster take on Bayonne in Limerick with Camille Lopez and Reece Hodge the familiar faces to most Irish fans. They are in 10^th in the Top 14 at the moment but that won’t count for much in Europe as we have seen how well some French sides tackle the new look Champions Cup.

Munster have started the URC in ok form with 3 wins, two losses and a draw in Italy with Benetton. They will be without Peter O Mahony, Jean Kleyn and Jack O Donaghue with two of those three hopeful of returning for the trip to Devon on Sunday December 17^th to face Exeter.

Munster should have enough in the tank to start the campaign on the right note on Saturday in the prime kick off slot of 5.30pm, no doubt Thomond Park will be in fine voice by kick off time…

Lastly Leinster, reacquaint themselves with La Rochelle who have bested them in the most recent games between the sides namely last May’s Final in Dublin. ROG will have his charges well fired up and these two teams have plenty of spice between them with a tunnel incident involving Ronan O Gara trying to make a point to a match official and being politely being kept away from doing so.

Leinster have mentioned that they have prepared well with the two games against Munster and Connacht ideal preparation to take La Rochelle on Sunday. Leinster have been physically matched by La Rochelle so Leinster will be keen to help turn that around as well as starting the competition in winning fashion.

Jaques Nienaber has been added to the coaching staff taking over from Stuart Lancaster who has the reins with Racing 92 now. It will be interesting to see how the double World Cup winning coach can impact the Leinster set up going forward.

My predictions for the Irish sides in week one are, Connacht win at home to Bordeaux Begles, Ulster to get something from the trip to the Rec like a losing bonus point and maybe even a try bonus point but Bath to get the win.

Munster to win in Limerick against Bayonne and start the group on the right note.

Lastly Leinster to finally gain a first win over La Rochelle who have not been in vintage form in the early rounds of the Top 14 and Leinster to take full advantage for the win..

South Africa were crowned the 2023 RWC winners after a tight hard fought contest with New Zealand on a 12-11 score line. This win was based on a never say die attitude in defence and a willingness to never bend in attack with a game plan that certainly won’t win any beauty awards but one thing you’ll get from any Rassie Erasmus team is effort and defiance.

Himself and Jacques Nienabar have been together for a long time coaching in SA at club and provincial level in SA before taking an opportunity to come up to Munster and they spent 18 months with Munster before returning to SA to take on the national job, Erasmus as Director of Rugby and Mr Nienaber as head coach.

Both men stuck to that task and turned the ship around in an extremely short space of time to help them win the 2019 RWC.

Fast forward 4 years, in that time you have had a B&I Lions tour in 2021 which was of course played during an extremely tough period worldwide due to the Covid 19 pandemic and the restrictions on travel that continued for a period beyond the initial 12 months.

That tour was a mess and we now know the three test matches were only a whisker away from being chalked off due to a number of constraints on both squads with large numbers of each party being ruled out due to covid restrictions, Since then though things have returned to normal.

SA have focused on retaining this trophy for the past 2 years since the series win of 2021 vs the Lions. They have shown you can win a number of ways and be successful. They have also re invented the way the bench can be made up although I still feel a 5/3 split will continue to be the norm, a few sides including Munster and even Leinster when tactics dictated went 6/2 on their match day bench selections.

There are of course a couple of Irish links with this win as well as in 2019 with Felix Jones as part of the coaching team but you also have a Kerry man, Partick O Sullivan who was a member of the Springbok technical staff. He played rugby with Killarney and Crescent RFC.

Both men will be able to toast a job well done and will enjoy well earned time off before Jones begins a new position with England. It will be interesting who might snap up the talents of Patrick O Sullivan.

South Africa can enjoy this win, the final wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it was a game that kept you invested for 80 minutes. Congratulations to South Africa on their record 4^th RWC win. They will now look to the rest of the URC season as well as domestic competitions in SA in 2024.

I just wanted to pay tribute to Keith Earls who finished up with rugby this past weekend after a career that saw him play 202 games for Munster and earn 101 caps for Ireland. He burst onto the scene in 2007 in Musgrave Park where he chipped the ball up to himself to score one of many famous tries in red.

He had lit the schools game up playing for St Munchins and winning a senior cup in 2006 before he was brought into the Munster academy system which was in its infancy at that stage. He has captained his country on last year’s tour of New Zealand.

His importance to both club and country has been seen over the past few months with the glowing terms in which his fellow players speak of him. He was the man for all positions in the early days playing wing, centre and full back. He debuted for Ireland in November 2008 in Thomond Park against Canada and he never looked back.

 He also toured South Africa in 2009 with the British and Irish Lions, he was the youngest tourist on that tour. He was rather unfortunate not to get more of a look in on that tour but has always looked at that tour with great fondness.

As I say when you speak to people and see the respect that is there for Keith you realise what he meant to any team he was on. He of course had now well documented injury issues and in recent years he has opened up about the mental health issues he dealt with at times in his career in particular in the early period.

He was a nervous wreck for the most part and it was only in the latter years of his time with Ireland and Munster that he began to enjoy rugby and also he credits his family with helping him gain perspective in life as well as on the field of play.

He brought out a book a few years ago and I encourage anyone to go a find a copy and read it because it isn’t your usual sports biography and doesn’t go down the well-trodden path of many sports books. It goes into detail of his real life issues and he credits his family and his wife Edel with helping him to stay on the straight and narrow and not to go down a bad road that a few of his friends have done so.

He is a man that came through the hard way, yes he played schools rugby but he got his grounding with Thomond and Young Munster. Of course he Dad Ger wasn’t bad with an oval ball in hand playing for Munster on a famous day in 1992 in Cork when they defeated Australia. His Mam’s family were good sports people also so as they say “it wasn’t off the ground he licked it”.

He exited the stage in perfect fashion maybe a week or two earlier than hoped but he slipped away quietly that was the hall mark of his career, he worked hard, tackled anything that moved and finished the chances he was presented with !!

Thank You Keith, enjoy family life and being Dad to your girls and husband to Edel….

Ireland defeated South Africa 13-8 in the third game of Pool B of the World Cup after overcoming issues at both line out time and the scrum. This game and the intensity of it defiantly signalled an upping in intensity by both sides who didn’t take a backward step. South Africa will know they left points behind them from the tee.

Ireland too will know that had there line out functioned in the opening 20 minutes they could have scored more than one try. Both teams know they have issues to solve for later in the Pool. Ireland play Scotland in Paris on Saturday week and South Africa will face Tonga where Handre Pollard will return to the fray in the 10 jersey.

It will also be interesting to see how South Africa select their bench from now on after they used a 7/1 split in two games. Will they go down the traditional route of 5/3 or stick to 6/2 or 7/1. Deon Fourie struggled at key moments in the final quarter last Saturday and the decision to not pick another hooker and bring in Pollard will certainly be looked at as he struggled to get to grips with the game from a line out throwing perspective, which is kind of key when you come on as a hooker…

Ireland will know that win is only another stepping stone as they have been here before by beating Australia in 2011, France in 2015 to step up quarter finals both of which ended in defeat. As supporters we can lose the run of ourselves as long as Farrell and his squad keep the feet planted and we have truly learned from past errors at this point.

Scotland will come into full focus when the squad reconvenes tomorrow after a couple of days away from camp. They did the needful against Samoa and will need to do likewise against Romania next weekend. Then they can focus on Ireland.

I have seen the talk about the use of Cranberries song “Zombie” has come into focus in the days since the game on Saturday. We really need to press pause on these immediate pile ons that occur in the aftermath of these things.

You can’t in the words of my late grandfather rip the pages out of the history book and expect a different result. History is just that, history. We can’t revise every single piece of history to suit a narrative from 2023.

Let’s hope people will get behind the team on Saturday week. They have to try and break an unwanted record at World Cup time of not making it beyond a quarter final and yes it is a terrible record that they need to stop and once again they have done what’s been asked of them by beating the teams before them.

Under Andy Farrell this team went to New Zealand and based that tour on the final couple of weeks of a perspective World Cup run and that saw them win 4 out of 5 games on that tour. So they showed they can back up games week on week. Let’s trust in Andy Farrell and see can his men deliver another big performance on Saturday week against Scotland….

15 Hugo Keenan

14 Keith Earls

13 Robbie Henshaw

12 Stuart Mc Closkey

11 Simon Zebo

10 Joey Carbery

9 Craig Casey

8 Gavan Coombes

7 Peter O Mahony

6 Caelan Doris

5 Tadgh Beirne

4 Iain Henderson

3 Tadgh Furlong

2 Ronan Kelleher

1 Cian Healy

–

16 Dan Sheehan

17 Andrew Porter

18 Findlay Bealham

19 Josh Van Der Flier

20 Jack Conan

21 Jamison Gibson Park

22 Harry Byrne

23 Andrew Conway

Here is the XV I would select to face Argentina on Sunday. I made some slight alterations to the teams that have taken to the field to play Japan and New Zealand. I looked at other members of the squad that haven’t been involved in either game over the past 3 weekends.

Here is my XV to play South Africa in Test 1 of the Series next Saturday July 24^th. Many challenges have been seen by this squad since they met up in Jersey back at the end of May. Covid cases, the chosen captain being injured against Japan in Murrayfield and then making a recovery to take his place back in the squad to play the Stormers this afternoon in Cape Town.

All players in the squad will have had the chance to show there worth over the last 3 weeks, some have had extra game time owing to some players being ruled out due to isolation periods. This evening is the final chance for players to stick a hand up and be selected for the opening Test next Saturday.

I will now select the XV I think will start Test 1,

15 Anthony Watson

14 Josh Adams

13 Elliott Daly

12 Bundee Aki

11 Liam Williams

10 Dan Biggar

9 Ali Price

8 Toby Faletau

7 Tom Curry

6 Tadgh Beirne

5 Maro Itoje

4 Iain Henderson

3 Tadgh Furlong

2 Jamie George

1 Wyn Jones

–

16 Ken Owens

17 Rory Sutherland

18 Kyle Sinkler

19 Adam Beard

20 Hamish Watson

21 Conor Murray

22 Owen Farrell

23 Duhan Van Der Merwe