The Dublin Community Blog

If you’re not lucky enough to be heading to Cardiff this weekend for the European Rugby Cup Final (unlike Colm and I!!), then here’s something well worth doing this evening.

Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Swords Cricket Challenge

Malahide Cricket Club President’s XI v Leinster Rugby XI

Tonight will see the Leinster rugby cricket squad being captained by former Leinster assistant coach Gerry Murphy and includes Ireland international stars Girvan Dempsey and Guy Easterby. England international prop Will Green, a winner of the Heineken Cup with Wasps in 2004, has also been named as have the likes of Rob Kearney, Ben Gissing, Brendan Burke and former Ireland underage cricketer Brian O’Riordan. The Leinster side will also include members of the backroom team such as former All Black and current forwards coach Mike Brewer, video analyst Emmet Farrell, assistant coach David Knox – a former Australia Under-19 cricket international – and kit manager Johnny O’Hagan.

It should be a fun and entertaining night for all, with a BBQ, raffles and lots of entertainment lined up. Most importantly, this is all happening for an extremely worthy cause, the Welcome Home Charity. Everything kicks off from about 6pm this evening…let’s just hope that the weather holds out for them!

As my previous post may have suggested Ryanair shafting Leinster Rugby, it appears they have decided to go the full revolution and shaft rugby. In a statement on their website today, Ryanair have closed their Dublin – Cardiff route with effect from May 1st … Yes, that’s right, 19 days BEFORE the Heinken Cup Final! It now seems rugby fans as a whole will now feel the pinch with Ryanair’s untimely closure of the Dublin – Cardiff Route.

RYANAIR ANNOUNCES CLOSURE OF DUBLIN – CARDIFF ROUTE
Ryanair, Europe’s leading low fares airline, today announced the cessation of its service from Dublin to Cardiff and the transfer of these services to Bristol International Airport with effect from Monday next, 1st May. Ryanair’s five year agreement with Cardiff Airport was due for renewal on that date but the airport has insisted on increasing its passenger charges by over 350%. In addition, the airport has reneged on elements of its current contract and is attempting to force Ryanair to pay extra charges for services which were covered under that contract.

Announcing the decision Ryanair’s Deputy Chief Executive, Michael Cawley, said,
“Cardiff Airport is pricing itself out of the low fares market. Cost increases of the order of 350% belong to an era when the lowest air fare from Ireland to the UK was €250. Ryanair has a wide choice of competitive airports available to it and, with effect from Monday next, 1st May, we will be transferring these services to Bristol International Airport. For those flights up to the 10th May Ryanair will provide coach services between the two airports.

In addition we will be offering refunds to any passengers who have already booked on these Cardiff flights and who don’t wish to travel to Bristol. We very much regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers but we are not prepared to tolerate these levels of cost increases on their behalf from airports whose only interest seems to be to gouge passengers with extortionate price increases.�

Ryanair’s map LESS the Cardiff destination

Many Munster fans residing in Dublin will now be left disappointed with being flown to the shed that is Bristol Airport over 60 mins commute from Cardiff.

Colm.

Ok, there’s been a few words said about the lack of posting about the match here since Sunday. To be honest, it’s a Dublin blog, and being at the epicentre of Leinster, we’re (almost) all feeling just a little sore about what happened. Not about the fact that we lost to Munster, not in my opinion anyways, I don’t think we could have lost to a better, more deserving team, but, the nature by which that we lost.

From early Sunday morning, I was starting to think that the game was already lost. Walking around Dublin, there was not a single Leinster jersey visible (ok, ok, not true, there were one or two). What there was lots of however, were Munster jerseys. This, in the supposed home of Leinster rugby!!

Every pub was the same…

…as far as the eye could see!

Of course, it wasn’t just on the streets of D4 that the Munster boys had taken hold, as our own Declan writes, Munster men took over Leinster’s official pub, Kielys of Donnybrook.

Now, I’ve recently come back from supporting Leinster on that wonderful trip to Toulouse, where the Leinster support done the team proud, and almost 6,000 genuine Leinster rugby fans put on the most amazing support the team has ever seen. Whilst I have no doubt that every one of these were around the ground on Sunday, and inside the ground as well, they were most definately lost amongst the infamous D4 crowd (yes, there were a few there!) and amongst the amazing Munster fans….

Based on all this, it’s probably no suprise that the Leinster team didn’t turn up to play the match. Yes, yes, Munster were great (there, I said it!) and played the game necessary to beat Leinster (stifle Contipomi, retain posession), but, as my father said to me before the teams even came onto the pitch, Leinster were beat by the crowd, which was the equivalent of a sixteenth (seventeeth and eighteenth) man on the pitch.

Needless to say, once they had the match wrapped up, there was much celebrating done.

Roads, what roads?!

So, Munster, I salute a great team, and a great support base, and I wish you all the best in Cardiff. Leinster, both the team and the supporters need to take a serious look at themselves and realise their massive failings. Even more than that however, the rugby clubs within the Leinster branch who sold their ticket allocations to Munster clubs and punters, quite often at massively inflated prices need to be seriously investigated and outed for letting their players, genuine supporters, and Irish rugby in general down spectacularly!!!

It was, unkindly perhaps, suggested in the Indo this morning that the reason there were so many red jerseys in Lansdowne Road yesterday was that many Leinster fans had sold their tickets to their Munster counterparts because there was a sale on at Brown Thomas.

Nonetheless it did tie in with something I observed yesterday morning. I was over in Blackrock having breakfast in the village, in the hour or so I was there I must have seen 25 Munster jerseys and not a single blue Leinster representative.

In Blackrock…

Curious, non?

R

FOR those of you who are not able to watch the Munster v Leinster Heineken Cup semi-final Limerick Blogger is live blogging the rugby including a video of Munster’s first try.

And not everyone is watching, I for one am watching the Eastenders omnibus.

I was at a nice pre-cursor to the match this morning, day one of an Inter Provincial hockey tournament hosted by Leinster Hockey in Grange Road. It was great to watch the Leinster Ladies set the stage for the weekend, beating the Munster ladies by three goals to one. Now, lets see this trend continued for the rest of the weekend.

If you’re not going to the match tomorrow, and are wondering what to do for the day, you could do worse than to take a trip out to Three Rock for day two of the tournament, which sees both the Leinster Men and Women in action, along with all the other provinces.

Ryanair have shafted Leinster Rugby by backing the muck savages eh, I mean Munster to beat Leinster this Sunday in the Heineken Cup Semi-Final. Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary (currently living in Mullingar, Westmeath, Leinster) turned his back on Leinster and offered 1,000 free seats out of Shannon for every point that Munster beat Leinster.

Ryanair, Europe’s leading low fares airline today offered 1,000 free seats from its Shannon base for every point by which Munster beats Leinster in the Heineken Cup semi final at Lansdowne Road this Sunday.

Announcing the initiative Ryanair’s Deputy Chief Executive, Michael Cawley said:“We believe the best way to celebrate Munster’s imminent victory over Leinster in the Heinken Cup semi-final on Sunday is to offer free seats to Munster supporters on flights from our Shannon base. We are making available 1,000 free seats for every point with which Munster beats Leinster on Sunday. These seats will be available for booking from Monday 24th April for flights from 15th May on many of our midweek services from Shannon to the 20 international destinations which we serve from our base there. Ryanair will this year carry 1.5 million passengers into and out of the airport, further evidence, that together with Munster rugby Ryanair is putting Limerick and Clare firmly on the map.�  

 

Michael O’Leary looking like a TWAT … AGAIN

Yours truly cannot wait for Leinster to do a number on Munster and adding insult to injury, I will be the first Leinster fan to email Ryanair on Sunday night and rub their faces in it.

Allez Les Bleus!

This weekend the population of Dublin must stand up and be counted. No, not in the census. Well, ok, in the census of course (before an army of yellow jacketed census enumerators descend on my office for a lynching), but also in a far more important matter. There is only one question that must be answered this weekend! Are you a dweeby Leinster fan or a proud Munster supporter?

Let’s mess with the Leinster fans minds and get everyone who supports a real rugby team to wear something red over the weekend. Wear a Munster jersey if you have it, but a red t-shirt or even a Liverpool/Man United jersey will do in a crunch. That red jumper your mother-in-law bought you 5 years ago. A red hat, scarf or gloves. Red trousers (shudder) or skirt. Girls, how about the red lingerie your Leinster born boyfriend bought you last valentines day (really mess with his mind).

Let’s show Leinster which team is REALLY playing at home this weekend.

Come on Munster!

At half time on Good Friday Vs The Scarlets, you’d have not believed Leinster were in the Heineken Cup Semi-Final a week later! Trailing 7-19 and in dire need of some inspiration, Leinester looked to the unseen (as far as eddie O’Sullivan is concerned) veterans of the team. Up stepped Brian Blaney, Guy Easterby and Girvan “The Swirve” Dempsey to collect a 5 point victory for Leinster. Let’s all hope the lads are in flying form on Sunday at 3:00!

 

 

In what was a definite return to normality after their hammering of Toulouse, Leinster managed to scrape a win away to the Border Reivers last friday night. In a scrappy, error-ridden game, Felipe Contepomi stepped up to clinch the vital 5th try to seal Leinster’s victory. It seems just that Sir Contepomi should score the decisive try as it was his lack of accurate conversion kicking that may have put Leinster in this position in the first place. One would assume that if Leinster score 4 tries in the FIRST HALF of any game then they should have walked away with a win securely nestled under their belts. The Borders on the other hand took their chances kicking at goal and scored tries when it mattered to stay in touch with Leinster. A lot will be learned from this game, namely … “If we play like this against Munster – We’re in for a hiding”

This Friday see’s the visit of the Llaneli Scarlets to Lansdowne Road in the Celtic League Yes, Leinster are supposed to play their home games in Donnybrook but as the Leinster Branch have played every rugby match imaginable (from Leinster Senior matches to schools mathes to allowing anyone have a run on it for a fee) on the newly relayed surface, the Donnybrook pitch has turned in to a dustbowl that resembles Dollymount Strand with not a blade of grass in sight.

As imagined, tickets for the Leinster Vs Munster Heineken Cup Final are like gold dust. This is going to be one match to remember with both sides desperately looking for a Final place. More on this match as the date draws closer …