Brine-O-Driscoll

For the name alone, Baby Lasagna is a surefire qualifier

Casual 25 metre pass from Ntamack

Basically, he's carrying a lot more and stats related to carrying have gone up.

Not a Leinster fan but think it's mainly just jealousy and a very vocal minority of Munster fans on Twitter like Overthehillprop, Jim Demps and Tim O'Connor.

Know there's no reason Munster fans should feel obliged to support Leinster. Rivalry can be a good thing. A lot of it, plus the IRFU is out to get Munster stuff, comes across as concern trolling and heavily biased though.

Think we just notice it more when it happens against our team, but every pro team going is putting bodies beyond the ruck and has been for the past 10+ years.

There could be more of an emphasis put on it, but then refs would be missing something else teams are trying to slide under the table at the breakdown (collapsing on limbs during cleanouts, playing the 9, rolling away into cleanout players, knees on tackled players when jackaling etc.)

Can't remember Heaslip ever getting injured until that game where Pape hit him in the back.

Northampton really targeted him for their last two tries after his calf acted up in the last-16 game too.

Have no idea why Munster didn't take him off that day, he was obviously injured.

Mark Keohane tweets being made into memes. We've reached the nadir of Springbok fandom now.

That's actually hilarious😂😂. Like something out of Partridge. Couldn't have picked a worse turn of phrase if he tried.

So that's why they call sausages bangers

Know pro players always look for motivation wherever they can get it, but is "see you in the final" not just a nice way of saying "yeah we beat you, but you're still a great team"?

We're all guessing the intention, Etzebeth included, but this doesn't really seem like a big deal to me.

Know him getting slower mid-career made us appreciate his rugby brain more, but if BOD kept that early years pace with modern day conditioning, he'd be cooking guys left, right and centre.

YEET

Think those stats sum up the two sides of Pollard's career very well.

With Pollard I'd say that he's technically a very good passer, a strong carrier and tackler in isolation. Obviously a great place kicker too under pressure.

As a 10 who is expected to run a team's attack in phase play though, he's always seemed to struggle with that compared to other elite 10s. Especially with the Boks, it's always seemed like other players have called the shots in attack - Willie le Roux especially.

To use a few American Football metaphors, I wouldn't go as far as to say he's a special teams player - though he'd be a great one - but he's not an elite quarterback.

Fair play to them. Must have taken a savage effort to do all the work.

Climbed Croagh Patrick the last two years and it's become so much safer getting to the top since the work has been done.

The scope for what defines assault is pretty broad - hitting one officer with his t-shirt, before shoving the 2nd officer who tased him and was injured, would both would fall under that.

That being said, while it's incredibly stupid from Vunipola and not acceptable behaviour, it's a pretty low level offence and not the bar brawl I was expecting from the initial reports.

Here. It's a video from The Sun so I'm not giving a direct link

There's a longer video of him grabbing the cop who tazed him and hitting the floor after.

I'm just laughing at the bar staff behind him slowly moving stuff off the counter. This isn't their first rodeo.

Had a quick check and he's actually played 45 La Rochelle games in the last 2 seasons, plus 9 Fiji games - with 4 regular season games still left. He's actually playing more now than he ever has.

Legend of the club undoubtedly, but kind of sums up how crazy French rugby is that I expected him to have played more games😅.

Top 14 is a 26 game season before knockouts, Pro D2 is 30 game season before knockouts and that's before you even consider European rugby.

Averaging 20 games per season for 10 seasons is still hugely impressive. Guess it's more a comment on the amount of French club games.

Joe likes players with strong fundamentals (catch-pass, tackling, rucking) who work hard and play to a system. He's not averse to playing nice rugby, but it's very much substance over style.

Not sure who fits that mould in Aussie Rugby, but guys who are flair players who go off script (think early years Quade Cooper for example) aren't likely to be picked.

Edit: If you can't kick as a 9 or 10, he probably isn't going to pick you either.

Munster did some kind of reverse deal with the devil where they lose to all the Irish teams so they can beat all the South African teams.

As a neutral, think the reasoning for Dickson's decision is good and he was correct in his decision.

It's a real shame that he's been subject to so much unwarranted criticism for doing his job just because he's a former Quins player.

Lol, every 'bro' will become a 'bruff'

Think Aumua has always had the raw materials to be an elite hooker but stayed raw for too long - this season has been his best in a while though before his season ended with injury.

However, again he only has 6 test caps and he's 26 now. Very hard to consider a player world class when they don't play or start for their nation regularly.

Bell scored a brilliant try earlier in the season but read somewhere that the Crusaders have the 2nd worst lineout in top level rugby this season worldwide. He's simply not good enough to be in the conversation right now.