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'There aren’t many clubs in world rugby have a fan base that big'
By Simon Thomas
Leinster Rugby remain the maximum men having secured their fourth successive bonus point victory on a record-breaking derby day at Croke Park.
The early season pacesetters beat arch rivals Munster Rugby 26-12 in front of a crowd of 80,468 - the biggest ever in league history.
Spurred on by the huge attendance, they came flying out of the blocks, crossing three times inside the opening 13 minutes and had the four-try bonus point in the bag by half-time.
One of those early touchdowns came from No 8 Caelan Doris who led by example as skipper with a Player of the Match performance.
Reflecting on the occasion, he said: “It’s incredible. It was an unbelievable atmosphere. It’s pretty unique having 80,000 filling out this place. There aren’t many clubs in world rugby have a fan base that big. So we massively appreciate them, we felt them out there.”
The Irish international continued: “We had a fast start. We felt our fans behind us and wanted to put on a good show for them early on. I think we did that. We got two tries in the first 10 minutes.
“With the quality of Munster, we knew they would fight back and it was more of a battle in the second half definitely.”
Leinster are four points clear at the top of the table, with champions Glasgow Warriors in second spot after a 33-3 bonus point victory over Zebre Parsma at Scotstoun.
It’s another Irish derby for table-topping Leinster next weekend as they travel to Galway to take on Connacht.
Second-placed Glasgow and Munster both begin two-week tours of South Africa as they head for the Sharks and Stormers respectively.
There are two games in Wales, with the Scarlets hosting the unbeaten Bulls and the Dragons entertaining Benetton, while the other Round 5 fixtures are Ulster v Ospreys, Zebre v Lions and Edinburgh v Cardiff.
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Latest Comments
oh ok, seems strange you didn't put the limit at 7 given you said you thought 8 was too many!
Why did you say "I've told you twice already how I did it but your refuse to listen" when you had clearly not told me that you'd placed a limit of 8 teams per league?
"Agreed with 4 pool of 4 and home and away games?"
I understand the appeal of pools of 4, but 6 pool games might not go down well with the French or the South Africans given already cramped schedules. I do still think that you're right that that would be the best system, but there is going to be a real danger of French and SA sides sending b-teams which could really devalue the competition unless there is a way to incentivise performance, e.g. by allowing teams that do well one year to directly qualify for the next year's competition.
Go to commentsFoster should never have been appointed, and I never liked him as a coach, but the hysteria over his coaching and Sam Cane as a player was grounded in prejudice rather than fact.
The New Zealand Rugby public were blinded by their dislike of Foster to the point of idiocy.
Anything the All Blacks did that was good was attributed to Ryan and Schmidt and Fozzie had nothing to do with it.
Any losses were solely blamed on Foster and Cane.
Foster did develop new talent and kept all the main trophies except the World Cup.
His successor kept the core of his team as well as picking Cane despite him leaving for overseas because he saw the irreplaceable value in him.
Razor will take the ABs to the next level, I have full confidence in that.
He should have been appointed in 2020.
But he wasn’t. And the guy who was has never been treated fairly.
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