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Watch - President Joe Biden tells Rob Kearney to 'stand up'
By Ian Cameron
US President Joe Biden has thrown his support behind Ireland's bid to complete the Six Nations Grand Slam, wishing Andy Farrell's side luck ahead of their Saturday teatime clash with England in Dublin.
Speaking at a St Patrick's Day engagement in Washington, Mr Biden introduced his distant relative and former Ireland and Lions fullback Rob Kearney. Kearney, who has previously visited the White House at the invitation of Mr Biden, was in attendance at the event. The President even went as far as to ask Kearney to stand up during his speech, joking that he wanted to see him after the event.
"We've even got a few of my distant Irish cousins here today… Rob stand up. I want to see you after this, pal, said President Biden.
"You know, Rob, I expect, we know - and this is no offence to anyone in the room - who we are rooting for in the Grand Slam match between Ireland and England."
Biden's Irish roots hail back to the Cooley Peninsula in Co. Louth, a location the wider Kearney family still call home. Biden visited Ireland as Barrack O'Bama's vice-president in 2016 and met both Rob and Dave Kearney for lunch as part of a whistle-stop of the area.
This is not the first time that Mr Biden has displayed his love of rugby. An Irish rugby ball has been spotted in the Oval Office since his inauguration in 2020. His support of Ireland's Six Nations campaign, however, is likely to be welcomed by fans of the sport in both the US and Ireland.
Ireland are four from four in the Six Nations and victory against England would secure their first Grand Slam since 2018. The match, which will take place at the Aviva Stadium, is expected to be a closely contested affair, even if England are coming off the worst home defeat in their history.
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The boy needs to bulk up if wants to play 10 or 11 to handle those hits, otherwise he could always make a brilliant reserve for the wings if he stays away from the stretcher.
Go to commentsIn another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.
First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.
They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.
Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.
Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.
That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup
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