The Rugby Thread (Part 1)

A rugby mate has told me to back Clermont Auvergne for the European Cup at 7/2 4/1 or thereabouts.

Would you agree @gilgamboa and @Tim_Riggins ?

I’d give it a skip. Leinster will walk this.

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Will Schmidt pick Rob Kearney over larmour? I think he will be cautious and pick Kearney.

Me too.

I don’t gamble but those look like decent odds to me as long as they don’t get injuries.

He could easily have done, must ask him when I meet him

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@gilgamboa you have the casting vote

No. They are struggling with injuries at the minute. Doesnt look like a good price to me.

I probably wasn’t going to back them anyway but thanks for that.

Would you have a strong fancy yourself ?

Leinster should walk it. An injury to sexton about the only thing that would put me off them…and even at that they would still probably win it

Lost in the furore about Grobler today was joint announcement from IRFU and FAI that Aviva have extended their naming rights on stadium for another 8 years.

Considering they got 40m over 8 years in 2009 they have surely got 60m now have they? At least?

@Tim_Riggins

Cc @Bandage ask your pal if the Bank is snaffling the FAI share of this in full or if they can spend it

Fair play to John Delaney, he knows that he needs to hitch his wagon to a more commercially successful and superior brand in Irish Rugby. The FAI got just 60% of the amount from Three that the IRFU got from Vodafone in their last sponsorship deal so this makes a lot of sense for them.

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Did they get 60% of it? Some result for the FAI

Yeah they got 9m over 4 years versus the IRFU’s 15m. Fair play to them. Not that there’s any correlation but it’s actually probably a higher % than that of FAI attendances versus IRFU ones. Doing more with less.

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You are not comparing apples with apples here Tim. The FAI is not a 32 county entity like the IRFU.

That is fair observation alright, the FAI is a partitionist organisation true enough. The money though comes solely via the Vodafone Ireland entity.

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Of course it’s easy say the FAI isn’t a 32 county state, but there is a large percentage of the population of the 6 counties who identify themselves with the team of the FAI, not to mention the amount of players from the 6 who declare for the Republic.

Some lad getting an odd game at tight head prop for the crusaders has got a few articles too. If he’s good enough for them he’s surely good enough for one of the provinces, two years out from a world Cup is prob a good time to try get him back too.

Oli Jaeger. Didnt include him because he was never in Leinster academy he went into Crusaders straight from school. Def be good enough for one of provinces, think he signed new contract recently Id say he is in no rush home

They’re a footloose family, wouldn’t be surprised if the next time he comes back up north is after an All Black career tbh.

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