Round 15 of the Guinness PRO12 started on Friday night and concluded on Sunday with the position at the top the same as when the Round started, with Glasgow Warriors still looking down on the other 11 from the pinnacle of the table. However, they have increased their lead and are now 4 points ahead of 2nd placed Ulster.

There could have been no greater difference in emotions experienced after the matches than that between Newport Dragons captain Rynard ‘Ligtoring’ Landman and Munster’s flyer JJ Hanrahan. Landman would have been feeling low and filled with nervous anticipation following his Red Card for elbowing Connacht’s flyhalf Jack Carty early in their match. JJ Hanrahan on the other hand would have been feeling on top of the world following his very late try which earned Munster a draw against Llanelli Scarlets.

The Round started with bonus point delight for 2nd from bottom Benetton Treviso as they scored 5 tries in a rout against Cardiff Blues. Treviso’s fullback Jayden Hayward scored half of the home team’s points, dotting down and nailing 3 conversions and 3 penalties.

There was mixed success for the remainder of the home teams in the Round with 2 wins and 2 draws.

Glasgow Warriors maintained their grip at the top of the table with what looks in hindsight to have been a fortuitous win by 3 points against Welsh region Ospreys. They were trailing by 3 points before a Peter Horne penalty drew them level in the 68th minute and another Horne penalty gave them the lead with 5 minutes remaining, while Sam Davies missed a chance to draw the Ospreys level only a few minutes later.

Furthermore, it appears as if Glasgow Warriors got away without having lock Leone Nakarawa censored during the match. Nakarawa is due to appear before a disciplinary committee this week for allegedly striking an opponent with his head. It was not really clear to the officials during the match what really happened but apparently something happened during a scrum in the 57th minute of the match that was picked up by the citing commissioner. We do not want to rush ahead of the judgement but if the decision had gone against Glasgow during the match it may have left them a player down for at least 10 minutes in what ended up being a very close game.

Rynard Landman Red Carded:

Newport Gwent Dragons lock and captain Rynard Landman will discover his fate this week after receiving his marching orders by Scottish referee Lloyd Linton after about 15 minutes of their match at home to Irish province Connacht. In a moment of madness he lashed out with his elbow and connected the head of Connacht’s flyhalf Jack Carty after Carty had just kicked the ball.

The rest of the match would have made for painful viewing from the side lines for Landman, with the Dragons eventually going down by 5 points. He took to Twitter after the match on Sunday to express his remorse. We take it that is a genuine expression of remorse by the ‘Lighthouse’ but it cannot be overlooked that many a sentence that has been handed to a player has been reduced somewhat due to remorse having been show by the player. One hopes that there has also been an apology from Landman to Carty as this is not apparent from his Tweet. The incident can be seen in the highlights video on the match between Dragons and Connacht below around the 30 second mark.

Rynard Landman’s tweet: “I am ashamed of my decision today!  I let myself my club and most of all my team down! This is not what I stand for!”

 

JJ Hanrahan’s heroics:

JJ Hanrahan came on as replacement in the 55th minute of the 2nd half of Munster’s match against Scarlets and made a telling contribution finishing off a move and scoring a try after normal time was up on the clock. Flyhalf Ian Keatley stepped up and slotted the conversion to earn Munster the draw and a valuable extra league point. This may prove valuable in the end in securing Munster a Top 4 finish and thus a semi-final berth, although with 7 Rounds left before the play-offs there are still many points to play for.

The young JJ Hanrahan first got my attention following some very good performances for Ireland’s Under 20’s during the Junior World Cup in South Africa in 2012, which included a win against the hosts. He had already made his debut for the Under 20’s early in the year before in the 6 Nations against France.

The 22 year old Hanrahan, who will be leaving Munster to join Northampton next season, has played almost 60 games for Munster and has impressed whenever I have seen him play. He seems to often pose a threat possessing a lot of pace and good distribution skills. It is surprising that he has not featured for the senior Ireland team in spite of helping Emerging Ireland win the Nations Cup last year. It could be that he is down in the pecking order to some good flyhalves, including top man Sexton, but his versatility in being able to cover almost any position in the  backline could at the very least secure his a spot on the bench for Ireland.

Edinburgh’s ineptness and McCloskey’s madness:

Edinburgh threw away a golden opportunity to beat 2nd placed Ulster on Friday night in a scrappy match. A win for Edinburgh would have done their ambitions of qualifying for next year’s European Rugby Champions Cup a world of good. Basically they need to finish in the Top 6 to be assured of a seat at the top table of European club rugby next season due to changes in the rules, following the restructuring of the competition. One spot lower and they may get through via a play-off channel, any lower than that will mean they will play in the European Rugby Challenge Cup yet again next year. A win, which was quite achievable, for Edinburgh would also have done their western neighbours, Glasgow Warriors, a big favour in taking points from Ulster who will be pushing hard to reach the PRO12 play-off’s. Should Ulster get to the final they will pretty much have a home match irrespective of where they are in the Top 4 after the league stage, as the PRO12 in their wisdom have decided in the middle of the season to stage the final in Belfast rather that at the home of the team who finished highest in the league stage of the finalists, as has been the case in previous seasons.

Getting back to the match itself, Edinburgh may have earned a bonus point for losing by 3 points but they could have come away with another 3 league points as Ulster were reduced to 14 men in the 60th minute following stupid and dangerous action by their centre Stuart McCloskey and then they were down to 13 men when Franco vd Merwe was shown a Yellow Card late on. This gave Edinburgh 6 minutes of game time against 13 men, which they failed to capitalise on due to various mistakes and their inability to create a try in spite of having such a superior advantage numbers wise.

However, to me the biggest problem seems to have been how their lineouts fell apart due to poor throwing by substitute hooker James Hilterbrand, who was erratic with his lineout throwing which cost Edinburgh possession in good attacking positions on various occasions and one could argue made it harder for them to set up potentially try scoring mauls. What makes it even more annoying from an Edinburgh point of view was that Hilterbrand came on as a substitute for Neil Cochrane in the 52nd minute and in spite of only playing for 52 minutes Cochrane was named man of the match.

The disciplinary committee will be very busy this week as they will have the Red Card of Stuart McCloskey to deal with as well as the hearings of the 2 locks previously mentioned. McCloskey must still be wondering what possessed him to do what he did to earn the Red Card as he rushed into a ruck and picked up Edinburgh’s Hamish Watson and threw him over like a sack of suds. Fortunately Watson, who was released for the game from the Scottish squad, landed on his side and doesn’t appear to have picked up an injury. One hopes that this isn’t a factor that goes in McCloskey’s favour as this appeared to be a rather dangerous move, which could have had nasty repercussions if the player landed differently. It would seem to me to be born of frustration as Ulster were being penalised quite a lot during the game, for numerous infringements.

This was definitely one that got away for Edinburgh, even more so considering flyhalf Tom Heathcote missed a number of penalty kicks at goal. Ulster’s Springbok scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar played a pivotal role in scoring 15 of Ulster’s 20 points, kicking 2 penalties and 2 conversions and scoring a try. He started at scrumhalf but ended the match playing flyhalf and he had the pleasure of booting the ball out high into the stands in the last act of the match.

Benetton 40 / 24 Cardiff Blues:

Edinburgh 17 / 24 Ulster:

Leinster 29/8 Zebre

Scarlets 25 / 25 Munster:

Glasgow Warriors 19 / 16 Ospreys:

Newport Gwent Dragons 15 / 20 Connacht:

Table after 15 Rounds: