A bit of a windy weekend, that. To the point where you’d have been half fearing all sporting tussles would be postponed, leaving you with nothing to do but tend to your plum puddings.
Mercifully, though, enough went ahead to ensure there was no need at all to leave the couch from Saturday morning to Sunday night. Who eats plum puddings anyway?
Mind you, it was still blustery enough in Thomond Park on Saturday evening, leaving you wondering if any attempted garryowens would end up in Helsinki. But Munster handled the conditions admirably, helping themselves to a decidedly handy 33-7 win over Stade Français.
Before the game, Bernard Jackman stood in front of a bank of computers, like he was an employee at Nasa HQ, all of them featuring graphs detailing statty stuff on players’ workload, training intensity, training load, GPS data and other things some of us didn’t understand.
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The key for the RFU’s head of performance, said Bernard, was to “get the Goldilocks moment for every individual player”. Donal Lenihan was left mystified, recalling back-in-the-day times when GPS meant the number of doctors in your local practice.
“I remember when teams started warming up on the field before a match and Willie Duggan turned around to me and said ‘listen, I can do the warm-up or I can play the match, but I couldn’t do both’. It’s come a long way.”
It has too, Leinster having their own Goldilocks moment when they gobbled up Bristol Bears’ porridge at Ashton Gate with a severe workload intensity, smoke coming out of their GPS gadgets come the end of their 35-12 triumph.
Bristol’s Max Lahiff had feared such an outcome when he spoke with his podcast buddy Ryan Wilson on Premier Sports prematch.
“You’ve got to recognise what pedigree Leinster are bringing, it’s going to be strap-on-the-tin-hat, fasten-the-bayonet. It’s going to be clangin’ and bangin’, maulin’ and brawlin’, runnin’ and gunnin’, mate we’ve got all our hands full today.
“But I’m buzzin’ for it. Edification beckons. It’s going to be class. But this lull before the kick-off as the Leinster boys march in, it’s always a bit weird. It’s like a paradox – you’ve got the enthusiasm, but the anxiety is there, and it kind of coalesces in to a sort of psychosis that allows you to throw yourself willingly in to a melee of well-nourished shoulders.”
“I hope most of you at home understand what he said because I haven’t got a clue,” said Ryan, most of us at home going ‘hello?’
But who scored the first try in the game? Only Lahiff and his well-nourished shoulders. But thereafter? Leinster were so clangin’ and bangin’ that the result was rarely in doubt.
Liverpool’s title rivals were less clangy and bangy over the weekend while Arne Slot’s lads put their feet up thanks to Darragh causing the postponement of the Merseyside derby. Aside from Chelsea, that is, who came from two goals down to beat Spurs in a game when Spurs produced possibly their most Spursiest performance ever.
“It’s absolutely brain-dead, who’d be a manager,” asked Jamie Carragher after Yves Bissouma’s penalty-resulting tackle on Moises Caicedo left Ange Postecoglou missing those Baltic nights in Dingwall playing Ross County.
“You called it at half-time,” said Jamie Redknapp, “Merseodamus”. Paul Merson was left blushing from the tribute, while, in so many words, conceding that forecasting a Spursy implosion would be akin to suggesting that water is wet.
Pep Guardiola appears to be experiencing an implosion of his own. A 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace, and Rico Lewis sent off. Match of the Day’s Mark Scott asked him for his opinion on that dismissal.
Guardiola: “It is because it is Rico.”
Scott: “Sorry?”
Guardiola: “It is Rico.”
Scott: “Sorry, I don’t understand.”
Guardiola “It is because he is Rico.”
Scott: “Because it is Rico Lewis you think he got a yellow card?”
Guardiola: “It is Rico Lewis.”
Scott: [Huh?]
Viewers: “What?”.
And then Arsenal fell adrift with that draw against Fulham, leaving them a whole six points behind Liverpool having played an extra game. This called to mind Patrice Evra’s thoughts on their title-seeking quest.
“Watching Arsenal is like watching Netflix. You always have to wait for the next season.”
