Comment from John: A huge apology to Shane Lowry, his family and all followers of The Faithful County. Of course his dad played hurling and started for Offaly not Tip! Mea culpa from a Goat Sucker!
This was a real treat. John mentioned Colin Patterson very briefly. To this day, many rugby supporters would consider him to be the best scrumhalf Ireland ever had. I remember him and Tony Ward playing in an international and the ball suddenly being in the deck. Colin ran to it and rather than pick it up, scooped the ball up with his boot and flicked it on to Ward. Such skill!!
Superb podcast, simply superb. What can I say about John Robbie, world class Scrum half and a superb pundit, raconteur. I know he probably regards himself as South African now, but his love for our country, his country, Ireland is clear. His accounts of the rugby setup here during amateur days and now in the professional era is 100% accurate. And his grasp of history concerning Ireland, the GAA, Croke Park, Laansdowne Road, etc is entirely truthful and accurate. We Irish still claim you, John. Thanks for your great contribution here and throughout other media. You were some player when I was a kid. Watching you play with the likes of Ollie and Tony Ward was a real joy. Thanks again, John.
Hes forgotten to mention that historically those 4 provinces were political and physical entities. People have always had an affinity with their provinces.
They still are political and physical entities! I know what you mean though and it's a good point. Non-Irish people often don't realize that there is a lot more to the provinces than rugby and this massively helps buy-in from fans.
What is most difficult to understand about ireland rugby is the fact that we have had a rich history of Ulster |Connacht Munster and Leinster ..... nothing to do with rugby, it goes back 100s of years, rugby is capitalizing on that collective conscience now. For 100's of years gaa has had the munster, leinster, connacht, ulster championships - those 4 areas of ireland are ingrained in all irish people.
Great interview and as they used to say in the Hist and the Phil, "On a point of Information" Shane Lowry's father Brendan, won an All Ireland Football Medal in 1982, for County Offaly, along with his two brothers. John was probably in RSA by then :)
😀. Indeed. This is what John said: "A huge apology to Shane Lowry, his family and all followers of The Faithful County. Of course his dad played hurling and started for Offaly not Tip! Mea culpa from a Goat Sucker!"
I remember watching Leinster v Llanelli in Donnybrook back in the 80’s. There couldn’t have been more than a few thousand in attendance. Ollie Campbell came to one of our training session in Suttonians when we were kids and I remember thinking he was a god like status. I think Ireland won the Triple Crown that year.
Munster, Connacht and Ulster still have their own dialects of the Irish language. People used to need permission from the neighbouring province/ kingdom to cross borders. Wars between the provinces were rare but one of the two surviving great sagas from Irish mythology is about the Queen of Connacht invading Ulster, the Tain. If you are from a province then it’s likely that nearly all of your ancestors are from there for millennia. Even if the borders change there is an instinctive connection to a province that people are born with.
Football is the number one sport in Ireland, most clubs and registered players, followed by GAA ,then maybe rugby, there are twice the number of cycling clubs then there are rugby clubs
@@treborsirrah7916 GAA sport Gaelic football the top sport in Ireland and best facilities. Football (soccer) is 2nd.. facilities not as good. GAA sport Hurling 3rd must popular.
Does anyone know if JR was considered a good captain? lol love his passion and his knowledge of the history and the technical aspects of the game give him powerful fuel for a few good stories.
He was made captain in a team that had players who captained Ireland. Players like Fergus Slattery captained Ireland and would have been older than John playing in that Leinster team. So the Mick Doyle and the Cud obviously saw something special to appoint John as captain
In fairness to the kickers the wind was very difficult especially playing in to Hill 16 end which is uncovered and much lower the the other three sides of the stadium. I think you are being a bit harsh on the kickers Johnnie.
and, bear in mind, & still, rugby is the 4th popular game in Ireland. As to Ulster, effectively its ONE ireland now and will become even more unified as time goes on. Also, and I am making a big presumption here, Robbie may not have lived in Ireland for quite some time. Things have changed...radically changed. What he says is very, ha!!, at times, very historical
32 counties in Ireland. 12 in leinster plus Dublin city. Biggest rugby playing population. Most money. They have learned to ply the munster way. Nuff said.
I believe that 6 of Ulsters counties form Northern Ireland and the other 3 are part of the Irish republic. So Ulster is two thirds British and one third Irish. However the major city Belfast , is in the British part.
Tommy Bowe was probably one of the only significant Ulster player from the Republic. Most of the concentration of rugby is in the Belfast area. For the first time, this preseason, Ulster played a home game in the Republic, in Breffni Park, Co. Cavan (one of the great GAA stadiums)
The Bulls are also fed up that we havent won this URC title already 2 times, this is the year they have to win it. Go Bulls, we not going to back down this time again, but stampede our way to it.
It's a pity because of the schedule that it's likely Leinster will send a second string to SA again. I want to see Leinster send the first team to SA to play Bulls.
When connacht finished ahead of leinster the irfu still put leinster into the champions cup and connacht forced into the challenge cup. Connacht paid for the development of henshaw their greatest player but irfu told him if he wanted a central contract he had to move to leinster and 8 years later leinster have still not paid 1 weeks wages to henshaw.
Its true that once about 20 years ago Connacht finished ahead of Leinster in the league and the IRFU put Leinster forward for the Heineken cup the following year. This happened once and the IRFU were absolutely right to do so as Leinster were knocking on the door to win the tournament. As for Henshaw that is a total fabrication. Henshaw has confirmed in interviews before that it was his choice to go to Leinster as his girlfriend was in college there, nothing to do with the IRFU, you made that up. He is also from Leinster and went to school in Leinster albeit the part of Leinster he is from is more aligned with Connacht making him somewhat of a hybrid.
Leinster has a population 5 times that of Connacht, Double that of Munster, 30% more than Ulster. Leinster /Dublin has a higher proportion of well paid jobs. The province of Leinster dominate in GAA, Soccer, Rugby and most sports
Boks obsessed with our 'Roid free production line of world class talent from a handful of posh schools. Reminiscent of the great Barca sides, the envy of the rugby world!
If 90%of the test , springboks play in the same URC team they will win 95% if their games the Irish use all their test players in almost one team ,but when they send a team to SA without their test players they are just average .
You have it the wrong way around. A better analogy would be if one South African province started producing a strong majority of the Springbok team, because this province put years of working into building an excellent academy structure/ had some demographic advantages. Over time, let's say, 10-11 of the starters for this particular provincial team also started for the Springboks, on merit and based on ability. Would you think it fair if this province were then in some way blamed for producing lots of excellent players who were good enough to play for the Springboks? Of course you wouldn't. They produce more players of Springbok calibre, so they have more players in the Springbok team, as simple as that. This is exactly what Leinster have done. It's not the case that international class players play for Ireland and then move from another Irish province to Leinster. The vast majority are born and grow up in Leinster and come through the academy in Leinster.
@@martindekock4719 this isn’t the case. The players are born in Leinster and come through the system. In the last 10 years there has been probably 75 Leinster players who went elsewhere including B&I Lion Jack McGrath, Internationals like Ian Madigan, Jordie Murphy, Joey Carbery and many others. There is about 20 Leinster players at other Irish provinces now including at Academy level too.
Like Martin says below: if one of our URC teams had 85 percent of current Boks in their franchise, we would have won not only 1, but all three URC finals and the EC trophy. Leinster are actually the worst performing URC team in URC if you realise they actually Ireland playing in blue jerseys. Stormers and Bulls making most finals are actually top performers if you see it in terms of past three years test depth squads. Sharks another top but bad performing team in terms of quality players, should have done much better.
Leinster didn't have Henderson, Beirne, o'mahony, cowley, aki, hansen. Most of the Leinster players came through the Leinster schools system and Leinster academy. They are world class players which is why they make up the bulk of the Ireland team
Ok, and if Bulls or Stormers were only missing 6 from 23 current Boks? Or look at it this way: add for example Ox, Eben, PSDT, Pollard, Kriel and Kolbe to current Bulls team, then what difference will that make to Bulls chances winning both URC and EC?
Leinster with all due respect tend to target the champions cup it's what they live for. It's nice to get the double but if you ask them what they would prefer 100% it's the champions cup.
Leinster produce their players who are then good enough to get selected for Ireland. Should they be penalized for having too many good players from Leinster?
What a wonderful interview! Thank yo. The majority of our best athletes do play Gaelic football and hurling still. Paul O’Connell for example switched from hurling to rugby because he was bad at it, not because hurling is an amateur sport. Gaelic football is far and away the most popular field sport in the country. Horse sports are also hugely popular. But most Irish people follow more then one sport. People like me who went to see Munster play Leinster will also go to see Tipperary play in hurling matches. I think soccer fans tend to follow one field sport only but they’re the exception. I wish we had more players of this generation commentating on Irish tv. Donal Lenihan is the exception. Sometimes it feels like rugby has only been played for twenty years given those are the only stories we hear about in Irish media. The depth of history gets lost. I recommend the book”alone it stands” for an excellent read, about the Munster team of ‘78 but also about their lives and the history of rugby in Limerick and the city itself. It’s entertaining and poignant.
Comment from John: A huge apology to Shane Lowry, his family and all followers of The Faithful County. Of course his dad played hurling and started for Offaly not Tip! Mea culpa from a Goat Sucker!
Football not Hurling! - Great show!
I remember John Robbie when he played for Ireland. Class player.
John is a great storyteller, what a guy. Brilliant background on Irish rugby and glad to see it on this South African channel.
@@Camcolito Indeed he is. An institution in South Africa. Legendary.
@@megafoonsport Really enjoyed the interview, thanks!
A fascinating explanation of Ireland rugby.Much appreciated.
Terrific discussion gents, thank you; entertaining & informative. Great to hear of the back stories & some historic context.
i can listen to John for days....such a great story teller......
This was a real treat. John mentioned Colin Patterson very briefly. To this day, many rugby supporters would consider him to be the best scrumhalf Ireland ever had. I remember him and Tony Ward playing in an international and the ball suddenly being in the deck. Colin ran to it and rather than pick it up, scooped the ball up with his boot and flicked it on to Ward. Such skill!!
Superb podcast, simply superb. What can I say about John Robbie, world class Scrum half and a superb pundit, raconteur.
I know he probably regards himself as South African now, but his love for our country, his country, Ireland is clear. His accounts of the rugby setup here during amateur days and now in the professional era is 100% accurate. And his grasp of history concerning Ireland, the GAA, Croke Park, Laansdowne Road, etc is entirely truthful and accurate.
We Irish still claim you, John.
Thanks for your great contribution here and throughout other media. You were some player when I was a kid. Watching you play with the likes of Ollie and Tony Ward was a real joy.
Thanks again, John.
That was a very enjoyable listen. A very amusing and accurate.
Great explanation of our complicated rugby history JR.
Passionate and well informed.
Thank you ,very interesting and learnfull
Thanks for the history, what an amazing mind John has!
Hes forgotten to mention that historically those 4 provinces were political and physical entities. People have always had an affinity with their provinces.
They still are political and physical entities! I know what you mean though and it's a good point. Non-Irish people often don't realize that there is a lot more to the provinces than rugby and this massively helps buy-in from fans.
Great interview
What is most difficult to understand about ireland rugby is the fact that we have had a rich history of Ulster |Connacht Munster and Leinster ..... nothing to do with rugby, it goes back 100s of years, rugby is capitalizing on that collective conscience now. For 100's of years gaa has had the munster, leinster, connacht, ulster championships - those 4 areas of ireland are ingrained in all irish people.
It has every right to tap into its own countries regions..😂
The GAA hasn’t been around for ‘100s of years’
GAA have their own interprovincial tournament called the Railway Cup!
@@LeMerchThe GAA as an organisation is around 139 years. Hurling as a sport is the oldest sport in the world dating back 3000 years
Effusive & eloquent, as good a talker as a rugby player!
Great interview and as they used to say in the Hist and the Phil, "On a point of Information" Shane Lowry's father Brendan, won an All Ireland Football Medal in 1982, for County Offaly, along with his two brothers. John was probably in RSA by then :)
😀. Indeed. This is what John said: "A huge apology to Shane Lowry, his family and all followers of The Faithful County. Of course his dad played hurling and started for Offaly not Tip! Mea culpa from a Goat Sucker!"
interesting more in future plx
Have a look at squidge rugbys latest video on leinsters academy.
th-cam.com/video/UtuMKAEAuDU/w-d-xo.html
I played against him at under 13s - he was scum half for High School ; he carried their team and stood out big time even then
This is a very clever Marketing strategy Leinster have done this week, on Squidge rugby, in the Irish Times, on here and the Rugby podcast
I remember watching Leinster v Llanelli in Donnybrook back in the 80’s. There couldn’t have been more than a few thousand in attendance. Ollie Campbell came to one of our training session in Suttonians when we were kids and I remember thinking he was a god like status. I think Ireland won the Triple Crown that year.
Munster, Connacht and Ulster still have their own dialects of the Irish language. People used to need permission from the neighbouring province/ kingdom to cross borders. Wars between the provinces were rare but one of the two surviving great sagas from Irish mythology is about the Queen of Connacht invading Ulster, the Tain. If you are from a province then it’s likely that nearly all of your ancestors are from there for millennia. Even if the borders change there is an instinctive connection to a province that people are born with.
No wonder British Lions of 1980 never had a reunion.Bill Beaumont was the captain.
@@johannblignaut1966 I was thinking the same thing!
Football is the number one sport in Ireland, most clubs and registered players, followed by GAA ,then maybe rugby, there are twice the number of cycling clubs then there are rugby clubs
@@treborsirrah7916 yes but be real, schools are a huge engine of Irish rugby.
@@treborsirrah7916 surely you mean soccer ?
@@treborsirrah7916 GAA sport Gaelic football the top sport in Ireland and best facilities. Football (soccer) is 2nd.. facilities not as good. GAA sport Hurling 3rd must popular.
Soccer is very popular around Dublin for sure but I live in the West & it's all GAA with a bit of rugby.
@@conallgeneral8136 No football as in FAI .Football Association of Ireland
Does anyone know if JR was considered a good captain? lol love his passion and his knowledge of the history and the technical aspects of the game give him powerful fuel for a few good stories.
He was made captain in a team that had players who captained Ireland. Players like Fergus Slattery captained Ireland and would have been older than John playing in that Leinster team. So the Mick Doyle and the Cud obviously saw something special to appoint John as captain
Could listen to John Robbie all day. Ireland's loss was most certainly South Africa's gain.
In fairness to the kickers the wind was very difficult especially playing in to Hill 16 end which is uncovered and much lower the the other three sides of the stadium.
I think you are being a bit harsh on the kickers Johnnie.
The great Dawson RIP last week
and, bear in mind, & still, rugby is the 4th popular game in Ireland. As to Ulster, effectively its ONE ireland now and will become even more unified as time goes on. Also, and I am making a big presumption here, Robbie may not have lived in Ireland for quite some time. Things have changed...radically changed. What he says is very, ha!!, at times, very historical
32 counties in Ireland. 12 in leinster plus Dublin city. Biggest rugby playing population. Most money. They have learned to ply the munster way. Nuff said.
I believe that 6 of Ulsters counties form Northern Ireland and the other 3 are part of the Irish republic. So Ulster is two thirds British and one third Irish. However the major city Belfast , is in the British part.
40% of the land area of Ulster is in the Republic of Ireland. The provinces are pretty ancient and long predate the partition of Ireland.
Tommy Bowe was probably one of the only significant Ulster player from the Republic. Most of the concentration of rugby is in the Belfast area. For the first time, this preseason, Ulster played a home game in the Republic, in Breffni Park, Co. Cavan (one of the great GAA stadiums)
@@Dara-rv4pg Many of the Ulster players at the moment are from Leinster originally. Although that seems to be changing.
@@elsmid yeah i get you.. i meant the ulster counties in the republic. Can't think of any others
Is that Greystones Johnny ?
Yes, his home town although a village in his time
@@Finderskeepers. Thanks for that ...I remember when he was playing .
@@tomgreene1843 When Greystones was a top club. The soccer club is now the biggest in Ireland by membership.
Greystones had some great players. John being one. Paul McNaughton another. Tony Doyle too.
The Bulls are also fed up that we havent won this URC title already 2 times, this is the year they have to win it. Go Bulls, we not going to back down this time again, but stampede our way to it.
It's a pity because of the schedule that it's likely Leinster will send a second string to SA again. I want to see Leinster send the first team to SA to play Bulls.
Lowry is from Offaly don't insult the man saying he is from Tipperary
Too late. We have dibs on him now. H’on Tipp 🇺🇦
When connacht finished ahead of leinster the irfu still put leinster into the champions cup and connacht forced into the challenge cup. Connacht paid for the development of henshaw their greatest player but irfu told him if he wanted a central contract he had to move to leinster and 8 years later leinster have still not paid 1 weeks wages to henshaw.
You keep going around making things up across TH-cam ? I mean Henshaw was born in Leinster and then moved from Connacht to Leinster to win things...
You keep going around making things up across TH-cam ? I mean Henshaw was born in Leinster and then moved from Connacht to Leinster to win things...
You keep going around making things up across TH-cam ? I mean Henshaw was born in Leinster and then moved from Connacht to Leinster to win things...
Its true that once about 20 years ago Connacht finished ahead of Leinster in the league and the IRFU put Leinster forward for the Heineken cup the following year. This happened once and the IRFU were absolutely right to do so as Leinster were knocking on the door to win the tournament. As for Henshaw that is a total fabrication. Henshaw has confirmed in interviews before that it was his choice to go to Leinster as his girlfriend was in college there, nothing to do with the IRFU, you made that up. He is also from Leinster and went to school in Leinster albeit the part of Leinster he is from is more aligned with Connacht making him somewhat of a hybrid.
Leinster has a population 5 times that of Connacht, Double that of Munster, 30% more than Ulster.
Leinster /Dublin has a higher proportion of well paid jobs.
The province of Leinster dominate in GAA, Soccer, Rugby and most sports
Boks obsessed with our 'Roid free production line of world class talent from a handful of posh schools. Reminiscent of the great Barca sides, the envy of the rugby world!
Come on let's not ruin this great video with nastiness.
Mike Catt never coached Leinster
They won fukcall lately
Munster man alert.
Ulster don't have any Catholic players from ulster
Yes they do
That red hand doesn't sit well with the cattle ticks😂
@@Snags-sy8is no they don't
@@seamus9750 people like tweed who raped his kids and was a loyalist is the problem id say
@@KewKew-do3kqyea they do
Population and money.
There main reasons.
Plus full on backing from irfu
If 90%of the test , springboks play in the same URC team they will win 95% if their games the Irish use all their test players in almost one team ,but when they send a team to SA without their test players they are just average .
Emerging Ireland went to south africa last week played 3 games and won 3 games 😅
We talking URC rugby, not emerging games against development teams. 😉
You have it the wrong way around. A better analogy would be if one South African province started producing a strong majority of the Springbok team, because this province put years of working into building an excellent academy structure/ had some demographic advantages. Over time, let's say, 10-11 of the starters for this particular provincial team also started for the Springboks, on merit and based on ability. Would you think it fair if this province were then in some way blamed for producing lots of excellent players who were good enough to play for the Springboks? Of course you wouldn't. They produce more players of Springbok calibre, so they have more players in the Springbok team, as simple as that. This is exactly what Leinster have done. It's not the case that international class players play for Ireland and then move from another Irish province to Leinster. The vast majority are born and grow up in Leinster and come through the academy in Leinster.
@@martindekock4719 this isn’t the case. The players are born in Leinster and come through the system.
In the last 10 years there has been probably 75 Leinster players who went elsewhere including B&I Lion Jack McGrath, Internationals like Ian Madigan, Jordie Murphy, Joey Carbery and many others. There is about 20 Leinster players at other Irish provinces now including at Academy level too.
Hmmm, did you see the second test against SA..
What dominance? Haven’t won a major trophy in years. Don’t make us laugh
Dominant but win hardly any trophies ? Ok got it..
Like Martin says below: if one of our URC teams had 85 percent of current Boks in their franchise, we would have won not only 1, but all three URC finals and the EC trophy.
Leinster are actually the worst performing URC team in URC if you realise they actually Ireland playing in blue jerseys.
Stormers and Bulls making most finals are actually top performers if you see it in terms of past three years test depth squads.
Sharks another top but bad performing team in terms of quality players, should have done much better.
Leinster didn't have Henderson, Beirne, o'mahony, cowley, aki, hansen. Most of the Leinster players came through the Leinster schools system and Leinster academy. They are world class players which is why they make up the bulk of the Ireland team
Ok, and if Bulls or Stormers were only missing 6 from 23 current Boks?
Or look at it this way:
add for example Ox, Eben, PSDT, Pollard, Kriel and Kolbe to current Bulls team, then what difference will that make to Bulls chances winning both URC and EC?
Leinster with all due respect tend to target the champions cup it's what they live for. It's nice to get the double but if you ask them what they would prefer 100% it's the champions cup.
@@ciaranbrk They're taking the URC fairly serious this season in any case.
Leinster produce their players who are then good enough to get selected for Ireland. Should they be penalized for having too many good players from Leinster?
John was a fine player in his own time
What a wonderful interview! Thank yo.
The majority of our best athletes do play Gaelic football and hurling still. Paul O’Connell for example switched from hurling to rugby because he was bad at it, not because hurling is an amateur sport. Gaelic football is far and away the most popular field sport in the country. Horse sports are also hugely popular. But most Irish people follow more then one sport. People like me who went to see Munster play Leinster will also go to see Tipperary play in hurling matches. I think soccer fans tend to follow one field sport only but they’re the exception.
I wish we had more players of this generation commentating on Irish tv. Donal Lenihan is the exception. Sometimes it feels like rugby has only been played for twenty years given those are the only stories we hear about in Irish media. The depth of history gets lost.
I recommend the book”alone it stands” for an excellent read, about the Munster team of ‘78 but also about their lives and the history of rugby in Limerick and the city itself. It’s entertaining and poignant.
Great to hear these places getting deserved recognition - especially my hometown Limerick!!🫶🇮🇪
oh and the garryowen is ours btw😉