Indo Sport podcast: Beibhinn Parsons on injury nightmare & World Cup dream
Today at 12:15
Joe is joined by Ireland star Beibhinn Parsons to discuss his long road back from injury ahead of the Women's Rugby World Cup in August.
Beibhinn recounts how she broke her leg twice in quick succession late last year and the grueling road to recovery.
Before that, Will pops into the studio to discuss the Lions team announcement for Friday's game against Argentina, with Tadhg Furlong back from injury
Rugby on Indo Sport is brought to you by Energia.
If you'd like to get in touch with the show, email us at indosportpodcast@independent.ie.
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RTÉ News
2 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Jack Conan yet to revisit Northampton semi-final loss with Lions team-mates
With 12 Leinster players and four Northampton Saints in this Lions squad, it would be interesting to know when, or if, their Champions Cup semi-final comes up in conversation behind the four walls. Tommy Freeman, Henry Pollock, Fin Smith and Alex Mitchell all returned to Aviva Stadium last night for the first time since their 38-35 win against Leinster in early May, although this time they were on the losing side, as Los Pumas pulled off a 28-24 win against the Lions. Only a couple of those Leinster players were involved last night, with Rónan Kelleher and Tadhg Furlong appearing off the bench, with the rest held back either to rehab injuries or to stay fresh from their URC final exploits last week. Many of them were in UCD on Friday morning as some of the Lions squad held a skills session with a group of 90 school kids, with Jack Conan, Josh van der Flier, Joe McCarthy, Andrew Porter and James Lowe the Leinster players involved. Having missed the training camp in Portugal last week, the Leinster crew joined up with the squad on Monday, along with the Bath and Leicester Tigers players involved in last week's Premiership final. And Conan says the Leinster and Northampton players are yet to revisit that game between them, although he's not ruling it out. "No, no... It's long in the memory at this stage," he said. "I'm sure they were happy enough to get the win over us but nothing has been said. Maybe after a few pints it might come up, but at the moment it's all pleasantries and all that." The number 8 - who captained the province down the final stretch of the season, following an injury to Caelan Doris – admitted the defeat knocked the wind out of Leinster for a couple of weeks, before they fronted up to impressively beat Glasgow Warriors and the Bulls to win the URC final, their first trophy since March 2021. "It was a bit weird in the changing room after, like we didn't know how to win. Lads were a bit awkward or something like that, but it was good craic. "The afterglow went pretty quickly on Monday morning when you had to pack up for the next eight weeks of your life, and get organised and do everything else and get into camp. The anxiety was pretty high, like first day of school going in." While they ended the season with silverware, the nature of their Champions Cup semi-final defeat to Northampton has sparked debate around whether the season was a success or a failure. When the range of opinions varies so much, often the answer is somewhere in the middle. "I think any season where you win something can never be deemed a failure," Conan added. "Obviously we want to go well in both competitions, and I think if it hadn't been for the performance against Northampton, even if we had lost that game, but we performed really well, I don't think people would have said much about it. "They [Northampton] are a quality side, but I think it was just the way we didn't show up that day, and had a bit of a hangover for a few weeks. "Maybe we don't get the result over the last two weeks, if it wasn't for that game. Maybe it was the bit of a kick that we needed. "The problem is when you win most of the time, it papers over cracks a little bit, so we had to have a good hard look at ourselves and it was tough for a lot of lads, for everyone in the building. You get to win a trophy at Croke Park with all your mates, at the end of the day, I would have taken then. "I definitely wouldn't say it was a failure, but there's definitely some more in this club and more in the lads, so hopefully there'll be a few years still ahead of us." Conan played all three Tests on the 2021 tour of South Africa, although that tour was a world away from what he's expecting to see in Australia, with Covid-19 still a major part of everyday life four years ago. And as the squad prepare to depart for Perth this morning, the 32-year-old is eager to soak it all up. "I can't wait to get over there, everyone says it's just a different fanfare, a different level of excitement when you get properly on tour. "But you can even see it walking around town at the moment, people in jerseys, there's a pop-up shop, so many kids outside the Shelbourne. It's special and I'm looking forward to getting a proper run-out at some stage. "Four years ago was still great, I loved it and had a great experience. "In a way, you get to know the lads in such a different way because it was eight weeks of kind of solitary confinement. You have to mix. "You still have to mix now but you're getting out and about in smaller groups whereas four years ago, everyone was just kind of sitting around."
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Farrell says Lions must improve after ‘too many errors' against Argentina
Only time will tell what effect this bad dress rehearsal will have on the performance in the First Test in a month's time. In the immediate aftermath, however, Andy Farrell couldn't disguise the hurt and disappointment he felt in himself and his team after his first game as head coach ended in a 28-24 loss to Argentina . 'Honestly, losing hurts, especially in this jersey,' said Farrell. 'So, we need to find the solutions pretty quickly and be honest with ourselves. There has to be some good to come from this.' Farrell admitted his own performance was 'obviously not good enough' and added: 'I always take full responsibility, that's my role. It doesn't matter what department or whatever, I'm in charge of the job lot, so it obviously wasn't good enough and I need to be better.' 'Obviously the first and appropriate thing to say is congratulations to Argentina , they thoroughly deserved to win the Test match. They capitalised very well on the back of quite a few errors from us. Congratulations to them. I'm sure that's a big moment in Argentinian history." READ MORE It's true that the Lions were a makeshift selection drawn from four countries at relatively short notice and were without 14 of their 38-man squad due to club commitments and injuries. At least the injured players are on the mend in advance of their Saturday-morning long-haul trek to Perth. But Farrell wasn't making any allowances for any of that. 'Oh no, I wouldn't give that excuse. We need to do better than that. It is what it is. 'The Lions players, good players coming together, of course we ask a lot of them, and maybe we put too much pressure on the side because it certainly looked like we was a little bit disconnected at times. 'Look, we'll review what we said we were going to own, and then we need to make sure that we get something positive from that because it's all about how we move forward. 'You can try to throw it all around and say we had plenty of opportunities and we should have done better to convert that, but the whole story of the game is that we compounded too many errors. In the end, we weren't able to put the pace on the game because of that.' Farrell expects to see a response from his wounded Lions - and in many areas as, save for the scrums, they were beaten in the air and on the ground, their line-out malfunctioned and, by his own admission, the Lions' attack was clunky. 'You can single out one thing but it's not just one thing, it's a compounding of quite a few bits. The amount of balls that we threw blindly, either to the opposition or the floor, is probably a stand-out. 'If you combine that with the kicking game and the aerial battle and what is disappointing is scraps on the floor from that type of battle. It always seemed to go to Argentina so there's a bit of fight and hunger from them that we can't accept. 'Then you combine stuff at the breakdown, the lineout or whatever, and it's too much. It's too much when it all comes together, it's just compounded, and there's a reason why people do get cramp or look a bit tired or are not able to capitalise on opportunities you have created, because, probably subconsciously, you're suppressing yourself with the compounding of errors. It obviously needs to be addressed.' The Pumas looked what they are, more of a team and one ranked fifth in the world. But even so, they hadn't played in seven months, have no national professional league of their own, were missing several front-liners involved in the French play-offs and were drawn from all over the world at a week's notice with several newcomers. 'I think the guys were fantastic,' said their head coach Felipe Contepomi. 'We had a really good week in training but also in believing. Believe it or not the weather helped a lot because the guys could drink mate on the terrace in St Helen's in the Radisson Blu. 'So, we had a very good week and then those 80 minutes is just about expressing yourself, trying to do what we said we were going to do and it wasn't perfect. We know there is a lot to improve but I'm so proud for the 23, but more so for the 32 that work here this week because how they behaved the whole week was unbelievable.' Their wonderful match-wining try finished by their released Connacht utility back Santiago Cordero was testament to Contepomi's mantra about expressing themselves, and was initiated by the outstanding Tomas Albornoz in a manner not dissimilar to Contepomi instigating Leinster's famous pitch-length try against Toulouse in 2006. Putting this historic win into perspective, Contepomi said: 'Well, you know it's kind of a one-off. It's an invitational game and the last time was 20 years ago and we just couldn't beat them. We drew,' he said of the 25-all draw against the Lions in Cardiff in 2005. 'Coming here 20 years later I think it's incredible. We don't know if we'll ever again be invited or not to play a game like that but definitely for everyone who has been involved in this week it will be memorable.' 'I know how special it is for an Irish, Scottish, Welsh or English player to be a Lion and for us to play against the best of the best in these islands, it's nearly a dream. 'And I wouldn't say even having a win because we could have lost that game. We won it, putting in that performance after two days, for me I take my hat off to the boys.' As a former Leinster assistant coach who worked with a number of their dozen players in this Lions squad, Contepomi said: 'It's great to see that they are there and I am proud for them. Obviously we took a bit of an opportunity also because I know they will be much better in one month's time when they'll play Australia. 'They'll be an awesome team because they have so much quality in there but they had a few training sessions, there was a bit of incohesion and we took our chances.'
The Irish Sun
2 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Andy Farrell ‘takes full responsibility' for Lions loss as Argentina coach reveals impact of unusual Dublin weather
ANDY FARRELL says he and his players need to do better as the Lions were tamed by Argentina. Ahead of their departure for Australia , the Lions bounced back from conceding 10 points in the final minute of the first half with two second-half tries only to be 2 The Lions lost to Argentina in Dublin Credit: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile 2 Andy Farrell took full responsibility for the defeat Credit: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile And On his own performance, Farrell said: 'Obviously not good enough. I always take full responsibility, that's my role. 'It doesn't matter what department, I'm in charge of the job lot so it obviously wasn't good enough and I need to do better. 'We made it a tough game, didn't we? Read More on Lions 'Obviously the first and appropriate thing to say is congratulations to 'They capitalised very well on the back of quite a few errors from us. Congratulations to them. I'm sure that's a huge moment in Argentinean history . 'But the whole story of the game is that we compounded too many errors. We need to do better than that. 'The Lions players, good players coming together, of course we ask a lot of them, and maybe we put too much pressure on the side because it certainly looked like we were a little bit disconnected at times. Most read in Rugby Union 'Look, we'll review , and then we need to make sure that we get something positive from that because it's all about how we move forward. 'You can single out one thing but it's not just one thing, it's a compounding of quite a few bits. The amount of balls that we threw blindly, either to the opposition or the floor, is probably a stand-out. 'Big weekend' - Peter O'Mahony embarking on hectic gardening project as he aims to add '300 plants' 'If you combine that with the kicking game and the aerial battle and what is disappointing is those scraps on the floor from that type of battle, it always seemed to go to Argentina so there's a bit of fight and hunger from them that we can't accept. 'Then you combine stuff at the breakdown, the lineout or whatever, and it's too much. 'We're not sugar-coating anything because we need to be honest because if we're not honest how do we gain trust with each other. We have to say it as it is. 'We expected to do better but we're at where we're at and we need to deal with that.' 'HATE THAT' Farrell bristled at the description of the first game being 'out of the way' ahead of their departure for Down Under. He said: 'I hate that, 'out of the way'. Honestly, losing hurts, especially in this jersey . So we need to find the solutions pretty quickly. 'Effectively you've got two sets of players that are on completely different timescales but that's the nature of what's ahead of us as well. 'You've got to deal with the jetlag first and foremost but then the games come thick and fast. It's never going to be what we're used to. I think the last couple of weeks sets us in good stead in terms of the rhythm, or the lack of it.' Despite the disappointment, Farrell said some players had impressed, with props work in the scrum and defensively. He said: 'I thought they had Argentina under the pump at times. 'I think some players will have done themselves proud and they will be hurting for the team because they're all team players. Some people will be happy and some people won't and will be dying to get another chance out there.' Argentina coach Felipe Contepomi was chuffed with the win, particularly because his squad had limited time together, and reckoned the unusually hot Dublin weather helped them. The former Leinster out-half said: We had only two training sessions, and we had a lot of newcomers. I think the guys were fantastic. 'We had a really good week in training but also in believing. The weather helped a lot because the guys could drink mate on the terrace in St Helen's, in the Radisson Blu. 'It's an invitational game and the last time was 20 years ago and we just couldn't beat them. We drew. 'Coming here 20 years later I think it's incredible. We don't know if we'll ever again be invited or not to play a game like that but definitely for everyone who has been involved in this week it will be memorable. 'Sometimes you need to understand what motivates the other team, to understand how special it is. 'For us to play against the best of the best in these islands it's nearly a dream, putting in that performance after two days, for me I take my hat off to the boys.'
