All in the scrum

Compiled by JOHNNY WATTERSON

Try some flair: French lead way

THE leading scorers for the 2011/’12 Heineken Cup season appear to give an indication of how various teams decide to play their rugby.

Of the top scorers Ronan O’Gara is on top with 91 points, which is no surprise.

But of the top 10 points scorers only one player, Racing Metro’s Jonathan Wisniewski, comes from a French club. The others are a mix of Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland.

However, of the top-three try scorers in the competition two of the players are from French clubs.

Timoci Matanavou of Toulouse has scored seven tries and tops the table with Clermont Auvergne’s Julien Malzieu and Harlequins’ Mike Brown in second on five tries each.

Eight players from a variety of clubs have scored four tries so far.

No go: Kiss rules out Munster move

IRELAND assistant coach Les Kiss was asked on Setanta Sports’ iTalkSport yesterday if he was interested in the Munster head coach job.

“It was thrown at me earlier about whether I was going to throw my hat in the ring, but I haven’t thrown my hat in the ring,” said Kiss. “I’m only six months into a new contract with the Irish team and I think they [Munster] are well underway to isolating some candidates for that job and it will be interesting to see what they come up with.” But would he rule himself out? “Yeah, well I won’t be putting my name forward for it.”

Boxing clever: 'Stones benefit

GREYSTONES rugby has been benefiting from the knowledge of another sport in recent weeks. Katie Taylor’s father and trainer Peter has been taking sessions of late and the players appear to be still feeling the effects.

The world champion boxing trainer, who lives in nearby Bray, has allowed the rugby players discover muscles they didn’t think they had.

Squatting down and throwing punches for a few minutes isn’t exactly shuttle runs but his sessions have been getting some rave reviews.

Off loaded: Ron’s on top

IF you ever, for some weird reason, thought that rugby was catching up with football in the money stakes think again. The $379,700 (€255,000) Lamborghini Aventador that soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo bought himself for his 27th birthday broke down while he was heading to his Real Madrid team-mate Pepe’s birthday in Madrid.

It was then dolefully loaded on to a tow truck and taken away, much to the delight of photographers, who captured the whole thing from abandonment to the lorry hauling it away.

His birthday present equates to the type of money Leinster were purportedly offering one of the more talented international players not to seek a career move outside of Ireland. Ronaldo’s likely monthly pay package and his run around pair of wheels is slightly more than the annual wedge for a top-class rugby player after his 30 per cent pay cut.

Go figure: Stats favour Munster

WHEN Ulster travel to Thomond Park next Saturday for their first ever Heineken Cup meeting with Munster, they will probably do so knowing that Munster are appearing (with Toulouse, who tie with Munster with nine quarter-final wins each) for a record 13th time.

What they probably don’t know is that Munster and Ireland forwards coach, Anthony Foley, has a record number beside his name for tries. The former Irish backrow scored three tries for Munster against Biarritz back in the 2000/’01 quarter-final.

He is one of only three players to grab a hat-trick at that stage of the competition. Clermont’s Julien Malzieu scored three against Leinster two years ago and Oliver Sarramea from Stade Francais grabbing three in the 2004/’05 against Newcastle Falcons.

Ulster might also like to know that of the 60 quarter-finals played, the home club have won 46 times with the away club going through to the semi-finals on just 14 occasions, an average of less than one away win per season.