Planet Rugby

The keensighted might have spotted the name of Leinster's Felipe Contepomi among the Irish Rugby Union Players Association (Irupa) nominations for the Players' Player of The Year award in last week's list.

Contepomi eyes first

The Argentinian number 10 is, however, only the second non-national to have made it to the short list for any of the awards, and no non-national has ever won the main bauble since they started in the 2003 season.

Jason Holland, a Kiwi but Irish qualified, picked up the "unsung hero" award in the inaugural year while Leinster's David Holwell, before heading off to farm in New Zealand, won the "newcomer" award last season and in doing so made obvious the fact there is no age restriction. If the Puma Contepomi wins it ahead of Paul O'Connell and Denis Leamy it's an Irupa first.

Lansdowne small beer

The Daily Express (printed every day in Ireland) seems to be struggling to put pressure on the other "Irish" papers in the competition for readers among Irish rugby punters. Last Friday the august sheet had a full page of rugby, as you might expect. But the thrust of its preview of a certain Heineken European Cup semi-final at Lansdowne Road, was eh, nothing. The burning issue for Irish readers wasn't, it seems, Munster or Leinster but Bath's game against Biarritz and whether it might propel scrumhalf Nick Walshe "all the way towards England honours".

The Independent was also barely interested in the Dublin game but banged on about whether Thomas Lievremont would be fit enough to play for Bath (he wasn't). While Ireland might have gone a little mad over yesterday's Lansdowne Road semi-final, in England the game was apparently seen as a parochial sideshow far away from "the mainland".

Irish in bargain buffet

So you want to do something different this summer? Why not try following Ireland down into a New Zealand winter for their two Test matches? It's cheap. Honest.

If you wish to entertain friends in a corporate area at the first Test in Hamilton, it will set you back a bargain-basement 4,950 New Zealand dollars for continuous fine beverages, a priority table, match tickets and sumptuous food for nine.

If you think that's steep, be thankful you're not a South African travelling for their Test against the All Blacks in Westpac Stadium in July. The same package for nine will cost 8,950 New Zealand dollars. Forget the conversion rates but does that mean South Africa are worth watching twice as much as Ireland? Hmmm.

Italians biggest sinners

It might come as some surprise but the two clubs who had the most players sent off this season in the European Cup were Italian. Rugby Calvisano and Benetton Treviso both had seven players binned.

Closer to home Ulster (Justin Fitzpatrick, Roger Wilson, Justin Harrison, Andrew Trimble and Neil Best) and Munster (Frankie Sheahan, Shaun Payne, Barry Murphy and Marcus Horan twice) had five binned.

Leinster, proper gentlemen that they are, had four shown the yellow card (David Blaney, Felipe Contepomi, Eric Miller and Reggie Corrigan).

Only four red cards were shown in the tournament, including one against Gavin Henson for injudicious use of the elbow in an Ospreys game against Leicester.

Ashton touted for RFU

Ho hum, Brian Ashton (below) is back in the news. The Bath coach looks increasingly likely - despite Bath categorically denying any formal approach from the English rugby union (RFU) - that he will link up with his former Recreation Ground colleague Andy Robinson ahead of this summer's two-Test Australian tour.

Those with long memories will recall that when Ashton was coaxed from Bath in 1997 by the sweet words of the IRFU to come over and take the Ireland job, he lasted only 12 months.

Ashton then said, in 1998, he resigned for personal reasons, though the Daily Telegraph at the time simply could not agree. Mick Cleary, had this to say.

"If you believe that Ashton really did leave for some private, domestic reason then you probably also believe that the Millennium Dome is the most fantastic place in the world . . . Ashton resigned because he was fed up to the back teeth with the petty politics of the Irish Rugby Union, because of his prickly, unproductive relationship with the Irish team manager, Pat Whelan, and because Irish rugby professes to espouse the professional era yet continues to conduct its affairs in an old-fashioned, long-winded, amateur way."

Ashton will be pleased to know the RFU, famously described by the England captain Will Carling as "old farts", are not at all old-fashioned or long-winded. Are they?