Planet rugby

Today's other stories in brief

Lansdowne get best of badinage

BEFORE THEIR match against Lansdowne at Anglesea Road last week, the All-Ireland League side Old Belvedere kindly invited the Belvedere Leinster Schools Senior Cup-winning side to the pre-match lunch. The Old Belvo president stood up and regaled his audience with a stirring speech about the club's place at the top table of rugby life.

The Lansdowne president then replied graciously and mostly in kind, before looking at the burly lads that had won the schools cup and saying: "I'd like to congratulate the Clontarf Academy."

Ouch!

It appears many of the successful Belvedere school side have taken residence in Castle Avenue. But, hey, while the quip may have gone down like a sewage sandwich with some of the blazers, the kids fell about the place laughing.

And . . . Old Belvo won the AIL league match 35-14.

Munster's opponents mugged

MUNSTER'S HEINEKEN Cup quarter-final opponents, Gloucester, got the result they did not want on Saturday, losing for the first time to Worcester in the English top flight.

The Gloucester coach, Dean Ryan, admitted the league leaders allowed Worcester to "mug" them in a dramatic finale at Sixways; the home side's Thinus Delport scored a last-gasp try.

Despite the 17-14 loss, Gloucester reclaimed top spot in the league above Bath thanks to a losing bonus point, but Ryan said: "We left the opportunity out there for them to mug us. We had every opportunity to have managed the game, but we just didn't do it . . . We're not playing with as much fluency as we'd like."

Next Saturday's showdown with Munster is at Kingsholm at 5.30pm.

Henjack hijack on the cards

WHO COULD be looking for the signature of the Aussie bad boy Matt Henjak? A month after the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) boss, John O'Neill, binned the troubled number nine's contract, the former Wallaby looks set to be offered a lifeline from the rugby wilderness.

"I've had three or four top European clubs express interest in me for the next Northern Hemisphere season . . . and hopefully something will get worked out in the not too distant future," the 26-year-old Henjak said in a statement.

Henjak had his contract with he Forced shredded after an alcohol-fuelled brawl in which a team-mate, Haig Sare, suffered a broken jaw. It was the latest in a line of off-field misdeeds by a man who, in 2005, after an incident in a Cape Town nightclub, became the first Wallaby in 40 years to be sent home from a tour.

Reggie not about to vegetate

THE FORMER Ireland and Leinster prop Reggie Corrigan has been a busy boy since officially retiring at the end of last season.

The Greystones man has not only teamed up with Ulster to help them with a bit of top-end scrummaging but has also, apparently, been lending a hand to the chaps from St Gerard's school in Bray.

The highly regarded and multi-capped frontrow has become an advisor of sorts on what food prospective Leinster and Ireland rugby players should eat to make them big and strong and healthy, just like Reggie. Fewer burgers and chips and more greens, et cetera.

Alas, it appears healthy meats such as chicken are also involved in the regime, so much as we are tempted to do so, we cannot, in all honesty, rename the big man Veggie Corrigan.

College home in on points race

UCD ARE in the marketplace again with their Rugby Club Open Day on Sunday, April 6th.

The idea of the open day is to attract the cream of Irish rugby to the university, where they are promised an enjoyable academic and social life as well as the environment in which to perfect their rugby skills.

Brian O'Driscoll and his international colleagues Rob Kearney and Paddy Wallace are UCD graduates and, we are told, impeccable dinner companions.

The smart news for the freeloaders on this one is that, following a tour of the college, "light refreshments" will be served at 1.30pm.

Toland on tour

THE IRISH TIMES rugby analyst and former Leinster captain Liam Toland is soon to land in Kosovo, where diplomacy will take precedence over punditry.

The 35-year-old Army Commandant is going on his second tour, this time with the 35th Infantry Group, and will be based at Camp Clarke, where he hopes to introduce the men to the manly pleasures of the oval ball - in the form of tag rugby.

Well, they wouldn't want physical contact in the Army, would they?