John O’Sullivan

speaker

1,338 appearances 7 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 21 Jul

John O’Sullivan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 4.

Appearances

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The Counter Ruck: The Irish Times Rugby Podcast · Underdog Ireland gear up for All Blacks test · 17 Jul 2026 podcast

So I would say for the two hookers in question last week, I thought that their work in other aspects of the game, you can kind of say, I absolutely understand when people say, well, their basic primary duty is line out throwing and that has to be,

uh spot on yes i agree but the one thing you say is when life and sport isn't perfect so when things go awry can you still function in a game and i thought to their credit um i thought that both did well particularly ronan obviously in the in the um he was on for a lot longer but um yeah tom stewart as well is very lively so yeah

Yeah, the one thing I'd say, sorry, I was going to say, and you've identified those on, yeah, Ruben Love is definitely a different type of player.

Cam Roygaard is very interesting in the sense that he's a brilliant footballer and there'd be an argument that he's in the top three scrum halves probably in world rugby along with Gibson Park.

and Tom Dubon.

So, and there's, there's a lot of very good scrum halves, I should say as well, that I have left out.

But what Roy Gerard does really, really well is his ability to identify space on the fringes and to get into that space and through that space is,

is very, very good.

He has that.

I don't want to use a cliche about Prelaster's instincts or whatever, but he's very sharp around the fringes and he is strong as well.

So if Ireland's fringe defence around the breakdown or, you know, in rucks, particularly through phases, if New Zealand are getting front foot ball, Ireland have to be so vigilant.

It's like trying to shut down Anton Dupont to a degree.

He gets a lot of second and third touches on stuff in terms of even, if you like, phase play.

And I don't just mean at ruck time, in terms of passing the ball away.

And that's the other aspect of New Zealand's performance that was notable when they picked it up against Italy was that it was the first person to the ruck

if it was quick ball, it didn't matter what number they had on their back, they moved the ball immediately.

And New Zealand played off that.

And they trusted themselves to kind of, to, if you like, to play in motion.

So they didn't, it wasn't as kind of prescribed or, you know, kind of where you're waiting for, waiting to get a shape in behind the ruck.

This was like, move it and let the players decide and let the players make decisions immediately.

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