The Schedule

A statement and a coupon

By Tom Savage4 min read

Well, I’ve just about recovered from that.

As I’m up — and just back from picking pumpkins over in Adare — I thought I’d check in on where Munster’s outstanding 31-14 win over Leinster in Croke Park has left our URC points model ahead of next week’s game against Connacht.

That bonus point win moved us to 19 points from 4 (PPG 4.75), level with the Stormers at the top of the URC after Round 4. We now have three try-bonus wins and a points difference of +34; the Stormers also sit on 19 but with a much bigger +103 PD. Glasgow/Cardiff are on 16, and Ulster have 15 from 3 with a game in hand.

The Strength of Schedule (SoS) Ledger

I rate each fixture by opponent tier and venue — home or away effects difficulty — to set a planned points return, then track over/under as we move through the rounds, with an initial focus being on a home-quarter final in the knockouts, and going from there.

  • R1 Scarlets (A, C-tier) — Plan 4 | Actual 5 → +1
  • R2 Cardiff (H, C-tier) — Plan 4 | Actual 4 → 0
  • R3 Edinburgh (H, B-tier) — Plan 4 | Actual 5 → +1
  • R4 Leinster (A+, away) — Plan 1 | Actual 5 → +4

Cumulative buffer: +6 vs plan (planned 13, actual 19). That’s a material overshoot, driven by converting the toughest scheduled fixture (away to Leinster) from a hoped-for LBP into a full five. This is something we haven’t done in Dublin during the regular season ever. This is the first time since the Celtic League began in 2000/01 that Munster have beaten Leinster in the regular season by this margin, even if you include the 27-10 Rainbow Cup win in 2021, which I don’t.

It is an unprecedented result.

What 19 points from 4 games mean for the Season

With 14 games left:

  • Playoff safe (52–55): need 33–36 → 2.36–2.57 ppg.
  • Home QF (60–65): need 41–46 → 2.93–3.29 ppg.
  • Top-2 (68–72): need 49–53 → 3.50–3.79 ppg.

We’re comfortably ahead of home-QF pace. Keep ~3.1–3.3 ppg from here, and we finish ~62–65; sustain ~3.6+ ppg and top-2 becomes an expectation rather than a stretch goal.

When crunching these numbers, I had to ask myself — what does Leinster’s bad start do to our points goal?

  • Point inflation across the pack. When Leinster usually beat most teams (often while denying their bonuses), they suppress rivals’ totals. Early losses flip that: opponents bank unexpected wins/TBPs/LBPs, inflating the league’s point supply outside Leinster. Result: the middle-top tier bumps up.
  • More TBPs in circulation. A dominant Leinster limits try bonuses in head-to-heads. If they’re dropping games, you see extra TBPs (we just took one at Croke Park), nudging season totals upward for multiple contenders.
  • Less “tamping down.” Leinster’s usual regular-season stranglehold tamps down others’ tallies. Remove (or weaken) that tamp → slightly higher thresholds for the top cohort.

What does that do to the home-QF cut-off?

Our long-run URC baseline for a home QF has been ~60–65 points across 18 games. With Leinster at 1–3 after Round 4 and the table spreading, we lift the band by ~1 point and widen it a hair:

  • Updated band: ~61–66 (midpoint ~63–64).
    • If Leinster regress to the mean quickly (win streak, deny BPs), expect the cut-off to settle near 62–64.
    • If parity persists (they split results vs contenders), 64–66 becomes more probable.

Why it’s a nudge, not a massive jump

Everyone still plays only 18; more shared points at the top are partly cannibalised in contender-vs-contender games. That keeps the cut-off from exploding upward, unless someone else — Munster, Ulster or Stormers at this point — becomes that regular season apex predator, something I would class as unlikely right now.

Leinster’s 1–3 start removes a key suppressor in the URC ecosystem. Expect a slightly higher and wider home-QF threshold — think ~61–66 instead of ~60–65 — unless they snap back to form quickly, and others begin to slash at each other’s ankles.

Bonus-Point & PD Economics

  • TBPs: Already 3 in 4. We won’t maintain 0.75/game, but 7/8 TBPs or maybe more on the season is now very realistic.
  • PD hygiene: We’re level on points but behind the Stormers on PD (+34 vs +103). The “bankers” later (e.g., Dragons (H), Zebre (H)) must double as points difference harvest weeks to protect seeding if the 2–6 band compresses.

Short-Block Outlook (Rounds 5–8)

Fixture map: Connacht (H, R5) → Stormers (H, R6) → Ospreys (A, R7) → Leinster (H, R8).

Baseline plan: 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 16 (no TBPs) → 35 points after URC Round 8.

Stretch plan: Add two TBPs across Connacht (H) / Ospreys (A) / Leinster (H) → 18 from 4 → 37 after 8.

Game-by-game targets:

  • Connacht (H, B-tier): bank 4, stretch 5.
  • Stormers (H, A+): plan 4; a 5 here is a statement for top-2.
  • Ospreys (A, C-tier): plan 4; don’t overspend chasing TBP if scoreboard control is enough.
  • Leinster (H, A+): plan 4 and deny their BP.

Why the Croke Park Win Changes the Maths

It converts the season’s toughest projected fixture into a +4 vs our model. That’s a coupon we can “spend” later (during the SA tour mid-Six Nations) without falling off the home-QF trajectory.

It also lifts the ceiling on TBP total and puts pressure on rivals: Stormers stayed perfect in Parma (31–13 at Zebre) to keep pace, but our head-to-head gain over Leinster is meaningful. Stormers beat Leinster with a bonus point, but will only play them once — we did the same with another game to follow.

Four games in, we’re 19/4 with three TBPs, +6 vs our SoS plan, and on course for 60–65 without needing heroics on the road down the stretch. The Croke Park five-pointer isn’t just brilliant craic and narratively transformative for the club on and off the field, it reshapes the season ask: maintain a professional 3.1–3.3 ppg run-rate, ring-fence TBP harvests at home, and pick our battles in the A+ block. Keep points difference trending up, and the top-2 seed becomes a probability, not a possibility.