{"id":664503,"date":"2026-10-25T01:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T01:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/664503\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T01:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T01:26:12","slug":"gavin-coombes-allegation-his-testicles-were-grabbed-against-leinster-to-be-investigated-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/664503\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin Coombes\u2019 allegation his testicles were grabbed against Leinster to be investigated \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gavin Coombes<\/a>\u2019 allegation that his testicles were grabbed nearing the end of the first half of Leinster<\/a>\u2019s 24-18 win over Munster<\/a> at the Aviva Stadium could not be substantiated during the match on review, but the matter is sure to be investigated further.<\/p>\n

Although the referee Andrew Brace and his TMO Colin Stanley could find not find any evidence to support the claim by Coombes, which was made in the 39th minute, as it will be in Brace\u2019s report the citing commissioner, Peter Ferguson of Scotland, is thus duty bound to investigate the matter.<\/p>\n

He has a window of 50 hours from the full-time whistle to do so. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things that we leave in the hands of the powers that be,\u201d said the Munster head coach Clayton McMillan.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I know is that I back our players 100 per cent that if they make an allegation like that, they wouldn\u2019t do it lightly, and that\u2019s not the sort of person Gavin is, so we\u2019ll see where that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the allegation, McMillan\u2019s counterpart Leo Cullen said: \u201cI can\u2019t see anything there, from what I can see. So, yeah.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd obviously, that is the accusation, but I\u2019m not seeing anything on first view. So, I don\u2019t know. It looked like he [Coombes] had changed his mind halfway through that accusation as well. So I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Clarifying that he was suggesting Coombes had altered his allegation, Cullen said: \u201cWell, that\u2019s the way it sounded, once the scrum was packing down. But I don\u2019t know. Obviously, once that accusation is made, it becomes a serious matter for the citing commissioner. So my comment is not going to help in any way here. But from what I\u2019ve seen, I can\u2019t see anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

But given the claim was made against one of his own Leinster players, Cullen admitted: \u201cIt\u2019s not ideal. Yeah, it\u2019s not ideal. So, you\u2019d want to be very clear if something\u2019s happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Munster'sMunster’s Gavin Coombes made the allegation about an incident near the end of the first half. Photograph: Ben Brady\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Cullen had not had any discussion with any of the officials about the incident and he laughed off his exchange with the Munster defence coach Denis Leamy, who was previously an assistant to Cullen at Leinster.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but we were former coaching mates, so we were just having a very passionate discussion about the game,\u201d said Cullen, adding: \u201cWe\u2019re still very good mates, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding Leinster\u2019s comeback from 13-0 down with four tries to earn a bonus-point win, Cullen hailed his team\u2019s composure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re always unbelievably fiercely contested derby games. I thought Munster were good in the contact area, probably a little bit better than us in the first half, both sides of the ball and obviously they went into a 13-0 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Oh, is this going to be a bit like it was last year in Croke Park?\u2019\u201d added the Leinster coach in reference to Munster\u2019s win there a year ago. \u201cBut I thought the players showed good composure to come back and get a try, and we started getting a little bit of an ascendancy, but then we would give away a turnover.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had to carry into that breeze. Obviously, it\u2019s tricky enough conditions, the way it looked, certainly from the wind point of view. So you\u2019re going to have to carry, you\u2019re going to have to roll your sleeves up in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a couple of times we were just a little bit off, gave away turnovers, and that gives Munster life. But the message really at halftime was \u2018just stick to it\u2019 and make sure they enjoy themselves. And keep pounding away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve dominated territory and possession. Play the game in the right areas of the field. The scrum gets dominant, which is good as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Munster, I thought they\u2019re hanging in, they\u2019re giving away penalties, a lot of penalties. Eventually someone goes to the bin.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the composure is good, the players stick to it, which is big.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis time last year, we were poor when we got ourselves in that position. We made life more difficult for ourselves, we weren\u2019t clinical, but [we were] so much more clinical in the second half [today].<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Munster brought a huge amount to the contest, didn\u2019t they? We had to find a way out there today in difficult conditions. So, yeah, pleased to get a win, bonus point. And we move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Munster rallied to earn a losing bonus point with Ben O\u2019Connor\u2019s try from the last play of the game, McMillan\u2019s over-riding emotion was one of disappointment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t come here to lose and we don\u2019t take any satisfaction out of being gallant losers. To walk away with a bonus point is nice because you look at the table and it\u2019s pretty congested, but it was genuine disappointment in the changing shed because we felt like we had enough opportunities and we didn\u2019t nail them all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Leinster'sLeinster’s Jamison Gibson-Park and Munster’s Tadhg Beirne after the match. Photograph: Dan Sheridan\/Inpho <\/p>\n

The Munster captain Tadhg Beirne conceded: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to give credit to Leinster.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe wind was strong, we had the advantage in the first half, and they capitalised on that [in the second], but I think the discipline is probably something we need to work on, particularly the second half of games at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Munster conceded the first eight penalties of the second half in losing that count 17-12.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of falling off a little bit and letting teams back into it through our ill-discipline, and it\u2019s just giving teams a little bit of momentum or even a little bit of belief against us and making it more difficult for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, I thought the first half we were really good, but second half we just compounded errors on our end, whether it was a penalty or just an individual skill error like myself, the ball going straight through my hands in the lineout and they score not long after that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, I think if we can clean those up, we\u2019ll be in a much better place, but they did well to get the momentum and keep the foot on the peddle today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gavin Coombes\u2019 allegation that his testicles were grabbed nearing the end of the first half of Leinster\u2019s 24-18…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11896,53655,42,11287,11897,43,40,38,41,39,14881],"class_list":["post-664503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-clayton-mcmillan","tag-gavin-coombes","tag-headlines","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-munster-rugby","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}