Scarlets Fever - Italy and Benetton - and dodgy dad jokes

The podcast hosts discuss their recent activities and experiences. One of them went on holiday with his parents and had a good time, except for forgetting to bring his swimming costume. The other host attended a rugby match and enjoyed the hospitality and food at the club. He also talks about the team's performance and his appreciation for the inclusive nature of the club. They conclude by emphasizing the importance of experiencing lower-level rugby matches. Welcome to Scarlet's Fever, the home of Suspense Central and Westerer is Besterer. Hello and welcome to this week's Scarlet's Fever with me, Lee G, and I am joined as always by the amazing crime-fighting duo of Big M and Catboy. Good evening, gents. Evening. I quite like that as an introduction, the amazing crime-fighting duo. If we made a film, Big M and Catboy, I think people would go and watch it. But the thing is, I am obviously going to be, you know, the lead, you know, Big M, you know, and Catboy is the name of a sidekick. Catboy is a sidekick's name, I would argue that. I keep forgetting to change my name on Zoom when I go on other podcasts. So I was on Caelan's podcast yesterday and I'm Danny Catboy. To be fair, there was four other guys on the podcast. One of them went, should be Catboy. No one said nothing. Who does not exist anymore? Didn't you realise this? The thing is, I've forgotten who made the original comment now. Our own name is a well-known Welsh rugby Twitter personality. It's not, it's not the, it's not the main one, but it's one of, it's a Cardiff fan. It's a Bravo, I think. Okay. No, it's not, it's not him. No, it's a different one. Okay. So we, we missed a catch-up last week because Huw was off sunning himself and I was doing my university work. Don't blame Huw for this. This is why you wanted to do your university stuff. I just said Huw was away sunning himself and I was doing my university work. There's nothing to do with Huw. We were happy to do it, just me and Huw, but Huw sat out. Yeah, because I was a mile behind. So leave Huw alone. It was a good boy. He buffeted holiday in a van. So let's talk about Huw's holiday. Did you remember your shiny, sparkly speedos for your holiday, Huw? I did remember them, but I didn't take them. So here's what happened. So we've been looking at the weather forecast for a couple of weeks. I say we, the girlfriend had. I've been looking at the weather forecast and, oh, it's going to be horrible. It's going to be raining. It was horrible and raining for the first couple of days. And so she said, no, I'm not taking my swimming costume. And I was saying to just, just take it just in case. It's not like it takes up a load of weight in the suitcase. Ryanair robbing bastards. 20 kilos. If you go over it, we'll take your house. And anyway, so I said, take it. And she went, no, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't take it. I didn't take mine. Day three, a bit of sunlight comes out. A bit of sea looks a bit enticing. First thing, I wish I brought my swimming cosy with me. This is something that sometimes in life, lads, there's just nothing you can say. But apart from that, it was a really nice holiday. Went with mum and dad. Had a great time. Had lots of food, had lots of beer. And yeah, just generally an enjoyable way to spend a week. What was your favourite beer? They must have had a favourite beer. I just went inside and said Cerveza Grande, por favor. And whatever they brought me, they brought me. Here's one of those British dickheads. Give him one of those. Give him the slops from the basement. You know, the stuff that we've been throwing out for three months. Yeah, it was all lager. It wasn't beer. It was lager. My granddad wouldn't refer to it as beer. He'd call it lager. So let me just make something clear. You are 30, almost 30? 28. Almost 30. And you're still going on holiday with your parents? No, this is the first time we've done it in years. So they go to Marbella most years. And they said, we're going for two weeks this week. So I've gone for the first week and come back. And then my brother's gone for the second week. Can I clarify something as well? Because I get confused with this. When you say you went with a girlfriend, is that Thistle? No. So Thistle didn't go? Thistle didn't go on holiday, no. And there's a real girlfriend? There's a real girlfriend. Thistle isn't real. Thistle is stuffed. Thistle was robotic. Come on. Oh, God. Right, Martin, what have you been up to, mate? Because considering it's been two weeks now, I've got two weeks worth of reporting to do. So a week before last, I went, well, I made the long trip to Newcastle Emlyn to watch the game against Bonnermine. And we spoke on the pod with Newcastle Emlyn a couple of months ago. They were absolutely excellent. If you haven't heard, they listen to it. It's an amazing club and everything they do. And I'll be honest, it was a brilliant day. It was a great experience. It was a day for their player sponsors. So they had full hospitality out. So nice pork dinner. I can't remember what the dessert was, but it was like a sort of cake and apple pie in one with cream. And it was bloody lovely. And I really wish I took a photo of it. I completely forgot. I took a photo of the dinner because I thought, oh, maybe I'll document all this. The dessert came. I looked at everyone. I'm Marvin. And I completely forgot. But in all honesty, I've done hospitality a few times and Emlyn's food, which is a fair play, it was really nice. If anyone's ever been there, it's a fairly new clubhouse. It's a nice big bar room area. So I think there was like 10 tables with 10 seats on each. Easily host a wedding. They do host weddings, I should say. But it was a really, really good place. And I enjoyed the food, for one. I don't always get to say that when I go to rugby matches. I've been to some places and they give you spam burgers and you're like, what is this? Obviously, Newcastle, Bonnermine. Newcastle was sitting, I think, in seventh at the time. Bonnermine was in fourth. Emlyn hadn't touched anyone in the top four all season. They'd lost every single game they'd come out of the end zone. And in fair play, Bonnermine came up and they were a really forward-orientated, heavy pack. They dominated the scrum. They were really heavy in the forwards and they caused a lot of damage there. Newcastle, Emlyn, they can run from everywhere. I've got a full recording of the game, courtesy of the club and Dio. Thank you for that very much. Trying to put a highlights video together, but it's me, so it might be a bit dodgy. But no, their attacking play was brilliant. They scored a try from their own half. Really good moves up first baseball, the scrum and the line-out. Couldn't argue for much more than that from them. They won out in the end, 21-18. It was really tight all the way through. It was like 5-0 Bonnermine, 7-5, 10-7, 14-7. It just went like that whole game. So it was never more than a score in there. By the end of the game, Newcastle came up front, 21-18. That's put them on course to get into that top half, get a promotion spot, because there's five on offer this year, going up to the new-style premiership. It's really good for the club. And then afterwards, I had a couple of bevvies. Purple Moose Brewery, they're from Snowdonia region, and it was really nice golden pale ale. Really sweet, really fruity. I quite liked it. And they had their own eco cups as well. It's in the car. It's literally about 30 meters from where I'm sitting, but I'm too lazy to go and grab it. But no, it's got Castellnewydd, Emlyn, Dolwydda, Wychyddy Ground, Gwynagog, and all the colours. It's just a really nice cup, and it's only two quid, so I was happy with that. So I've got that as memento for the day. But all in all, it was a great experience. I haven't been to a community game in a long while, which is to my own detriment. I wish I could go a lot more. Unfortunately, I get stuck with the kids, and after half a match, the wind's in. But what I can say about Newcastle Emlyn, as you walk into the ground, just before you get into the pitch, they've got swings. So you can literally, the kids can go on the swings, you can watch the match, and you can see them out of the corner of your eye. So that is a brilliant idea, get a free ground by one of the bloody tri areas of your pitch. I think that's fantastic. So did you use sat-nav to find the pitch? No, I've been there plenty of times before. I did have to reverse, I didn't use the sat-nav as in, I put in the postcode, but part of the 484 was closed. So I literally got to Carmarthen, and I was like, okay, Christ, so I had to scroll through the map, where do I go from here? Because the diversion wanted to take me through Llandudno, and I'm not travelling that far. I've budgeted my mileage for this, I can't go too far out of my way. It was a fairly easy ground to get to, once you've been there once, it's simple enough. Have you heard the Rod Gilbert sketch, the difference between Llandudno and Llandudno? Llandudno. Yeah, it is absolutely classic. So what happens now, if Newcastle Emlyn play Buryport or Llangennau or Llesi Wanderers, where does the heart lie now? Well, I love Newcastle Emlyn, everything about the club, it makes you feel part of it, and honest to God, I can't emphasise them more. I came in as a neutral person, I spoke to them, oh, it's a really nice club, really sounding, but every single person, it's a fully bilingual club, I mean, it's mostly Welsh and everything else, I'm not even close to fluent, I wouldn't even say I'm semi-fluent, but they accompany absolutely everybody, like my wife doesn't like pork, when she went up for food, she's like, oh, we can go do something else, because there was pork bits in the gravy, I can go do you a fresh gravy if you want, and they really didn't need to do things like that, but they were offering off their own back. Everything about the club is inclusive and it makes you feel like part of it, so honest to God, half of my heart is now in Newcastle Emlyn, I'm not going to lie. Well, that's good, that's good, that's the way, and that's what we all need to do, isn't it? We all need to spend a couple of days at the lower end of the rugby pyramid, if you like, and just remember what it's like to be in those grounds when it's pissing down, and it's four degrees below. It's good weather, I was happy with that, there was a lake drizzler point, but nothing too bad. I'm pleased for you, mate, I'm pleased for you, because, yeah, as I said, they are a good club and they are covered places, and they've obviously got something right, because they do produce players that go to the top end, so yes, well done them. So my high points is yesterday, now you might not believe this, but yesterday I mowed the lawn for the first time this year. I know it took a while, I literally had to trim it first so that I could get the grass low enough to then put the lawnmower over it, and it looks awful, but it looks awful with like two inches of grass instead of two foot of it now. Any brambles in there? No, do you know, I was like, I get to the edges and I'm like, oh, my flowers are growing again, and this is growing again, and I haven't killed that, and no, this is alright. I found onions, I found onions growing in my bench pads that I hadn't picked out from last year. I wanted yesterday, they brown onions, red onions. They're brown now, because they're rotten in the ground, but they were there, like, you know, they were growing, so yeah, so I managed to mow them. Is that those green shoots that you're always on about? Maybe that's what it is, mate, there's a subconscious, like, thing coming in from the garden, there's green shoots growing, so there was that, and the reason that I wasn't here last week was I was busting my arse to do this, I meant to have this survey out for my, the end of my Open Uni course, so an Open Uni course is six years, yeah, and you do all the work at home, so you've been doing the day job, and then stuff like that, and then this as well, and all that kind of stuff, so I wanted to do my survey, so I've got to do a survey, then you've got to analyse results and publish a report, and all this kind of stuff, yeah, and I wanted to do my survey on something to do with rugby, and it was battered around, and it looks nothing like what it started, but it's to do with ex-rugby players and their connections, their social connections within the game, so I'm going to put that out on our social media, and I would really, really appreciate it if you could take five minutes, ten minutes, I tested it on you Mark, how long, five minutes, five minutes, there you go, so you know, it doesn't take long at all, it's all anonymous, so I sent it out with, I sent you one out Mark, with about five or six others, and they all came back in, I've got no idea whose is whose, and all that kind of stuff, and there's nothing on there which is particularly revealing, although one of them did come in with a strange pair of underpants photo, yeah, so, would you make special on that branded box, I'm going to put people off doing my survey now, no, can you all, the link will be there, I'd really appreciate it if people would do that survey, because it just makes my life so much easier, I don't have to pester people about it next weekend, so, and do a photo option now, to be fair, I, and this was kind of the point of my survey, that you know, I've got loads of friends on social media who are ex-players, but you know, I don't speak to, like I speak to guys every week, but I don't speak to them, I might speak to them once or twice a year, you know, we might be commenting on the same rugby posts or something like that, and you go, and when you make that rugby connection, it does kind of stick with you, you know, it does kind of, I was, one of the bits I do in work, is I arrange grants for people, and one of the guys, his name popped up, and I went, I'm sure I played with him when I was, when I was 15, yeah, I'm nearly 50, so this was 35 years ago, yeah, we played under 15s, we were the first and only Pembrokeshire team to win a national cup, thank you, so he played second row, and I was messaging him and all that kind of stuff, and I go, so we arranged a video call, and I went, did we play together, did, you're Matthew, and he's like, I was thinking the same thing, you're Lee, we used to play together when we were 15, didn't we, yeah, so 35 years without talking to each other, bang, straight back into it, reminiscing about the game, what we've been doing and all of this kind of stuff, get to the end of the call, and I'd completely forgotten to ask him all the questions, I need to ask him about the grant, if I can do that again, but that's the kind of connections that you develop, your social connections that you develop in rugby that I wanted to get to the bottom of, so that's what it is, the link will be there, I'd be really grateful if you could do it, right, so everybody else can go and take a snooze now, Martin is, you have the floor my friend, let's do community game, so obviously it's been two weeks, there wasn't much rugby at all last week, so it's going to be really quick, just like a normal one, there was a bit of, you know, Scarlet's Academy games and a lot of eighth grade Wales games, as I'm sure a lot of people would know, so if we go back to two weeks, you know, when we were supposed to do this last week, so Llandyfri won away in Pontypwl 48-26, we had Cian Abraham and Jack Davis on the field, Cian Abraham had three tries and sat in the game for that one, Jack Davis came in with a try as well, Carmarthen Quinn's fully loaded with Scarlet's boys, so they had Lewis Morgan, Lucas Sitaro, Yesning William, Sam O'Connor and Gabriel Macdonald, but they also had Carwyn Tuapolotu, Archie Hughes and Charlie Titcom, and they somehow still didn't manage to win against a team that is literally right by them in the table, they lost 20-15 at home to RGC, which for me, I don't understand, you know, they absolutely smashed Aberavon the week before and they chopped and changed all their squad, you know, to accommodate, you know, the extra three, four players from the Scarlet and everything just went out the window, so I'm really disappointed from that, I thought they could have been on a nice run. I don't understand why Carwyn's turning out for Quinn's at the moment. Well, quite frankly, he needs to play rugby and we're playing for feet to the date, so unless he starts showing something, you know, I can't see him getting back into this team, I'll be honest, I can't even remember the last time I saw him sign a contract, I think it was like back in, you know, 2020 or maybe 2021, so I'm pretty sure his contract is coming up and the way things have gone, you know, we are slowly hearing announcements, you know, his name is expected to be in there, but I also wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't as well, you know, he's, you know, what is he, six foot odd, 125 kilo, and he just doesn't seem to use it, he had Callum O'Phoney for years as a mentor and it just hasn't appeared to do anything, there's just not that mindset in him because, you know, playing rugby is a mindset, you don't have to be, you know, six foot six, 120 plus kilos to be a good big aggressive carrier, you can be six foot and bloody 90 kilos and still make a massive dent in people, it's just something that doesn't seem to be there, that sort of aggression is just not there with him, which is disappointing because he has all the row after bouts, so leave off on him, other players that were on show two weeks ago was Harry Fuller for Newcastle Ermine against Bonnemine, that game I just described, Olly Clawes for Ammonford, Crimmich had Alfie Evans fetch here, and yes, it would when they played Dunfermline, and there was also a debut for one of our under 18s, he played for his local club, Iori Badem, so this is directly from Tenby, you know, division two, there at the post, Iori Badem made his first 15 debut yesterday, another player to have played right through our club pathway, it was a pretty decent debut to be fair, a try with his first touch and a first half hat-trick, so I think you can be pretty pleased with how that went, and like we saw at the beginning of the Scarlets 18 season, more or less, I think it was his first touch of the ball he went over as well, so a bit of a theme going by here for Iori, so let's just watch his first game everywhere he goes. So just taking two other results from a week then, Championship West, Dunfermline 36, Crimmich 13, Llangenech 167-14 at home to Trebarnor's, Ammonford lost 23-17 away to Maesteg Quinns, the aforementioned game, Newcastle Ermine won 21-18 at home to Bonnemine, Narberth won 67-7 away to Ostalivera, Division 1 West, Barryport won 27-10 at home to Pontyddylais, Llanelli Wanderers won 59-21 away to Velenvol, Kidwelly beat One Island 19-12 at home, Wicklund went down 10-26 at home to Gysaenan, and then Hendi beat Aberystwyth in a massive 46-43 game. 1 West Central, Brynhaman went down 31-20 away to West of Gynlais, Division 2 West, Temby won 59-7 away to Amman United, Carmarthen Athletic beat Fishguard 15-12 at home, Milford Avon won 17-13 at home to the Croes, Lampeter won 31-22 away in Nantgyrredig, Mumbles won 34-30 in Pontyberym, Barry unlucky there, Pontyberym been much improved this season, I've constantly said it, and in the big game for this division, first and second as it was, St Clair's 46, Loughborough 21, and some of the posts I've had up, Loughborough is quite, well I wouldn't be too proud of it, it's direct from the club, and they're like, oh we, our discipline let us down, 46 points, you know, that's not just discipline, so come on, just man up, you're on the better side. 3 West, Halford West won 47-5 at home to Pembroke, Neyland and St David's played out a 21-0 draw in Neyland, 3 West beat Trimstar and won 64-15 away to Binya, Kev Nathan won 24-20 at home to Frank Gardog, Tumble won 29-15 in Furness, Frank Dylo won 25-12 against New Dock Stars, sorry Huw, Betos won 33-14 away to Trigaron, in Division 3, Tapp in the quarter-final stage, Larn went down 17-25 at home to Bryn Ceathin, so unlucky for me, I don't have an excuse to go to the first finals day now on April the 6th, that's it for there, and get a few Larn obviously. Division 5 West Central, Pantyvannan lost 8-38 at home to Comturk, and Penibank went down 41-27 at home to Rickos. Into the Youth Rugby, so it's only a few pictures, I'm really sorry if I go as fast as I can. Youth Cup semi-final, Ton Mawr beat Goseuinon 13-0, so the Youth final will now be Llanddylo against Ton Mawr. Youth Plate semi-finals, Bargoed won 41-27 against Llandaff, and Carmarthen Athletic beat their local rivals Carmarthen Queen's 24-17, so the Youth Plate final is Carmarthen Athletic against Bargoed. Down into the bowl semi-finals now, and Gowerton beat Cwmbran 24-28, so the bowl final is between Cardiff Queen's and Gowerton. So quickly flash ahead to last weekend, only a handful of games, Carmarthen Queen's lost 18-24 at home to Cardiff, so you know, Cardiff are in the promotion slots, they're currently in fourth, so a massive jump up from RGC to Cardiff, and they only had Sam O'Connor, Lewis Morgan, Gabriel Macdonald, Justin William, Justin Wood, and Lucas Sitaro, so you got rid of the three main scholars boys, and their performance improved, so what does that say about the scholars boys we're giving out at the minute? Really disappointing from that perspective. Harry Fuller was on show for Newcastle Emlyn, again they went down 28-0 away to Llangenech, I don't know about Llangenech, they're top dogs, they're top three in this division, so that's nothing to be too concerned about, nothing in 1 West or 1 West Central, nothing in 2 West, 3 West, a Lland 166-12 away to Pembroke, and I believe that is absolutely all my results for these last two weeks, so I will run down the pictures for this coming Saturday as fast as I can, as always. I thought we were done Hugh, I thought I put the kettle on, I've made a cup of tea, the turkey's in the oven, the sprouts are on, I thought we were done, but apparently we've got a fixture, go on Mark, carry on. I'm glad you broke it up a bit, it gives people a breather, it gives me a breather more than anything else. I was going to say you've got to breathe at some point mate. I'm looking at my screen of fixtures and results, so I can't see and I've turned over now to look at you and I can see how red I've gone, so this must be really entertaining for people on the internet. So really quick, in the Premiership we've got Comadhain Queens are playing away in Merthyr, Downing and Chambership West, Ammanford at home to Tata Steel, Llangennes travel to Bonn and Mayne, Big Derby, Crimmiff at home to Newcastle Emlyn, Downing 1 West, Aberystwyth at home to Whipland, Kidwell he travels to Gisleinan, Llanllef he wanders, Horset in Hendi, Bellenval travel to Penclawd, Bardipore travel to One Eyelid, 1 West Central, Brannarmen are at home to Ten Big Hill, 2 West we've got Comadhain Athletic at home to Lougha, Fishguard at home to Nant Gareddeg, Milford travel to Lampeter, St Clair's travel to Mumbles, Tenby at home to Pontyberym and to Crois at home to Amman out there, 3 West A we've got Llan at home to Pembroke, so a reverse of last week's fixture with Llan 166-12, Llangan at home to Pembroke, Dock Harlequins, Neyland at home to Haverford West and Cardigan travelling to St David's, 3 West B we've got Bethos at home to Cefnydd, Llangaraf at home to Furness, Llandybi travel to New Dock Stars, maybe New Dock can get a win just to make you happy Huw, Trimsarn at home to Tragaran, Llandailo travel to Tumble, 5 West Central there are no games for whatever reason, Cup Rugby now, so we have got Championship Cup semi-finals, so Narva are at home to Astrodronda they're playing the Championship Cup semi-finals for six months Martin, the other semi-final is Bargoed against Bedras at Newbridge, the Division 2 Cup semi-finals are Aberavon Quinns playing Puthball in Torn Mawr, a Penarth playing Llanarin in Bedras, Division 3 Cup semi-finals where Llan should likely be but they're not, Brackett in a play in Blina in Penarth, Fairwater playing Cardiff Quinns but I haven't got the venue for that one and that is it my friends, see the fixtures were not so bad. I was just looking at some of the fixtures and like 3 West I've got like 3 fixtures and some some sides have got like 2 or 3 games left. Well look at Llan they've got they've got a shit ton of games left you know and it is kind of lucky that they didn't actually win that knockout game in the Cup otherwise they would have been you know even more screwed you know. So we can get on to more professional game now, so the Scarlet Academy was back in action. Oh f**k he's not done, I thought he was done. I'm done for the community, I'm done for the community. Oh my god I thought I was about to start talking about Wales Italy and he started again, it's like somebody's rude. You can chime in again now man don't worry. Just press the reset button, go on Mark carry on. So 16th East and 16th West have combined, they played Ospreys last Wednesday and lost 28-26, haven't had much info on that on try scorers etc but this Sunday they played up in Maes y Gwendraeth against RGC and they won 42-40 and if you go on the Scarlet Academy twitter they've got a full rundown of their try scorers and everything. The Wales under 18s have had a couple of fixtures, I know they beat Scotland in a doubleheader with a development 15 as well quite recently. This week they beat Ireland 27-19, we had a few boys on show, we had Jack Pritchard, Sam Williams, Don Cosseth, Dianne Gwynne, Carolyn Jones, Alex Ridgway and Steph Jack-Jones. The women's under 18s have also had a few fixtures, I think it was England, Scotland and Ireland, they've won all three. You might have to double check England, I can't find much information on any of them. I know they've beaten Scotland 48-10 so I don't know how many of our kids, our Scarlets are involved in that. Into the under 20s we all saw how that game went against France, we just got overpowered. We had Josh Morse, Harry Thomas, Luca Giannini, Max Page in the starting 15. We had then Will Plessy and Ellis Price on the bench. Luca Giannini actually went off after eight minutes at a HIN and didn't return so very disappointing for him but Will Plessy did play the majority of the match then and Josh Morse got a try in that game so that was nice. Onto the more recent under 20s game, 27-15 win against Italy was quite impressive, the way we came back in the second half. We had Josh Morse and Max Page in the starting 15 and Harry Thomas and Ellis Price on the bench. Harry Thomas came on either at halftime or not long after halftime and he scored from a rolling ball and it was from that point something just clicked and the boys started playing with a ball in possession and everything just absolutely opens up and Italy will run off their feet. I think it was 15-0 at halftime to Italy and 27-0 in the second half just shows when these boys get the ball they are more than capable. We're not even playing with the starting number 10 because I believe Harry Wilde has been injured for a while now. We had I think his name is Harry Ford who was our 10 for the last two games and Ellis Price who's our boy who came on. He's still under 18 so younger brother of Jack Price so physically he's going to be a big boy so this is the standard of some of these players. Josh Morse has been in this is the second year and he's 19 so there are quite a lot of young boys in this under-20 squad as they seem to be. For the last week or so they've brought in a lot of boys ready for next year. I know Evan Rees from Cardiff, he's a back row, he's just started turning up for the rags. I know he went into camp and he made a bit of an impression so there's lots of boys around that under-18s age who are getting exposure. Is that the point though of under-20s to bring in players at under-18s level and then build them up for three years? Is that not defeating the purpose? It depends on how you view it. If you view it as a purely development tool or if you view it as an opportunity to win things. I mean there's got to be a healthy mix of both so you know having a few extra boys who you would expect to be in the squad next year come in to make up some numbers for the last week. See the set-up, get used to it, see what they're going to have. I see no issue with that. What I don't understand is where are the boys who are 19, 20 who should be more or less ready for professional rugby. They should be starting in these games. We had a solo Tuulagi drop down from the French national squad to the under-20s for the England game. This is the type of players we should be having. I'm not saying they should be ready for national rugby, far from it, but definitely regional level players should be at that level by under-20s. You've got your first year, 18, 19 in the premiership, set your ground and then you should really be pushing on. I want that regional spot. When you hit 20, 21 years old you should be fighting for that regional spot, not waiting until you're 22, 23 as it currently is until you get your first sniff at the end of the season. What have we done with community? That wasn't community. I know. That was a tough community. Are we done with your bit? We're done with my bit. I've got a bit more to talk if you'd like. I can go on forever, you know me. Go on, Vernon. Right, let's have a quick talk through the Italy game. Before we talk through the game, I'll do it in reverse. I'll talk through some of the reactions, in particular on social media, to this game. Because if you're calling yourself a fan, regardless of whether your side has won or lost or whatever, if you're calling yourself a fan and then you're throwing that level of abuse at some of your players, you need to do the world a favour and go watch football, because that's not the way we do things in rugby. Some of the stuff was just disgusting, and you just go into their social media pages. People forget that everything they tweet is on their page, so you can just click it on and you go down it. These people are not just vile about rugby, they're just vile about everything. So, yeah, whatever we say and whatever we do, if we're criticising a player, we're trying to say, actually, you know, your pass off your right hand could do with some work, not your shit at passing now jump off a cliff. You know, some people just need to get a bloody grip, because it pissed me off. It really pissed me off. I spent the day drinking on Saturday, I will say that. So, and then I started reading all of this stuff and it didn't help. It didn't help the whole thing put together. A big problem, you know, we have in Wales and the Welsh public is people criticise, you know, when everything's gone wrong. And they always criticise individuals. They don't criticise the team. They hardly ever criticise the manager, you know, if that's in charge, I should say. So, you know, and when you're talking about the Welsh number 10, that seems to get a boost no matter what. You know, even if we win, it's like, well, we should have won by more, you should have been better at that, you know, and it's not done constructively. It's like, you know, people, what is Costello? He's still 22 years old. He is still a baby in terms of the world. You know, he's probably only really, if he were, if he was not a rugby player, he would only be first year of the U.V. So, his first real time away from mum and dad, really. So, that's the age of some of these players. And that's what things people need to take into context. And when you say, oh, he missed a few kicks. Well, yeah, he did miss a few kicks, but that's very uncharacteristic of him. You've got to think he's played, well, the last three games, including this one he's played, have been over a four-week period. And before that, he played, what, two and a half games over, what, four months. I think he's got, like, five full 80s in 10 months. It's just stupid. You know, he hasn't had much rugby, so he hasn't had a chance to get form. And people say, oh, go back to the region and get some. Yeah, I agree with that. You know, you do need form if you want to play for your national side. I mean, not that Scotland's ever seen that. But it's just the way it is, you know. And when you look at it as a whole, you know, our pack has been, you know, bang average to terrible. And I know we just talked about, you know, saying we're not saying we're individuals. You know, it's been a poor pack in terms of the tournament. So our nine and ten, our halfbacks, have had absolutely poor ball. And then you add into the fact the pressure that Scotland would have put on all of our players, especially our halfbacks, you know, coming into this week. It just begs belief why they didn't make more mistakes. You know, quite frankly, these players could have totally capitulated. And it's a testament to their mental strength that they didn't. Because we know the type of coach Scotland is. We've known for well over a decade. You know, he puts this pressure on players. He makes them, you know, really second guess themselves. I mean, we've had sort of a turn style. It's actually when it comes to tens. You know, we've had Dan Bigger as one major standout. But it's been a rolling door. You know, we haven't had many mainstay tens outside of that, like in that second or third backup position, because the pressure that Gatland puts on them as a coach is just way too much. And it goes far beyond. And I think that's something that we saw the effects of on Saturday. So Hugh, talk to me about the game then and throw some stats in there when you feel appropriate. What did you make of that Italy game? Rubbishly. Excellent. Insightful from you. It doesn't seem like interesting or like, oh, that hadn't occurred to me. I'm not teaching anyone anything by telling them the pack was pretty hopeless. The carrying of Wales as a team over the whole Six Nations has been the worst in the Six Nations. And that's basically backed up with the worst game line success of any team. So we carry almost as much as Ireland. So we average 128 carries per game. Ireland average 137. So within 10 carries of Ireland on average per game. Ireland have the best game line success. And that comes right through the provincial side as well. They love to carry. They just carry all day long. They have the best game line success. We have the worst. I think I was looking at it earlier, like all of their play, position for position, they all carry better. And if I was to give you like the height and the weight of all of the different players, man for man, Ireland to Wales, it wouldn't show you that Ireland were particularly bigger because they're not. And I think in the game against Italy, I used it up based on Rugby Pass, which is a fallible source. But based on what Rugby Pass was saying, the forward pack made 69 carries and made 60 metres. So less than a metre per carry on average. And that's going back to what Mark was saying. And that's why Costello was just getting the ball and just like. He had a very un-Sam game in that he only carried twice and he passed 30 times. That's not his game. That's not how he plays. He likes to carry. He likes to keep the momentum of the side going by carrying. But he just he couldn't. And he was getting the ball like, oh, well, this isn't going very well. Sam, could you sort this out for us? And he's just not in that stage of his development where he can do that yet. And he's not that kind of 10. He's a ball in hand running 10. So it's as simple as got no go forward. And funnily enough, when we got the go forward is when Mason Grady came on in that 12 channel. And I as far as I could tell, he's never played 12 before in his life. But he made a huge difference. And Will Rowlands came on. I. That's the frustrating thing for me is that in Grady and Rowlands, what have we been not good at getting over the game line? He was our best game line players in the squad, considering that there are some players who just don't get picked. The best players that we actually do pick are Grady and Rowlands. OK, well, stick them on the bench and leave them there for 70 minutes. It's like. We could have solved these. Gatlin could have solved these issues. So do you think Gatlin has lost it in whatever golden touch he had, whatever he did with that first lot of players? And I would maintain that a lot of the first lot of players that he had were mainly developed by a system that he wasn't involved in. And then he's not involved in the development system now. So we can't criticize or take credit for any of those players. He just takes them at the end and then says, OK, I'll do something with them then. So, you know, whatever he was doing before isn't working now. And I can't I can't see where it's starting to work. So has he lost it? That's my question to you, Mark. Has he lost it? No, he hasn't lost it because he's never had it. You know, the players that he had from 2008 to 2019 that anyone could have gone in and made a good success. I mean, I look at it in terms of, you know, we had a real, really good golden generation of players. We only had 25 percent of championships in the Six Nations and two World Cup semifinals to show from that. For the standards of players that we actually had, that's a poor return. So as much as Gatlin is vowed as the messiah, he did this. Well, Howley won one of the tournaments for one. No. And he doesn't do anything. He burns them physically. That's literally all we can find out that he does. And a comment came out somewhere. I can't I can't. I've seen it so many times. But it was a comment on, oh, I'm going to break them. But the problem isn't with their fitness. It's with their mentality. They come into the game as losers. That's why they've never been able to get over the line against New Zealand. That's why it's always a similar sort of thing. Gatlin hasn't lost it. He's never had it. You know, whenever he's not had a primed and ready 23 to go, you know, Ireland Chiefs, he struggled. He's a good manager. He's not a coach. That's as much as I can say. OK, same question. Did Gatlin ever have it or if he's had it, he lost it? I think he, you know, going through and making the clips and the things for the George North videos that we've had this week, you do in watching like the peak George North, you also see peak Wales and you think, God, we had a hell of a team. And I remember the stick that that team got at the time when it was winning every, well, winning most things. And it makes you look back and like, oh, we give our right arm for some of these players now. He has to acknowledge that his ideas about attack have to change, which is some acknowledging that he is wrong and has to change is not something that Gatlin has ever done, ever. But certainly in attack, his idea that the whole Warren ball, wear them down, keep the ball will be fitter than you come the 80. Well, guess what? Now, these days, teams are doing 60 splits and they just bring on like Italy did it so well. Italy, like say they get just schooled Gatlin on how to use substitutes in the game on Saturday. It was just like, now I'm going to bring this part on. Now, I'm going to bring this part on. Now, I'm going to bring this part on and just refresh the team as they were wearing down, just kept them fresh and kept them fresh. And if he stayed on top of the whole game, the only time that Wales scored tries is when Italy knew that the game was won and they kind of just took their foot off the gas. And Wales was so far behind in so little time on the clock left that we just went like it just do a and scored a couple of tries that way, exactly the same as it was against Scotland. So the attack absolutely has to change. And we need to introduce detail. We need to introduce deception. We need to introduce using. Like I said, foot for work in detail and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, to score our tries because brute force isn't working and it's not going to work unless we can get some different personnel into the team and use our substitutes better, i.e. adopt a 6-2 split. It's, you know, the defence hasn't been shocking, you have to say, you know, apart from France, we haven't conceded, like Ireland, we conceded four tries, but in the other games, I think we conceded two in each of them and three against Scotland. So it's not a catastrophic defence. I think the players are fit and I think they are prepared from a physical point of view. That's about as much as you can say the team at the moment. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to take a page out of who's book for you and come up with a number because it's all spoken about that this team is in rebuild mode. So obviously, I haven't posted this anywhere because I'm still in the bare bones of making it up. But, you know, these, you know, new players that you're talking about, we're going through a rebuild. So I've taken every player that's been capped since Scotland came back, so since December 23, and all those players for every minute that was on that field, they were only on it for 19% of the game. So for 81% of the games, we had boys that, you know, had been in the system for several years. So there's no excuse really. And for those boys that have been capped since he's come back, you know, I put the number in my ear, I think it's like 35 positions, you know, through each matchday 23. And each one of them caps only equates to about 32 minutes. So, you know, all these new boys rebuild that he's trying to play. So they're only averaging 32 minutes to appearance. They're not going to develop at that rate. Not, you know, quick enough. And as Andrew Coombs has said, you know, we're in a constant rebuild, it should never be this bad. You know, if we compare this to the ending of PIVAC's reign, every single result of the 22-6 nations was better than this one. Every single result in the scoreline. You know, we beat Scotland and the point marginals, but a lot were, I can't say a lot less, but they were less in a lot of the matches. And, you know, everyone was saying after that Italy game back then, no, he should be sacked. No one's calling for that. So it's just a matter of who's who. Well, you know, he, it's a difficult one because, you know, I think he does do some stuff okay, but it doesn't, for me, you go back to what you were saying to you about when he was winning and, you know, we were winning everything and it was, you know, people were slagging him off. Yeah, because we weren't playing the Welsh way and we were going, well, no, we need to develop the Welsh way. We need to win first and then we'll develop this creative, this, and we never went on to develop a creative game. We never went on to scoring three, four, five tries a game. We would, we were winning by a kick, you know, or we were winning by that last minute try and all of that kind of stuff. So we, we were never putting sides away. We were never destroying sides. We were winning, but it was boring as hell. Yeah. And, and that's the issue is for. That's a fake winning every day, are we? Yeah, but I, I don't think that's the way the Welsh public works, mate. I, I think for, for Wales, and I think this is where Gatland shoots himself in the foot, where he tries to take the emotion out of it. He doesn't, he doesn't live in, he's not in the, he's not in the pressure tucker. Yeah. Like, like the way Pivac was. Pivac was here all the time and he spoke quite a few times about, you know, you feel it coming down on you every day. You're, you're shopping in Sainsbury's and you can feel people looking at you and people are, you're going and buying some chicken and someone's asking you who's playing Scrimmars next week. You know, it's, it's there and Gatland doesn't get that. Gatland doesn't get how important this game is to supporters, to communities, to school kids, to teenagers, to grannies, to people down the pub, you know, it's all encompassing. And by not being a part of that, that pressure cooker, he's missing that bit. He's trying to take the emotion out of the game. He's trying to take the entertainment value out of the game and going, well, if they score nine points, we'll score 10. If they score 24 points, we'll score 25. No, we, we, we want to play the game a certain way. We want to see a game that's played a certain way. And when he came in, you know, he came in after, um, Hanson and Mike Rudder, who actually, they were the boys that changed the way we played that game. They were the boys that developed that. Yeah. Hanson completely changed, but Hanson was here. Hanson was here and he was working in clubs, he was working in the regions, he was out coaching, he was, do you know what I mean? He felt the pressure. He understood what it meant. He, and he, he was the first one that actually said, no, we need to take some of the, the, the pressure away from the players. We need to, you know, put the pressure on me, take it away from the players, let the players grow, let the players develop, focus on, stop focusing on the wins, start focusing on the, the, the way we're playing and things like that. So he did more to develop the mentality side of a winning side than Gatland did. Gatland, Gatland took a, a pretty good side and made it into a really good side. You know, can't take that away from me. Did he made it into a really, really good side, but now he has to go right the way back down to the bottom and work on how that pyramid is built. And Gatland can only build the top three or four layers of a pyramid. And those first 10 levels that are underneath, he can't build. You know, he expects everybody else to do that and he'll come in and he'll polish it at the end and he'll make it great. And now we're in a situation where actually, you know, one of the things that's been talked about on Saturday, you know, who's the leader on the pitch? Well, who's the leader off the pitch? Who's, who's the leader off the pitch? Because at the minute, it doesn't feel like Gatland. It doesn't feel like Gatland's there going, do you know what? Don't shout at the players, shout at me. You know, I'll take the pressure off the players. You want to have a go at someone, come and have a go at me. Throw your shits at me. I don't agree. I kind of disagree. I think he brings all the attention on himself. With the way he's commented in his, he's gone, he's fronted up and gone on scrum five. He's gone, the way he talks about his resignation, which I think was a load of nonsense. I think he made it, I think he made that up. But he's, he's not gone into any press conferences and thrown any players under the bus, apart from Josh Adams. But Josh Adams, guess what? Kept his place in the team. So I think he knows that a player like Josh Adams can take it because he's broadcast. But he threw Josh Adams under the bus. He threw, even George North, where George North's going to retire. Yeah, he was really good 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. He threw, what's his name? The Cardiff Six, young kid, Alex Mann. No. Bolton? No, no, no, no. The young one coming through. Yeah, Mann. Anyway. Alex. Is it Alex Mann? Yeah. Why am I thinking that somebody else? Anyway, he threw him under the bus at the start of the tournament, you know? So all that stuff that- I think a lot of what Gatlin says in press conferences is massively taken out of context by the media. I think, I think his words get twisted a lot. All the press conferences are, you can't view them. They are online. You can see word for word. And honestly, some of them do get twisted, but you can't argue that. But quite frankly, listening to talk is quite difficult. It makes you think, Jesus, are we really in this place? And that's what I mean. I don't see him as a leader off the pit. When Steve Hansen was talking about it, you go right back to, what was his name? Back in the 90s, an English guy came in to coach Wales right when we were down in the Doldrums. I met him. I had a couple of coaching sessions with him when I was 16. That's long before the 90s. No, Alan Davis, yeah? So Alan Davis came out. So he got made national coach. It was the year- 91 to 95. Yeah. So it was the year we beat England 10-9 with that United Evans trial where he skinned Rory Underwood, yeah? I thought he didn't like winning 10-9. Back then, mate, if we were losing by less- An amateur. If we were losing by less- Winning is everything. If we'd have won the game 10-9 at the weekend, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I would. Back then, yeah, if we were losing by less than 50 points, it was a frigging miracle. But what he did was he came out and coached coaches. And he coached coaches on the technicality, coached them on fitness, and he coached them on how to manage players. I remember sitting there. I was sitting in Whitland, yeah? So he was using under-15s and under-16s players as his demonstration and all that kind of stuff. And I went into a tackle bag run or something. And he didn't just go, oh, okay, so this kid's got it wrong. He said, right, come here. And he spoke to me and said, right, okay, what about your foot placement? Where's your body placement? Where's your centre of balance? Blah, blah, blah. And I said, right, okay. So when we're talking to players, this is how we talk to players. And he spoke to coaches about how to coach. No one had done that in Wales before, yeah? And I think Gatland, if Gatland had to go out and do that now, I don't think he could. I don't think he could go to coaches in Division 2 West or Division 3 West and say, okay, let me help you develop your side, you know? Why is that his role? Because he's head of Welsh rugby. He's a Welsh team coach. That's not how it works here. That's not how it works in Wales. The WIU define his role. If the WIU defined his role as the national team head coach, that's his remit. And that's the problem. He doesn't go beyond it. If you are in this cauldron of Welsh rugby, you understand that every single player, whether you're six years old or they're bloody still playing, you know, seconds or veterans or whatever, every single one matters. And every single one is part of the national team. Whether they're playing or supporting or developing towards it, everyone is part of it. And that's what I think Gatland is missing. It's not that he's not a good coach, because I think he is. He's missing this bit that goes... He doesn't understand how badly managed Welsh rugby has been over the last however long. Because he points it out in pretty much every press conference he does. I think you need to look at what he says and what he does. Because what he says is, you know, that thing about, you know, I offered my resignation. That's a load of bollocks. If he laid well and said, or do you want me to resign? Yeah, but there's like, do you want me to resign? Or I'm offering you my resignation. If he goes in on Monday morning with a written piece of paper and says, listen, Abbie, I'd rather think about it. I'm giving you my resignation now. If you want to take it, great. If not, fine. I'll carry on. But I'm offering you that opportunity now. Having a conversation in the tunnel, as the players have just come off the pitch, where everybody's, you know, emotions are high and all that kind of stuff, saying, all right, that's it, I've quit. She is going to turn around and say, no, no, no, no, no, because she's a good boss. Yeah. And that's what a good boss will do. A good boss will go, okay, don't think about it. Yeah. I understand things are a bit raw, but I don't want you to go. Okay. So I think he's played a game there where he's covered his arse and he's gone, you know, I'll do this now. I think he's just starting to understand what this means to people in Wales. Because that first section that he had, it was relatively easy. Yeah. Things were going right. There was a good bunch of players there. There was a system in place to bring players through, and it was bringing players through. But that got slowly eroded as those players were coming through, and the number of players that were coming through got less and less and less. And now we're in a position where we go, right, okay, all your chickens have come on to roost. What are you going to do about it? And he's, oh, well, that's not my job. Well, actually, when it comes to leadership, you're the guy that people look at. When all the praise is around, you're the guy who gives the praise. At the same time, any time he criticises the regions, people get on his back for that as well. Even though the regions massively deserve criticism. But I think some of that comes from, you know, as a leader, he's not leading the regions at the minute. I think he's told them plenty of times what they need to be doing, and they ignore him. There's a part in his contract that he's not to negatively say anything about, you know, the regions or the WRU, but he's completely ignoring that. Quite frankly, I think given his age, his memory is deteriorating a bit, because the things that he's coming out and saying... You can't say that, Mark! I'm going to say it, because he's an old man. My memory's going, and I'm only in my early 30s. You know, just looking at him, he looks a shell of his former self. I think you should be looking at everything around his health, physical, mental and otherwise, because some of the comments he's coming out with, this isn't what we had pre-2019. They're just so far out there, especially compared to what he was like before. The comments with Alex Mann, like you said, obviously well out of context, but criticising the regions publicly the way that he has, this resignation bloody crap. I think there might be something more going on there. Okay, I'm going to say that I don't think there is. I think he's under a lot of pressure, but I don't think that he'll be the man in charge for the next World Cup. I will say that whenever any coach, and I've been consistent on this for multiple nations, I was back with Eddie Jones and other coaches as well, whenever a national head team coach says we're building for a World Cup, that's a red flag, because you can't build for a World Cup. There is so much about a World Cup that is out of your control, you cannot build for it. Look at the four semi-finalists for the last World Cup. Argentina, the coach had a new coach in who'd been in place for about a year. No building there. Argentina can't build. They've got no system at all. England sacked their coach 10 months out of the World Cup. They had no building there, got to the semi-final. All Blacks, didn't sack their head coach, sacked all of their support coaches, and completely changed their starting 15 and their game plan. Brought Joe Smith in and he brought an entirely new plan in. No building for the World Cup in New Zealand, so that's three of the four semi-finalists. Then you've got the Springboks, who had continuity of players and coach, but they had a Lions tour to host two years in. They couldn't hit the reset button four years out, because they had to win that Lions tour because it's been unacceptable to have lost it. Building for a World Cup isn't a thing, and when a coach says, oh, we're building for a World Cup, I'm like, that's a red flag, because what is success at a World Cup? When we had, I've forgotten his name, the guy high up in the Scarlets, I've gone blank. John Daniels. John Daniels, sorry. Yeah, I just had a blank moment there. When he said, oh, we get told what players to sign based on the four-year cycle of the WRU, to be successful at the next World Cup, what is success at a World Cup for Wales? A semi-final. Would I trade a semi-final for Wales for a league title for the Scarlets? No. Would I trade a semi-final at a World Cup for Wales for a grand slam in a Six Nations? No. Would I trade a World Cup for any of those? Yeah, yeah, of course, if we won the World Cup. They can't guarantee that. There's no amount of planning that you can do four years out that guarantee you win a World Cup. Guess what? Look what happened to France. The first choice flyer gets injured. Their best player in their nine gets smashed in the face. And it all starts going apart. And then four years planning, like a referee's decision gives a red card you don't agree with, and there's your four years planning up the swanee. So I'm not OK with coaches sacrificing Six Nations to build for a World Cup in four years time. I will never be OK with that. I'm gonna, we're gonna move on. OK. And we will come back at the end of the season and redo all of, you know, we'll review all of the seasons and all of that kind of stuff for the season for Wales, the season for the Scarletts and all that kind of stuff. So the one bit that I was going to talk about, and I did the social media bit first, just to frame our conversation, was the social media for the Scarletts game against Benetton has actually been very good. So I was going to flip that Scarlett, the idea that social media can be really, really bad when it's used in a negative way. But the promotion for the Benetton game has been quite good. So Hugh, how much of that is down to you? So I had a bit of a moan last time out about Scarlett socials, and I was mainly, mostly upset about the Castor kids, which I'm still upset about. But I did have a bit of a whinge, but I have to say that the content that they put out in the last couple of weeks has been really good. And they put out a promo today for the Benetton game that was particularly good. They put out a highlight of Joe Roberts' try against Munster that I really liked. So, yeah, so fair play. I think we've heard, Mark, from behind the scenes, haven't we, that they want to bolster that area. And I think it's certainly in the last couple of weeks, it's taken a step up. So shout out to Scarlett's socials admin. Yeah, because it is very easy to just sit back and go, ah, now this is what we're going to do and all that. But they listened, you know, not necessarily to us, but they listened to somebody and changed themselves. So let's talk about the preparations for the Benetton game. So I'm also going to flip that back on its head because the social media, we haven't seen much other than that video. We've not really seen much in the way of social media about what's been going on the last couple of weeks and how preparations for... Yeah, we know the other regions have had training matches against English sides, haven't we? Yeah. So do we know if that's been on the cards for us? Apparently not. We haven't seen anything. We haven't been told anything. You know, if we have been, I would expect it to come out in the press conference, which will be either on Wednesday or Thursday. But, you know, if you don't tell us how... If you don't talk to fans, if you don't tell them what's going on, we're left to twiddle our fingers and make up our own stories, which, from what I hear, is something that the Scarlets definitely don't want happening. They don't want rumours out there. They want to dispel all of them. But you don't keep us informed. So what are we going to do? I've got a choice. And that is the nature of people, that where there's a void, they'll just fill it with something. Rather than sit there and go, Oh, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. They'll go, Well, let me tell you what I know. And they'll just make shit up, which is where conspiracy theories start. So what are we hoping for in the Benetton game? Huw, tell me what you're hoping for in the Benetton game. I hope we win. See, that's concise. That's precise. That's to the point. That's on button. Anything else other than a win? Vegas can't be choosers. I genuinely have got no idea. I've got absolutely no idea. I don't know what the team is going to be. And I don't know what the performance is going to be like. I've got no clue. It's been such a roller coaster, mainly down, of a season. I've got no preconceptions about the Benetton game at all. Benetton are really good. They're one of the top teams in the league. They kind of slid down the standings, but the standings are really tight. We win a couple of games and they'll be straight back up again. They'll be targeting this game. It's a must win for them. So they'll be really thinking they need to get five points out of it for their season. But from a scout's point of view, I've really got no idea what is in store at the moment. Okay. So that's you spending three minutes saying not a fucking clue. So, have you ever thought of a career in politics, you get to talk for 10 minutes and not say anything at all? So, Martin, what's your take on that? So, Martin, what are you hoping for? My first hope is that the 300 Italian internationals they've got stay away and the rest did. So we might have an actual chance of winning this game. My second is that they've been talking over the last couple of months at Tate and Plumptree, Tom Rogers, and a lot of the injured boys who've had niggles are going to be back. So, fingers crossed, outside of obviously Josh McLeod. Scott Williams inside centres, what I'm hearing. So, outside of Josh McLeod and Ken Owens, who we know will not return this season. Now, obviously, we still don't know the state of Ryan Elias. You know that's our two captains, don't you? Yeah. We still don't know the state of Ryan Elias coming back from Wales, but I'm just hoping that we have a full and fit squad barred in those couple to actually select from. He's challenged you. No, he wasn't picked because George North had to have a swan song. No, but apparently he rolled his ankle in the France game. Well, he did at the beginning, but he played another 58 minutes. Yeah, but you know, international injured and club injured isn't the same. International, no, you're not injured. Club, oh, yeah, you're injured. Well, this goes to the conversation we had before we came on. You know, Scarlett's socials put out a nice welcome back and they only had four of our eight internationals on there. So... Two scrum halves. We don't make nearly enough of a noise about the fact that two scrum halves and two fly halves of Wales are all from the Scarletts. We don't make enough noise that, you know, four scrum halves in the Six Nations squads were our worst. Even Varney and Harry Vandal was involved, you know. Scarlett's in Britain. Yeah, he was in the Travian squad. I can't understand that. Yeah, yes, that's pushing it somewhat. Come on, he's been passed plenty of times. He's a good-to-Christ boy. Yeah, okay. So, I was about to say something. I can't remember what I was going to say. We've gone off about Harry Vandal now. We were on about who's fit back from Wales. Yeah. Yeah, mine was probably a step back. So, for me, the bit that I'm looking for in this Benetton game is defence. You know, they had... Oh, that's what I was going to say. There's almost a call, yeah, where you've had a bunch of players in camp working intensively for the last three weeks, you know, since the game. Working on a new... Well, is it a new defensive system? Is it augmented? Is it the old... You don't have a great track record of players being in camp for a long time working on things. No, but you would have thought that they'd have gone, right, okay, we've got a while now. I would have thought that a few times. Let's have a little look at defence, shall we? Let's spend a little bit of extra time working on the whole defence thing and then explain what that means. To be fair, that's a fair point. Gerard Payne, how long has he had as now being mostly defence coach? At least the week before Munster, which we know of. There were signs of improvement, weren't there? Six weeks. There were signs of improvement in the last game, signs of improvement in Munster. There were signs of improvement in Munster. It kind of disappeared a little bit in Edinburgh. But I think, you know, if you've had a group of players working on a system, a defensive system, for three weeks to then bring international players back into that system and go, okay, this is how we're doing it now. I don't know if that's effective, so I'm almost on that bit. I'm going, if somebody's going to come back into that, whether they've got a week to get their head around it. Okay, all right, let's do it like this then. So, let's pick the 15 with none of our internationals in it. Oh, fuck, here we go. Hang on, yeah. So, Wyn Jones, Sean Evans. Sean Evans? I don't know. I think I'd rather swap for the physicality. I wouldn't. I guess Sean Evans. Sam Wainwright. Yeah, yeah. Alex Craig. Yeah, he has been involved. He rocked up to the Scotland camp and they went, no, you're a bit fucking good. You're making the rest of us look bad, and they rejected him. Lousey, second row, yeah. I would put Lousey in the second row. I don't think Peel will. I think they'll put Price in if he's fit. And then Lousey, I'm predicting what it would probably be rather than why I would pick, because that's a whole different conversation. So, probably Lousey at six, Dan Davis at seven, who's also signed a contract extension, which is great. I don't think we covered that on here. No, I was about to say, yeah. So, Vita at eight. Vita at eight. But if Plumtree is back, you put Lousey into the second row and Plumtree at six, don't you? Yep. And then Plumtree can get sent off and banned for the rest of the season and fulfil my prediction. Yeah, but he's going to come on and he's going to be an absolute animal for like 60 minutes. I think he would have been Wales's six if he'd have been fit for the six nations. Yeah. He would have been six for the World Cup. He's been brought here for a reason, guys. I don't think I'm being a conspiracy theorist here. He's six foot six, isn't he? Is he six foot six? No, he's six foot five. He's big enough to fill in at the second row if needed. And he can run with a ball in hand. He's a big lump of a lad. He's got like five tries in seven games. And he's like, I say, oh boy, throw me the ball. I'll catch the ball and I'll run at those little balls, those little short arses over there. And when I'm done with them, I'll pass the ball to somebody in the same shirt. How's that for a plan? And everyone goes, fuck, you know, hey. That's the best fucking plan we've heard all year. He's got a point, you know. But you know what I mean? He'll take the ball forward, he'll give you the arse. That's a good point. So yes, Plumtree at six. Then we would pick Archie. Who knows who will actually get picked? There'll probably be some guy we didn't know existed. Probably Dinky at ten. Centre's, oh God. Oh, is Johnny available? Yeah. Which Eddie really were. Because if Eddie's fit... Oh no, Johnny played in the last game, didn't he? Johnny played 13, wouldn't he? Yeah, I know. So it'll be Eddie and Johnny then. Yeah. Particularly if they've been working on a defensive setting. If he's got Leatherbarrow working on that defensive set, then I would not be surprised to see him. Ben Williams, a new contract as well. Congrats to him. We love Ben. He cocks, he cocks good. Yeah. And then on the wing, spin the magic wheel. Who's on the wing this week? As long as it's Omi Lewis on one. Steph Evans will be on one. He's going to put Steph Evans in, isn't he? And he's a fullback. I wonder if he's been for a haircut yet. Do you reckon Steph Evans has been for a haircut? You can't get your hair cut every week. I mean, Jesus Christ, why? Can't you get it for one week? I mean, even if it's just 10 seconds, you know, that's all you mentioned. Just sleeken up. I'll have to have a look on socials. I'll have to get the little binoculars out and have a little look and see if we can pick out whether Steph Evans had a haircut. Maybe I need to get some CCTV in the hairdressers and see if we can pick him up on camera going somewhere. You're one Nicholas Catboy is the one you're looking for. At 15. Is there any other option? Tommy Lewis can play 15. But then we'd have... Tom, oh Tom, if Tom's fit. Yeah, he's one wing. Tom would be fullback. He'd be fullback if he's fit. He's got to be fullback now. That was all he saw and he's got to be fullback. Can we have a full Tom back three? No, we can't. We've only got two Toms. I know, Tom, Tommy and Steph. I think, but then you've got Ryan Combier sitting there who was a bit of a freight train last year. I was when I was doing Johnny McNichol clips. Ryan Combier finished up half the chances that McNichol created and I'm sitting there thinking, yeah, Ryan Combier's a good player. Whatever happened to him? Yeah, it's... That's what it looks like. Anyway, so one quick thing then before we finish, because we're going to go on. So let's do predictions for the Benetton game, yeah? And then I want you to pick one game between now and the end of the season. That is going to be your key game. Yeah, don't you do this to me, Martin. I gave you plenty of warning on this. It has to be a Scarlett's game in between now and the end of the year. I can see it in your eyes already. You'll be stroking your little beard like this and going like that. All right, I'm going to ask a sensible person first. Hugh, pick a game between now and the end of the season that you think is important for the Scarletts and White. I've got a game just to let the viewers and listeners know. I picked a game in the WhatsApp group, but Lee said I couldn't have that one because I was his. So I've got to pick another one. I put that in there first, that's why. So I'm going Zebra Away. Reason being, Zebra Away, because Zebra will be targeting that and it's a bit like a kind of, if we lose it, it's one of those moments, isn't it? It's the, okay, the zebra ahead of us now, isn't it? So it's a bit of a statement one, you know. We are still here, as they say. Okay. If we go out there and get trounced in zebra, it's like, okay. And your prediction for the Benetton game? I hope the Benetton will be on an emotional downer after having had such an exciting Six Nations. Would Benetton have beaten Wales if they'd have just put Benetton out? The rest of that team was Benetton. I thought they did, didn't they? They all had green socks. The only players that weren't Benetton players was Zebra players. And then the whole 23. And Benetton, anyway. So, I don't know, 31-28 to the Scarlets. Yay! Okay. Mark, your go. Well, my game, it's a bit convoluted. So, for my game to actually matter, there needs to be another game that's even more important. So, I'm going to pick our game against the Dragons at the end of the season, down the Cardiff stupid Sturgy Stadium. Because there's an important game a couple of weeks before that between the Dragons and Ospreys. So, if the Dragons win that, it means that the Welsh Shield is still open on the last day of the season. So, the fact that we might be able to compete for something, I know it's next to nothing. So, what we need is all of the former Scarlets players who play for the Dragons to perform really well against all of the former Scarlets players who play for the Ospreys. You know, if we got something to play for in the last game of the season, I think that'd be brilliant. Even though it's been such a terrible, terrible, terrible season. If we can somehow manage. It's so unlikely even. It'd be so funny. If we could still pick up that little silver plate, you know, so all the boys can have their dinner after. You know, it'd be nice. I want to take the adversity of eating his dinner off it. I'll go for 26-18 Scarlets. So, even when I said it has to be a Scarlets game. It was. And I said, you just said the Dragons and the Ospreys game is more important. It's a precursor. It's a reason to make it important. This is why I just give up sometimes and just go, oh, fuck it. We'll make it up when we get there. We'll just start the pod and then we'll just see where we... That's what we should do next week. We'll just... We won't have a plan. We'll just start and see how it goes. And then we'll get to the end and then we'll go see how that went. So, our next podcast is going to be coached by Dwayne Peele. Oh, he's done it. Oh, the Ospreys fans will be loving you. No, that's our main demograph for our listeners. No, it's our main listenership. For people who think that we make up the whole Ospreys fans are obsessed with this thing. We posted on Twitter about Stephen Jones' coaching of Moana Pacifica. In New Zealand. And Ospreys fans were in the replies having an opinion. There's like about 20 of them in there. They've got Ospreys in their Twitter handle and in their pictures of Ospreys and their profiles like that. They are the Ospreys Twitter accounts. It's the whole point of their account. And they're just flooding our replies with everything that we post. But I like it when they put we in there, like they're pretending to be scarlets. But the picture is the Ospreys logo. And you're like, how... We need to get rid of Peele. And it's an Ospreys logo. Who do you think you're kidding? I give up. Anyway, where were we? You just give up. So we're ending for the week. Nice to see you guys. My key game was going to be Sharks. No, I called the Sharks earlier. No, I did. We've been in the group. I put it on because then Hugh said we could wear his hat. I've got a Shark hat. I've got a Sharks coat somewhere. The boy bought it over there. They're not Sharks hats, they're Sharks hats. I've got an orca. He lives in my car, his name is Benny. What the fuck are you on about? Or an orca, not a killer whale. Yeah, it's not a killer whale. I don't know what that is. It's a whale killer. If you call Benny a killer whale, he gets all upset. You have to call him an orca. Right, okay, so... Anyway, Sharks, basement battle, but it's at home. And by that point, we should know where we're going to finish at the end of the season, or we should be, you know, what are we going to do? I just think that's a game that the Sharks will target as well. And if we're going to be in any sort of shape for next year, we need to start to perform against the Sharks. The Sharks. So, my prediction for Benetton, I think I said Scarlet's by one on the WRAP podcast, but I'm going to say it's... I think we can... If defence is working, then I think we'll be about a try ahead. I think that's what we'll do. Okay, what's the natural scoreline then? Come on. Okay, I'm going to go 21-14. That's what I think we'll be on that. Right. Very, very last thing. Martin, your go. Go on. We've got to get all the way through this. Stop! Oh, I did. Right, you can have that one. I did it! You were too fast! Where do bees go if they want to use public transport? Go on. Where do bees go if they want to use public transport? They go to the bus stop. Oh, that's similar. I was trying to think of something hive related. Here we go. Right, okay, we'll go there. See, he'll know to do it before you start. He knows, yeah. What's a vampire's favourite fruit? Neck to eat. That's actually funny. Look how many of these we've got to get through. Are you taking them out each week or are you leaving them out? I am. I had a nightmare. I started shuffling them just now and then I realised, no, I've taken them out and I've put them back over to the side. So, yeah. Right, the next one was actually funny, I'm going to tell people. It has been a good laugh and good fun. As always, thank you very much for your time and company this evening. We shall catch up. We shall do it all again next week when we're back to playing normal rugby. We are back to URC. And so, one final shout for my survey before we go. Please, please, please, please do it because it really helped me and then I can just stop doing open university stuff. It'll be great. Gents, pleasure as always. Enjoy your rugby. Have a good one. Thank you for listening to the Scarlet's FIFA podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Please subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to us as it really helps us spread the word. You can find us on all the usual social media channels or email us on welshregionalrugbypod at gmail.com. And remember, whatever the question, rugby is always the answer.