Scarlets Fever - listeners questions with Jon Daniels

This is a Q&A session with John Daniels, the General Manager of Rugby for Scarlet's Fever. He talks about the team's training, his background in rugby, and the highs and lows of working for the Scarlets. He also discusses his role in the club and the challenges of retaining and attracting players. Welcome to Scarlet's Fever, the home of Suspense Central and Westerer is Besterer. Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Scarlet's Fever with me, Lee G, joining me as always again and Cat Boy as he is now known. How are you, Hugh? How are we, gents? Thank you. Excited for this one. Absolutely. I'm right to be excited. A break from the norm this week. A special guest joining us for a Q&A session is Scarlet's General Manager of Rugby, John Daniels. Good evening, John. Good evening. It's a pleasure to have you on here with a stable signal. Those of you that listened to our last couple of interviews will know how good it is to have a stable signal. We're not going to beat around the bush or anything. Everyone knows who everyone is, so we're just going to crack on with questions because there's a lot to get through. First of all, John, it's a bit of a different week for the squad this week, with no game at the end. What's training been like for the boys this week? Yes, well, to be honest, it's been a bit of a bizarre season. It was a very long off-season, but once we got going in South Africa, it's been very intense. Now we've got a few weeks off. Last week was the first opportunity people have had to have a bit of a break, which I think is important. But today, everybody's back in. Obviously, the reviews on Edinburgh have been done, but people are now focusing on our upcoming league fixtures. We've got the extra chiefs friendly in between, which has fallen quite nicely for us, actually. Obviously, our international players are away, so it's a bit of a smaller group, but everybody's refreshed and energised. We've come back in today, committed to doing whatever it takes to start getting the results we all want. We'd like to know a little bit more about yourself, John, if that's okay. What's your connection to rugby? What's your background? How did you get involved in the Scarlets? Well, my first connection with the Scarlets is as a fan, like most of us. My grandfather, my dequee, was a South Stand patron in Stradi Park. I think I must have been six or seven when he first sneaked me over the turnstile in Stradi Park to go and sit with him. Apart from family things, the three things I can remember talking to him most about was Albert Jenkins, Phil Bennett, who we thought the world of, and Googly's. He loved his cricket as well, but from that age, going down to Stradi, I remember watching Phil, too young to know really what was going on, but I remember watching us play Northampton and giving them a right hammering, and there was one player on the field just doing things that was different to everybody else, and that was Benny. I played school boys' Cynelli under 11s. On one of the under 11 sessions, I was lucky enough that Carwyn James came out and coached one night in his yellow oil skin, so that was a real special night. But fast forward, I went off to King Coed to do my degree in sport and human movement studies, and ended up lecturing sports science in CCTA, as it was. That was back in 1999. We'd started developing a partnership with Llanelli Rugby Club, as it was, because Gareth Jenkins recognised that whilst the game had gone professional, actually, there wasn't much professional about it yet, other than paying players, and he recognised that he needed a development pathway. At the time, myself and Sean Hawley were working within the rugby department in CCTA, and I was appointed first academy director, and Sean went off to Hertbury to set up what is a very successful programme up there as well. Over the next few years, that was August 2000, we launched the academy, and by 2003, we'd become a region. I then became regional manager, so we rolled out the academy concept then through a number of schools and colleges across the region. If you remember, we had North Wales at the time as well. Also, I sat on a steering group which represented the four regions in rolling out the academy to all the regional academies. Initially, when I was first appointed the academy director, it was a joint appointment between Llanelli RFC and the college, but by 2003-04, with regionalisation, that's when I came across fully to the Scarlets. I've been here ever since. I've got a life sentence like the rest of us. You can't get out, can you? You've obviously seen the highs and the lows, so what are your best times in the Scarlets since you've been working here? I suppose it's been a bit of a tougher time lately. Do you ever consider, maybe I've had enough of this at this point? First of all, there's always highs and lows, but one thing you can't get away from is that it's a privilege to work for such a wonderful institution. There are tough times, but they're challenges for us to overcome. There have been some tough times, the whole period in Stradi Parc with the inquiries, and were we moving, weren't we? That whole period, and then actually coming up here to the new stadium, to Parc y Scarlets, when it was first finished, that was special. I just think special for the whole community, because for years we'd built a reputation and represented the aspirations of the community by beating international teams and going and winning cups and being successful, but now we actually had a world-class facility as well to back that up. So that was a special moment, but if I'm honest, the couple of years that followed that were difficult, because the move up to Stradi was tough emotionally on a lot of people, but also tough financially. I would say we were in a situation then where we had to reduce costs and we had to invest in a new generation. It probably took us from that point to when we won the league in 2017, which was probably five or six years, and the first three or four of those were extremely painful. But yeah, without doubt, that moment when we won the league in 2017, and just that end of the season, the run we had, it just felt as if nobody was going to beat us. We hadn't started the season that way, but by the time we got to the end of it, it was an amazing feeling. Winning the final was special, but also the week before, the first team to win a semi-final and beat Leinster in the RDS with 14 men, it was a great couple of weeks. So yeah, I'd have to say that's a high point, but I also have to say that one of the things that I really loved about the work in here has been that connection with the community, and I still now on a daily basis get a buzz out of what's going on in the foundation and the number of kids that we were able to affect positively. And that was the thing about winning the cup. Yeah, we'd won the cup, but we'd done it with largely homegrown talent, and so we set about, we came up with an idea to run a competition online for classes to nominate their class to have a visit from the cup, and the intention was that we'd take it to one and we'd have a competition where we could never do that. So we ended up taking it to, I think it was around 120 different classrooms for little kids, so their photos with the cup, and I think that's what we're about really. So we do it, we do it, you know, we do this to win, of course we want to win, but the reason we want to win is not because there's a billionaire owner that wants to feed an eagle, it's because we represent, you know, aspirations of being world-class in Wales, and to be honest, I don't think there's enough organisations like that in West Wales for our young people to, and I don't just mean rugby players, I mean if you want to be world-class scientist, or a mathematician, or an athlete, or a brain surgeon, whatever it is, you know, you can do that. So those moments are special as well working for the club. So before we get on to some of the kind of nitty-gritty of the club and what have you, John, can you just kind of give us an idea of your role and what you do, and obviously we've got a load of questions about all sorts of strange things, so what kind of stuff are you involved in, what kind of stuff do you have an influence in, and what kind of stuff's nothing to do with you, so there's no point asking you that question. Well, you know, I've been a director of the club since 2014, 15 now I think, so in that sense everything matters to me, everything is relevant, but in terms of what I'm responsible for, I'm responsible for all the rugby elements within the club, so that's from, you know, the immunity element right through to the first team, and then Phil Morgan, my counterpart, as Chief Operating Officer, Phil is responsible for all the non-rugby elements. So within that, my role, you know, it's people, programmes, budget, we're about, I think, head count, full-time head count now, we're about 95, that doesn't include, you know, interns and the like, so I'm ultimately responsible for all of it, but clearly within performance sport, the head coach has a specific accountability because, you know, he's there to deliver the performance from the team, and as a result, and rightly so, I think, you know, he has the autonomy that he needs to be able to do that, so whilst, you know, I'd be, if you like, the head of rugby when it comes to selection or anything like that, and this isn't just Dwayne, every head coach that I've ever worked with would be the same, it's got to be their call because, you know, they're accountable for it, and I don't think you'd get a coach to come to join any club where he didn't have the autonomy to be, you know, responsible for his own success, so that's really how we roll. Okay, so, like you just touched on, we've had quite a lot of questions, and probably the majority of them pertaining to us retaining players and signing players, like there's a lot of fans that are still really angry that, you know, Jack Morgan and Tony California left, so what are the challenges are there currently when it comes to retaining and even attracting new players for the club? Well, first of all, I think, well, you've given two examples there, and they're two very different examples, but we too are just as upset and disappointed to have lost quality people and quality players, and to be honest with you, the challenges have changed a lot in the last few years, you know, financially, we, you know, the cost pressures in Wales are well documented. If I just look across the four regions, you know, squad costs next year will be circa £10 million less than they were in 2019. On top of that, you know, you have new operating procedures in Wales, so, you know, we have to have 80% Welsh qualified, we've always had a limit on how many Welsh you can bring in, but now you have to have 40% of your squad has to be homegrown, so come through your pathway, and then there's a player of national interest obligation, so the Welsh Club Union will name players of national interest, and we all have to accommodate a certain number of each, so, you know, all that's new in the last few years. As well as the reduction, the overall reduction, the £10 million that I referred to earlier, what's happened as well is the funding is now equalised across the four regions, so proportionately, you know, we, because we were one of the highest funded because of all the international players we had, proportionately we've shouldered, you know, a big chunk of that burden, so, you know, this season's squad, for example, will be in the order of £3 million less cost than it was back then, so in terms of challenges, that's very material, and there are times where you have to make decisions to let good people and good players go, and you wish you didn't have to, but you have to do that to make sure that we're sustainable and we're still here for future generations of, you know, young people in west Wales to look up to and hopefully be inspired to become something world-class in their lives. Welsh rugby, I'll be honest, and, you know, Welsh rugby as a brand is not an easy one at the moment to recruit into. People are aware, they read snippets of the difficulties and the challenges, so, you know, that makes it slightly harder, but, you know, there are players that we've had to release and we wouldn't have wanted to. We've let a lot of caps go through the door, there are a lot of experienced players, but likewise, you know, we have, we said about a couple of years back, re-profiling and re-building the squad, not in the way where we rip everything at once, but, you know, we have been gradually moving towards some of those great players moving on, and then, you know, back in players, you see Sam Cockdale, Joe Roberts, Tom Rogers, Kemsley Matthias, these boys have all, you know, got their first caps in the last couple of years as Scarlets, and I think there's a couple more we think are going to come in behind, you know, we think Eddie James, Archie Hughes are very exciting for the future, and then there's more talent in their under-18s to fill through as well. We still need to retain experienced, quality players, you know, the likes of Ryan Elias, Josh McLeod and these boys, I mean, they were quality players, but with senior players ahead of them, you know, over time, they are now becoming the leaders of this group, and there's a lot of work going in on that, both from our point of view, working with them, but from their point of view as well, they're relishing it, they're thriving in it. So, yeah, recruitment, you know, there's a limited pot, we do have new obligations that we have to fulfil in putting the squad together, and chances are, you know, it's going to be challenging for another season or two, because ultimately, the finances of the game, we can't hide from the economics, I think rugby globally has tried to hide from the economics for too long, and I think it's caught up with us, Covid has brought it home, and who would have thought that, you know, three long established clubs in England could no longer exist. So, I think it's been a sobering time for global rugby, certainly within Wales, there's been a lot done in the last 18 months, two years to actually get to a point where we're living within our means, but then we have to put just as much effort, you know, a lot of work is going on, and the key will be, this isn't where we want to be, where we want to be now, we need to grow that income, grow that funding, so that we can continue to invest and strengthen our squads, because, you know, young players ultimately will grow and become as valuable as the senior players that have left, and what we need to ensure is that we're in a position to retain them when that happens. So, obviously, it's not easy time for any clubs who haven't got, you know, the multi-millionaire backings like over in France at the minute, so can you give us a sneak peek of who we've retained, or anyone that might be coming in, or can you tell us when we can expect to start hearing things, because obviously Cardiff have announced quite a few re-signings, are we in the process of making those announcements? We are in the planning stage of making those announcements, I, you know, to be honest, if I was Cardiff, I'd probably be doing the same, because they've got some good news around, they want to feed off the new investors, and, you know, they've got good intake into the Welsh squad, so good for them. We've made some significant retentions, and we've made some new signings as well, and I would expect those to start being announced in the next few weeks. Oh, fantastic. So, when it comes to managing the squad, when, as a leadership group in the Scarlets, everyone sits down, what does that process look like? Does Dwayne come to you with a list of, here's my keeps, here's my buys, here's what I want, John, can you sort this out for me? Is it a collaborative, you and Dwayne, and maybe a couple of others all sit down as a group, and it's a sharing of opinions, and just sort of, when does that process start, and how long does it take before you start putting pen to paper? Yeah, good question. I'll talk in terms of the process first, and then we'll talk about the timeline. So, the retention and recruitment process starts with the game model. So, Dwayne will devise the game model, and by that I mean, you know, what style are we going to play, and what types of rugby players and athletes do we need to be able to deliver that style of play? Then we look at what we've got. If they're in contract, great. If they're not in contract, but we need to retain them, then usually you'll often start with your retentions, because if you can keep the ones you want, great. If you can't, you need to know early, because you need to go to market to replace them, so retention often happens early in the piece. Obviously, part of that as well is, we will feed through the players that are coming through the succession plan, and into the first team, and make sure there's a place for them, because what you don't want to do is recruit into positions and block that talent from coming through. Internally, this process will be, Dwayne obviously, from the game model point of view, will lead on that with his coaches. I'll oversee the process, but then once we identify the needs, you know, what sorts of players we want in what positions, then that's largely where James Davies, where Cubby does the heavy lifting on that. So, Cubby's the one with the square eyes watching videos of players constantly to try and find what we want. In terms of our internal decision making, Dwayne, from a budgetary point of view, I have the financial responsibility, but from a player point of view, again, Dwayne and every coach that has gone before him will have the final say on which player they can have. That doesn't mean they always have the players they want, because obviously we can't afford them, but within the confines of the finances of the overall department, which player we have will always be the head coach's call. Outside of that, we have a squad planning process, which we have to go through now with the Welsh Rugby Union and pro rugby boards. So, that will start with, as I said earlier, the player national interest list. That usually, on a normal year, will start in August, but because of the World Cup, it doesn't start until later, because the cycle of a World Cup year, you get to November and then you start with a new group. So, it's slightly different one year in four, but normally we would start having our work conversations and planning for the following year. So, for example, August 2024, we will start the process for June 2025 onwards. So, what we want for next year, we identified slightly later because of the World Cup and so on, but we've been working on what we need in earnest and having meaningful conversations with players since October, November. What tends to happen is, you try and get your key retention done by the new year and then, as time goes by, your squad places start to crystallise and then the squad comes together. So, if that's from the player point of view, and obviously, Dwayne has been joined this summer by some new coaches as well, and it's a lot of coaches that he's worked with before. So, would it be fair to say that Dwayne is empowered in that sense as well, to bring in the assistant coaches that he wants, and that's his call as well? Yes, almost entirely. The head coach, I think, should have the ability to put his team together. However, you see in football, don't you, where the managers change and the whole back room is shipped out with them. Not to that extent. I always think, especially if you're bringing a new head coach in, it's good that they have the opportunity or the ability to bring one assistant with them. But again, it's largely the coach's decision and it would only be where the club would step in. It's as if we had a major issue with somebody on, you know, the principal grounds or anything. But no, the head coach would usually expect to put his team together. Okay, and there's a lot of rumours circulating at the moment about what the coaching ticket might look like next year. Are you able to give us any sneak previews on that, or when Miami expect to find out? What are the rumours then? You tell me. Rumours of extensions for certain individuals. I'm not going to comment on extensions for Dwayne, because I know that's what they're leading towards. What I will say with Dwayne is that our engagement with Dwayne from the start has always been long term. We brought Dwayne in and we spent a lot of time discussing this project. So our commitment between Dwayne and ourselves has been long term anyway. I'm not going to say any more than that on it, to be honest with you. Thank you. And that's good to hear that we're thinking long term, in all honesty. So two things. I just want to ask, what do we mean by player of national interest? Is that a player in the national squad, or is that potentially someone like Kane that's, you know, abroad and then brought in or something like that? Is that what we mean by a player of national interest? Well, obviously, I don't want to go into detail about that, because that's a fairly sensitive process. But it's basically what it says on the tin. So it's relevant for us all to ensure that Welsh rugby is as strong as it can be. Honestly, I think over the years, there have definitely been times where the national game has been heavily prioritised ahead of the regional game. And I believe that that balance has been wrong at times. And I believe that more focus, more prioritisation should be put into the regional clubs. But we do all, so all of us have a vested interest in making sure that Wales continues to be competitive and as successful as possible. So I'm not suggesting it's at the expense of the international game. But I do think at times, the balance has been the wrong way. So, you know, this year, for example, the critical thing at the end of any World Cup cycle is, obviously, every international team wants to be successful every time they play. But the key is, how do we ensure we're successful in the 2027 World Cup? And for that to happen, who are the players that it is vital that we retain in Wales and are going to be the backbone of the group that would come forward and be that team in 2027? So once the Welsh Rugby Union divides that list, then we all as four regions have, you know, we have an obligation then to make offers to accommodate those players where we can. And until we do, you know, there's a sign-off process for that. And if we can't show, I mean, all clubs, if we can't show how we are going to service the players of national interest, then, you know, there is the ability for it to make it difficult for us to get any other contracts signed off. So it's a long-term protection for the national team and the national game, which ultimately is in our interests. But the balance is always protecting the national interest whilst also allowing us the autonomy to put our squads together for us to be successful and competitive as well. Because ultimately, you know, I do strongly believe that if we have a strong regional club game, that will service the national team better anyway, and they'll have a better chance of being competitive in 2027. If our players are competitive, if they're playing in knockout games and playing in big games, if they're not, it's going to be hard for Wales to be as competitive as they could be. Hmm. That's good to know. So one of the questions we had was about where are we currently shopping? So, you know, there's certain parts of the world where I doubt we'd be shopping at the minute, you know, France and what have you. But are we looking at different leagues, different cups? You know, obviously the world is changing and new nations coming up and that sort of thing. Are we looking at anywhere different or out of the norm sort of thing for new players? Well, we're looking in the traditional places, but we're also looking anywhere that we can find. And especially sometimes you have to be a bit more creative when you don't have the resources. And, you know, the sorts of players that we would all love to be able to sign, they would literally take 20% of next year's salary cap. So, you know, we are not in the market for those types of players, but we are in the market for quality players. So we are still looking into super rugby. We are looking into England. We look into France, but France, Strasbourg and Japan are clearly the two most competitive markets at the moment. In France, you now have two fully professional leagues. 41% of the playing population, professional playing population of the world are playing in France. And then in Japan, you know, you're talking there, players there are getting figures which are higher than our highest earners and they play for four months of the year. And if you're a New Zealander, it's a lot easier. You know, you've got an overnight flight back in Tokyo to New Zealand to see your family. If you're up here, you're a day away. So, you know, all those things do impact it. But in terms of where we're shopping, if you like, we are looking, we're still looking in the Welsh Premiership, we're looking in English Premiership, English Championship. We're looking in Japan and we're looking in super rugby and South Africa. And, you know, South Africa is an interested market. Obviously, they're competitors of ours now. And it used to be that a lot of the players were wanting to leave South Africa. But, you know, you can see a lot of them are going back now. So, yeah, we're looking into super rugby and into the URC franchises in South Africa and into Curry Cup. So, quite obviously, you've got a better knowledge of where the squad is going into next season than anyone else here. So, what is a realistic vision for the Scarlets over the coming seasons and what sort of things have we put in place to achieve those? Well, first of all, our vision is clearly to continue the work, the project that we've undertaken. Now, I do want to make a point here, because the risk is when I keep referring to the long term project, that doesn't mean that we're letting ourselves off the hook for current performances. All right. And there's no getting away from it. Recent results have not been what we would want and we're all extremely disappointed with the results. There have been elements of, and there have actually been performances where we should have won, but found a way to lose. But, you know, looking at the longer term is not getting us off the hook for current performances. So, I just wanted to make that point. But taking this group and growing this group in the next couple of years is our vision, is our priority. We are reconnecting back to our local roots. There's been a lot of work going on in the last two years on cultural stuff and even working with, you know, Crosstra here on on some of the historical links and the steel and so on. So, we are reconnecting with our history and our heritage and what the club means to the community. The challenge for us is going to be when this generation comes through and become more valuable, we have to retain them. And then the next generation, when they come through, you know, we have to manage that process correctly. But ultimately, you can only buck the trend for so long. It does come down to a game of resources. And, you know, we are going to have to grow funding and revenue across the game in Wales to be able to grow in future. And if we can't do that, then the pain that we've gone through and are going through now is going to be, yeah, for nothing really. That's why we're here. We're not here to just take part. We're here genuinely. We come in every day wanting to get better, but we're here looking at how we can be better and be not just competitive, but also we want to be in those playoff games. And once we get to those playoff games, we think we can win. And, you know, even last year, I genuinely believe we were one referee's decision away from making our first European final. And that, I think, is where we want to be. And then we want to kick on from there. So, that's us looking forward to the future. If we go back for a minute, we go 2016 to 2018, some really successful times. In between then and now, obviously, Covid has played its part, it has played a part with everyone, but things haven't quite gone right. You know, what sort of lessons have we learned over these last few years? Like, inevitably, inevitably, everyone makes mistakes. We know that, but what sort of things, how do I say this? Are we looking to make sure we don't repeat the same processes that didn't lead us to success? Well, the short answer is yes, but I think it's worth us just reminding ourselves what's happened since then as well. So, you know, 2018-19, we lose three of our championship winning coaching team to Wales. We bring Brad Moore in in the July, and by December, Brad is saying that he wants to go back and coach the All Blacks. That's the same Christmas that reports started coming out of China about Covid. So, going to 2020, everything stops. We're building a hospital at Parc Ysgol, it's not a rugby team. You know, we do end up back playing, but clearly, the financial impact of Covid is a big burden. You know, every person in the organisation has to take a 25 cent pay cut for 15 months just to survive. We all come out the other end, and, you know, three English clubs have gone bust, and we have to rewrite the whole contracted model just for the game in Wales to survive. So, those aren't excuses, those are facts, and you can say that everybody's been faced with the same challenges, and yeah, you are right. In Wales, at least, we've all been faced with those same challenges. Some of the things that we've learned. So, during Covid, in Wales, at least, academies were stopped. Academies couldn't function. So, in England, the academies were allowed to continue because they were contracted, you know, junior professionals. Well, they were in Wales as well. The agreement with the Welsh Government was that they couldn't. So, you know, in hindsight, I would have pushed to fight that because I think there's a generation of young players that are probably 18 months to 24 months behind on their development because of the Covid break and the fact that they could, you know, they weren't even allowed to come into Parc Ysgol to use the gym. So, you know, it has had an impact on players coming through. It's delayed that process slightly. We also carried, and I've heard and read people quoting, you know, that we had a squad of 60 and so on. Well, the way we could, well, two things. One, the way we could get some of those academy players, the senior academy players into some rugby was to bring them into the first team environment. So, they got exposed. Now, that meant we had big numbers here, which gave us challenges in how we managed the squad. But also, we needed numbers because at any given moment, you could have a big chunk of your team wiped out if somebody tested positive for Covid. So, yeah, the learnings from the time, and the key for us in terms of the learnings is being honest about what we didn't get right. And, you know, the day anybody in a performance environment tells you that there's not much they could have done any better or they can't get any better, then they stop being performance animals, to be honest with you. So, yes, there's stuff that we certainly can get better at, and we've learned some lessons. But at the same time, you have to just recognise, not for the sake of your ego or because you want to feel any better, recognise the things that have worked just so you can keep doing them, because otherwise you end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater and everything gets ripped up. So, you have to be objective in reviewing what you have done and what you could have done better. So, yeah, there's no question that it was a tough time, but there's no question as well, it was a steep learning curve for everybody because nobody had a manual for how to deal with that, you know. I'll never forget that time when, you know, the group was stuck down in South Africa, when the Omicron variant broke and, you know, it was a really difficult time for everybody involved. And you couldn't go to a process document or a manual to tell you how to deal with that. So, we reflect on what we can do better every day. The things that we learned at that time around squad management, for example, you know, it does feed into what we're doing now. So, we have reduced our squad size, but in reducing it, we also have expanded our senior academy provision, and we've invested there. And we're also extending our relationship and our partnership with the Drovers, Llanddowri and Carmarthen Quins into a memorandum of understanding to ensure that those environments, that we are working with those environments to get them to as closely reflect what the players are doing in a pro environment, so that we can accommodate players right through the system, rather than having to, if you like, stockpile large amounts of players within our group. So, yeah, there's learnings. And I won't sit here and tell you that we haven't got things wrong, we have. But what I will say is, is we review everything we do, and when we do get it wrong, we work twice as hard to make sure we don't get it wrong again. So, we've touched on the academy a fair bit there. So, that's something we want to talk about next. So, obviously, the under 18s are going really well at the moment, which everybody's enjoying at the moment. How do you feel that sort of side of things are going at the moment? And what's in place to make sure that these players who are performing so well, they stick with the Scarlets and that we don't lose perhaps as many as we may have done in the past? Well, first of all, there's been quite a bit change in our development pathway this year. Pre-Covid, the process was we had to submit a rugby business plan to PRB for approval. And the year before Covid, in our plan, we had said that we were going to develop five player development centres across the region, starting at under 15. And the geographic spread, you know, we wanted to cover the whole region so that we could resource coaching and strength and conditioning expertise locally to these players rather than them having to come to Parc Ysgol Scarlets to access it. But also, it meant that we could keep the pathway broader for longer. So, instead of taking five to a shield teams at under 15, as it was then, in Llanelli, Carmarthen, Rhymawr, Dynebwr, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, then you funnel them into a Scarlets East and West under 16s and then a Scarlets under 16s. That rate of funnelling was vast. Now, we still have those environments, but what we have now is those five centres, they continue to run in those geographical areas right through, so they go 15, 16, 17. So, we've now gone from previously, after the under 16 years, so 17 and 18, we would just have had Scarlets under 18s, but now we still have five centres servicing players at those age groups. In terms of what do we do, so what we've historically done when they come out of the age grade, some players are contracted, academy contracted, but there's a small number of contracts that we've given out. To be honest, I don't think we've handled the other players emotionally as well as we could have, because if you tell one person they're getting a contract at 16 or 17 or 18, for us it doesn't mean that the other 10 players or so with potential in that group are not going to make it, but I think at times that was the impression we gave. So, from a mindset and a language point of view, what we have worked towards this year is, our language is, the Scarlets Academy is that whole programme, because clearly players can develop at different times and at different rates, and actually players' needs are different. So, somebody might be ready to be a full-time rugby player at the age of 18, but some others might not be ready until they're 20, 21, and that might be because of position or circumstance or education or whatever that might be. What we're doing now is trying to accommodate as many of those players in our system as we can. The challenge with that is, a one-size-fits-all approach is a lot easier to resource than it is trying to resource people's individual needs, but that's what we've got. So, we've got a university connection through Swansea University, one of our academy coaches is in that BUCS team, so we have close links there. We have the Llandunfri and Carmarthen connection as well, so our under-18s players, when they come out at the top end of that stage, we will all be allocated to one of those partners, and these aren't just contracted players now, every player that comes through to that point in the system, we will allocate them to those teams. It's still up to the player if they want to go that route or accept that, but that's what we will do. So, hopefully we're accommodating more players, and by the way, that includes players that move away to study. So, in the under-18s at the moment, you've got some players in there that are studying in Hertbury, or we've got one in the City of Oxford College, and likewise, we have strong partnerships within the Colleges and Schools League. So, historically, Coleg Sigar have been strong, Llanddunfri College invested resource to improve their programme recently, they won the Colleges League this year, Pembrokeshire College have worked hard, and now Almond Valley are now in the Colleges League as well. But even then, there are players who want to stay in their schools that we will service, or we will help facilitate, they can stay in their school but play for one of those college teams, or they might just play for their club. Now, that puts a lot of, a big burden on us to resolve those issues. But, you know, that's our aim, and that's our objective. And if we get that right, then more of our young talent will have a rugby development programme, which hopefully is relevant to not just their ability, but their particular circumstances. And therefore, we would hope that more of them would come through into the first team, and delivering the success that we all want. So, everything that you've just said has just covered about 90% of my next question. So, no, you've done pretty well for me there. But carrying on with these late developers, those players that don't go to, you know, one of your placements, essentially, let's say, if we use Josh Adams, as an example, obviously, no foul for anyone there. Okay, he went to Worcester, and he goes, how do you keep track of those players that go a step further away? So, I know, what's his name, Josh Hathaway has left our system quite recently. And he's coming on really well. Are we still tracking through these early years? Yeah. So, I'll just touch on the examples you used, because they're different. Yeah. So, Josh was in no system. And when he got to that stage, where he got to the under 18s, we didn't contract him. But the advice to Josh was, you need to do a bit more, go and play with Llynelli RFC and develop there. And that's where Josh went. But Josh left from there. With Josh Hathaway, because it's not Josh Adams, Josh Hathaway, Josh was in no academy, but for personal reasons, asked to be released. Now, we felt, at that time, that it was important for us as a club to do the right thing by the by the boy. And so, we agreed to that. And I'd still love to see Josh Hathaway running around as a scarlet one day in the future. He may, he may not. But in terms of those players that, you know, the late developers, then, you know, Gareth Jenkins still has a talent ID role with us. And also, James Davies, obviously, in his recruitment role. They're actively, on a weekly basis, monitoring, tracking and watching these players. So, you know, even, excuse me, even in this coverant group, you can see Ben Williams from Aberavon, Ewan Shenton from Cardiff Met, Charlie Titcomb and Teddy Leatherbarrow from Loughborough University. So, you know, none of those boys had any contact with Old Pathway before they joined us. So, we are out there and actively looking for those, for those late developer players, because, honestly, you know, no system is infallible, and there will be talent out there that somebody has missed. And if we can find them, you know, that's where you have your next Liam Williams story, or Tideburns story, you know. So, we are actively out looking for that type of player. And during the season, we still now have players. So, we've got a player training with us at the moment from RGC. We've had players in from Llanddowri and Carmarthen who come in and, you know, they're going well with their clubs. We have relationships with their clubs. Scotsnet and Cubby, they meet on a regular basis to review performance. But also, obviously, we put players in with Carmarthen and Llanddowri during the year, and also meet on a squad planning basis as well. So, you know, if they know what players we've got and who might be playing with them next year, it helps them with their squad planning. So, all that is in place, and hopefully we, you know, we can cover off and make sure that we capture as many of those hidden gems as we can. Yeah. So, there's no doubt that the academy has had quite a lot of success in the past, especially with developing backs. But obviously, something that I think everyone in West Wales will know is that we don't exactly specialise in producing type 5 forwards, specifically locks. So, what sort of things are we doing to identify and develop players in those traditions? I know you've already touched a little bit on it. Yeah. Honestly, it is a generalisation, but generalisations are usually true as well to some extent. We have some great rugby players in West Wales that are between back row and second row, because that's an athletic ability, but they're great rugby players. And they're probably two things you can do little about. You know, if somebody could be a great second row, but he's six foot three, that's always going to be a problem. So, that said, you know, we do work hard then when there are players with a stature, you know, we do commit them to trying to make sure that they do come through. But, you know, ultimately, you can't put in what God left out. And we will try and identify all that potential size in the front five and bring them into the system. But then we look to supplement it from outside. I do think the last couple of years, we deliberately extended our front row reach props in particular. So, you know, we were bringing big props in to our extended systems. And, you know, Phil John was working closely with him and Eiros Evans. Specifically, we were going on their size then rather than at times what at that time they were delivering as rugby players. And I do think there's some good props in our system coming through now. There are also a couple of second rows that have got potential as well. But even now, you know, they're exiles, qualified exiles that we brought in rather than, you know, local genetic talent that we've been able to identify. So, take you back a couple of years to when Brad Moore left and went home to New Zealand. And there was talk at the time of like a stronger connection between Scarlets and New Zealand because of some of the stuff that he could bring. I know a couple of boys went out. I think Eddie James was one of them that really benefited from it. Is that going to be resurrected? Is there any chance of that kind of thing happening as part of the future? Yeah, it's ongoing. So, you know, there have been some things that we haven't been able to pull off for them. But there have also been, you know, times where the relationship has been helpful. It actually played a part in getting Tame Plumtree across. We've obviously met virtually, we've had as well the head of high performance and their general manager of professional rugby have been here. So, you know, we've had sessions on, we talked then about high performance reviews and how you measure high performance and that balance between the, you know, qualitative and quantitative and how you get the right approach to it. So, the relationship is ongoing. So, yes, definitely part of what we want to do going forward. Cool. So, changing subjects slightly here. So, something that we've really taken on as a podcast as part of our family, if you like, is the Bristol and Thunder team that started this season. So, obviously, they play some games at the park. So, do you at the Scarletts see them as part of the family and how involved are you with them? We do. And I hope they feel part of our family. But, you know, they are the team in the West. So, you know, they're not a Scarletts team, but we've committed for a couple of years now to developing and promoting women's and girls' rugby. So, we've been since two years ago, perhaps, we started the performance taster session so that girls could come and see what it was like to be a professional rugby player, actually, and learn about, you know, how to lift in the gym and the skills element of it. And a lot of those girls have stayed in the programme and they're through now and playing. They're actually playing for Wales now. So, we are definitely committed here. We want, in the Scarletts region, to be the first or in the first batch of professional teams in Wales. So, Bryddfa'n Thunder is not our team, but as soon as the opportunity became available, we've given our facilities over to Bryddfa'n Thunder and they have equal access to everything here at Parc y Scarletts that the boys' age group teams, the boys' academy teams and the first team get. And we have, again, Roderick from our academy is coaching in the Bryddfa'n Thunder team as well. So, we certainly see them as part of our family, although I'm sure some of Ross Gray's friends will have something to say about that. They played in red last time I checked. So, let's move away from the on-field stuff now. As you said at the beginning, you are a director of the club as well. So, what sort of plans are there off the pit when it comes to things like the pub shop, supportive engagement, match-making. So, obviously, there's been a few meetings with 360 and we've all had the minutes as such from those meetings. So, can you tell us a bit about what the plans are going forward? Well, if you've had the minutes, you know all the answers then. He's asking on behalf of our listeners, John. So, no, listen, I'm not going to go into detail on that area because, likewise, if Phil Morgan started making commitments and promises on rugby, I'd be knocking on his door. But, you know, what I will say is it's a small, committed team and they, like me and like us, none of us claim to get everything right all the time. The one thing I am 100% confident in is that, you know, we all come in every morning wanting to be better, wanting to do the best that we can. And when we're not, whether that's a performance on the field or if it's a performance, you know, in the event or in hospitality and it hasn't gone as well as we would want it, we hurt. We hurt as much as anybody. We hurt, first of all, as fans, because most of us are, but then we hurt because it's our professionalism and our professional integrity that, you know, that is in question. But, honestly, it's a, in terms of commitment and wanting to improve, you know, you couldn't ask for more. In terms of the detail, you know, the conversations I know that have taken place things around the shop and certain experiences, the one I think I would say is consistent from my point of view and within Phil's team, I think we could have done a better job recently of communicating. Now, sometimes, and this isn't excusing it, but sometimes that's because when you get in the trenches, you just put your head down and your backside up and you just plough on. And that doesn't excuse, I would say myself and from a rugby point of view, that we haven't done a great job of communicating with you lot in recent months. And I suspect Phil, to some extent, would agree with me. Okay, great. So, last of the serious questions then. So, when it comes to picturing what's coming up for Scarlett, so when you think about all the things that you've got planned over the next couple of years, what are you excited about? What makes you think, I can't wait for that to happen? Well, this group, where we can take this next generation, I think it is worth as well reminding ourselves, because we all reflect, we all get down on ourselves about things when things aren't going perfectly well. And perhaps you hear of others and you think, oh, they seem to be doing better. You have to remind yourself what you've got sometimes. And I often stand watching our games with the former chairman, Huw Evans. And it's stark for me when you hear of other clubs talking about plans to build a new stadium or wanting to move. And actually, we've got everything that other clubs want here. We've got a great facility. We've got 150 years of roots in our local community. And we've got a young generation of players that we are, the plan is that we take that group and further investment and make them into contenders as we were not so long ago. So, yeah, I still wake up every morning with excitement about what the future holds for the club. That's really good. It is good to remember that we're in a pretty good place. Like I said, ospreys are talking about building a stadium that's pretty much been ours for the last 10 years. We've had it there. So it is good to remember some, some of these. So I'm going to take umbrage with you, suggesting that my questions now are not serious because, you know, I can't wait for these. So, so as well as the important questions, we have some really, really important questions. And the first one comes from me. So what, who cuts Steph Evans's hair and how many times has he been fined for walking around with a haircut like what he's got at the minute? Well, take a look around the screen and answer me this, which one of us thinks it's still qualified to comment on anybody else's hair? So I'm not commenting on Steph's hair. Steph's had some pretty cracking mullets in his time, but I think he actually looks quite smart, quite respectable now. It's one of those topics that comes up every week is, um, uh, Steph Evans's hair. So yeah. That's the one thing I'm taking from this, this interview is what was John Daniels like? Well, he backed Steph Evans's haircut. Yeah. Well, listen, I get blamed for plenty of things. Okay. So, uh, next question then within the URC, who does the best pies? Who's got the best food in the way you ground games? What? So our pies don't count? We have to accept that we just do the best pies in the West. So we've got to think, right. Okay. Who's who comes close to us? It's all the ones that also buy from Cassidy. How well diplomatic. Okay. So within the squad at the minute, then who's the biggest pretty boy who's, who's the one that's with his hair and with the, you know, making sure he's got the, the, the, the sun tan on and all that kind of stuff. Do people really want to know? Everyone has got the, I'll be honest, Tom Rogers comes up as the pretty boy quite a lot. So he, he's the fans favourite as the pretty boy. Is there any justification in, in, in calling him the pretty boy of the team? I swear Tom would be happy with that. He may have copied that rumour actually. Why are you wearing a scrum cap at the moment? Is it because he's done his hair? I couldn't tell you. It's not a thought that's crossed my mind. As long as they keep coming in and busting their gut to improve and they'll get the results we want. They can be pretty boys. They can be ugly boys. It can be what they want. You know, they're a good bunch of boys, right? They work hard. They have a good laugh. There's plenty of good banter in the, in the room. Obviously that is probably even more banter than I'm not around, with me being the better laugh of it, but they're a good bunch. And, you know, it does hurt seeing them hurt, coming in and working hard and trying to turn it around and not quite getting there at times, but they'll come good. So if they turn it around, I'll buy them all as much hair product as they can make. Okay. So last question then, and this is one from us. Who's most likely to come on the pod out of Ken or Foxy? And can you make that happen? Well, obviously you can't afford those two. So John, thank you very much for your time this evening. It's refreshing to have someone from the club come and talk to fans and be honest and open. And I'm sure it's a start of a new era in the club of how we go forward, a more realistic era. And we wish you all the best for the season. Thank you very much for tonight. And yeah, enjoy the rest of the season, like all the best. Can I just say one thing? Obviously, there's a lot of emotion around with some supporters at the moment, and I get it. You know, there's only one thing worse than that is apathy. So I get that. But I do also just want to thank those fans that are taking the time. Because they're hurting and they're not happy with the results either. But I do want to thank those fans that do actually reach out and just say, you know, we can see what you're trying to do, stick with it. We're with you for the long term, the good times will be back. And when they do, we'll enjoy it. So I do just want to tip my hat to that group as well, and thank everybody for support. Fantastic. Great message to finish on. Thank you for your time, John. Cheers. So that was, that was really good. I've got to say again, thank you to John, because, you know, he didn't have to come on the pod, it would have been really easy to sit there and read what's being said on social media to actually front up and come and have a conversation, I thought was really good. And he was really honest, wasn't he? Yeah, well, obviously, there's a lot of things that he's bound to, he can't exactly speak about, he doesn't have permission to. So everything that he is able to speak about, firstly, he did as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. And yeah, in the process, from our point of view, obviously, we got all the questions from people that people submitted, and some of them, we obviously just couldn't ask. Some of them were, shall we say, not in good faith. And then, you know, and there was a lot of people asked very, very similar questions. So, like, about player recruitment and pathways, I think were the two main subjects that came up. So we kind of feel like we covered those in depth. But yeah, fair play to John. Obviously, you know, like he said himself, when things aren't going well, it's the easiest thing to do is hide. And now he's come out and said, no, it's important to not be like that. So fair play to him and long may it continue, hopefully. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm still shocked about Steph Evans is here. Anyway, let's crack on with the community game, Mark, because there was some really, really big games last week. So why don't you give us a little bit of a rundown on your community game? And can we say, before Martin starts on his community, nobody has touched Martin's spreadsheet this week. Nobody's. I've not even looked at it this week. I checked the scores on Saturday night. I've not even looked at your spreadsheet. I'll make a special point never to look at Martin's spreadsheet, just for him. If you've practiced that, Martin, yeah, it's all on you, right? Well, to be fair, if I have dodged this one, a bit of dummy, because I've taken to the old style of hardback and pen. So it's all written down in front of me. No one else can access it. You didn't even touch the spreadsheet. You just, after the one week that we don't even look at your spreadsheet, you write it down. It's not even on the spreadsheet. Hardback and pen. What's Steph Evans say to the hairdresser when he sits down? Let's just crack on with the community update. Oh, it's been long already, Christ. Okay, now let's have a look, top to bottom, as we do it. Premiership, we'll start with the Quinns away trips to Newport. The Scarlets boys on show, we had Sam O'Connor and Yes Dink William in the starting 15 and Yes Dink Wood in the 23s. This is a Quinn side with a Charlie Titcom, so I think we can all know where the result is heading. Newport are a playoff team and it was only 5-0 at half time. So the Quinns dug in and got a good performance in the first half. Kind of fell away in the second, going down 36-5 at the end. Yes Dink William was a try. So a bit unlucky for the Quinns, but we know they need Titcom in the side. No Charlie, no party. I don't think I'm the first person to say that. Okay, on to the Drovers. Now then, they had the long trip up north and the Scarlets boys, Key and Abraham in the starting 15 and Jack Davis on the bench. They basically, they just went out and done everything in the first half, 33-7 at, you know, there's no way for RBC to come back. They did give a good fight in the second half, but 40-21 winners to the Drovers in the end and Key and Abraham got a try. Fixtures for this week, there's obviously the break with the Six Nations. There's one real interesting show which is coming Thursday night, which is a big one, Fandabria Travelling to Cardiff. So if you can get it, get it. It promises to be epic. I would love it if we beat them. Yeah, you have to say it just like that. And if you can't get it, I'm pretty sure it's going to be live on S4X. So what we're saying then, Mark, was that Fandabria win at the weekend big enough? I know you don't like it when they only score a couple. You need them to be trounced in. Yeah, they get in there, you know. I think they were really focused on that Ebbw Vale game last week. That block of games, really focused on it. I think they were a bit too uptight, but obviously now that game's over, they sort of sprung free a bit and started scoring a few more tries. So it's good to see them again now. I say see them again, they haven't, they've only lost one game all season. That's a bit harsh to be saying. So this Cardiff game will be the repeat of last year's final, won't it? Yeah, they've already played one. Again, it was a Thursday night game with Fandabria 1. But this is a carbon copy of last season's final. Yeah, it was. Yeah, up the drovers. Nice one. Go on then. Championship Cup. Rearranged picture from last weekend. Llangennes travelled to Bargoed. All things were looking good going into our play. Llangennes leading 9-7. And it just wasn't to be, unfortunately. They eventually went down 20-16. So, you know, unlucky for the boys at Llangennes. And, you know, they're still in the fight for the league. So they can focus on that now, full attention and see where they go. Into the league now, Championship West. And it wasn't a big one, but it was a big one. It was a Kremith that's home to Ammonford. And a Championship West game where one side starts with only 14 players. So it was quite odd that Kremith played with 14 players from the start. What, no subs and then nothing? No, nothing. And what makes it worse is, yes, then what do you play for the Queen's is the Kremith boy. He was on premise. Yeah, I was going to say, he was... I don't know exactly what happened there. But, you know, they had a couple of yellow cards. So they were down to 12 men at one point. They still fought at it. You know, they were leading 7-6 at half time. But, you know, when they went down to 12 and 13 men, you know, Ammonford actually pulled it out of the bag and they won 25-24. So still a hell of a performance by Kremith. But, you know, great for Ammonford to pick up the win. They had a debutant from the Scars Academy, Ollie Clough. He is a second row. So good to see another second row playing in the Championship or Premiership. So that's brilliant for us. And if you go on his socials, they give him a little bit of a push for his first game. The other one was the big one. The one we've been waiting all season. That was postponed first time around. Narbeth against Breckan. And by all accounts, Breckan thought they had this in the bag. They were leading 15-6 at half time. I don't know what was said, but I really wish I was there to hear it. It was a second off shutout from Narbeth. 19-15 win in the end. This is Narbeth League. I can't see anyone even coming close to them now. Breckan was the only team. They might do them on their home patch, but if this league was going to be open to anyone other than Narbeth, Breckan had to beat them here. And it just didn't happen. No fixtures, no rearrangements. Because I want to just say with Narbeth, so we said last week that if anyone from Narbeth was listening, then, you know, let us know and all that kind of stuff, because I'd really like to interview. And then someone from Narbeth got in touch, the head coach got in touch, and he went, yeah, come and have a chat. As I said last week on the pod, I said I can't do it on a Thursday night because I've got parents' evening. So I kind of thought, okay, half eight, yeah. He said, come and have a chat after training. The boys will be in the clubhouse, have a chat with some of the boys. And I thought, yeah, this is great. This is fantastic. So half past seven, I think, what time did I message YouTube? I was still in, it was about their money, it was about half seven. I was cooking at the time, so it must have been in the sixes. Yeah. And I'm like, I've still got maths and history to go or Spanish. My two favourite subjects. Oh, it was, I was like, I'm not going to make it. So I was gutted. So my apologies to the boys at Narberth, but I will catch up another time and I will make the effort to come to the clubhouse because, yeah, I think it's going to be a pretty good end of season for Narberth this year. So sorry, Matt, I interrupted you. You carry on, mate. It's five years after he put out the leather team down, we all know it. So no fixtures over the next fortnight now with the Six Nations in Championship West. The next games will be in the following week, which is the 17th of February. I'm going to keep you up to date with them. We go down into Division 1 West now. Barry Port winning 29-23 away to Aberystwyth. Kid Welly with a 43-26 win at home to Verrambol. Timothy Wondras 50-11 over Pontarddwys. And Whitland falling short again, 22-21 loss at home to Hendy. Whitland, I think something's happened. I think a switch has been turned somewhere because these results are getting closer and closer. So we go on to this week now and the two games, they are both on Friday evening, the 2nd. So it's Kid Welly at home to Pencloud and Whitland are hosting Aberystwyth. Down into 1 West Central now, we're only seeing Brynharman. They hosted Morriston, but unfortunately lost 24-13. Their next game, 17th February. Division 2 West now. We had a 2nd vs 3rd game in Lochaddy, Lampeter and it played out as we imagined. Ended up 24-22 in Lachascava. There's a lot, still a lot of rugby to play despite Diffie in sickness I think. Nant Gareddig 1-23-20 away to Mumbles. Pontarddwys picking up another win at home against Ammon United 33-7. Milford almost pulled off the trifecta. They almost picked off a win against all of the top three at Lewyden, 8-6 away to St Clair's. The weird bit of this, if you remember last season, Milford were really struggling and then they nick a game in the last kick of the game and all of that. I think they won three games last season and two of them were literally last kick of the game. So St Clair's won that game. It was 6-5 to Milford and St Clair's won it with the last kick of the game on a penalty. So fair play to Milford to come from where they were to that. They were on a really strong run at the minute. So yeah, doing well. Yeah, just Milford's side clearly can do great things and a bit of consistency would go a long way. So I'm expecting big things next season now. As long as they can keep their core bodies, I think it's going to be a tasty season for them. Tembe bounce back, straight on to the winning horse, winning 23-17 at home to Carmarthen Athletic. Fishguard went the other way. They lost 27-13 away to Christ. So they couldn't quite back up, you know, beating the infallible Tembe. There we go. One game this we talk about, we've got Amelie Knighthead hosting Carmarthen Athletic. Amelie Knighthead still looking for that first league win. We're going to 3 West A now. Aberaeron winning 41-0 at home to Llanabada. Hardigan and Llan playing off a 15-0 draw. Small dent in Llan's title hopes, maybe. We'll see how it goes. Langham losing 15-41 away at home to Abertawest, sorry. Neyland winning 27-17 at home to Pembroke and Pembroke Dock Harlequins winning 23-17 at home to St David's. One game this week, finally a game on Saturday. Llan are at home to St David's, down into 3 West B. Bethos, Bethos? I put the wrong team there. Finnear. Hang on, hang on, hang on. So whose fault is that then that you got the wrong team? They are two five-letter teams starting with B in 3 West B. Don't give me that shit. I'm assuming it's Finnear because I'm not looking online on my spread because I know I'm playing with it. So Finnear went down 13-6 at home to Furness, Llanddailo won 25-10 away to Llandybia. Huw, you were a happy man this week. No drop stars. I've got back on the winner's horse. 89-14 at home to Llygaran. Bare minimum. Bare minimum, that's what we like to hear. Shamsaran edged out a tight game. 29-27 at home to Llangadog and in the top end of the table, 32nd, Tumble played horse to Bethos and quite frankly, Bethos didn't care about being away from home. They just rocked up on 131-5, not even a bother from. So that makes this week a lot more fun now. It's just going to be fun to see how it plays out. No games for this fortnight. So February the 17th for 3 West Feet. Our last league is 5 West Central. Only one game to bring you. Pontiac with a big 46-6 win at home to Foal Bay. So good to see Pontiac getting another win on the board. You know, it's not as though I predicted them to win the league this season or nothing. This Saturday, one game, Pennybank are home to Concur. That's it for the community. So did any of you manage to watch any of the 18 games this week? I watched the set. I watched some of the Dragons game. Was it Dragons? Yeah, on Wednesday night, quite frankly. Oh, Cardiff the week before, wasn't it? Yeah, I watched the Wednesday night. I know this boy's 18. There's something special going on. So Wednesday night was a 64-7 win at home to the Dragons. We've got Trey Scorerz, Yori Bardem, Ellis Price. Ellis Price is the younger brother of Jack Price. So if you see the name, we know there's a connection there. Tian Sparrow with a double and a little bit extra on him in a minute. Chris Watkins got a try. Don Cossa with a monumental 65-centimetre run. Bowen Clarke, Stone Jones and Lewis Jones rounded off the tries. Steph and Jack Jones got three conversions for the penalty and Karen Leather Jones got four conversions. And Tian Sparrow also got a conversion, along with his Man of the Match performance. Another Man of the Match performance. Lee, you spoke about this boy last season. And then he got a caution off the referee for taking the piss. I mean, yeah, we spoke about him last year and he was like a stick last year. But he just, he managed to get himself everywhere. He's got an engine on him that I haven't seen in an open side for a long time. You expect open sides to have an engine. Yeah, you expect them to be everywhere. They're the psychos in the team that just don't know when to stop. But he just takes it to another level. He's got an intelligence about him. He reminds me a lot of, if Justin Tipperick had a baby with Cubby, they'd produce a Sparrow. That's what it would be. And Tipperick and a Cubby make a Sparrow. That's such a good saying, that, eh? That's what it is, mate. He is... A Sparrow in the hand is worth two in the bush. At the minute, I haven't seen a weak part to his game. I was going to say last week, the only weak part he's got is his kicking. And then he goes and takes a conversion and clears from hand. And I took that personally. Yeah, fair play to him. I think we should clear up at this point the tweet that we put out about it. And we all take responsibility for this, even though it was you that did it. The RGC game, and we gave RGC a bit of a tonking as well. I'm a bit of fun. Let's go back to last year with our under-18s. And I've seen, I saw last year's under-18s play, I've seen this year's under-18s play. Last year's under-18s, man for man, on paper, were better than this year's under-18s. Yeah? There's a lot of this year's under-18s. They're a good way. But no, but on paper, and man for man, yeah, this year's team plays together and plays, you know, they pull for each other. They look like they've been playing with each other for about five years. Yeah, it's a very, very well-drilled together team. If they could tighten up a little bit their defence, that'd be great. But yeah, so anyway, after the RGC game, I'll give us a score of this in a minute. It was a bit of a kick in and we put out a little bit of a joke. We just said, you know, somebody give us a game. You know, it wasn't meant as, you know, everyone else's shit and we're arrogant and all that kind of stuff. It was a bit of fun. Last year, everybody was slated our under-18s because they were the alleged golden boys and all of this kind of stuff. And you couldn't win a fucking raffle and all of this kind of stuff. Those were the tweets that were coming our way from, you know, Ospreys and Cardiff last year and all of this kind of stuff. So it was a little bit of fun. I have a bit of sense of humour about it. You know, that's just... It came completely from a place of giddy excitement about how good the under-18s are and nothing other than that. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, what was the actual score, Matt? What was the score of the RGC game? The final score, it was 41-6. But to put that in a bit of context, RGC were leading 3-0 at half-time and they actually went 6-0 up before we decided to put the afterburners on. So that was played out on the training pitch at Parc de Scarlet. Tried to score us this summer. Tyler Davies got a double, Owen Clarke with another scrum-half snipers, two in the row for him. Ellis Payne, Eoghan Thomas and Harry Gwynne-Jones. Ellis Payne scored a conversion and Tarwyn Leather-Jones got three conversions and a penalty, which all combined to give that nice 41-6 score. So they don't have a game this week now. The RGC game normally would have been Wednesday because they're not playing the games on the Sunday. So no game for them now till the 7th of February. Over to the Girls' 18s now and the penultimate game was against Cardiff. Weren't able to back up the big win over RGCD and they unfortunately went down 24-5 against Cardiff. Bobbie Wilkins is the only scorer in this game. Last round will be played on Sunday the 4th and they're up against the Ospreys and I believe it's the region to host the games. So still waiting for confirmation for where they'll be played out. Well, fingers crossed they can put them on the park, you know, because it would be lovely for those girls to be able to run out of the tunnel, you know, at the park and there'd be a fair, decent crowd there as well. You know, if we want to really encourage these girls to, I'd say, feel a part of the Scarlets and if we're committing to, you know, let's develop a women's side for the future, then this is where that women's side is going to come from. So let's get on something to remember and that would be good. Yes, you know, if we do it for the boys, we should be doing it for the girls. And it's exactly the same as I put out a tweet to FPEDWEC. Any chance we can show the girls 18s? Because you love showing the boys, let's see the girls play as well. And, you know, all the girls, all six teams, it's cool for an RTC to come down, they play on the same pitch on the same day, so you get six teams worth of fans coming in. So there's no reason why we can't host at the park. Because if we do it for two under-18 boys teams, why can't we do it for six under-18 girls? Yeah, even, you know, at this time of year, there's no college rugby, so surely, you know, we can put highlights together for the girls' team, can't we? Gotta be able to. There must be a camera there anyway, so. Yeah, they do normally show the tries, but that's about it. Yeah, we need extended highlights at worst, but like I said, when you've got, you know, when you've got three games back to back, you know, it's worth, you know, it's worth sending a proper camera down there and somebody that can commentate. I would do it if it was in English, but my Welsh is atrocious, so, you know, I can't volunteer. But I do know some people that would. If S4C fancy doing it, I will get you a commentator. I have got two boys that will absolutely commentate on that. They do our Welsh rugby, Welsh language pod, and they would both be bang up for that. Drop us a line, because apparently that's how you get stuff done. You ask people to drop you a line on the pod, and halfway through the week they get in touch. So, yeah, S4C, if you're listening, we've got a couple of boys that would love to do the commentary on the girls' things down at the pod, get in touch. Anyway, drop on. Well, that's it for the rag. We're still the 16th. I believe they've got a festival on the 4th down to San Rony, and that's really going to kick off their playing season. So, but outside of that, that's all the community, that's all the academies have done. What I will mention is, when we do come back with a full round of community games on the 17th, we've got a youth cup games to talk about as well. Oh, Christ alive. But we'll still be going. Surely there's only... We're semi-final stage now with the youth cup, aren't we? No, with the youth, it's quarter-final stage. There's been a big gap between the last round, it's taken a while. With the rugby, it takes ages to get these cup games played. I can see the local picture on my back, and after the Sunday game, so the youth played on there on the Saturday, and then the Sunday game, there must have been four or five games on there on Sunday, and you look at it this morning and you go, holy shit, it looks like something from a World War One movie, like, you know, it's, yeah, it takes a pounding. Right, so when we do next week, so when we have a chat next week, because obviously there's no Scarlets to talk about, there's no community game to talk about, so when we do the community section next week, we'll run down the tables. That's what we'll do next week. I said we'd do that a couple of times and I haven't got around to it. Somebody remind me next week to do the tables. How many tables are we going to do? Are we going to do a couple a week or are we going to go through them all? No, let's just go through them all next week. That'll be our section next week. So, someone talked to me about Thunder, so I've been saying Brython wrong, I've been saying Brython, it should be Brython, is it? I thought it was Brython, as in Rob Brydon, but I have been informed that it is Britain. I just call them the Thunder, but Mark doesn't like that. If I call them Thunder, Mark's like, it's not the Thunder, it's Brython. It's Brython, yeah, but Thunder's a nickname, you know. And the emoji, by the way, for them, if you want to tweet about them, is hammers, okay, like Thor. Not a lightning, because there's another team called Lightning and we're not them. We're not them, yeah. Okay, so how did they get on? Great. Can you talk more about the emoji? Yeah, we didn't, let's be fair, we didn't get to see as much of the game as we wanted to. I didn't see any of their game against, it was the Wolfhounds, wasn't it? Yeah, like I've said a few times already, I've got a couple of young daughters who do love rugby and I tend to watch the games with them. And unfortunately, this one was on at half seven at night, so I think we only go about 20, 25 minutes through the game before bedtime comes in and by the time I've sorted the game was over. But to be clear, Wolfhounds are undefeated going into this game. They've had two bonus point wins in that, so they're only one bonus point off maximum. Brython, we are yet to really hit those strides. We almost done it against, was it Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago? No, it looked really good against Edinburgh. Edinburgh are a top team as well. Yeah, but you know, it was essentially, it was in a six team league, it was fifth against undefeated top. Went on 41-10 in the end. So not exactly, you know, surprise, surprise, but you know, it's a hard learning curve. You know, these girls are together for the first time because we don't exactly have a good stable of Welsh women's rugby below this, whereas you go into Ireland and you've got the all-Ireland leagues. So these girls, the girls in Ireland have got, you know, regular rugby going through where we haven't quite got that system here yet. So it's kind of understandable that we're not exactly, we're not exactly competing, you know, in that first and second place. But it's coming. It will come. It will come. There's more and more girls playing every week because they can see that at the top then. And, you know, five years ago, five years ago, no, it was more than five years ago, it was about seven or eight years ago when they started girls hubs. And I was part of that in Pembrokeshire. So I just, people looked at me weird. I was very committed to women's rugby and they said, well, where's your daughter? And I said, oh yeah, no, my daughter doesn't like playing. I just believe in equality and women's rugby. And we had sort of one hub in the whole of Pembrokeshire and there was one women's team in Pembrokeshire at that point. And we've now got two hubs in Pembrokeshire and we've got one, two, three and a half women's teams, senior women's teams, and that half will be a full team by the end of this year. And I know a couple of other teams are looking at, well, why can't we set up a women's team? So, you know, let's keep it real. We started from nothing, not very long ago, and we're at the point of playing semi-professional women's rugby and giving our girls something to aim for. It's great to hear John Daniel talk about how supportive the Scarlets intend to continue to be for that as well. His words were, as soon as an opportunity comes to put out a professional women's team, we will be doing that, which is good. So if we talk about the women's hubs that are out there right now, in Carmarthenshire, you've got the Barney Vixens, Merseyside Monies Mouths, Scraddy Scotsman, Carmarthen Rebels. You've then got the Taff Barney Tigers, who are in Whitburn. So it's kind of bothering, they cover both, you know, Carmarthenshire and Pembroke, into Pembroke, the two sides, which is the Clarevai Wildcats, am I pronouncing that right? Yeah, Clarevai Wildcats, they were my girls, yeah. And then we've got the South Pen Sharks, and then we go into Ceredigion now, you've got Wytherod, which are Newcastle Emblem Base, and you've got Bay Ceredigion. So nine hubs in the whole of Dublin, essentially. The Wildcats had, I reckon, we had the coolest kit design to start with. Because when we set that kit design up, and we had a whole meeting with it, it took absolutely ages, because it was like, well, we can't have a particular club's colours. We can't have blue, we can't have black, we can't have red, we can't have red and white, we can't have red and black, we can't have blue and black. It was just, right, what do we do? So we landed on orange, yeah? So it really stood out. It was like, oh, holy cow, yeah, that's the Wildcats kit, bright orange. But then it had a cat's claw marks all the way, so it was almost like a stripe, but it was done as a claw mark, and then the claw was down the bottom. It was awesome, it was the best, and I'm looking at it, and I'm going like, that's really good. I really, really, I really like that kit. I might dig out my old coach's top, and I'll show you next week. I think it's in the clothes recital at the minute, but I might show you my old club, I, Wildcats top. It was really good, really, really good. Well, on the topic of tops, do you want to show us what you're wearing this week, Lee? Well, I have shown this before. I just wanted to wear it because John Daniels, so this is part of what I've been working on. So you've heard me talk about the shop for a while. So basically, this was something I put in there, and then it got taken down because it's got like all of the official club, so I had to kind of adapt the official club logos, and then I've adapted this, and all that kind of stuff. So at some point, the wrap shop will be back up, and there'll be Scarlet's Fever shirts, and hats, and all of this kind of stuff, and there'll be Ospreys ones, but you know, there'll be Dragons ones, and then there'll be Cardiff ones. So they'll all be there. What about Blues? Yeah, Blues ones can have their own bus. They'll be really good. Sorry, does the Mixed Ability team have a big match lately? So yeah, they played Pembrokeshire. They were playing the Vikings, didn't they? They had to move the game. They did. It was in the People's Park. I'm looking at the tweets now. Yeah, did Gollum message us with the final score? They tagged us, and not with the final score. I'm looking now. Yeah, because they've gone absolutely insane this season. The amount of recognition that they've had this year has been fantastic. Well, our original interview with him is still on there, and somebody shared that again the other day, and it just started going nuts again. So it was really, really good. Ah, I've got it. What was the score? Against Pembrokeshire, it was Warriors 19, Pembrokeshire 5. Cool. We'll have to get Simon Gardner on. I have asked Simon Gardner to come on. Simon, apparently this is how we get people on the pod now. Simon, if you're listening, give us a shout. Come on, on you come. Yeah, that'd be really cool. So, right, we've got two things left to do, right? So I promised you boys last week some jokes from my joke book, but then we've also got Wales predictions to do. So I think we do Wales predictions, and then- Roll them into one. You've been listening to rap, haven't you? And then we'll finish on a real high with two absolute classic jokes from my new Christmas joke book, okay? So, Wales predictions, Huw. Off you go with what you're expecting, who you're expecting, and a score prediction. Well, I'd start as the team should be Messiahs, Elias, and then we need to have Dick Cool, Josh McLeod in, even if he's injured, and then Gareth Davies, Tom Costello, Joe Roberts, Tom Rogers, and if I'm forgetting, all eight need to be in there, basically, is what I'm saying. Tom's injured, isn't he? Details. Someone's messed with his hair, that's what it is. Someone's stolen his scrum cap. What am I expecting? I don't think I've ever watched Wales lose at home to Scotland. Right. Technically, we lost the part of Scarlett in the back. That doesn't count. Was anybody there? Do you find me someone who was there, and then I'll believe you. Anyway, what kind of game are you expecting? Um, I've got no idea. I think I'd like to see us continue what we kind of worked out at the World Cup. I think the team will be similar to the team that we put out against South Africa in the final warm-up game, but with a couple more big guns in there. I think it will be a backs against the wall job, because I think Scotland will be on the front foot, because they're a much more settled team with a lot more experience than us. But I can't be picking Wales to lose it, so I won't be. I look forward to seeing the Scarletts boys in action. We obviously expect Gareth Davies and San Costello to be in the team, and Ryan Elias as well, so I'm expecting at least three Scarletts in there. So yeah, it's an exciting new journey for Wales. I just want people, and Steph Thomas wrote about this as well, well put out something about this today as well, patience with this new Wales team, because it's not going to be hit the ground running, I don't think. So it needs to be understanding and looking for the positives, like we always do on this podcast. Okay, and a score? 22-19 to Wales. Okay, I'm not going to write it down, because I'd forget to tweet it out anyway, and I'm not going to do anything with it, but it's good to know, 22-19 to us. Martin, your thoughts on the Wales game? Yeah, I think my biggest disappointment that's come out in the last few weeks is Gatlin saying he expects George North to make the 27 World Cup. So, I mean, he has been improving as a 13 when he's been playing consistently as a 13. You know, he's not exactly the finished article there, and you know, his age obviously plays against him. I really do want to see Joe Roberts giving a good run in the shirt, but I just don't think that's going to happen this time around. I 100% agree with how I think Gareth Davies and San Costello have got to be the starting half back, just so that, you know, they probably are the two best 9 and 10 in Wales, and you know, having that club connection as well always helps. You know, he loves his connections. I'm thinking of a new graphic I'm going to do for France. I haven't quite sussed it out yet. Gareth Davies, most try involvements of any Welsh scrum half so far this season in the US? You're not surprised, are they? He's always there, every single time with us, Phil. But no, I'd like to see Mathias get a nod. I don't think he will, you know, which is unfortunate because of the players that we've selected, you know, only Gareth Thomas is above him in my perspective now. And realistically, he's not going to be around forever either, so we do need to start blooding Mathias because I don't think Domitowski is going to pay out as a world-class loser, whereas I think Mathias has got that feeling. Whether or not he makes it is another question entirely. On to score, you know, for some reason, you always ask him first, so it makes me change my prediction at the moment. I was going to say 23-17 to start, and then he goes at 22-19, so I'm like, that's way too close. I've got to change it now, so 31-24. Okay, cool. Yeah, I see the reckoning on that. Well, yeah, I hope he does play Joe Roberts, and I've said for a long time, I think if George North is going to switch positions, I think inside centre is probably where he'd be better off rather than outside. He'd be less exposed in defence. When you're inside centre, the ability to push out is a lot easier, you know, and he's not a small chap. He'll cope with a couple of big, hefty boys coming at him, and he's going to have that crash ball king kind of thing going on there, so if he is going to play, that's where I would play him, and I would love to see Joe Roberts at 13. I think Wales are going to try and play an open game. I think there'll be cheeky line-outs. I think there'll be tap-and-go on penalties, where Scotland aren't expecting it. I think there'll be penalty moves inside the 22 and all of this kind of thing. I think we're going to try and break that game up, because Scotland like to throw the ball around, but they do it off a very strong, up-front kind of performance, and if we can break up their pack and start moving their pack around and start confusing their pack, I think that's where the ability will lie. Ooh, Javan in for Scotland, by the way. Yeah, I was about to say, it's good to see a friend of the pod, Javan. Sebastian sought his, maybe this way he didn't get the call first time, because his signal was so poor the first time. He didn't answer, but Greg is there like, Javan, are you there, Javan? Yeah, well, if you're not going to pick up the phone. I'm going to have to pick up the phone now. But no, fair play to the boy. Well done. He's made the Scottish squad, so fingers crossed for him as well. Score prediction, I think it'll be quite an open game, but I think it'll be like 33-32 to Wales. It'll be something like that. It'll be a ridiculous game, and you'll get to the end of it and we'll go, wow, why can't every Six Nations game be like this? This is amazing. This is awesome. So yeah, that is my prediction for that. And just to say, so we're recording the wrap podcast later this week. We're recording it on Thursday night after the team has been announced. So keep your eyes and ears peeled on Friday morning because we will be publishing our reactions, expectations and all that kind of stuff to the game then. OK, so big build up now, big build up. OK, so I've been through the book. I've been through about three months with like a joke a day. Yeah. So I'm up to the end of March. I found two jokes that actually made me laugh. Right. So I'm crap at telling jokes because I laugh halfway through because I know what's coming. So my first one, yeah, is what is red and bad for your teeth? A brick. So you're trying not to laugh, Martin, but I can see that inside there's a giggle. I'll give that a six. And then my favourite one is, would you like to hear a long joke? So just say yes. But would you like to hear a long joke? On that note, boys, I shall bid you farewell. Enjoy your rugby. We'll catch up and do it again next week. All the best. Thank you for listening to the Scarlet's Fever 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.