WRRAP - The reaction to the Italian game and heading back to proper rugby

Welcome to the WRAP podcast, the place to catch up on all the regional and national rugby in Wales. You can find us on all the usual social media platforms and message us through there if you want, or you can email us at welshregionalrugbypod at gmail.com. With all the boring stuff out of the way, let's talk rugby. Hello and welcome to this week's edition of the WRAP podcast with me, Lee G, full crew this week, Jamie, James and Harley. Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening. Hello, good evening. Good evening. James, I have to remember to unmute. Nice one. Yep, we're off to a flyer. Right, okay, we've got a tonne of stuff to get through. Well, we haven't got a tonne of stuff to get through, but we've got some really good points. There's a lot of points on one subject we need to get through tonight. So let's start with drink of the week. So I'm going to kick off this week on drink of the week. So I've got a bottle called Old Crafty Hen, which is, yeah, I mean, it's an oak aged ale and it's strong, a six and a half percent. I think I might need it to get through tonight. But the wanky bollocks is we take our legendary six strong ale, aged gently in oak vats for many months and blend it with old speckled hen to create this masterpiece, a perfectly crafted premium ale bursting with malt, toffee and dried fruit. So that last bit sounds like a chocolate bar you have at Christmas, but it's quite nice. I quite like it. Yeah, so that's my, and I mean, you've missed out, the head has gone on it, but that was a good, you know, for those on YouTube, there was a good solid head on there before as well. It was a proper, proper beer. Right, who wants to go next then? Go on then, Holly, go on, you can. Go on then, so continuing my tour of the Morgan Brewing. So this is a Cwrn Gorswath, which I've definitely butchered the pronunciation because I don't know how I got a name, which he says in Welsh. So the wanky bollocks on this is named after the village in Carmarthenshire where it was first brewed. It's well balanced beer, which, you know, they put the Welsh word for it, is a love letter to the classic vistas we grew up on, which is proper wanky to say. But this one is actually great, because on the ingredients it goes water, malted barley, wheat hops, and it tells you what the hops are. So I know there are some people who like that sort of thing. If you're interested, it's Challenger, Goldings, US Cascade. I have no idea what any of that fucking means. No. But mine's got toffee in, and I have no idea. So I think my wanky bollocks out wanks your wanky bollocks, I'll be honest with you, mate. You've just got a special festive one. Now that's a podcast. That's something for another time. James, what have you got, mate? I'm back on to my final can of Juice Forsyth, the popular one. I would just like to put around the top, it said it's brewed in the capital of the north, and it's beers with character. So I automatically know where the brew is that I don't want to be friends with. Because if you say your beer has character, then you are the most boring man ever. Okay. What is the capital of the north? Where does the north start? M. There you go. Jamie, yours? I have got a Welsh Rathlaga from Axel Jack Brewery, who are based in my steg. There it is. It's 4.5%. And there is some wanky bollocks with this. So I'm struggling to see the font on this. But right. Using a blend of two malted barleys to produce the classic appearance and behaviour of lager and added oats for flavour. This craft brew also includes a hop from the Czech Republic, used in the brewing of traditional Central European lagers and pilsners. Clean and crisp on the palate, with forward notes of citrus, grapefruit and lemon, and a lingering sense of aromatic earthiness and subtle spices. Now that's some wanky bollocks right there, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, Jamie wins wanky bollocks for this week. If there was a wanky bollocks trophy, which there will be at the end of the season, that's right up there with the wanky bollocks that is, mate. It's a nice lager as well, by the way. It's very nice. It's not too crafty tasting, if you see what I mean. It does taste like a proper lager, because some of these craft lagers have that sort of like elderflower taste to them, don't they? But this is all right, actually. So, yeah, Axel Jack Brewery. Cool. Okie dokie. Well, I think we're going to need a decent amount of alcohol to get through tonight, then, James. So, James, let's, Jamie, let's start with, let's start with the news desk and then we'll head on to Fantasy League before we get into the iffy stuff. Right, OK, let's start with the big news there that happened last week. So, George North has now officially retired from international rugby. North announced last week that he's ended a 14-year test career after the Wales iffy game on Saturday. And, well, the list of achievements speak for themselves, don't they? So, 121 Wales caps, 47 tries, two Grand Slams, two Six Nations titles, two World Cup semi-finals and two tours for the British and Irish Lions. What a fantastic servant to Welsh rugby. It did come as a little bit of a shock when it was first announced, sorry, but then when you think about it, him going over to France, you know, I suppose he wanted that send-off and he did want his career to sort of fizzle out in the same way as maybe Thomas Francis's and Ross Moriarty's have done since they moved to Pro D. So, he wanted that big send-off and he felt the time was right. But a fantastic servant to Welsh rugby, brilliant player. And I guess a lot of rugby fans' favourite memory of George North, the thing he's most remembered for is, of course, Israel Folau in the Lions test against Australia in 2013, when he lifted him up and carried him. It was a fantastic moment. But question for you guys, are there any particular George North moments that stand out for you, either for Wales or a club level in Wales? Well, boys, I have the podcast for you. Oh, really? Yeah. Because we and Cardiff were the only ones recording last week, we actually scrapped the episode that we had planned and just ended up doing a tribute to George North. His time at the Ospreys has been stunted, yes, but he's actually given us some very, very good memories and just sort of that mini resurgence he had under the Ospreys and then going back in at 13 for Wales. But if I'm talking about a stand-out George North moment, it would have to be, I've got two in my head, I've got the try in Dublin in 2012, where he just crushed it, he took about four players over in the corner of the Aviva. And then that second one, I think it's 2012, 2012 it would have been. Anyway, and then the second one is Dad storming the pitch in Paris after the sole try in Paris in 2013 that was on the way to the championship. It's just, yeah, anything for the lion, not a big 2013 lion nerd anyway. I mean, he was just a freak at that time. Yeah. For me, it's like the very first try he scored was quite simple and straightforward, but in his first season, I think on Judgment Day, when he scored against the Dragons, it was just like a little, it went outside and outside, and he cut back inside and it just kind of popped off Aled Davis and just kind of came out of nowhere, like on the tight up view, you don't actually see him, you just see like a streak of red going past. And so, yeah, it's stuff like that, that you look back on, like you said, when he was in his prime, that was fantastic. What I would say is, so, Carwyn did a poem about him, which we put on our YouTube channel and we put on TikTok as well. Very good too. It was, it was. 30,000 views on TikTok and two and a half thousand likes on TikTok, you know. I don't know if it's Carwyn or George North or a combination of the two, but yeah, it worked really, really well and it's still on our social media feeds and all that if people want to go back and have a listen and have a look at it. But it was, yeah, really good. Enjoyed that one. Yeah, he did a good job of that, Carwyn, fair play. Harley, do you have a particular North moment to stand out for you? I do, but I just want to say with Carwyn, he sort of, after we finished recording our interview with David Alton from the board, he basically sort of went, oh, just, you know, I was just penning this poem, what do you think? And he was really shy and embarrassed about it. I was like, brilliant mate, let's get that out now. Yeah, for me, George North, there's probably two standouts. One's got to be that hat trick against Fiji in the 2011 World Cup, you know, after everyone was there, you know, the ghost of 2007 and he just comes on, onto the pitch. I'm pretty sure he came there off the bench and just absolutely dismantled them. It was just wonderful. The other one for me has got to be 2017. So Wales had a bit of a shocking tournament and they spent the whole, you know, everyone would spend the whole time saying, oh, it's all George North being shit, he's terrible, he's terrible, he's terrible, he needs to pull up forms. And then he just pulled out, like, one of his best ever games against Ireland. And it is usually against Ireland, he seems to always have a good game. It's true, yeah. And, you know, he's just back to his barnstorming physical best, because there were always times like, when he was on the left wing, he was really proactive and then he switched to the right. And it's the thing with Welsh wingers, like, getting moved from the left wing to the right wing, just completely messed you up. Because, you know, fuck the Tories, what? Nice reference. Yeah. Let's carry on then, Jay. OK, let's talk about some contract news. So, Ospreys have signed 21-year-old lot Will Greatbanks. That's a good name, isn't it? Will Greatbanks. I'm pro-Dirty Sawyer. Greatbanks said, I've spoken to Toby and it was clear to see that something special is being built at the Ospreys. I can't wait to get started. Fair enough. Greatbanks is Welsh qualified for his father, who was born in Wales. So that's quite an interesting pickup. And then going over to the Scarlets, back row with Ben Williams. He signed a new deal with the Scarlets. The 21-year-old has made 19 appearances for the senior side since 2022. And the last bit of news before we move on. I'm quite pleased, actually, about this. Dai Young, he's back in rugby. So Dai Young has been appointed as Cardiff and Vale College Rugby Academy's new head of rugby. It's Dai Young's first job since he left Cardiff Rugby following those allegations of bullying. So good on him. I've always rated Dai Young as a coach. I've said that a few times on his part. It's good to see him back involved in Welsh rugby. And yeah, that's the news for this week. So before we move on to Fantasy League with James, I just want to drop a quick note in at the start because it's important for me. So some of you may or may not know that I'm doing an Open Uni degree and I'm six years I've been doing this and I'm at the very end of it and I've got to do a survey and then analyse the survey and all that kind of stuff. So obviously, I've chosen to survey ex-rugby players and the effects of the social environment and around rugby cups. So I could really do with listeners' help to fill it in. It takes about 10 minutes. It's completely anonymous, so I don't see names. I don't know who's done it and who hasn't. It takes about 10 minutes or five minutes if done really quick. And I'll put the link on all our social medias. I'll put a link in the blurb that we put with all the pods and all that kind of stuff. If you could share it around your clubs or whatever as well. It is something that I want to do in the future. I think there's a lot of stuff going around and we'll talk about it after, about concussion and the effects of concussion and repeated head injuries. And when I talk to some of the players I've played with, it's not just at the very top level of the game. It's all the way down the tree, right the way down to the bottom. So yeah, if you could fill that in, it would be a massive benefit to me. So yeah, I appreciate that. That's me pulling rank. It's the first time I've done that. I feel powerful now. James, let's do fantasy rugby, mate. This will take me back down a couple of pages. Let me just close all my recentry tabs. Right, so final round of the rap league. I reckon we should start with Carwyn Watch actually. Let's see where he ended. Carwyn, he ended in 39th. Which, you know, it's not bad. I mean, I finished in 33rd. Jamie, whereabouts were you in the end? Oh, you were in 22nd. Oh, I was 27th. So Jamie wins. Jamie does win out of us four, which is, you know, a lot. No, what do you want about Cardiff? They don't win anything. They just restore pride. Go check the tapes of the World Cup Fantasy League again. I wouldn't. All with all of you. Last year's women's and men's Six Nations. Okay, let's go to the top ten. So, in tenths, finishing tenths for the whole thing is It's Still Nil-Nil Boys on 1863. Then Missile Panda, who I believe, is that Lesnick on Twitter? This Scottish fan, on 1867. Morgan Darbyn finishes in eighth, 1878. Hatley AWJ, which is Daft Hatley, he's a listener to The Usbury Pod, 1896. Utter Financianity, 1899. In fifth is Kemmicher, 1900. Fat Boys Gut Club, with 1910 points. Josh L, with 1957. Wooden Spoon Contenders finish second, which means our winner, with 1971 points, is Ivan. So, after we said on last week's pod for various people to get in touch, and a few people did, but I've forgotten who and I've forgotten where they got in touch with us. So, Ivan, if you're listening, get in touch again, mate, because I'm fairly sure that you were one of the ones that got in touch. Yeah, drop us a line again and we'll get you on next week's pod and we'll just have a chat about your fantasy league and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, maybe next year, Arlie will strap a set of balls on and actually, you know, put his money where his mouth is and play the game with us. But, you know, never mind. One day, Arlie, one day you might get successful at it, fella, you know. Okay, fair enough. So, let's move on to Wales, Italy. So, before we start on Wales, Italy, let's just put a little bit of context into the conversation that we're going to have. There's been a lot and, you know, I know it feels raw for people and, you know, Wooden Spoon and there's a certain generation of people that aren't used to Wooden Spoons and what have you, yeah. But there's no excuse for some of the stuff that's been on social media over the weekend. So, we'll talk about that at the end. But when we're having a conversation now, if we're not slagging people off, that's not us. And you're sitting there and expecting us to slag people off and say he was shit and he was shit and he was shit. That's not what we're going to do. Okay, we'll talk about the game and if somebody was poor, we'll try and put that constructively. But if you want to sit there and slag people off and this is the wrong pod for you, there are other pods there that will sit there and slag other people off. This isn't one of them. So, that's just putting that there because that really knocked me over the weekend with some of the comments that were there. So, James, let's start with you then. Wales, Italy. Well, if you didn't watch the game, then... Listen, let me give you some context, right. I live in Harney, will attest to this. The season doesn't stop, really, in England for Six Nations games. So, I was playing. I played out of Portsmouth this week and the other team quickly cottoned on to the fact that I was Welsh and every line they would sort of stop and play, they would try and put me off. I showed them the Italy-Wales score. So, yeah, that's how I was finding out the score. I haven't watched the game. I haven't watched the highlights. I don't intend to because, quite frankly, why would I want to depress myself more? I've watched the Scrum Five stuff, which we'll talk about later. Everything I have comes from Squid Rugby. I said, please, just give me a summary of what actually happened in the game. So, yeah, I played well, if anyone's wondering. But anyway, it's back to you. Right. Jamie, you actually watched... I mean, you were watching Newport, but you have seen the game since. So, thoughts? Yeah, I mean, look, I was in London on the weekend. I went to watch Wimbledon-Newport County. Newport won 2-0. Great result, great performance. So, I didn't see the game live. But it was quite funny because when I was at the football, I was checking my phone for the scores. Every time I went on Twitter to check the score, Italy was scoring points. And I said that to my mate. I said, every time I'm logging on now, check the score, are you scoring points? And my mate Rob said to me, the best thing to do is just don't look, don't log on and see what happens. So, I didn't check the score until the final whistle went to the football. And then I saw the score, it was 24-21. I thought, oh, actually, Wales had done all right. But then, of course, it sank in that Wales had still won the wooden spoon and still lost. So, I watched the game back on the train home from London. And I have to say, I was shocked at how bad Wales were. I had really no intention of watching the game in full. I was just going to do what Jay said and just watch the highlights. But I thought, no, I got to watch the game in full because they're not going to talk out of the pod. I got to see just how bad Wales were. And by Christ, Wales were bad. I think what disappointed me was there was a lot of talk about Wales embracing the pressure. Seeing how big this game was, knowing how big this game was and trying to avoid that wooden spoon. I honestly thought Wales would come out with a bit of purpose. And it was just so lacklustre and I was really disappointed. There was no urgency. There was no direction. There was no leadership. It was just a really poor performance from Wales. Really, really disappointed. And, you know, I made some notes during the game. The takeaways for me, there was just so many errors, you know, so many unforced errors from individuals. So, you know, looking at the game and reading the takeaways. So, Sam Costello, missing three kicks to touch from penalties. Now, that's not acceptable. I'm sorry. You know, I know Sam Costello, he is learning on the job. I get it. He's new. He's learning his craft at test level. To do it once, it happens to the best of them. But to miss-kick, miss-touch from a kick three times from penalties, that's just not acceptable. And then you've got Nick Tompkins then, who for me had his worst game playing for Wales. Every time he went into contact, he just kept losing the ball. He had an absolute stinker. And it did make me think maybe we should have kept Owen Watkin at 12, looking back. But that was the decision they went with and it didn't pay off. You know, the neck roll from Adam Beard. Adam Beard does a neck roll when we're on the attack. It leaves him with a penalty. They kick it and that leads then to Lorenzo Pani's try. I mean, it was a great try, by the way, but it came from that neck roll from Adam Beard. So, that was disappointing. And then in the first half, you've got that miscommunication then between Sam Costello and Cam Winner. No communication. Both called for it. Ended up being a knock-on, which led to the Italian scrum in Wales' 22. The scrum was a disaster. Dylan Lewis had a really tough time. I mean, Danny Foschetti took him to the cleaners, quite frankly. So, there was no platform whatsoever. It was Wales' worst performance, I thought, throughout this tournament. That was a really poor and disappointing performance. And we talked about George North there earlier. What a sad way for him to end his international career. Because the WRU put up that image of him on crutches, walking down the tunnel. That is not the farewell that George North deserved. Really, really grim afternoon, I thought, for him. But it's just a very disappointing way to end what's been a very disappointing campaign. Like, Wales have played well in patches. There's been some glimpse of encouragement. You know, guys like Cam Winner have been great. Al Wainwright, Alex Mann. But to end on that note, the way we did, to put in that performance, it just leaves a sour taste in the mouth. And I'm afraid the stats are really grim. So, Wales' first Six Nations win since 2003. Wales have now lost 12 of the past 13 Six Nations matches. This is seven successes, Six Nations home defeats. And we had a successful World Cup campaign. We proved a lot of people wrong by getting out to that pool. But since Gatlin's returned to Wales, he's been in charge of 10 Six Nations matches and he's won just one game. So, the stats are there. It's grim. And I honestly do not know now where Rush Rugby goes from here. You know, I think Rush Rugby, we talked about it on our Dragonslayer pod last night, me and Gavin, and Gavin said, now Rush Rugby is in an existential crisis now. And it does feel like that way. Rush Rugby is in the shit, but we've only got ourselves to blame. Because for far too long, as we all know, when Wales were winning trophies, they were winning grand slams and championships. They ignored the pro game. They underfunded the pro teams for too long because they were so top heavy, the WRU. They didn't care about the grassroots. They didn't care about the pro game. And now the chickens have come home to roost. We are reaping what we've sowed. And that's down to the WRU's mismanagement of the pro game and the underfunding. And now we are where we are. So, it's really grim times for Rush Rugby. And I honestly do not know now where we go from here. But I do know that big decisions have to be made. There needs to be a strategy and some clear thinking because Rush Rugby is in crisis. Big time. Well, I've got to say, we'll talk about the future after we've talked about the game. Oh, of course, yeah. If somebody wants to take Jamie's soapbox away, I dare you to. I'm joking. I have actually watched the game. Like James, I was playing on the weekend. And I'll be honest, I felt a lot like most of the pack, which was somehow ended up with shitball coming from even worse ball and just getting absolutely fucking battered. The only difference is they at least got a losing bonus point out of it. But going back to the thing, there was nothing new. That is an issue there. It's all been the same thing. And it's been the same thing since Gatling left the first time. We don't seem to have any way of getting game on successfully. It's too much one-up runners. The scrum's a fucking issue. When the line-up works, it's great. But then we're not getting the opportunity to do it. And it's stupid errors every time. And I don't think it matters who you chuck in. I think Gatling's right. Gatling's had his plan for a big farewell for North, and knowing Tompkins is probably the best balance for him. But frankly, Owen Watkins was actually giving us game line. He's a much steadier hand at 12, which helps when you've got an inexperienced 10, sort of being a full-on chaos monkey. That's not a slot on Tompkins. That's just how he plays, which when you've got a very experienced 10 like Owen Farrell or Dan Biggar, they know how to manage that and to get the best out of him. When you're learning on the job, what you don't want is the person who's supposed to be your release file to be going fucking crazy. So that's why I think it improves so much when Mason Brady came in at 12, because Costello was like, right, I don't know what else to do. Right, go make 10 yards. And it worked, because he's a big lad. I had an argument with you about the clashing heads of Winnett and Costello. If you look how well set up the backfield, that was Winnett's ball all day. It was in his half. Costello should have been there ready for the clearance kick. No, that's how backfield's set up. Yeah, but he's running on to the ball, mate. They're both running on to it. Costello is supposed to be taking that wider thing. He was supposed to be there for that kick from wider. I think the issue is... Costello can ping it. I think the issue is, is what Jamie said, is there was no communication between the two of them. You can hear them both saying, it's my ball, but none of them... And if one... That's why Winnett gets so annoyed, because he's like, I think that should have been Martyn backfield all season and doing very well, isn't it? Costello's had three games outside the Six Nations and World Cup. Anyway, go on. And it's the same issues. I mean, how is this scrum... Like, when you take all these players and you put them in, even like in the Cardiff props, yes, they're not great in the scrum time, but they're at least holding their own against the equivalent players in Benetton. Gerard Thomps is, you know, a fantastic scrum leader for the Ospreys. Dylan Lewis has been playing quite well off the bench for Harlequins. What have they been told to do with scrum time? That is just causing it to be... I mean, hopefully James can come in being the resident front rower. But I don't get why it's so bad and it hasn't... And the only consistent thing, because we've changed to different players, we've had different head coaches, the only consistent thing is the forwards coach. So is it how he's telling them to scrummage? Because he's always opening interviews about how he wants it to be a pushing contest, which we saw against France. We will fucking lose if we're up against big lads. So, it's really... One thing I would say is we got a lot more impact than GoFundMe when the bench came on, because that was where all the... Anyone who could do ball carrying was basically on the bench. And it does make you wonder, should you change that selection slightly? But then, look, the second row, you either lose the fantastic work David Jenkins is doing in the second row, or you lose Adam Beer's line-out option. Mackenzie Martin has less caps than I do for Sisma's second team. I'm liking the comparison there. I have more caps for a rugby team than Mackenzie Martin, and I have not... And I've basically started picking up the rugby ball this year. So you can't really start him. And, you know, some news came out just before the game about Josh Adams. So he's having to have his knees drained, everything. So we've all been saying, look, it's clear as day he's not fit. They've now released an article saying something. So why was he selected? Like, even if you're not in your long-term plans, maybe you do bring in a Keelan Giles, because it's someone who isn't experienced... At least he's experienced at regional level. It may not be what you want, but it's someone who's there. Or you start Grady, who has been playing very well on the wings of Cardiff. It's just... I'll be honest, it was just... That Italy game, I think, was a complete microcosm for everything that had been going wrong with that World Squad for this whole block. You don't need to talk about scrums, because I will. We're going to assume that James knows what he's talking about here now. Let's just be careful. James, tell us about scrummages. So you look at that front row on the weekend, right? You have Dylan Lewis, who notoriously wasn't the best scrummager when he was at the Blooms, right? He was known for his work rate around the field, his work over the ball. He was a fine, like, as in, average scrummager. He's had his moments, I'm thinking, back in South Africa last year, at the Tour of South Africa, showed up very well there. So, let's say you're working with, at best, the 6½ out of 10 play type, right? You've got Gareth Thomas, who is a good scrummager, but he's not a technically good scrummager. He's not a loose head that's going to get under you. He's probably not a loose head who's going to go through you. He's far more strict type thing, right? And then you have Elliot Dee in the middle, who I love Elliot Dee. I think he's a fantastic player. I think he's an underrated ball carrier. I think he's a great runner-up. I think he is very small, right? So, instantly, if you're saying out of that three, Gareth Thomas is the strongest there, you've got two-thirds of that front row is underpowered. You look at that Italian front row, that's pure, you know, that's Italian beef. That's the good stuff. That's a good ball of meat. That's the stuff cooked in red wine, right? So, instantly, if you're going to go off Hamp's comments and say, this is a pushing contest, then you're buggered. Now, what do you change now? Well, obviously, tight end is a problem for us. We haven't got tight dead, right? Really. And the only one you can think of is maybe Thomas Francis. But he's older. He's not coming back to Wales. So, instantly there, you take away Thomas Francis. Now, the glimpses I've seen of Harry O'Connor, he's a big lad, strong lad, technically sound, but he's raw, right? He's very raw. And the Test Arena is not the place to, you know, sharpen your tool belt. And I'm going to be nice to Scarlett's voice this week, because quite frankly, it's getting fucking boring there. I feel like you. And I said this to Hugh Griffin, right? Scarlett's with props, right? And it's the same with Cardiff. They've got all the talent there, but there's no development in terms of prop pathway. Prop pathways are very different to like a 10 or a center or a seven, right? Because it's a specialist position that requires a very special set of skills. So, you've got someone like Dylan Lewis, who's only now, what is he, 29? He's going to Harlequin's where he's working under Bob, right? It's not often they agree with Stephen Thomas from Wales Online, right? He put out an article saying, Nicky Smith was injured at the start of Six Nations, right? Fair enough, but he wasn't by the end. There is no shame in calling up Nicky Smith, even if it just shows up your scrum, right? And again, Kensington players, I'm sure he has, he's not going to put himself in the best light in terms of a scrimmage in this season, right? Thinking back to the Scarlett's Cardiff game at the park, really struggled there. You know, last year against Ospreay, he really struggled. So, why have him on the bench when you could just call up Nicky Smith with 46 caps to sit there, maybe come on with a penalty or two? Evan Lloyd, right? I said this last week, it's not Evan Lloyd's fault. He's very green. He's played 156 minutes of rugby, right? He's got to come on. There were two caps between the three front rowers on the weekend. Three, if you count uncapped one, Harry O'Connor has against the Barbarians. That is a joke, right? Now, I'm not saying Tom Boater is the answer. I'm not saying that calling up Sam Parry to sit on the bench instead of Evan Lloyd is the answer, right? What I'm saying is, you've got, the front row is not the place where you cut your teeth at international level when you're looning rugby, right? It's the exact same way that on the weekend when I played this 13 game, which is a mixture of vets and colts coming up to senior rugby, where we had an 18-year-old saying, literally a freshly turned 18-year-old hooker saying, can I play front row this game? I was like, right, when did you turn 18? Ah, last week. No, you're not doing that for your first game against a bunch of 45-year-old men. It's not the place to, you've got to train, you've got to do all this. There's two caps on that front row bench. That is despicable for me. The issue is, though, James, is at some point you have to develop, at some point everybody's got to start with zero caps and everybody's got to take it. And I think the issue is, is having three of them all in the same position at the same time. Yeah. And Gatlin can't turn around and say, well, you know, this is what I was handed. This is 10, 15 years' worth of his development, his control of the Welsh game. And we'll talk about this in a minute, the difference between Gatland and Hansen, yeah, is Gatland isn't involved in anything other than that 25, that 35 players, maybe 40 if he gets a few more in. I think that's where he's realising now that, you know, what you're saying is bang on right. And I said it to you last week, why have we got Kensington Fires there? Who I, you know, I've seen in the past. But he's a real decent player. But like you say, you're going from, I think he's played maybe two games in 40 minutes for the Scarlets over the season. And then you go right now, go and play international rugby. That's not what you need to do. And you would have thought that somebody like Gatlin would be able to say, actually, all right, I'll have him in training camp because he's part of the future, but he's in training camp. And then he goes back. And then next year, we'll know what he's doing when he's coming. So let me take you through something I've been noticing. So I've been going back and watching. And there is a point to this, right? I've been watching. It started off because we were covering Osprey versus Munster this week on the IRE. And I went back to the semi-final win in 2012, right? It was Paul James's last game at the time. So he had 100, whatever it was, 168 caps for Ospreys at the time. Let's call it that, right? Who was the next can off the rank was Ryan Beddington at the time, who was touted to be one of the next big crops in Wales. Never really worked. He got injured. From there, right, if you look at the – just loose ends, right? If you look at the developments of loose ends, just at the Ospreys, there was a conveyor belt because they were being brought through at the right time. OK, so you had, at one point, you had Duncan Jones, Paul James, Ryan Beddington, Nicky Smith and then Mark Thomas, right? That was like your conveyor belt of crops going through. Now, that tilted up then to Wales. And that's just the Ospreys now. You know, I'm thinking at the Scarlets, you had Samson Lee, right? You had, you know, there was a clear progression at the time of caps rolling in because all of a sudden, they were rolling into their first international camps. I remember Nicky Smith in his debut in 2014, 2015 season, by the time he went into that first international camp, he had hundreds of minutes at pro level. What we're seeing now is because of a lack of development. This comes from the regional... As much a regional fault as it is, lack of funding and lack of resources, is that players are being parachuted into Camp Netto like Evan Lloyd, like Alex Ryan, like Cam Winnett, like Mackenzie Martin, right? With no minutes because that's what we were forced to because of the... Because of the... When Gatlin left, he hadn't kept anyone new from the Golden Generation or the ones he had kept, you know, didn't work out. So, not be James Davis, never really worked at international level, had to retire due to injury. Various other players, Josh Turnbull, never really made it international level. Josh McLeod, never got captained at Gatlin, but was always injured. Olly Griffiths, Harrison Kennedy. Going to Pivard, then you had the Willy Nilly selection, right? And then this is... In Gatlin's face, he had to do it then. And unfortunately, the front row is the place where you're going to suffer the most. You can get away with it at back row, or you can get away with it really at tail, right? You can't get away with it at front row. You will... It pains me. That's my finished rant on the front row. I won't talk about it anymore. One thing, just before we move on, and because, you know, before the vessel starts bursting, if you look at the warm-ups, Gatlin was trying to do... So, you know, you'd have... Will Davis-King being put in with, you know, Gareth Thomas and Elliot Dee, right? It's not the strongest front row, but it's two experienced internationals and one newbie. Kemsley Matthias was with, like, Elias, so you've got a club team, and Thomas Francis. You know, they were trying to put these... You know, you're at least trying to have, like, an experienced player in that front row each time. I think the problem is, is, like, in Gatlin's head, Evan Lloyd wasn't supposed to play the Six Nations. But why, when Elias was in any doubt at all, did you not call up a Sam Parry, even if it was just to sit on that bench, that one game, just so that you've got someone who knows how to... Especially if you're going to decide that, the two players, the two younger props you have given Kat and the Knicks to, you're not going to bother... You know, you're going to leave them holding tackle bags for a week. You know, if you're going to bring on, like, you know, give a prop on his debut, don't put him next to two players who've got one cap each. Because the one prop, even though it's his second time being named on the bench for the Six Nations, you didn't use. So you didn't think it was quite ready for international level. Like, why... Just call a squad with four sets of front rows and say, these guys are just developmental. And, you know, you saw what happened to Archie Griffin. He basically got cropped in his first game. You know, that was his first, like, high-level intensity game, because all his games for Bath have been premiership cup level, which are a little... Until you get to the knockouts, they're a little bit lower standard, because it's meant to be a development competition, even though some teams take it a bit too seriously. Like, why... If you... You know, Gatland is supposedly one of the best man managers, and that's what makes him a good head coach. I think his man management of this squad has been fucking atrocious. I know we said we were going to pick on, you know, individuals, but ultimately, what the buck does stop with Gatland? Yeah. You know, he's picking a winger who's basically just about getting through. And, you know, he's basically using medieval leeches to keep his knees from exploding. It's infuriating. I get with some players, like Alex Mann and Cameron, at least they've been playing regularly week in, week out. But most of them just, you know, it's like, everyone shouldn't be anywhere near that squad. I thought it was a typo when he met Ed and Daniel, when they announced the squad in the first place. Ed and Daniel haven't had anything. I mean, yeah. Go on, Jamie, because I'm going to just carry on. Well, shall we talk about what Warren Gatland said after the game? Because that leads us on to... I haven't said a word. I'm the only one that actually watched the fucking game once. But I've watched it. No, sorry, Lee, go and have your thing and then we'll move on to Gatland. I do apologise. Go on, then. So, so my bit was that within the scrum, you know, the scrum was fucking shoddy, but I think that goes right the way through the pack. It isn't just the front row. The front row, you've got a relatively inexperienced second row until Rowlands comes on. Your back row isn't necessarily experienced either. You know, you've got Wainwright, who's played at six and a little bit at eight. But in terms of, you know, can you bring all of that together? You need somebody within that pack or at coaching level to bring that pack together. I just thought we found reverse gear really, really quickly. And, you know, what we haven't said so far is how well Italy played. You know, and I think... We should pay them credit, actually, shouldn't we? Absolute credit to them. But I think the difference with Italy was five years ago, six years ago, maybe, they started developing their under-18s and their under-20s and they put a lot of money into developing their under-18s, their under-20s. All of their under-20s went to to Benetton or Zebra, mainly to Benetton. You know, so they kept them within the system. They'd have a little spell across the border in France and they'd toughen them up. But they went, you know what? We're going to develop a side. We're not going to magic a side up. We're not going to put 15 players on the park today and expect miracles. We're going to develop a side. And the players that you see on that on that pitch for Italy now were the players that they'd been developing for the last five, ten years. You know, Stephen Varney that got released from the Scarlets, you know, he's a crummock boy, got released from the Scarlets. I think he went to someone in England. Gloucester? No, he went somewhere else and then he ended up at Gloucester, I think. I might be wrong, but I think he went, he played Division 2, so Championship side or whatever. I think he was at Halfbury, the actual side in Championship. That would make sense. Yeah. Yeah, he probably played Halfbury and then went to Gloucester. But, you know, Italy were kind of on that development. Right the way through. Soon as he, he kind of showed any sign of the fact that, okay, I might not be 100% committed for playing Worlds here, Italy were on it. And they've shown what it takes to actually develop a side. Whereas we're running around like a bunch of headless chickens trying to punch each other in the face in a dark room with no idea about who we're punching or what we're punching or how to punch. And having been through this, a couple of times. Since early 80s, I've been involved in rugby one way or another. Yeah, when my dad was playing. And you watch it on the telly and you see what's happening and all of that kind of stuff. And then you see it happening again and then you see it happening again. And we're just hell bent on ripping each other apart rather than taking a step back. And I think this comes back to communication from the WRU and from Gatland and from everyone else to say, OK, this is what we're going to do. Nobody within that Welsh set-up has said, you know what, this is what we're aiming for this season. We might have a problem here, we might have a problem there, but this is what we want to get out of this season. And as fans, this is what you can expect this season. And this is what we're doing to develop that. And he's come in with this big fucking halo. Look at me, I'm the saviour. That first Grand Slam he had was Hansen's Grand Slam. You know, all the work for that year had been done building up to it. Yeah? Yeah. I think you're thinking of the 2005 Grand Slam, the Reddit one. Sorry, yeah. Yeah, sorry, yeah. And then when we come into Gatland's one, it's kind of, he's sitting there with a really well-developed team. He said he wasn't Gareth Jenkins. No, but Gareth Jenkins, we go, but this is my point, yeah? We sit there and we go, oh, he was shit and he was shit and he was shit, yeah? And people go, you know, payback selected, 50-odd players and all that kind of stuff. Yeah? So, some of those players needed to be selected and have come through. People like Refel have come through, yeah, and have shown to be absolutely superb players, yeah? Costolo, he didn't have a good game on the weekend, but he's shown that he's perfectly capable, yeah? So, that's why I said, we're obsessed with, let's sit there and slag each other off instead of, let's sit back and go, right, what actually needs doing? Because there's a whole load of stuff in Welsh rugby that needs doing that isn't on that pitch on Saturday, but it's all the stuff that leads to that pitch. So, I thought, I tried to find some positives in that game on Saturday, I could not find any. No, it's tough, isn't it? Yeah. I was genuinely looking at stuff and going, what can we talk about in a positive light that went well, and there was nothing. I'll tell you what I found, we used five people in the line-up. Yeah, we had five catches in the line-up. So, great. Costolo caught a line-up. Yeah, how the fuck that happens, I don't know. Quick throw-in. I've had this argument with you every time. They cast a quick throw-in as a thing, as a line-up. But, you know, realistically, I caught a line-up, I never actually went in the line-up at all on the weekend. It was just the other team just really badly overthrew it. But, you know, we've developed four line-up jumpers. Adam Beard did nothing else around the rest of the pitch. He had five line-ups. He did, because I've checked the stats today, mate. He had a really, really good game. No, he exceeded the penalty. No, no. But, he was the lowest in terms of contact. He was the lowest in terms of metres beyond contact. He was the lowest in terms of metres made. He was the lowest in terms of carries. Literally, the only thing... Yeah, but, that's... Yeah, but when you're six foot eight... When you're six foot eight... I know. No. When you're six foot eight... When you're six foot eight, and 18 and a half, 19 stone, and you're second row, your job is to carry the ball into contact. Yeah? He passed the ball nine times. He took the ball into contact once. Yeah? His job as a second row should be to go into contact and suck in three or four players. He's a big boy. He's a heavy boy. He's a quick boy. Yeah? He needs to be doing that role. To turn round to him and say, be a distributor at 10, which is what he ended up being, he passed the ball nine times. Yeah? He passed the ball the same amount of times as the Italian had set off. Yeah? And that's when we... We're in that position where, actually, we need a bit of bulk. When Rolands came on, that's why it looked like Rolands was having a massive impact, because he was actually doing the job of a second row and taking it on. Right. Can I... Can I say you're both absolutely right in what you're saying? Okay? Lee is right in terms of saying that Adam Beard, for his size, should carry better. And Harley is right in saying that's not what Adam Beard is intended to do. That's not what Adam Beard is in the team for. Right? You are both absolutely right. And as someone... As the person who has literally watched Adam Beard since his debut, and probably watched every game that Adam Beard's played for the Ospreys, right? Adam Beard has never been a carrier. Right? He... He can carry. I've seen it. And he's a good... He hits lovely lines. Right? He runs the right angles. Right? He has never been a carrier. It's probably the weakest part of his game. He has always been a fantastic distributor of the ball. He has got one of the best passes and range of passing from a forward that I have seen. Right? He is always... Any team that has used him has used him to distribute the ball. If you look at any of the games Ospreys have won, lost, thrown, whatever. Right? He is the forward that passes the ball most. Right? He has got high offload stats. And he is also... You know... That's... He is always... He is a link player. Now, Lee, you are absolutely right that he should be carrying the ball more. He is 6'8". He weighs an ungodly amount. Right? He should carry more. But you are... You are asking a player to do something he has never done and step out of doing... No. Right? But that's kind of my... That's my point, James. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, no. I'm not... So, let me finish the bit that I was talking about. We are trying to find positivity. Yeah? Where the only positivity that you have got for Adam Beard is the line-out. But actually, you have also developed three other jumpers in that line-out. So, actually, we don't rely on Adam Beard in there. So, when Rolands comes in... Yeah? You have then got a ball carrier. And you look at the... I think, as a whole, our forwards made less than 70 metres with ball in hand. At international level, you cannot do that. That's like saying an outside half can kick three metres and have a good game. It's not. Yeah? We need to get back to what do second rows do? What do... What does the back row do? Yeah? And... With the best will in the world, we need somebody in there that's going to make big metres. But you're also harking back to roles that arguably don't exist on a rugby pitch anymore. Italy did it, mate. Italy did it. England did it. Ireland did it. Right, OK. But... There's no bulk in that back row either. But yet... So, you've devised a bulk. No, no, no. That's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is... What I'm saying is, right... Yeah. Actually, you've got Adam Beard. Right? He's a liner. Obviously, he's a player. He's a liner. He's nearly getting past the ball ten times, right? Then you've got... Who's another second row? David Jenkins. He only carried seven times. Didn't make many metres, but he hits rucks. Right? He hits rucks. He was our top tackle. He was... Sorry, no. He was one tackle behind referee. I think he was. One or two tackles. I'll tell you now. I have got stats here. But, yeah. So, that's it. He's Ian Gough from Porthpaw. Right? He's the Porthpaw Ian Gough. It's essentially what David Jenkins is. Then you've got... Right. Who are your back rowers? Right. So, if you play Raphael, obviously, Raphael's a fetcher. Yeah? There's no doubt in saying he's a fetcher. He's there to jackal the ball. Right? Who's the number eight? What's Wainwright? Wainwright is a main source of liner board. He's a carrier. Right? Wales have never... In the modern era, apart from Luke Charteris, Wales have never used their second rows as main source of liner board. Not in Gatlin's era, apart from Charteris, have Wales used second rows as their main source of liner board. Who was the main source of liner board for Wales? It was Justin Timberlake. Wainwright. Last weekend, it was Wainwright. I talk about... Yeah. What I don't want to do is go down, you know, like slagging people. I'm not slagging beard off. What I'm saying is, right, we need to look at why is this... Just take that game on Saturday, and strip away all the other bollocks. We still should have won that game on Saturday if we'd have played the right... managed the people correctly. Yeah? Wound them up, prepared them for that game properly, and put the right people on the par. And that's where Gatlin and his... his halo complex, where I can't do any wrong, is tripping us up at the minute. Yeah? And I think there's... The analogy I always use with my players and with committees and with clubs and all of that kind of stuff is it's a jigsaw. And everybody within that jigsaw needs to know where they are, what they're doing, and they need to know that overall picture. And at the minute, I don't think we've got an overall picture, and I don't know how each of those players fits into that jigsaw to make that picture. Okay? And that was my... I really looked to try and find some positives, and there weren't any. And that's where I'm struggling with it. But I want to move on from that for a second, because we've got to... Before we move on to the rest of it, I just want to talk about that head contact between Grady and the small Italian... Lorenzo Pani. That's the boy. So, Jamie, what did you make of that contact? Because it looked worse in slow motion when you see the water coming off and the sweat coming off. It looked horrendous. But what did you make of that? Well, just to say that on Saturday, I didn't see the game line, as I said, but I had a message from Progressive Rugby. They got in contact with me, and they said, hi, Jamie, throw away in a soap, you're well. And they told me this. So, Progressive Rugby were deeply disappointed with the decision not to remove either Lorenzo Pani or Mason Grady from the field as a precaution following a clash of heads in the 61st minute of the Six Nations fixture between Wales and Italy. Professor John Fairclough said the failure to remove either Lorenzo Pani or Mason Grady following a clear and obvious high-speed clash of heads again, causing to question the elite game's desire to cement the welfare of its players as its number one priority. We asked again that we learn the lessons of the past and the default position to be to err on the side of caution to mitigate risk to short and long-term brain health. Now, I watched that game back on Sunday, and I saw the incident. First of all, they reviewed it for foul play, and I think it was the right decision by the referee to class it as a rugby incident. Because they were reviewing it to see if Mason Grady had committed foul play, and I do agree, it was just one of those unfortunate incidents. However, I have to say, having seen the incident, I am really surprised that neither player went off the HIAs. Pani came off the worst of it, and he was in no man's land. He looked absolutely fucked. Yeah. I don't normally like questioning these decisions, because I'm not a healthcare professional, and I think a lot of people spout off about this, and they're not qualified to do so, so I'm very cautious about that. I'm not a healthcare professional, I don't know, but for me, and if Professor Buckbee and their professors say they should have gone off, they agree they should have gone off, and you saw the incident as well, Lee. Would you agree that they should have gone off HIAs? I was very surprised. Yeah, I mean, I'd have expected a HIA as a bare minimum. The thing is, this year they've trialled these gum shields, which they've been trialling in academies and in URC games for a couple of years now, and there's a little sensor inside these gum shields, and if you get anything, any head contact or whatever that makes the gum shield move at a certain rate, then it's a HIA, and there's alarms go off in some of these things that says, you know, we need to pull this player off for a HIA. But just looking at that, even at full speed, the guy is sparked on the floor. You know, it was a chip over the top, or it was a bouncing ball, or whatever it was, and both players were going for the ball, so I get, you know, it was a rugby incident. Yeah, I get that. That doesn't stop you caring for the player's welfare, and to not, you know, I think sometimes referees try to separate themselves too much. You've got two players on the floor, both sparked, you've got the Italian physio running onto the pitch, and the first thing he does is he goes into the neck brace position behind the player on the floor, so he's seen something. You know, you don't go into that position as your automatic first place, you know. He's seen something, and he's gone and there's something there which needs to be looked at. How did nobody else pick that up and say, do you know what, we've got at least one player sparked, another player groggy, let's get him off. I think it's disgraceful. I really, really do. Particularly with all the other stuff that's going on with head injuries, concussions, on the weekend we saw the first guy in Australia, the first rugby league player to die from head injuries. I forget what the condition's called, which probably isn't a good thing, but do you know what I mean? We're starting to see the effects of it now of guys that have been doing this for the last 10, 15, 20 odd years. These people are now in a position where they can't remember their kids' names, they can't remember where they live, they can't feed themselves and now they're dying and we're worried about, are Wales going to come back from this and put five points on them and we need to keep Grady on the pitch? It's not right. It's not right. Very surprising, I have to say. Can we talk about Ron Gatlin's comments after the game, because I think we do need to talk about this. Which ones? Do you want to start on the George North ones where he said he was better 10 years ago than he is now? Do you want to start on the ones after the game where he said I should resign or do you want to do the Scrum 5 ones where he said I'd never go and watch a regional game? Let's talk about what he said after the game at the press conference. Ron Gatlin revealed that he offered his resignation to the WRU CEO, big objective, okay? So Gatlin was asked by a journalist if he planned to stay in the job until the 2027 World Cup in Australia. Gatlin said this, yes, absolutely, I've made that commitment. I just said to Abi in the changing room, if you want me to resign, I'm quite happy to do that. He said, like hell, that's the last thing I want. That's what I'm really afraid of. But I can promise you we'll go away and review this really carefully. We've already done some review stuff and we'll work on areas that need to improve. I think this was really clever by Gatlin because what he's done there is kill the speculation dead straight away after the game because there would have been a lot of speculation in the media, online, with fans and pundits most of the time. First of all, he's killed it dead. He's controlling the narrative and this is something that he actually wrote about in his Daily Telegraph column. He's written about this throughout the Six Nations. He spoke about controlling the narrative. This is what Gatlin's doing now. He controls the narrative. He killed the speculation dead. Secondly, he knew full well, he put his resignation in, if it's believed to be true, he knew full well the WRU were never going to sack him. He knows that. He knows he's untouchable now because the WRU have paid a lot of money to bring Gatlin dead. The WRU last year paid £2 million in severance pay. Half of that went to Steve Phillips. There is no way they're going to pay Gatlin off now. The money isn't there. And also, Abby Tierney, she's only been in the job for less than three months. No chance was she going to make a huge decision like that to say to Gatlin, yes, actually, we will accept your resignation. So I thought, well, Gatlin's been very clever by doing that. Because he's controlling the narrative. He's killing the speculation dead. We saw it on Scrum 5 on Sunday night, yet again. Warren Gatlin, he went on it, to be fair. He fronted up. Lauren Jenkins asked him some difficult questions, but he was controlling the narrative, saying we're building for the next World Cup. We need time. We need patience. We've got youngsters. We're learning. He knows what he's doing, Gatlin. He's not dumb. But here's the question I got for you lads, and I asked this on my Dragonslayer pod last night. Should the WRU have accepted Gatlin's resignation? Do any of you actually think Abby Tierney should have made a big decision? Because Andrew Coombe said that she's already failed in her first big test. So do any of you think Abby Tierney should have said, yeah, okay, Warren, we'll accept your resignation. Or do you think it was right for Abby Tierney to reject it? Any of you can answer that. I think it'd be great for us to call his bluff. Because I don't think he had any intention of actually resigning. I think he's in control of the narrative. The big problem is who do you get in? That's the thing. The only coach available was probably Jamie Joseph. And do you think anyone really outtook... I mean, Warren Gatlin was a bit of an unknown apart from being hated in Ireland when he came in. It's not really anything to bring in. You know, are you going to promote one of the regional coaches? Dwayne Beale. I knew you'd say that. I mean, Diane, promote him out of the Catholic role because he won't be paying enough for that. Then you're going to have the same issue with Pivac. Or any time we've had a regional coach come in, the other three will go, well, he's just picking on his boys. We're not having that. And, you know, young left-hander, enough of a play with that. You know, unless even the Cardiff players want to play for him. Never mind the other regions. Gatlin knows he's got this year's grace. I think his bullshit before the tournament where he tried to do his usual thing of trying to big it, it just didn't work. I just don't think we've got structural cohesion going. You know, the reason why you can throw a novice ten into a system is if you've got a good system in place, that's why it's worked well with Ireland. Whereas we're basically trying to redo things from scratch, and I don't think the level of detail is there. And, again, frankly, yes, sure, we've had a shit Six Nations, but remember, that's only our second wooden spoon in Six Nations time. Arguably, we could and should have won the first two games. The France game was fine. I think that was an absolute selection bullseye on Gatlin. He should have put more power on the bench and not just, you know, inexperienced kids. But that's by the by. I think the proof of the pudding is that I think we need to... I almost feel like we need to forget Dean Wells at the moment. I know it's hard to say because it does generate the income. But until we sort out where the W's allocate money, I feel like Sam Warburton's book and Dave Buttress's point that have been on Twitter since have been far more important than this distraction that Dev Gatlin's thrown out. If anything, I feel like that's helping the WRU more than anything because what we should be focusing on is why are under-20s so chronically underpowered? Why are under-18s only able to get fluke wins against teams when all their best players are gone? You know, why is everyone so underplayed? If Gatlin doesn't have to do the coaching why isn't he more hands-on with it? One thing I would say is when they were asking about his... Do you go and watch the games? Well, they're going to be getting footage from all the cameras in those games and frankly you'll see far more from that footage than you will standing on the pitch. I don't care what you say. I'll go to the games and I'll watch stuff and think, what the fuck was that about? And then I have to go back and watch the games to find out. So, you know, I don't think... I think the only reason you want the UK coach they're showing up to face is because then it gives the impression oh, he's there and it's... I doubt there's any left-hand analysis going on. You know, he's freezing his arse off in finesse on a Friday night. You could do it in the middle of summer, mate. It's fucking freezing. The point of him going to games and going to training sessions and spending time... Yeah, but spending time... Even spending time at... just out in the regions, yeah, is he gets to talk to people and he gets to understand, you know, that's a two-way conversation going back and forth and that's what he misses when he's sat at home in New Zealand reviewing all the videos that have come in from the weekend. That's lovely, yeah, that's great. What he doesn't get is what it means to the fans that turn up every week, yeah. He doesn't... I went to see Scarlett's Osprey's game, Boxing Day, years and years and years ago and parked in the Morrison's car park, didn't get a fine for it which you would do now. Nobody parked there now you'd get a fine. But the car I followed behind had Howley and Jenkins. Yeah, so I parked. I said, oh, fuck this, I'm just going to go and park wherever they are. And I walked in with my boy and we, you know, if you've been to the stadium, you know the bit where you walk down. And I was quite pleasant to Howley at the time and I just had a chat with him. But do you know what they were both there talking to players, talking to fans? They were both, you know, just being polite and all of that kind of stuff, but they were there. They were showing their face and they were talking to people and they were like, you know, what are you expecting? All of that kind of stuff. You don't get that sat at home in New Zealand watching a video and that's some of the stuff that we've spent so long trying to take out of the game that we've gone too far. We've lost the passion. We've lost that bit that when it comes down to the nitty gritty, when it comes down to that game against Italy where you actually want a bit of gnarl and a bit of nastiness and you want five forwards to take it up and go, do you know what son? You're fucking having this. When you need those players to stand up, yeah, and you've just spent 10 years taking all the passion out of the game, there's no passion left. There's no buttons to press. There's nothing there that says, do you know what? You've heard the Phil Bennett speech about they've closed our minds and all this kind of stuff. There's none of that there. There's no buttons that we can press on those players now to get them up a notch on that game. That's what we're missing by him not being at games, by not being involved in the regions, by not being there on a day-to-day basis and he'll have a hard time a bit on Scrum 5 and then he fucks off home to New Zealand for six months and he'll come back to the old ones and then he'll pick it up again. To the original question then, should the Fibrio have accepted Gatwick's resignation? If he was Abbey Tyranny now and Gatwick comes to you and says I'm handing in my resignation, what would you do? No, of course you wouldn't. You'd be stupid to. There's no one else to get in. Who are you going to do? Are you going to promote from within? Who are your options? Rich Dwiffin? Fuck me. Rob Howley? It's not 2013. Jonathan Humphries? God no. Is Scott Johnson still around? I don't know. The only other names I've seen banded about are Steve Tandy and the last time Steve Tandy came to the Welsh team, he had a punch-up with Dan Biggar and Brendan Lennon and Walter Gates. I love Steve Tandy. He's far better suited as a defence coach. You're not getting Sean Edwards back and quite frankly I think his reputation is tarnished a bit after France this year. Jamie Joseph is the other one. He's got a job at the minute. He's DOR of the Highlanders on a fat contract with the NZRU. He ain't going anywhere. Who else are you going to get in? Richard Wigglesworth? Honestly, there's... For the... What is in the billy? It'd be a hipster's choice. The casual rugby fan, the Six Nations fan won't know and will write off instantly. Yeah. And if that person came in and was like, we're not going to win the Six Nations this year. We're very much in a transition year. This is not my squad. Then the fans return. Gatlar was very fortuitous in that 2008 Grand Slam. He inherited, let's be fair, an Ospreay squad that was galactico. 13 Ospreays at the top of their game. That essentially won him the Grand Slam or started off that process of beating England away. And then of course the fans... People forget that we were shit the next year. We were crap until 2012 really, where we had a good 2011 World Cup. We weren't great. You know, we forget that bit. There were still four years between 2008 and 2012 and then 2012 2013 happened. Absolutely, yeah, I'll give you that. 2015, good World Cup. And then 2019... But the casual rugby fan is going to forget that because Gatland is so established and won a Grand Slam in his first year. Eddie Jones, right? He got a bit of stick towards the end, still won the Grand Slam first year in England. Still a good coach. There is no one currently in world rugby that is without a job and be affordable. Like Harley said, who are you going to do? Promote Toby Boots, right? That's not the type of job Toby Boots would want. They went over, I said, by the mud. You're not going to get Dave Flanagan. You're not going to get Dwayne Peel or whoever it is, Albert Vanderburgh, who is a Scots forward coach. There is no one, right? So you'd be stupid and you'd be paying off an absurd amount of money to Gatland over a stupid life cycle. As much as I don't agree with Gatland's tactics or his coaching staff or his haircuts, he's not worth getting a result for. He's not worth it, are you? No, I agree. But I just think I'd be interested to know what Abbie Tierney thought about Gatland making those comments, because I read an article today, it's a really good opinion piece from Ben James in Wales Online, and he wrote that in a way now Gatland has undermined Abbie Tierney's authority a little bit by making that conversation public, and I just don't like some of the stuff that Gatland has said since he's come back to us. Now, I am supportive of Gatland. I don't hate Gatland, as one particular person on Twitter said. I am genuinely supportive of him. No, I genuinely am. But I have to say, I'm not happy with some of the stuff he said in the media, you know. But with Alex Mann under the bus like that, blaming the regions for a losing environment, you know, he's blamed the regions, saying they're not winning games and criticising their facilities. Well, it's ironic now, isn't it? Because they're coming from a losing environment, the regional players, into another losing environment. Gatland has created now a losing environment. You know, I do think he needs to show a little bit more tact and responsibility, but like I said, he's very clever. He is controlling a narrative, but I am supportive of Gatland, but is he above scrutiny? Absolutely not, and I think we can question some of the stuff he's been saying in the media and question his selections throughout this tournament. He hasn't got it right. He simply hasn't. So, if I was Abbie Tain, it's easy to talk in hindsight. I think he caught her off guard in all honesty at the end of that, and when you're head-on chill, the last thing you want to do is undermine the people that are around you, and somebody said, do you want me to resign? You go, what? If she'd have turned around and said, come and see me on Monday, we'll talk about it on Monday, that shifts the power back. It's like, right, okay, I'm not going to give you an answer now. We need to do a review, and then I'll tell you. If he resigns, there's no pay-up. Yeah. Well, no, if he resigns, that's his option to break his contract. Yeah, I suppose I'd be very surprised if anything was written into a contract that says, if you decide to resign, you'll get a severance pay. Severance pay tends to be, we don't want you here anymore, so here's a wad of cash, now fuck off. But... It will also be on you, but that sounds exactly the same as a contract. It should be written on the back of a fag pack, it can. But, yeah, you're right, it's power games. That's what it is, it's power games, and the one thing we don't need right now is another revisit of the late 80s, early 90s. We don't need that, we don't need to have who's in charge and who's got the biggest balls. It just won't do anybody any good, and it'll take far too long to get out the other side of it. So, yeah, in hindsight, you'd have said, come see me Monday, but I think you caught her off guard, but I agree, I don't like the tone of this particular coaching spell, if you like. Well, we all need to work together, don't we? Everybody needs to be on the same page, and I just think some of the stuff that Gatlin has said doesn't help. But also, as well, at what point does the Welsh rugby public, particularly, you know, the Fairweather fans, we know what they're like, when does their patience begin to run out with Gatlin? Because at the moment, he's got a bit of time, like I said, he's controlling the narrative, he's saying we're a young team, they've asked people out, they were very supportive of Gatlin. But if we keep losing like this, at what point does the patience start to whiff in the Welsh rugby public? That's my question. And I just wonder, will Gatlin get to the next World Cup? Will there come a point where the WRU have to say, okay, we need to start doing something about this now? I'm just interested to see at what point do the Welsh rugby public start to turn on Gatlin? Because it hasn't quite happened yet. There's been criticism, but when that Welsh rugby public starts to turn, and the interest dies, and the attendances start to fall off, that'll be very interesting, that'll really test the WRU's resolve on that. And I think that's when it hits, when they can't sell tickets for six nations. When Wales, New Zealand and the Autumn Internationals, this will be the last year we have Autumn Internationals, it all changes next year, doesn't it? So, you know, when you get to the Autumn Internationals and you can't sell out the Autumn Internationals, then, and ultimately, that's the way the professional game is, money talks. So, that's where we are. Right. Is there anything else in that Wales-Italy game? I think we'll get to the end of the season, we'll have to do a couple of sessions on what's wrong with Welsh rugby at the end of the season. Not necessarily Wales-Italy, but who do you think over the six nations, who do you think Wales' best player is, and who do you think their most underrated player has been? So, right, I think in terms of best, blacked out best has been Tommy Raphel. I don't think he's put... and second to that would be Aaron Wainwright. Yeah, I'd agree with that. It's a toss-up between those two, but it's Aaron Wainwright. I just think Wainwright, sorry, Raphael's just been that bit more consistent in his specialist area especially. And I think underrated, I do think Gareth Thomas. He came in late and he's just been, his effort levels, his work rate, it's just ridiculous. He was Wales' top carrier on the weekend. You know, and the tackles he puts in, you know, Scrum's not been great, but that's not been down to him. You try and go over his Willy Antonio, you know. I think he's been Wales' most underrated performer by far. Go on, Jamie. I'd say you can win it. I know his last game in a half, I'd say he was a bit iffy, but I thought he came to his class for a bit demandable. I'd like to add to best Wales players. I know people have had issues, might have issues with Scurridon, but I mean that's not all, again similar to Gareth Thomas, that's not all him. But I think to me the mark of how important he is to Wales is just how bad things go when he's not on the pitch. We lose a carrier attack, we lose a tackle, we lose a slowdown ball. I know Raphael's been brilliant but he can't do it all. The line-up goes wonky. Admittedly, Evan Lloyd on Saturday, I thought did quite well in the second cap in the line-up. I don't think it has to be too much, to be fair. But yeah, I thought he had a really good tournament. Rio Dyer, I think as well, he's been getting a lot of shit on social medias and frankly it's undeserved. I think he's been brilliant. I think he's so much better than he was this time last year. He's running with a bit more... Some of his carriers against France were getting us across the game because he was just, you know, force is mass times acceleration. He hasn't quite got the mass but he's sure as fucking hell has acceleration and that's what's been getting us in. You know, Jitti spent the whole of the game moaning about no-one's accelerating to contact but you give the ball to Dyer and you go through. We're not going through one of my other problems with the Welsh club. Whenever we did make a line-break, no-one was there. You have Rio Dyer and Thomas Williams make a line-break and then there was no-one and then we got turned over and then we were back down the half. That's by the by. Yeah, I thought... Yeah, see. Again, I think Raphael, Wayne Wright, Eric D. Probably the best three in the tournament. Lazy. Other than George here and us. I'd go with Wayne Wright as being my outstanding player for the Six Nations just because for a number eight, he's not the bulky ball carrier but what he does with his feet and with his hands, he does... I'd say if you put him up there against Faletau, he more than holds his own. I think we found our replacement for Faletau. I would like to see a bigger, bulkier runner either side of him but I think he's been superb. I don't think he's put a foot wrong even with that hair and moustache. I think the only thing he's put wrong is that moustache, if I'm honest, but other than that... Oh, the moustache is great. I don't know, it's just with that hair, that mop of hair, it just looks weird. But also, I wouldn't tell him in person. I wouldn't, no. I'd say James did that and then I'd run. He'd fold him like your furniture. So, underrated... God. Yeah, I'd say Alex Manchett because he's so small for the position that he needs to play. He's so small, he's more than held his own. He hasn't dominated anybody but, yeah, he's another two years and, yeah, he'll absolutely be there. In all honesty, nobody in that whole Six Nations can put their hand up and say, you know, I've had a fantastic Six Nations. Everyone's had an off game and I think that's been the issue. We've had too many. You can cope with maybe one, maybe two of the key players having off days, but when five or six of them are having off days, it's just not going to go well. So, yeah, they're my two. Jamie? Yeah, I think, best player, he's a toss of a coin between the Feather and Wainwright. I think both have been really, really good. Yeah, I agree with Harley. I think most underrated, Elliot Deane. He never lets Wales down, whether he's on the bench, whether he starts. I think he's been really good throughout this tournament and it's been nice to see him starting games. Yes, he doesn't have the bulk of Ryan Elias, I get that, but he always hits his targets. Whatever anyone says about Elliot Deane, he always hits his targets. His line-out always functions well when he starts. And he does the spinny thing. And he does the spinny thing on his finger. It's very clever. It's very good. I like the spinny thing. Ryan Elias is like a famous for doing the spinny thing and just drop the ball, I think. Absolutely. To his brain power. In terms of most... Well, I'm making this up now because this just wasn't a question. I'd say Real Dyer is Wales' most improved player, because I think he's really come on leaps and bounds now in this tournament. Look, don't get me wrong, yes, there were some defensive lapses on the weekend. He can be called out defence, but that boy works his socks off. You all know that. He is so, so good now, Rio, and he's getting better and better. He has established himself as a Test match winner, and I'm really pleased to see that. Those would be my choices. But also, a special mention for Cameron. He wasn't very good against France. I thought he was nervy, but I think he's got a lot of potential, and he is going to get better and better. Yeah, Lee is our Alex man. He is too lightweight at this level. Gatland is right. He needs to put on some more weight and add a bit of bulk, but he's been really, really impressive. So, yeah, they were positive to come out of this tournament. Yeah, exactly, as well. It'll take time. But they have put some positive individual performances in this tournament at least. One last one. What's Edmund's favourite Wales try in the tournament? Even though it almost wasn't, and he did the wrong thing, but he scored, I thought the Joe Roberts one against France was my absolute favourite. Okay, I'm going to agree with that one, though. Yeah, I'm going to agree with Arlie. He always butchers the line-out. I can't remember. I can't remember them through my head and go, okay, which one was which. So, yeah, I'll just agree with Arlie. I'm going to say Alex man for England. Thomas Williams made that break. That was my thing there. I like the Ospreys' top 20 score and missed the penalty, Troy. England with Asian decent routes conceding the yellow card so that Wales could score. He did his best, bless him, but even, you know, Wales were so badly front. I like that break a lot, though. No, but seriously, I think that Alex man, Troy, against England. Interesting to see it come in at all. Yeah, he has surprised me. I still stand by my comments. I said to Arlie at the start of the season, he needs for me a season at regional level. But, luckily, I'm glad he's got his caps. There's not many Aberdare boys. in the regions at the moment, other than when the future plays at six. And I don't think we can sway him. Right, gents, we're going to have to leave the Six Nations there for another year, but I guess we'll come back to at the end of the season, we'll come back and do a full deep dive, as is a fashionable term now, into where Welsh rugby is. We're going to have to quickly rip through this in terms of URC is back this weekend. We have four games. We've got Glasgow against Carleth, we've got Ospreys against Munster, we've got Scarleth against Benetton, and we've got Dragons against the Bulls. So, what we'll do is you review your own game and then give me your predictions for your own game and everything else, okay? So, Harley, your assessment of Glasgow versus Carleth and your predictions, if you will, please. So, let's be fair, Glasgow are probably going to get a fair few players back from Scotland squad. Carleth will probably get, if we're lucky, Teddy Williams and Ted Davies, if they haven't been fucked in training. It's going to be fucking awful. It's one of the teams going for the title against one of the teams trying to knock me in the bottom four. I can't say anything. I'm being very optimistic when I say Glasgow by 15. Glasgow by 15. Okay. And Ospreys Munster? Prediction? No, you can do your review of that. I'm just going Harley, because normally Harley fills all his in, because he's a good boy, but he forgot his laptop this week, so he couldn't fill them all in, so he's going to have to do them now. So, Ospreys Munster. Just your prediction. Don't give me the whole game thing. Just give me your prediction. Munster by three. Munster by three. Okay. And Scarlet's Benetton. Is it Scarlet's home game? Scarlet's at home. Or Benetton by one, then. Okay. And Dragon's Balls. Dragons are at home. Balls by 12. Okay. So, James, Ospreys Munster. So, we do have, the press conference was today, so we do actually have some news. I haven't watched the full thing, but it's come out while we've been on air. So, the main things that come out from that, I understand. Max Nagy in here is back. So, Ospreys held a way up to Bristol for a training session in a week, just like Harlequin's and Ricardes. And we sort of knew from that that Sutton and Nagy were back. It's going to be a tough one because I haven't seen who Munster are getting back. Because obviously their players will all be on the piss. So, it's fair to say that Peter Armani, Crowley, Calvin Nash, maybe Connor Murray won't be at Swans.com on Friday. But they're still champions, and they're still champions for a reason. I'm going to go... Ospreys by seven. That's going to change on Wednesday. Actually, it's not, because we're reviewing the best Ospreys in Munster on Wednesday. So, I can't say about Ospreys, but 28 million on Wednesday evening. Just for your predictions, Glasgow Cardiff. Glasgow by eight. Benetton at Scarlett. Benetton by four. Benetton by four. Bowles at Dragons. Bowles by nine wickets. Nine wickets. It's going to be a fucking cricket score. I'll go Bowles by 16. Bowles by 16. Bowles by 16. Okay, Jamie, so you can start with Dragons v Bowles. Yeah, it's a really tough game, isn't it? I remember the last time Bowles came to Ronnie Parade, and I could not get over how big their forwards were. They've got a massive... When you see them in the flesh as well, see them in the stands, they are huge. They're a lot of people's favourites to win for the URC. We really struggled against this scrum. I remember that when they came to Ronnie Parade, our scrum just got taken to the cleaners. We could not cope with the power, and I'm afraid there'll be a similar story on Saturday night. Now, we do have a lot of injuries. We have 19 players unavailable. I'm hoping now, with the break, that we've got some players back. The injury list may be slightly so. If we really get the likes of Harrison Keddie back or Nick Griffiths, Lloyd Fairbrother has been missed in the scrum, but it's very difficult to see Dragons getting anything from this because I just don't see how they can cope with the power. If we get any parity up front, there may be, we can get a tried bonus point like they did out in Elster, which is a really good effort, but again, we had no scrum, really, no platform. I think it's going to be a difficult night for the Dragons. In terms of predictions, I said on the Dragonslayer podcast, I predicted Bulls by 14. I think they'll win by at least two scores, but it could be more, but I'm going to say Bulls by 14. Bulls by 14. Okay. Let's go up then. So, prediction of Scarlett's Benetton? I got a feeling Scarlett's would win this, but I don't know why. Honestly, I don't know why, but I just got a feeling they'll edge this one. How many Italian internationals are Benetton going to get back? That's what I said, Benetton by four, not Benetton by four. Then you've got the international quality second choice player. I know, indeed, but if Benetton have their internationals back, that's going to strengthen them even more, isn't it? I still got a feeling Scarlett's going to win. I'm going to say Scarlett's by two. Two. Okay. Koki, Ospreys Munster? I'm going to say Ospreys by five. I think they'll have just enough to get the job done. Okay, Koki. And Cardiff, Glasgow? Very tough place to go, Scotstoun. Yeah, Cardiff got a lot of players that are available over there. I don't see the likes of Mann, Winnett and etcetera coming back, so I think Glasgow by eight. Koki? Far too generous, Jamie. Maybe, I don't know, but yeah, it's a tough place to go, Scotstoun, isn't it? Very, very difficult. I think Glasgow could be. It could be. Yeah. Okay. So, I'll do Scarlett's, Benetton then. Yeah, quite a few players back from injury, apparently. But we'll find out later in the week. Everything has been really, really quiet in terms of social media and here's what we're doing and all that kind of stuff, so it's hard to know what's been going on. I mean, it's finger in the air times. If it clicks, you know, the defence was starting to click in patches. If we string that together for 80 minutes instead of 60, then it will go well and the attack will be the attack. You know, even when we're getting a paste in, when we get the ball, we can attack. So, it's whether that defensive system is starting to twig and whether we can stop them doing anything. If we can stop them, then I'm comfortable that we'll put some tries on them. But it's whether it works or not. So, I'm going to go Scarlett's by one. What a shock! Who saw that coming? So, Glasgow Cardiff. I'm going to go Glasgow by 10. Even with the amount of players that they've got not coming back. No, I think you underrate yourself, Harley. I think, you know, the potential is there. I've watched this play. No, I think you've got potential to turn them over. It doesn't take much to have an off game. But Glasgow have been firing on all cylinders, even without their best players so far this season. So, yeah, that could be a good one. Ospreay's Munster. See, I think this is going to be the closest game of the weekend. I think it'll go on a penalty either way. So, I'm going to go Ospreay's by one on that one. And then, yeah, Dragons v Bulls. Yeah, I'm going to struggle to call a Dragons on that one. Really? You're going to surprise me? I'm going to wind you up and try to stir it for you. Yeah, I'm going to go Bulls by 15 on that one. I think that's going to be a real difficult night for you. But it's a losing bonus point at the end of the season. Might make all the difference on that. Lovely jubbly. Right. Okay, so we will obviously go into the games a bit more on our own pod. So, Jamie, you've done that already with the Dragons pod. The Dragons lair is available already for Dragons fans to listen to. So, Scarlet will also be out same time this one. Winner TARDIS recording this week, Harley? We still haven't sorted that out because I can't do Wednesday and Cowan can't do Thursday and they're the only two nights we're available. So, it could be something we need to find a ringer to get in. Interesting. James might have to put his blue shirt on. He might have to kind of like pretend to have his little bobble hat and his little... You don't want me on the TARDIS pod because we understand that. We're proud. I will get fucking banged. I'll be honest. I'd much rather just record an episode on my own. Talking to the wall. If you want balance, you invite Yestim on. If you want shit-o's in, you invite me on. For one deep rugby analysis, I'd invite Will Owen on. Well, stay tuned. I hear he's coming on another podcast, which is just pure nepotism, you ask me. Yeah, so we're tapping into... I think I can announce this now. I might not be able to. But we have Will Owen on the pod on Wednesday. So, brother of Robbie, for something that's happening on Wednesday that we'll be able to go into a lot more detail about. And then hopefully we'll talk about that Wednesday game as well because it's been... I've watched it about three times since last week. I'm just absolutely loving it. So, if you want some good Khan for Twiley chat. But also, I've been watching... We've been itching to get back into the proper rugby, especially after the George North episode last week, which is going well. So go check out the George North episode if you want a good little tribute to George North that isn't some poetry. Which, the poetry was very good. But if you want some instead talking about how bad Pro 14 highlights were back in the day, then you can have that instead. OK. So, if we're still plugging podcasts, because everyone kept nagging us to get someone from the Cardiff board on to do a podcast. Barely anyone wanted to ask any questions about it when we got on the board, but please feel free to listen to it. David has come back on after the next board meeting to give us any updates on things. Yeah, in about five minutes. So we need to wrap it up. So, Harley, we were going to do the best 15 first names as surnames for last... So we started that last Friday and we thought, OK, well this will go well, this will be quite a good one. By lunchtime we had a Welsh one and one for each of the regions as well. Jamie the Dragon's one was supplied by the Dragons, but I did have to pull them up because they're Jamie Roberts with an S on the end. I know. Well, fair play for them to get involved. They didn't have to, did they? There's an official media account for getting involved. Fair play to them. That's a good one. Yeah, and if they're about to report on me, it's like, I've been a bit sneaked in the office and we're just desperate for someone to come through to be honest. So, Harley, what will this Friday... The plan is to kind of announce what that best 15 would have been, but we've run out of time. So what would be this Friday's best 15, mate? This is one I want people, if they can be asked, to share with their friends who don't support one of the Welsh regions in New York. Because for this one, I'd like you to pick the 15 not in your 15. So, 15 players from one of the other 15 teams in the URC. So, James can't select Rhys Henry. Jamie Carter, Neil Brown. I was going to be extra mean and say that the player couldn't have ever played for your team, but you know. If James was going to pick a Cardiff player, I'm sure he's going to pick one who's also played for the Ospreys. No, I thought you could do it fairly. No. I will current your team so they should be registered as a player for one of these teams. Oh, well, Scarlet's is back then, because they've got... No one in Wales. There's no Welsh. There's no Welsh players. I'll have Sam Costello from the Scarlet's. That all goes well together. It'd be Joe Roberts. I think everyone's Scarlet is Joe Roberts. Can I just make a team from Cardiff and Dragons players? I thought the Cardiff and Dragons team just from Cardiff and Dragons players. There are 16 teams and 15 players, so one from each team, yeah? That's what we're doing. Just one from... Yeah, okay. Manning will be the bot from the Storvers. Gezzy from Zebra. You can't just select 15 balls players. You've got to have one from each team. Right, okay. Yeah. Right, okay. Thinking caps on. Gents, thank you very much for this evening. As always, no more Six Nations for a while, so we can just get back to... Women's Six Nations is on. Oh, yes. We're not going to be anywhere near as awful. We're actually quite decent now in the Women's Six Nations. We will cover Women's Six Nations next week as we did last year. We had a couple of women guests on last year, didn't we? Tatiata, I think, joined us and the Irish. Whose name I can't remember. Chrissie Haney. Yes. So we will do our best on that, gents. And on that note, I shall bid you farewell. Enjoy your rugby. See you next week. All the best. Have a good one. Bye, everybody. Thank you for listening to the Rap Podcast. We hope you enjoyed listening as much as we enjoyed recording it. Please do rate us and tell your friends. It really helps us to grow and get better. We'll be back next week with more of the same and until then, enjoy your rugby. Bye.