Another Harlequins crisis and Venter bottles the media

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1:36Hello, this is The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. Welcome along. Coming up today, we'll look back on round two of The Prem. Gloucester, Bristol and Bath are flying, Sale got a much needed win, and Harlequins are still Harlequins. Plus, Saracens' director of rugby, Brendan Venter, became a wine consultant for about a day. Does the whole episode reveal a bigger issue? We will get into it. So, alongside myself, Alfie Reynolds today, for the first time in our new studio, Will Kelleher. Hi, Will. Hello, this is fun, isn't it? Glicks and glam of the new studio, enjoying it?

2:12I remember our Ruck forefathers would record in hotel rooms with a dictaphone. This is quite different, isn't it? One dictaphone just between four of them. Yeah, just like on the Lions tour or something, stick a dictaphone in the middle, have a chat, send it back to the office. Jobs are good. Do you think they would appreciate the new studio there? Or is it like older fans say it was better in my day? Traditionists have got to enjoy the modernisation of the Ruck, haven't they? It's all part of it. We're expanding like the Prem. Exactly. So Will's with us and so are once again back alongside me, Elgin Olderman and Charlie Morgan.

2:42All right, boys?

2:43Elgan: I've been upgraded to P1 on the grid. I'm not accustomed to sitting in this seat, but we'll see how it goes. Elgin was loitering, wasn't he, on the fringes and Will sat there and he thought, well, here we go, happy days, better seat. Is it the F1? You're going to need a software update halfway through, like the Grand Prix on Sunday. I don't need a cooling vest in here. I'm OK. How were your weekends, boys? Out and about. Elgin, you told us last week you were singing at Old Deer Park, so I'd imagine that was where you were. I was, yeah, it was a good fact. London Wales 10, Dorking 33, So a big win for the away contingent, but a good day full of Bonhomie down at Aldea Park.

3:14Charlie: And Charlie, you were at Sari Sale on Sunday? I was at Stone X, saw a kind of response. It was the theme, wasn't it, really? Slides that had been humiliated last season by certain opponents getting one back over those opponents. And Sale were, I mean, it was messy for a lot of that game. But they came through in what was a really important result for probably the rest of their season. And Bristol beating Northampton, the other one of those, where they got absolutely hammered at Franklin's Gardens last year and they beat Northampton at Ashton Gate. Will, Friday night for you? Yeah, I enjoyed it.

3:43Bath Exeter. Bath Exeter was great fun. I was thinking of the games that you went to and Quinns will get on to. London's burning because Cornish Pirates beat Ealing as well. So all the London teams are done, aren't they? But yeah, I did Bath Exeter on Friday. Really enjoyed it. It was a bit of like classic Prem fodder, I thought, where the two punchy teams are not quite as good as they could be later in the year, maybe, but it was good fun and we'll get on to it. but Rob Baxter, very Rob Baxter afterwards, kind of being very chilled, despite the fact that they've lost two in a row. So I enjoyed it.

4:15Wreck's always nicer than Friday night, isn't it? It's a good venue on Friday night. Eerily similar as well, wasn't it? The halftime score was exactly the same as the semi-final that they played at the back end of last season. So look, as you guys have teed up, there's plenty for us to get into in terms of the second round of the Prem. I guess we're looking at it. It's only two rounds, right? So it's easy to overreact, but it is two games now. You are starting to get a feel maybe of where teams are at this early part of the campaign. So my first question for all of you is, is it too early for Exeter and Quinns, and we're going to come on to Quinns, to panic?

4:45And I imagine might be separate answers for each of those. What do you reckon?

4:48Charlie: Separate answers. Exeter, absolutely, it is too early and they won't be panicking, not least because they've got guys like Dallas McLeod, who is the chief replacement that they've got in for Lennon Ketau to come back. They had more go right for them against Bath. than I thought they did against Gloucester. And they just, I've seen actually clips of them, Zaf Jenkins speaking afterwards, where he said, look, that's more like us and, you know, don't panic and we'll be fine sort of thing. Harlequins, notwithstanding the fact that they've got one of their better players back in George Furbank, they're still missing Alex Donbrandt and will be for the most of the season.

5:24Charlie: They're still waiting on Marcus Smith and Finn Baxter to come back. Just the manner of that defeat was pretty gruesome, wasn't it? Gloucester are a proper side this year. They've got a nice balance to them. But to go down 48-0, to fire so few shots, to be so kind of self-destructive with the penalty count, to be so kind of flimsy at the scrum, doesn't bode well for the season ahead. And then they look around the league and they see players that have left fairly recently, Will Joseph, Nathan Djiboulou, Will Trenum on the other side as well as Will Joseph this week. that's just disheartening for supporters they will get better as those guys come back because they are so influential and because the margins are fine in this league but jeez they need momentum quickly and they're now going to Sale who looked resurgent against Saracens I thought it was one of the more predictable things at the start of the season that Quinns would be poor well that was exactly the point I was going to put to you guys right two weeks into the season and we're here again and I think you're right Will a lot of people a lot of Quinns fans would have predicted this at the start of the season, would have predicted this last year when their global search for a new head coach found the guy that was already in the building.

6:37Yeah, and their consultant who's there at the moment. There's been a week of good and bad on technical advisors, let's say. We'll get on to the wine consultant in a bit. But Robbie Deans is currently at Quinn's. I know there were some clever social media jokes that were saying, well, he'll wake up to that result later. But he is actually in the building at the moment. But I went and saw Quinns in pre-season and he had had his feet under the table for a few weeks and was quite light on detail as to what they were actually doing and what was going to improve there, which was a slightly worrying sign.

7:09I feel like Rob Hunter, the forwards coach, is going to be a good signing there. He's a proven winner. But they just need some cattle. They've got nothing up front. And not having Finn Baxter as well is obviously a nightmare already. but they bring on Chandler Cunningham South, who makes a couple of showy hits, but there's nothing there. And you looked at their recruitment over the summer. Well, what I find interesting is that, so you take Gloucester, who they showed them up completely on Saturday, didn't they? And Gloucester are a team who basically finished last season in about January. They wrote it off and thought, right, screw this.

7:47Let's get some proper recruits in. They signed Dowie Lake. They signed Jack Morgan as two big ones. John Klein, another one. They knew they were losing Thomas Williams, but they brought Dan Robson back. They planned for this season six months ago. And I remember us going down the Ralf a couple of weeks ago, and they were going, man, it feels like we've been waiting to start the season for about six months. Whereas Quinn's, we were up there in January after the big game, took months to work out their plan for this season and get the new leadership in place. And then didn't recruit enough people because they'd missed the cycle.

8:20And so that's why I think it was predictable that they were going to struggle this year. And the one person they did predict, it's like watching Arsenal in the 2010s where they keep signing attacking midfielders when they're desperate for a defence. And I remember people saying about Arsenal at the time, it's like buying a new TV when your house doesn't have a roof. That's what feels like the George Furbank signing has been for Quinn. It's like the last thing they needed was a fullback. They don't have a front five. Elgin's got a good stat about scrum penalties, but that was a disaster, Elgin, wasn't it, for them on Saturday?

8:51Elgan: Yeah, I looked just before the Saracen sale game, we were looking at some of the data provided by Oval and that said that there had been 10 scrum penalties in the league thus far this season and the Harlequins were responsible for five of them. And this is a team that when they're good, their scrum is brilliant. The times they've won the league, the two times in the last 15, 20 years of when they've had the best scrum in the league. And I think they know that they've got to build that back up, but that's going to take a long time. They don't have a chance to recruit anyone now. Baxter's going to come back, but he can't solve everything.

9:20But as we've said before, rebuilds don't have to take five years all the time. You can improve quicker than Harlequins are. And as you've pointed out, so many of the things that we thought was probably wrong with them, it's turning out, I'll say it again, it's two games, you never know. But we didn't expect Quinns to have a great season and they've certainly had a really demoralising start to the season. And one thing we always praise about Quinns, a bit like Bath, when they were propping up the bottom of the table, is people still turned out of the wreck. Quinns have a very loyal fan base, but they must be looking at the first two weeks of the season and thinking, we're really going to turn out for this for the rest of the campaign?

9:54And we mentioned stats. So Jamie Lyle tweeted out some of these stats from the game at King's Home at the weekend. I think they're from Oval Insights. One ruck in the home 22, 322 entries in total, 49 missed tackles, five scrum penalties, 17 penalties in total. No starting forward carried more than four times. Collectively, they carried just 20 times for a total of 33 metres. You're kind of grimacing there, Charlie. It's not great.

10:22Charlie: Yeah, to step back from that game a second, I think a really, I don't think it's overlooked actually, but I think a thing that you have to bear in mind, successful sides convert their academy products into regular first team players and that gives you a base and then you can recruit on top of that. For one reason or another, Quinns haven't kept together a core, but they do now have players kind of ready to come through, or exciting young players, but those players need time and they need probably a season, a season and a half to establish themselves. Bryn Bradley did last year at Inside Centre, but if you look around the rest of the squad, Will Hobson, loose head prop, Elliot Williams is going to be an excellent second row.

11:02Charlie: They've got Zach Carr, who England are excited about as an athletic number eight. They've got... Seb Driscoll's another one they're excited about. They've got loads of these players, but I felt that this season might be particularly painful because although they might be better than they were last season, they are not going to there's a danger that they might not develop as quickly as a side like Gloucester and Newcastle who have recruited more heavily and it just might be that this is a season of consolidation and it might be about them keeping their nerve to get better in the future and it might be that they have to go through some horribly painful days in the interim while sides that are ahead of them for now impose their game on them so So, yeah, that's the difficulty.

11:46Charlie: But those stats are just really horrible. To have 20 carries in an entire game? Sorry, 20 metres of carry and 30-odd carries in the whole game? Yeah, it was 20 carries. I think amongst their forwards, 20 carries for a total of 33 metres. That's insane. That's a side that have had their platform totally taken away, which is what Gloucester can do with how they've bolstered their pack. And then, as I say, Gloucester are a proper side. They've got to have real balance about how they play now because the back line that had lit up the season in previous seasons, it feels like they're now bolstered by a pack that is tough, multifaceted.

12:30Charlie: And it's a sort of sign of how far Quinns have got to go to meet that standard. A few points off the back of that. One thing that you wrote, Charlie, ahead of the Sarri sale game was that the floor of the Prem is coming up, which is a problem for Quinns because their floor looks like it's getting even lower if that's possible. While, I mean, it was so stark because them and Gloucester were similarly bad last season and Gloucester have just put 48 on them and not conceded a point. So that was galling. And I think there's then a saving grace for Quinns that the fact there's no relegation because I know it's dramatic because it's two games in, but there doesn't seem to be huge chinks of light for them where you look at Newcastle and you go, there's a lot more about them this season for sure.

13:15Like really testing Tigers, making that a tough place to go. And I know the game I was at the week before, they lost by 33, but they showed some brilliant stuff in attack in that game. And now they've married it with a bit of decent defense in the Tigers game. You think, well, there's something there. And then there's maybe what we can bring the positivity out is with Gloucester. And you think, as we went down there and said, how good would it be if Gloucester's jumping, the shed's bouncing, they've got all these Welsh boys playing really well and Chris Boyd and George Skivington and Don Wardock and those guys are seemingly doing a great job there.

13:49James Lightfoot-Brown, the attack coach as well.

13:51Charlie: Just a real quick point to make on Quinn's. This was a week, this result happened at the end of the week where we saw James Chisholm retire through injury, just hasn't been able to get back from an Achilles injury he suffered. And that guy, fantastic player, potentially underrated player, but also a cultural figurehead or could have been a cultural figurehead for this Harlequins side moving forward. And that shows sometimes that's unlucky when you lose a player that you've developed through your academy to become a first-team regular. Sometimes that can just be unfortunate the way that they fall away.

14:24Charlie: But it just does show what Harlequins are missing, more of those sorts of figures.

14:29Elgan: They're crying out for a big game, really, aren't we? Because we've seen them in the past turn it up when it's Saracens or the big stadium or win against Bristol in Cardiff like they did last season. but obviously you can't wait for that to come around because then you just miss so much of the season but you look at the breakdown of this season where you've got these three rounds before it breaks for Europe and teams can use that slight change to take stock of what's gone before so if it doesn't improve next weekend then you'd hope they use the fortnight after that to sort of take stock of where they are maybe use a new competition to get some new life into the building as well

15:00Charlie: I think I'm right in thinking they've got Van in the Challenge Cup which would be quite refreshing you would have thought and then they've got Saracens at home so those are two I wouldn't write off, because, geez, this league has made a buffoon of me already this season, but I wouldn't write off Sail Away because then things could happen. But those two games feel really big. But Sail Away is the worst game for Quinns because Sail Away is a place that they get off the bus and think it's too cold and just want to go home. Like, they have done that in years gone by. And the better Quinns teams, there have been a few over the years, turn up there and all fiery and feisty.

15:32But the worst of Harlequins is they're soft and they don't fancy it. And we see that far too often. Like another good Elgin stat was that Quinns have been responsible for the two most recent nillings in the Prem. And the other one was at Sandy Park last year. Another place where they get off the bus, go, looks a bit tough today and just don't turn up. And that is totally unacceptable. And the sort of thing that I think Rob Hunter will beat out of them because they have to. You can't be a team like that in the league anymore. So I think Sale is going to be a huge test for them because you think if they go there and they get panned again by a Sale team who are going to be coming confident, especially with their defence, then that's a worry.

16:17Well, I tell you what, Will, you may have just skipped ahead to a question I was going to ask to end the segment, but we'll wait and see. Hold that thought. Shall we talk a little bit about Sale? Charlie, you saw them against Saracens. I mean, boy, did they need that, didn't they, after the opening weekend defeat at home to Bristol?

16:30Charlie: Yeah, I mean, that played into the context of going to a side. They played Saracens twice last year and shipped 150 points. Noah Kalori not playing, potentially a bit of a boost for them having scored. He scored 10 tries against them last season and was involved, because I remember it was at the first game at the Stoenex. He also was responsible for a penalty try because he was taken out in the dead ball area. So 11 tries he was basically responsible against one team, which is mental. but no they were from the to credit Chris Jones actually who was commentating for BBC 5 Live or doing reporting he was behind me and within honestly within about 10 minutes of the game starting he said say I'm going to win this they just look they just look there was a togetherness tenacity about them that had been missing probably from that Bristol game they looked a little bit flat in that Bristol game at home which was unusual but their big test match big dogs were on it Tom Curry was excellent Courtney Laws was excellent excellent.

17:28Charlie: Joe Marchant really good in the outside channels. It was maybe, and I don't think SAIL fans will thank me for this, it was maybe a bit of a kind of, we'll take this week and maybe park what we're doing stylistically for the rest of the season, when it looks like they're going to try and hold on to the ball a little bit more. This was, and geez, it was shaped by the fact that they were down 13 during the first half and had to problem solve. But Joe Carpenter, excellent at fullback as well. But as well as those kind of established names, Nathan Djiboulou was awesome. Asher Apokou-Fajora started the season really, really well.

18:01Charlie: Ben Bamba has as well. I was going to ask you about Djiboulou because he was front and centre at the start of your match report and we have this big question, don't we, with England at the moment and looking ahead to the next World Cup of we know we've got Jamie George, although he's getting older. We know we've got Luke Cowan-Dickey. Who is the next guy? And we've seen Theo Dan, Gabriel Ogre at Bristol is someone I think the fans really want to see more of, but we don't really see it in England's set-up. Nathan Djiboulou, do you think this could be his kind of breakthrough year, which is what Alex Anderson was chatting about after?

18:29Charlie: So he was really eye-catching in an England under-20 side that also featured a poke of a jaw. And he's immensely explosive. He's a good jack-ler. He's an awesome carrier. He's a very kind of robust tackler as well. The big question mark with the young hookers at the minute is throwing consistency. And he really showed that against Saracens as well as bringing that punch to the kind of, to the game line. Alex Sanson has been a huge, huge fan and recruited him from Harlequin saying, you know, this guy's going to be a Test Match regular because of these athletic, we're going to sort of refine his other qualities and make him into sort of a real Test Match operator.

19:11Charlie: He looked like one of those at the weekend. It was really interesting to hear. Sanson made a few points on him. and one that test matches require a different level of physicality and explosiveness from players in Djiboulou has that naturally. He said that the throwing was on point, though, and he said that that was potentially to do with the fact that, A, Sayle have changed their systems a little bit over preseason, made them a little bit less complicated. And he made a really interesting point that Courtney Laws came off on the hour mark when the game was still very much in the balance. I remember thinking that's a big call because Courtney Laws had just made it.

19:47Charlie: I think he just made a Jackal turnover and he's the kind of player who will grow in the back end of those games. But he said he brought Courtney Laws off because Ben Bamber, who is the chief line-out caller, was getting across to the coaches. Look, I feel like we've got the set piece figured out here. So please, can I stay on? And they made that call, which is really interesting, really kind of decisive play from Suns that helped Djiboulou. But yeah, he's got all the tools. but as you suggest, you've always got to say who's going to drop out of the England reckoning. But you would say in this case, the third hooker spot has just been unclear.

20:19Charlie: Are they backing Theodan? I'm not entirely sure they are. The other point to make is third hookers aren't needed a lot at World Cups, but I think it's worth exploring the ceiling that someone like Djiboulou could bring to the England side for sure in that position. Hot take, Alfie Barbary in the retro 150th under Osprey shirt looks like Dennis the Menace. I thought you were about to say, should Alfie Barberi move back to hooker? No, no, no. It was a completely nonsense point. No. So he shaved his... Well, he cut his sort of sideshow bob locks off from the Bath era. It's a down-to-business haircut, isn't it?

20:56But he did look a lot like Dennis the Menace. And I almost thought, is he trying to look like Dennis the Menace? Because he shaved the sides off so it was even more bulbous. And he was wearing the stripe, the hoops. That is a point that I've come totally unprepared to answer on the pod. I've thrown you there. Look at your running order now, mate.

21:14Charlie: Do you think he knows who Dennis the Menace is? Is that more... Yeah, that's true. Death of a monoculture.

21:20Elgan: No one knows Dennis the Menace anymore. When did he stop? We need to look this up after the episodes. Certainly not. Is Dennis the Menace... Well, you've got young kids. Certainly not during the episode. Do your kids watch Dennis the Menace or is it all bluey? I was all bluey, yeah. Dennis the Menace, what happened? Your investigation. What happens, Dennis the Menace, email us, therackatthetimes.co.uk. Before we break, lads, can't believe it's taken us this long to mention Bristol 41, Northampton 26. But there we go. I mean, I look at Bristol, their starts of season, a way to sail home to Northampton.

21:51Loads of people I think would have predicted them to be 0 from 2 after those games.

21:57Elgan: Brilliant start to the season for the Bears, Elgin. And what is noticeable about it all is that it's been very different to what we've seen for them over the past two and a bit seasons. since they, you know, to use a cricket analogy, they basically said, right, we've been so bad, let's just go basball and just throw the ball around and, you know, consequences be damned to the point where we had those games where they kicked twice in 80 minutes and we've had them topping off loading stats and it's almost worked and it hasn't quite worked. So you're now looking at it at a stage where they're sort of refining that and maybe that's where, you know, glory lies.

22:32Elgan: We mentioned a few oval stats. The one that jumped out to me from Bristol this season is they've made six offloads in two games. Over the past two seasons, they've averaged more than 13 in a single game. They haven't successfully run the ball out of their own 22 once, whereas that's just what they always used to do. So they've been winning very clinically these last two games. You know, Lewis Rees-Amitt, there's been a lot of talk about whether he should be a fullback or should be on the wing. Fullback is the sexier option because you think he'll get the ball 70 metres out. He'll make these lovely breaks.

23:03Elgan: It doesn't happen like that very often. In the last two rounds, we've had him getting the ball 10 metres out from the try line on the right wing, the type of place where he never gets the ball as a fullback. He basically hardly ever receives the ball within 40 metres of the try line when he plays fullback. But he's scored four tries in two rounds and created a penalty try just from his speed, 10, 20 metres out, rounding the only defender that's there. We saw him completely do George Hendy for speed when so many wings would have been caught and bundled into touch. So thus far, the signs for Bristol, very positive about how, like I say, yeah, they've found just a more refined way of playing rugby at the moment.

23:42Charlie: Their defence has been really, and it feels weird to say that in a game that's featured, what, 67 points or whatever, but their defence was the kind of winning of that game, really, and stood up in really big moments. Their big players, Pedro Rubiolo, Fitz Harding, again, really, really good. Harry Randall, underrated defender. And a really quick point on Lewis Ruzamit at wing rather than fullback. I thought that was interesting because Saints picked Tommy Freeman at fullback. And I thought he found it really difficult to get into the game, actually. And only when he moved to the right wing at the end of that game.

24:15Charlie: We've seen it with England as well, where he's moved to 13, Tommy Freeman. And as soon as he's almost released and gone back to the right wing, where maybe paradoxically he has more freedom to roam and pop up on the shoulders of distributors and close to the ruck and then he could also hold his width. I just think that's a position that you shouldn't move some players from and maybe Rhys Sammet is in the same category there.

24:42Elgan: In the case of Rhys Sammet, when he's on the right wing, he just owns the right wing. You look at a heat map of what he does and he just gets the ball on the right almost nowhere else but he's got the speeds to make it count. We think of one of his maybe breakthrough performances, which was one of those COVID games at Murrayfield when he scored those two tries against Scotland. Just give him the ball 40 metres out on the right wing and he makes things happen. Yeah, it's been a brilliant couple of rounds for Lewis Rees-Samit, hasn't it? I suppose last season, you look back now, don't you? And I know he came back and said that he was ready and rearing and was going to step back in.

25:13But there's a bit of a transition coming back from the NFL. And I think at first I didn't mind the full-back experiment because I thought Lewis Rees-Samit is so explosive. Let's see if getting his hands on the ball more at fullback would be a good thing. But I'm not sure he has the kicking game or the distribution. I think the wing is the best place for him. Picking up on the defensive point, Charlie, Greg emailed us, the ruck at the times.co.uk a couple of weeks ago. And he said, I'm keen to get your thoughts on where rush defense is in the game. This is actually in relation to some of the international matches.

25:40So there might be two different points between Prem and internationals here. But he says in the five most recent tests, South Africa have conceded 153 points in five matches, an average of 30 per game. Prior to that, they had two games against Argentina and Wales where it was 10 and 0. But leading into that, they had Scotland 28 and England 21 in terms of points conceded. And yesterday, South Africa missed 23 tackles. This is in relation to their game against the Wallabies in Perth. So his question was, I would love your thoughts on whether rush defence, what has won South Africa two World Cups, is now becoming a liability, which might be, there might be two separate points there between defence at international level and what we're seeing in the Prem.

26:18But what do you reckon?

26:18Charlie: I think you can't ignore the context of it does seem like there has been an overall shift towards attack and cleaning up the breakdown from referees. And with South Africa specifically, you've got to think this is a side that, as I've said before, the whole context of this World Cup cycle is going to be defined by who can knock the Springboks off their perch. Right. So the Springboks defensive system is going to be analysed to the nth degree by everybody. The Wallabies specifically would have had that whole greatest rivalry series to look at it. And the Wallabies are outstanding at something that we know is effective against rush defences, which is that sort of lead man attack with sort of a player going flat to the line with a hard runner off them and then two players arcing around normally sort of the fly half and the blindside wing.

27:09Charlie: And that was what we saw the All Blacks implement really effectively as well. So I don't know. There are more than, as ever with the sport, there are different approaches work. And actually, we've also seen sort of South Africa themselves, I thought in the, was it the Soweto test, they sort of tempered their line speed a little bit and let things play out in front of them. So what I think we'll see more of is defences sort of maybe tailoring approach to periods in the game, to areas on the field. I think defences are certainly going to have to be more malleable with the way they think over the course of a game.

27:48Charlie: I think one approach of being super aggressive is probably liable to be picked off. Different level, but back in the club game, Bath's defence created them tries on Friday. And actually, it often wasn't just the thing that scored them the try, it was the one before it. So the one I'm thinking of is Cam Redpath's very tight interception actually came from Oli Lawrence stopping Will Butt on the gain line, the tackle before, which meant that Harvey Skinner has to throw the flat pass, not a sort of, he doesn't have as much space to throw a nicer pass and therefore got nicked off him by Redpath. And actually, good point that Rob Baxter made afterwards.

28:27He was like, that was quite a weird intercept. You don't usually see them happen that tight, but it was because of Bath's rush defence. but I found that game particularly which I haven't done too much on which is fine is that quite curious because we've been looking I think in the early rounds to go is defence coming back a bit because last season it got a bit mental with 85 19s and 94 33s and I was at most of them going it's hard to get excited about some of these games but you can kind of see breadcrumbs of defence coming back into the game. And then it's ironic because then you see quite a defensive game on Sunday and go, this is so hard to watch.

29:06Oh, my God. Is that because it was defensive or because the quality wasn't there? Yeah, I think you're right. It wasn't because it was a defensive game. I think it was just riddled with... TMO interventions as well. And actually, I was blessed because I was driving back from Bath on Sunday and missed the first half of the Sarri's game. so I'd recorded it and had it on fast forward for lots of it and was going, oh, I'll watch the rugby content and then go through the breaks. And I just hardly watched anything in the first half. It was weird. And Sail will go home with that being like fantastic, perfect game for us.

29:39We were super physical and we won brilliant stuff. But oddly, having prayed for a bit more defending, it was like, oh, but not like that. Not that sort of defending. I don't want it like that. It was tough to love that one. I know what you mean. Very quickly, so next week, which is round three, we've then got this weird mini break for one round of the Champions Cup before we come back. But round three of the Prem, Leicester, Gloucester, Northampton Bath, Saracens, Bristol, Sale, Quinns and Exeter, Newcastle. Who has the most on the line? If we're looking at this as the first block of the season in the way that coaches say, you've got this block, you've got that block.

30:12If we've got these three games in the Champions Cup, I don't know if they are blocking up like that, but who has the most on the line having played two games going into the third round? Who have Exeter got? Exeter, Newcastle, home. Sandy Park.

30:26Charlie: They'll want to get off the mark, obviously. I think if Quinns were at home, you would want them to put in a performance, but that trip's really horrible. I think it'll be quite a good gauge. We could pick anyone and say, that's how up in the air it feels at the minute. But I think maybe Gloucester, how Gloucester look in that game away from home. That's the one I'm intrigued by. Quite a good gauge of their progress. It's a funny one, the Prem now, isn't it? When it's 10 teams, and we've only had a couple of versions of it being 10. He was trying to work out the rhythm of it still. But I was just looking back through some old tables and it's quite a basic metric to look at.

31:03But you basically can't lose more than about six games in the Prem and make the top four based off the 10-team Prems that we've seen. I think there's been one where Tigers lost eight and still made the top four, but that was probably quite a rare one where lots of teams were very close to each other and it was all bonus pointy. So if you're going into October, November, December, having lost three or four already, your season's kind of over if you're one of those teams that have got designs on the top four. So I do think Exeter probably will win on Sunday. But if they're 0 from three, that's quite worrying because you basically then have to win 10 or 12 of the remaining games to even give yourselves a chance of making the top four.

31:47So it's weird how it's so tight now that the early season stuff does really define where you can start planning for in the running, doesn't it?

31:57Elgan: Elgin? Well, I'm going to be at Fortress Masioli, as no one refers to Welford Road, on a Friday night for that Leicester-Gloucester game, which will be intriguing for all manner of reasons. Like we say, how long-lasting is this Gloucester resurgence? you know, go and win away at Welford Road, which they have done in recent years. I think they did it two years ago. So it's not completely alien to them. You've also got the all-Welsh Leicester back row against the two Welshmen of Gloucester. I was saying to one of my Welsh press colleagues that it's more sense going there than a URC game. Sometimes I almost have an English correspondent.

32:32Elgan: There's so many Welshmen in the Prem these days. I think the other one is Northampton Bath on Saturday will be a very interesting game just because we've seen Northampton sort of stutter with an away performance, but doing it at their home ground would be a real test for what Bath, at the DPD Stadium, at Franklin's Gardens, to see what Bath can do after another strong start to season. They are traditionally, in this era, the teams we think of as one and two. So that'll be a good Saturday afternoon. I'm going to mess with your running order again now. I can see you stressing. Go on, what have you got?

33:06We were talking about this off-air, and I think it's a fun point for our emails or for our socials. Would a Welsh Prem Select 15 beat a Welsh Select URC team? I think the answer is yes. So the Welsh players playing in the Prem against the Welsh players playing in the URC. Can we do a quick rattle of the 15, Elgin?

33:24Elgan: And the team I'm selecting is Nicky Smith or Rhys Carey at Loosehead Prop, Derry Lake – it's going to be called Derry Lakes 15, by the way, that's what I'm calling it – at Hooker, Archer Griffin at Tight Head Prop, Davy Jenkins and Chris Chunza in the second row. We're going to have Jack Morgan and Tommy Raffel. I'm going for two sevens in the back row with Aaron Wainwright at eight. Thomas Williams at nine. We're going to have James Williams, who is uncapped, but Bristol at ten. We're going to have Nick Tompkins and... Bryn Bradley. Bryn Bradley in the centre is another uncapped. We'll have Louis Roussama on the right wing.

33:55Elgan: I think Josh Hathaway at full back I'll go for. And... Who am I picking on the left wing? Max Llewellyn. I'm picking Max Llewellyn on the left wing. That's the team I'm going for with a 30-second selection meeting. And you've still got Thomas Francis on the bench. Kane James on the bench. Kane James on the bench. So does that team... Olly Cracknell on the bench as well. Olly Cracknell on the bench. Aaron Wayne, right? I'll be at number eight. He's at number eight. Okay, well, people can email us to say, does that team beat the Welsh players in the URC? But it does go to show, doesn't it, the strength of the Welsh players currently playing in the Prem?

34:28So happy days. So we'll take a quick break before Will throws in any other curveballs. I don't mind that one. That was better than Sonic, well, not Sonic the Hedgehog. Dennis the Menace. Dennis the Menace. That was a stronger one. Other kids' cartoons are available. Up next, we're talking Saracens. Brendan Venter, for a brief period last week, had a new job title, head of rugby culture and wine consultant. We'll chat about it next.

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36:17OK, so welcome back. Last week, you will have seen it reported, but the Saracens Director of Rugby, Brendan Venter, had his job title changed to Head of Rugby Culture and Wine Consultant, essentially to avoid doing media duties. His title has since been changed again to Head of Culture and Technical Director. It's still going to be the head coach, Joe Shaw, that does the pre - and post-match media duties. Venter will do some. We saw him speak to TNT over the weekend. There's quite a lot to unpack here. We're going to let Will kind of fire off in a minute and the rest of us will try and rein him in.

36:52He's been bubbling up for about a week to talk about this. There is a serious point underneath this. Can I start us off by saying objectively it is a little bit funny or have we all totally lost any sense of humour?

37:05Charlie: I think it's a shame. I think it's a shame because I really enjoy listening to Brendan Venter talk about rugby. and yeah I think the wine sort of thing to kind of get us off the scent as it were was alright but then I think that was in the context of us going oh please can we just talk to Brendan Venture so yeah I don't know maybe a sense of humour on our side maybe that's funny in your own bubble I think and then when you suddenly reveal your sense of humour to the public and everyone goes oh it's just not that entertaining and like it is obviously such a joke to them because if people noticed when he finally appeared and spoke in quite a random interview with David Flatman.

37:45It wasn't Flats' fault at all. It was just quite an odd scene. Didn't really work, did it, to be honest. Brendan Venter's wearing a T-shirt from a South African vineyard that makes Chenin Blanc. I don't know if it's any good. And then changed out of that T-shirt and wore a Castor, Sarri's Issue T-shirt for the game. And when it was brought up by David Flatman, he's got his little smirk on being like, oh, my very funny joke about the wine. You just think, come on, mate. Yeah, so as I say, it probably unearths a more serious point. Just to be absolutely clear, for me, two things were true at once.

38:21Childishly, I found it kind of amusing, but I also think at the same time, it is childish, it is a poor look on Saracens, and it kind of shouts of someone who thinks they're almost above the rules and don't want to speak to the media. So, Will, in your opinion, what is the more serious point at the heart of this? I know there's quite a few angles you want to go down. And I think, actually, a lot of this is not about Brendan Venter appearing, talking to us or not. I think there's a wider point to be made here, which I think provides a lot of context, I hope, from us as the journalists rugby pod to the general public about Saracens and their media operation, which for a long time has been quite a frustrating thing to deal with and as it will be a lot to talk about but let's kick off with I guess a framing of it through TNT Sports.

39:15So TNT pay 40 million pounds a year for the Prem contract so it's not really done like this but if you were to divide that up that's four million pounds per club and they're looking for value for money to be a good partner with the Prem. They're as tight as ever with the Prem. But essentially, they're getting their pound of flesh out of most of the clubs, but not Saracens at all, because there's not really any meaningful media engagement that they give them. So when they're going to renegotiate their contract in 2030-31, they're going to look at that sort of thing and go, is it really worth us £40 million a year if one-tenth of the organisation isn't bothered about engaging with us?

39:55I think that's an interesting place to start because it leads off on other bits of the conversation. But for me, it's not about whether I want to see Brendan Venter or not. It's about a club which has not just refused to engage with the media, but has had no strategy to engage with the media for quite a long time, which is worrying, I think. To come back on your point then, do you think TNT would be influenced by that? Would they say, we still get to speak to Joe Shaw every week, who actually I think is a really engaging, interesting talker when it comes to chatting about rugby. And they'll be more interested in what the product looks like from a TNT point of view, on the pitch.

40:37And I do think that the on-field product eventually gets affected by the off-field product. And this is where we open up a lot more. So I think it's fine creating a kind of siege mentality thing. Plenty of clubs, international sides do that with us. like locking yourselves away for rugby performance reason. But nowadays, there's no opt-out option with the media anymore. We should explain what his reasons were as well for not wanting to speak to the media. Yeah, so one of the things, because Charlie, you reported about this originally, didn't you?

41:07Charlie: It seems like he took the job from Mark McCall in, it seems like quite unexpected circumstances. At the time, one of the kind of provisos of him taking the job was that he wasn't going to do any media. At that point, I felt that if Saracens were sort of joined up about this, then they could have announced him as a technical advisor in the same way that Chris Boyd and Deans are at their respective clubs. But they didn't. It was, you know, Brendan Vence coming back as a director of rugby. And at that case, we're not actually privy to the exact wording of the Prem regulations, but it's the figurehead of the club who is the one picking the team who has to do the media.

41:51Charlie: the media duties or the bulk of them. And that's irrespective of job title. And that's kind of apparent in the way that it's George Skivington, who's a head coach at Goster, who does it. It's Rob Baxter, who does it at Exeter. He's a director of rugby. So it's not on job title. It's on whether you are the guy picking the team, the head guy. And Brendan Venter quite clearly is that and was promoted as such by Saracen's channels. So it says to me, you know, he doesn't want to do it because he's, I think we understand also that the kind of, he's not, he's had punishments in the past for sort of...

42:27Criticising referees.

42:29Charlie: Criticising referees and things like that. And he's wary of that. He's wary of becoming sort of the main show when actually he doesn't, he would much prefer to be in the background and that sort of thing. I mean, I find, sorry to interrupt, but I find that difficult to understand that a 56-year-old man can't control his emotions after a match. Like we all know that everyone lives and dies by results, but this guy's a very deeply intelligent man. He's a doctor, he's a GP, and he's telling the world that he can't control what might come out of his mouth after a rugby game. I find that quite a lame excuse, to be honest.

43:05Charlie: The big sort of, yeah, the kind of paradox for me a little bit is that if Saracens are now saying that Joe Shaw is the top of this coaching structure and therefore should be the one to do all the interviews. I think they could have avoided the whole pre-season. Brendan Venter keynote speeches to the squad. There was a video that went out on Saracen's channels last week after the win at Leicester where he's the one in the huddle with Mario Otoji clearly addressing the players. So he clearly is the main man. And maybe that's just what jars a little bit to me. And the way our colleague Alex had put it is this is the guy who picks the team.

43:41In a five-hour selection meeting, he reveals.

43:44Charlie: But he should be the one sort of answering questions about how that team has performed and why it's that team going out to play and that sort of thing. You feel a little bit denied of those things, it would be the thing I'd say. So I know that there was a fairly similar, less public situation with Bath when Jürgen van Graan joined, where he's called the head of rugby. Yeah. Which is another new title that doesn't, it sort of all means the same thing really to laymen on the outside. and he would often put Richard Blaze up for certain media opportunities. And I know for a fact that the Prem said, no, it should be you.

44:19And he was quite innocently unaware of the regs that said he should do it. And very young Van Graan was like, well, if that's what it says in the regulations, I will do it by the book and I'll do it. And he does it every week. And sometimes it's less interesting than others, but that's not the point. It's like, this is your way of telling your story to the world, which is, I think, what brings us back to the wider point about Saracens. And the general public doesn't deal with all these 10 clubs every week, and we do. So we can kind of shed a bit of light here. And I find it interesting, particularly with Saracen, because you speak to people who know what they're talking about, about rugby markets and getting under the fingernails of the local area.

44:59They always say, people like Mark Evans would say, that North and East London is a really tough, tough market to crack with so much football knocking around Tottenham and Arsenal on the back door and everything else. And Saracens are a team that have consistently not sold out their home games. They didn't when they were the dominant team in Europe and had half the Lions team, half the England team, and they don't now. There were hundreds and maybe thousands of empty seats on Sunday to the point where Nick Mullins, as I said, TNT and the Prem are very tight and he chose on the commentary to highlight there were a lot of empty seats.

45:34I know that some of those tickets were available for£18 behind the goal and they're not selling them. And I know in their accounts last year, Saracen's lost 8.9 million pounds, which is one and a half million up from last season. And in that they blamed a disjointed rugby calendar for that. And I would say, how about marketing and promoting your club? And I know they've done it through the original club of North London, but I also know the fact that we have dealt with a number of communications and media managers there who've been not empowered to do their job properly. They're young, they're always bloats, They're young lads who are trying their damnedest and they have not been given their heads to do what they want there.

46:16And I also know that after the Spurs game last year, which upped their average attendance to 12 ,000 or so last year, they made the head of ticketing redundant and the head of communications redundant. They're now advertising for both of those jobs. The head of comms who replaced the one that was made redundant during last season has already left. And this is a club that says they treat their, everyone in the building exceptionally well. That's been something that they've rammed down everyone's throats for 15 years. And I would say that that seems to apply to some people in the building and not all.

46:49And if they want to fill their stadium and if they want people to be dragged with big butterfly nets to go and watch them, they need to tell their story. They need to drag people towards them. They need to engage. And they haven't done for a long time. And they can learn a lot. They can learn a lot from Northampton, Bristol, or sale who do a great job.

47:08Elgan: You mentioned those clubs there. I was going to say that there is a large element of this story that is quite inside baseball because I'm sure a lot of fans, obviously they don't know who's talking on a Wednesday. They're maybe not fussed about who's talking on a Saturday or Sunday. But it does show, it gives a sort of a tenor or a vibe to a club, what they're like, that can rub off on fans as well as journalists, whatever. And you mentioned those clubs there. The fact that the mid-game interview, which is not always the most illuminating thing, but it's a thing that happens during Prem Rugby Games.

47:41Elgan: And you'll see Rob Baxter do it. You'll see Pat Lamb do it. You'll see Sam Vestian filled out and kind of joking with each other when they do it. Van Grant does it at Bath. Van Grant. You see Alexandersson always doing it as well. So I think there is an element of it that is a bit of, you know, we're obviously in the weeds of it probably a bit more than most fans. But I do think that even fans will notice the vibe that a club is giving out by these sorts of decisions based off who you see talking when games are happening and things like that. And I guess part of the reason that we dedicate such a chunk to it on the pod being the Journalist Rugby podcast is you're always looking at the sport, aren't you?

48:19and something that I felt last week when this news came out and you saw the back and forth and his job title changing is ultimately rugby isn't a big enough sport to have, let's be honest, the main guy at Saratons, who we know is the main guy this season, just not do media. Rugby isn't big enough. Everyone is fighting for space below football. Football engulfs everything. And every other sport is trying to get attention. and rugby isn't big enough, I think, for one of the 10 major clubs in the country in England to not be speaking to the media. And then it also jarred so much with what we saw Bristol announce last week in that they're doing this NFL-style post-match where every player, every coach is available, basically a giant mix zone kind of outside the changing room, but you can go and speak to everyone.

49:10I thought it was quite good timing for, I don't think it was deliberate, but it was quite good timing from Bristol to announce that whilst all this Sarri stuff was going on. That was great. And you've reminded me of the last week was an international football break. And what was the one story that dominated the rugby headlines? Saracens not doing media. And what a shocking look that is for rugby as a niche sport. It just makes it look so pathetic, so childish, so small, so amateur. And there's only 10 teams in the league. This is one of the most successful sides in English rugby. and essentially they're showing to the world that they have disdain for them and they can't be bothered.

49:51And that's to their own fans as well. And I know they do fan events and I know that Brenda Venter was talking to fans last week, but I really pray that when they employ these new people in these new roles, in ticketing role, comms role, they give them scope because we were joking about Dennis Amenis earlier. It's their 150th anniversary season. So where's the positive press about that? Where are they banging down our doors going like, come and do the ruck down at Saracens. Let's do a thing with the Brackens through the ages, for example. Let's show off the history of this club. I find it baffling that basically they're not even trying.

50:27And there has been a cycle of CEOs there for the last seven or eight years. And look, I fully understand why Saracens fans kind of revel in it and like it, because they feel, and the club feels, that they were completely nobbled by everyone in the salary cap saga. and I'm sure Man City will get to that point when we get out of the current bit where it's all happening but that's a long time ago now and a lot of that was of their own making and at the time they also didn't empower media managers to do their job they brought in a PR firm who started banning journalists from the training ground so like these guys used to be one of the best clubs to deal with they really did in the early 2010s, mid 2010s when they were dominant Ed Griffiths was in charge there it was pretty much an open door policy you get the Vunopolos, Farrell, Jamie, George, Etoji most weeks, and then they have just pulled back entirely.

51:19And I said earlier, there's no opt-out option anymore. And what I meant by that is by 29.30, we're having an expanded prem. And in that intervening period, everyone is going to have metrics that they have to meet on and off the field in order to justify their place in the league. And I'm not saying Saracens is going to get relegated because they don't do enough media, but it's all part of it. All of this about your brand, your marketing, how you project yourselves is part of it and does affect the on-field because if there's no one there to watch it, if Saracens fall and they don't make a sound, did it even happen?

51:51That is going to be the problem. We find this in Wales. If the stadium doesn't fill out because no one's interested, the game dies over that. And it's not that existential here, but we should nip this in the bud and it's important.

52:04Elgan: I really liked their kit, by the way. and I think they should do it every week. And I think there should be a World Rugby regulation that every team does the kit from 30 years ago just on a cycle from here to eternity because nostalgia sells. I like that. See, the Prem did a cool thing in the launch day where they got all the players wearing old versions of the shirt. That was great. They should have a retro round where they play in their old kits, shouldn't they? And they can have current sponsors on it to keep them happy. They have to be baggy as well and with the collar. One thing I have talked about, I won't name the person but with a famous former England player is retro round should be a thing but we should go full 90s where she would have one camera no sighting commissioner oh god cotton jerseys and it's like the purge one week you just get away with whatever and no one's banned the team selections

52:53Charlie: would change wouldn't they yeah yeah all Indian forces are in journalists as well so everyone's like smoking and drinking in the press box and in suits rugby special

53:01Elgan: where we only see the second half live as well Missed the first half in time. John Inverdale's in a cotton Nisha jersey or something, yeah. Well, there we go. Plenty of ideas. Plenty of ideas. Look, many of you, I'm sure, will have your own opinion on the whole Saracen thing and everything we've touched upon. The email address, if you want to get in touch, is theruckatthetimes.co.uk. Will, do you feel a little bit lighter now? Has it got it off your chest? Yeah, look. I wasn't trying to wind you up again, by the way. No, no, no. I do think, look, you can sort of disappear a bit up these things, but I do think it's important because we try our damnedest to promote this game and if people aren't willing to help you, then sometimes you just have to let them go.

53:38But there's nine other teams in the league that are desperate for coverage and want it, so let's engage with them. And plenty of the teams in the league do a great job and a brilliant to deal with. Fantastic, I said Bristol. Brilliant. Exactly, plenty of them are. We'll leave it there, fellas. Do we know where the week is going to take us? Charlie, am I going to be seeing you? Saracens again, yeah. You're at Saracens again. I'll see you there. All the best. I'll be there. I've absolutely thrown you on the bus there. Well, I'll be there as well. Will, do you know where you're going? Yeah, ex-Newcastle.

54:03And yeah, I think, I'm intrigued about the Red Bulls. I want them to keep building. Because as we said in our pre-season pod, we've heard a lot of new dawns at Newcastle. Let's see it. Good signs there. And weirdly, I haven't been to Sandy Park for ages. I used to go there all the time, but I'm going to be slightly closer on the train. I was going to say, funny that you're now, now that you're going there, now that you're based further that way. of this week. Coincidence? Well, I think not. I think not. Elgin,

54:31Elgan: you've got Friday night. Leicester Gloucester on Friday and just thinking about that, I'm going to go full Razzie Erasmus and I'm going to change my Derry Lakes 15 team because kick-off hasn't happened yet. I'm putting Gabriel Hamer-Webb on the wing and Nick Tompkins on the bench and Max Llewellyn at 13. Bench gets stronger there, though. Bench gets stronger. Sorry, I've gone full Razzie Erasmus. Yeah, and that's not because he's a Saris. That's just because I was thinking about Gabriel Hamer-Webb He's had a good start to the season as well. Or Max Dwellian at 13. Sorry. Change of a team. Apologies.

54:56We'll let you do it. Thank you very much to all of you that have been listening or watching Time Sport on YouTube. We'll be back with you next week. This has been The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times.