Ben White replaces Tomos Williams, plus the Englishman at the Reds

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0:37You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

1:18This week on The Business Podcast, Chancellor John Healy promised a new age of industrialisation. Is that realistic or perhaps just a slogan to get labour hearts fluttering? We cannot overlook the impact that Chinese imports into the UK economy could have on what are essentially productive businesses. From The Times and The Sunday Times, join me, Hannah Previtt. And me, Dominic O 'Connell, for conversations from the world of business and entrepreneurship. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or find our channel on YouTube by searching Times Business.

2:06Welcome along to The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times coming to you from a pretty wet Brisbane. Alfie Reynolds here, Alex Lowe and Will Kelleher sheltering from the rain, gents. Yeah, I mean, I said on the end of our last pod I was going to miss Perth, and I already am, really. The lovely big skies of Western Australia have gone, and we've got grey, overcast, dribbly, miserly rain at churchy school that we're at. It's a great school, isn't it? Lovely school. The facilities are awesome. We went to Hale School in Perth for another team thing the other day, and there's some lovely facilities at some of these Australian public schools, aren't there?

2:43But yeah, Queensland's not quite put on a show for us. Hopefully better for the back end of the week. We flew in, I think, through a storm. It was seriously bumpy coming into Brisbane. There was a lady on the seat on the other side of the aisle with a baby on her knee. I was like, the baby was strapped in, but the steward was walking down the middle of the aisle. He was struggling to keep his balance at times. I thought this baby was going to go flying at one point. It was properly bumpy, so that gave us an idea there was a bit of a storm around, and here it is. But it gives us a chance, I guess, to scope out Brisbane, because we're going to be back here in 12 days' time for the test week.

3:17Which, by the way, is wild that that's all it is, isn't it? Well, we've got four games to go until we get to the first test, but 12 days we're going to be back in Brisbane anyway. It was funny. A few of us went to a little bar last night to just have a burger and a beer, and we were chatting to the guy behind the bar from Manchester and going, oh, we're looking for someone to eat on a Friday before the test match. And he was like, oh, right, cool, when's that? And we were looking at the calendar going like, oh, God, that's in 12 days' time. I think we were just saying it before we pressed record, but we knew about all this when you look at a calendar and you look at a schedule before you get out here.

3:48But when you're actually on the ground, you get a real sense of how short, sharp, quick turnarounds everything is. I mean, today, for example, so we're calling this on Monday as usual, they've been at the school and they were meant to train, but because of the weather, they've not really done a proper training session because they're worried about getting little calf injuries and things like that. And so they've just done a walkthrough. So Finn Russell, Gibson Park are the 9 and 10, as we'll get onto the team in a minute, for the Reds. And Gibson Park was saying, yeah, I've chucked a couple of balls at Finn.

4:15and that's it you're thinking god so just to absolutely put that in context for everyone game saturday they traveled sunday walk through today on a monday they'll have captains run tuesday game wednesday alex with an entirely different team as well yeah that's touring that's the lions and and so gibson park will make his his first start of the of the lions and he's not trained with his fly-off partner who plays for a different club and a different country the benefit is that they are two of the very best in the world and they would have spent time working on each other's habits and triggers but they're having to make it work on the fly but that is that is the beauty of the Lions you'll all however long you have the Lions will always get to the first test thinking could have done with one more week to just work on this combination or just work on that but you never get it because in the modern I mean back in the 50s you had two months but now you don't get that so whenever you get to the first test there's always an element of the unknown.

5:12Here we've got Jameson, Gibson, Parker and Finn Russell will play the Reds on Wednesday. It'll be Russell's second start in three or four days so he won't play Saturday. So this combination might get one more start before, and maybe 20 minutes off the bench at some point but probably one more start after this week before the first test. And I guess the thing that would be easy for the coaches is to just pick ready made club slash country partnerships which they're sort of almost on purpose not doing. and Andy Farrell made a point about that today by saying nationality's gone now, they're Lions so for example we've got Bundy Aki and Hugh Jones where you'd naturally think it would be Tua Pilotto and Jones and Aki and Ringrose but they've split them up but you wonder Alex by the tests whether they just go Irish front row, English front row on the bench, whether you go Scottish centre partnership or Irish centre partnership whether you go all Ireland back three for example.

6:04He's right and we've said this before, no one should be thinking of them as Ireland players or Scotland players they are Lions players but and so Andy Farrell's right in that sense and I think at this stage of the tour when everyone deserves their chance and it's right to create a team sort of unity ethos by mixing and matching but you can't it's very hard to shortcut that cohesion Gibson Park and Finn Russell are going to have to try and do it if they are going to be the test 9 and 10 which we think they are but when it yes he's not seeing a Scottish centre partnership in Turpurato and Hugh Jones but come the tests you do wonder whether the Scots or the Irish in that midfield would just give them some kind of advantage in knowledge and understanding of how they play.

6:46We'll get on to more of the team news in just a moment but the big news line of the day unfortunately is that Thomas Williams has been ruled out of the tour. It didn't look great when we saw him grab his hamstring after scoring his second try against the Western Force. It's confirmed that he is going home. Ben White as we spoke about on the pod after that game on Saturday is flying out to Australia. Yeah and let's let's cover off Thomas Williams first because what a horrible thing that is. He scored an amazing try diving acrobatically into the corner second try of the game he played brilliantly and we added tempo very well in that Argentina game in Dublin then played very nicely he was stating a real case to be included in the 23 if not starting jersey maybe for the for the test matches and he's gone like that and the brutality of the Lions tour is he's going to be home on Tuesday he's going to be back in Wales with his Lions bag and everything going that was it that was my Lions experience and before his family's even flown out yeah it's just horrible isn't it and you feel like we've got Lauren Jenkins here who's a BBC Wales journalist going oh no because that halves the Welsh contingent in the squad jack morgan's the only guy left at least he's starting i guess on wednesday but she's already had to do sort of extra interviews with the iron evans all in welsh to kind of like keep that going and we've said it miles out but the character of these lions tours has been so welsh for so long the back end of our red lion series it's all welsh voices isn't it and so to have one guy left in jack and let's see he might not make the test team it's just brutal for wales but shows where they are but then quick as a flash or maybe not as quick as it could have been ben white is coming so let's do the quick admin on there to just sort of update from the position we were in on saturday so scotland were not quite well they were in auckland for a bit but then went up to fungare slightly further north to play the maori all blacks on saturday so that logistics has meant that ben white's had to come back from fungare and then get on a flight from Auckland today, Monday.

8:52So he's going to be arriving on Monday evening, Aussie time, around the same time that Blair Kinghorn is going to have come from France slash London, whichever route he went. So both of them have missed today's walkthrough, I guess. There was a moment where we thought on Saturday that Ben White should be on the bench for this Reds game, but he's not going to be. I feel like they've, as soon as Thomas Williams grabbed his left hammy, both of us were Googling flights and going, he's got to be here. I did ask someone with the Lions about why it's taking so long, and they said, well, with the Lions' travel, with Thomas Williams having a scan on Sunday, they needed to wait for that.

9:27They didn't want to pre-empt anything by dragging Ben White from Fungarei through Auckland into Brisbane, but I think they've wasted a day, personally. I think they should have just got him over here straight away. Because as we said, they didn't even have to call Ben White up as official a call-up. They could have just said, come for three days in case, and if Thomas is fine, the scans are OK. he's just three hours back to New Zealand as with Lions tours though Ben White gets his opportunity to come out but Alex Mitchell gets another opportunity he'd have been involved in the first three games which is exactly what he would have wanted you spoke to George North about 17 wasn't it and he was, I wish I'd had more chances well Alex Mitchell would have played in three out of three like Ronan Kelleher as well a great opportunity for him to come off the bench with another probably 20 minutes and go and make a statement for himself, so like these tours they move so quickly and every time there's a blow for somebody it does represent a great opportunity penny for the thoughts of jack van portfleet 30 i just think the logist that was never realistic that like we again we were in our on sky scanner and everything else we were looking at how he could possibly get here and it's a nightmare of a journey so alex corbusiero did it in 2013 yeah i was there in salta in argentina when he got called up by the lions for 13 and And his journey was over 30 hours.

10:45I suspect he knew where he stood when he came in for training. He came to Dublin for a couple of days as training cover. When Ben White was playing in the top 14 playoffs. Because Ben White was in the top 14 with Toulon. So I think Andy Farrell's been pretty good with those who didn't make the squad in making it pretty clear where they are in the pecking order and what will be required of them. And I think Van Portfleet would have known that he was in for a couple of days to help out and that coming here from all the way from Argentina would only happen if you're a test shot. So I don't think Van Bortbury is a test shot, so I don't think they call him from halfway around the world.

11:21There's going to be an interesting one if we get another injury, and let's hope we don't, but the Lions tours show that around six, on average, players get changed. What they'll do if there's like a hooker injury or a prop injury, because Asher Apociforger and Jamie George were those next cabs who trained in Portugal, but they would have to face this mammoth journey from Argentina unless they're in the US by the time the injury happens. And therefore, would you then lean towards someone who's in the Scotland camp because they're in the islands and they're in Auckland playing in Samoa, Fiji and all that?

11:54They do think Xander Fagerson will be all right towards the end of the tour. So, yeah, again, I think... But I guess he's still at home because he won't be in the Scotland squad. He's still at home, but I think you call up players from afar if they've got a greater test shot. But I would, just to cap it off, I wouldn't say that Ben White's like the new geography one because he's a genuine bona fide next cab, isn't he? That's what I mean. I think Van Portfleet would have known that. If you're whatever this new England players union is, you're saying, right, Lions tours. You're touring near the country where the Lions are touring.

12:22We're not going to Argentina when they're in New Zealand. Everyone's going to be loving going to Namibia and stuff. Madagascar tour, please, for those South African ones. But as we've said, brutal for Thomas Williams. You really feel for him. I think particularly given that all throughout the season, whenever we did our Lions squads it was always most people had Gibson Park nailed on as a starter and okay the context changes and the fact that we're going to see Gibson Park for the first time on Wednesday has changed our perceptions a bit but you feel like Thomas Williams was really playing his way into contention and it happens every tour but geez you feel for the guys elsewhere in terms of the squad that Andy Fowler's announced so 14 changes to the starting 15 as Alex has mentioned Finn Russell the only player that started against the Western Force that starts this game as well Again, we've also seen the majority of the bench options from the Western Force are then starters in the next game, which I asked Andy Farrell about.

13:12He didn't say too much about it, but it feels to me like there is a real cycle here of the starting team and the bench, and it's almost like a circle, isn't it? So starting team goes out, bench comes in, and some of those players that weren't playing at all either come into the starting team or the bench. Well, and as per our ruck on Saturday night, we got the pack right, didn't we? We sort of had noticed that theme that has continued, and so the eight that we said was probably going to be the eight is the eight and like let's hope we can keep second guessing Andy Farrell but yeah I guess but then that makes sense for the first three probably but you'd probably say after the Reds all bets are off wouldn't you?

13:49Well yeah because everyone needs to get a start or James Ryan. Because basically then everyone's played apart from Kingon and White. James Ryan will be the only one who hasn't had a start of those who have been here, but he's been coming back from a quad tear. So yeah, you need to get the first three games, everyone needs to start. Beyond that, you start to formulate build towards your first test team. But I don't think we'll see the first test team play together in its entirety before we get to the first test team. Never, never do really on a line, do you? Yeah, and I'm not surprised Andy Farrell didn't really answer your question because A, he never wants to get kind of tied down to anything rock solid because you can't on a tour like this anyway but he also and it understandably so wants to keep the door open for players he would cite what happened in 17 where Liam Williams and Elliot Daly played in the midweek game before the first test and earned a test starting test jersey off the back of it so he doesn't want to he needs to keep everyone on side but he will slowly start sort of manipulating his selections towards units and partnerships and we maybe maybe this is feels like the first step of that with finn russell backing up so that he can play with gibson park i think ollie chessman will be in the test team this is his first start again he came on against western force in the second row with conan coming on at six what does that tell us because i think the back five of the scrum balance is fascinating for me because how are they going to play it they don't have an eight i mean conan's the closest they have to a genuine they obviously played eight on the last Lions tour but played six at the weekend this Wednesday night over here Curry and Morgan will start together again for the second time but this time with a bigger number eight in in Conan is he is Farrell working out whether he wants sort of two abrasive sevens and a and a big eight or is he going to end up going with a big six and and a big eight in Conan or a big six and then two more mobile like a curry and a van der Vler or a or an earl and a van der Vler or curry there's the balance of the back row I think is really interesting because we don't quite he's still feeling that one out I think and then McCarthy obviously put his hand up to play second row I think in Perth I felt he would always be the most likely second row into the test series opposite Will Skelton I really like Oli Chessom too though I just how do you fit all these little pieces together and I think that's part of what he's working out now is the best balance to bring the best out of his best players and it's also kind of so early but also so late for all of this someone in the press conference with Andy Farrell earlier asked him about oh you're running out of time and he was like running out of time we've only just started and it's like well it's sort of both at the same time isn't it because after Wednesday we've had three games but then there's only three more chances to see anyone until the first test so and at this point I would say you're struggling to name five players who are definitely not going to be in the 23 for the tests you could maybe reach for a couple like poor old scott cummings has probably as we said on saturday night almost done the two things wrong that you go okay sorry mate but someone else would have caught that ball on the given as well that i think a lot of us would already had him as the extra very heavy at lock aren't they they've got a lot of options and someone like mccarthy then did two things really well so therefore you go that's a big sliding scale for those two but other than that you can and obviously people get ruled out the more that others get ruled in if that makes sense because it's like well you probably will have one off curry or van der vleer for example you're not going to have both perhaps and there's plenty of other two epilotto aki jones ring rose two in that means that two are probably not in the 23 i guess depending on who goes on the bench farrell does have a tendency to pick a specialist centre on his bench.

17:39Yeah, Aki's done that role a lot. That's one of his traits as Ireland coach, is that one of those three, Henshaw, Aki, Ringrose, tends to be on the bench in a 5-3 split. And then if you're looking at the full-back thing, for example, so Wednesday, Hugo Keenan gets his first chance to play, having not played since May 31st for Leinster. But then Elliot Daly was one of the best players on Saturday, and Blair Kinghons arriving tonight, and will have to play in Sydney. you'd think against the Waratahs just to get a game, and you think, God, that's a nightmare. And how do you work that out quickly with two, three games left?

18:13It's fascinating, isn't it? But you can see why he didn't want to bring more than 38 players. You just wouldn't have time to give them a game. When we were doing all of our squads, if we picked 40 or how many ended up on the South Africa tour, how many ended up in 17 with the geography six? But if you have more than 38, you just have too many players and you end up very quickly with two teams. you just would because what you need in order to keep everyone engaged is people backing up whether it's you know acute use of the bench and then promoting them you need everyone engaged in every game because if you end up with two sets of players then as they did in 05 the split becomes easy and quick it's funny actually when we're following these guys around you just notice things you wouldn't if you weren't here but there are actually two Lions coaches which was the theme with 05 but we've been told that one's for management and one's for the players rather than dirt trackers and test guys which was the Clive Wood thing.

19:10Who are the coaches? What do you mean? As in the driving buses. I was like, what are you talking about? Sorry, there isn't like a... No, Ian McGeekin's here as well and he's coaching the midweek team. Warren Gatlin's been snuck in again. Yeah, yeah, exactly. With Kinghorn, so is he getting here later than planned or not? So this is funny because we'll credit Elgin for this because Elgin went to the top 14 final. What an occasion that must have been. Like unbelievable game, extra time, everything else. The time zone is mental here, isn't it? Because we were flying from Perth to Brisbane and he was still in the mix zone the day before, if that makes sense, in the Stade de France waiting for Kinghorn who then turned up in his budgie smugglers, did the interview basically naked.

19:54and in the interview King Horton said I've delayed my flight a bit so that I can have a few more beers basically but then we asked Farrell today about it and he was like no he hasn't he's coming here tonight so I think there must have been a mate get on the plane conversation The other thing which I'm annoyed I didn't ask Andy Farrell about now is like for King Horton he was already playing catch up and he's had to go to extra time and have 100 minutes in his legs before jumping on a plane onto the other side of the world and he's going to be playing again this Saturday what sort of impact if any that that's going to have as well but this was the french-based issue writ large this is exactly why they could not have had five or six french-based players or particularly finalists finalists like lots of people celebrating how well willis played and he did play very well but back row so you can just now see it in the reality of what we're doing day to day here how difficult it's going to be for one of these lads to force their way and they as we flagged long ago, they had to be people who were a genuine chance of playing in the Test match, which Kinghorn is, but he's going to have to play amazingly very quickly.

21:00Yeah, because the semi-finalists would have flown at the same time as the Lions flew to Australia, so kind of a Carl Sinclair or David Ribbons, but you don't know who's going to be knocked out of the semi-final. So hard, yeah. You really, you could only pick those who have a shot, I think, of playing in a Test, and I don't think Kinghorn has a shot of playing first test right now because he's just coming too late and Daly has taken his chance so well. And there's the ready-made Hanson Lowe Keenan. Exactly. If you need that, to go back to what we've said before. So I think he's up against it to play first test, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him in a test squad.

21:39What I'm interested to know as he beds in is the fly-half element to his game with how much that benefits him in a 23-man selection because if you're trying to get, if you wanted to go 5-3, for example, do you pick a Marcus Smith in that 23 shirt because he covers 10 and 15, or do you pick Kinghorn because he can do the same? He's a fullback who covers 10. Smith's like a 10, he covers 15. It's going to be, yeah, and that's like a new conversation to follow, really, over the next two weeks as we get into the tests. Can we do some Aussie news? Go for it. On the other side of it. So another win for Ben Calverley, let's say, The arch-diplomat who, when we arrived, Alfie, made the issue about Joe Schmidt releasing the Wallabies back to the provinces pretty strongly and has had several coffees, it seems, with Phil Waugh.

22:31And he's got another one. Taniyella Tupo has been bagged to play against the Tars. But isn't that interesting? Because we were chatting away with a friend of the pod, Ian Payton, who people remember came on our pod at the Lensbury before the Aussie game in November. And he was like, Schmidt's never releasing someone. who is going to be in a test team. So maybe that means that we won't see Tupo in the test team. He's not had a great year, has he? And the Wallabies play Fiji in Newcastle on Sunday. The day after the Taras-Lions game. And the sense is that they will pick their Test 23 on that day, or pretty close to it.

23:08So if Taniello's not released for that, he's not going to play Fiji. Therefore, the theory goes he won't play the first test against the Lions. and he's a fascinating player. He's just signed for Racing, which I just think is a bad move for everybody. Not many people go there and are successful. Mega cash. Well, a great move for Taniela's future. Yeah, half a million a year. Great move for Taniela as a... Pounds, that is, by the way. Yeah, as a person, for his family. But I don't think it's a great rugby move. I don't think that's the best club for him. They've got Demba Bamba, who I've heard is on 600 ,000 euros as well.

23:42Yeah. They love a tight head, don't they? Injuries have been his problem. aren't they? Which is again another one when you look at the move to France where they will get their pound of flesh with how much they're paying you. The thing that I hope we do get at some point but I'm trying to think how it's going to happen is I would like another go at Geng Tupou. I did, yeah. Which you could get actually because Geng is on the bench so if the theory of bench guys starting, maybe we will get it because Geng is on the bench for this game against the Reds and then he's going to probably start against Tupou maybe so you're referring there Will to the tour here 2023 three years ago where Tupou was asked a question about Genge and he basically said he likes to give it and I can't wait to give it back sort of thing laughing yeah laughing Genge read that and used it and it fired him up so we saw Genge on the day before the test second test so England had lost the first test in Perth this was in Britain wasn't it?

24:44Yeah it was here England lost the first test in Perth Darcy Swain had been sent off for the Wallabies England still conspired to lose the game they were dreadful despite Arundel's try and yeah Arundel's try kind of put a gloss of paint on it right at the end so we move here England are pissed off already Geng has then read this stuff from Tupou slash we told him about it on the front yeah he didn't I don't think he read the paper I'm not sure he's got a time subscription somebody told him somebody told him about it with a nice load of topspin because on the Friday before the game he was monosyllabic when we spoke to him you know the leg going under the desk he couldn't get a sentence out he just wasn't engaging at all when I saw him after the game I was like what was that about he said mate I couldn't let I was so fired up that if I went and started talking all my emotions would have gone then and I needed to save him for the game he used it to wind himself up and to be fair to him he kept it in till kick off and the first 20 minutes at the Suncourt, he was unbelievable.

25:45He had two or three runs like the one he had against the Pumas in Dublin where he was just swatting defenders away. He tracked Michael Hooper, didn't he? That's right. He bumped Hooper big time. Within about five minutes. So this one jovial quote from Daniela Tupo became this massive motivation thing for Genge and he kept it in for 24 hours. He basically couldn't talk without it all spilling out. And then he sort of uncorked it at kickoff. We have joked since that it was our friend Dan Schofield from The Telegraph and he won England that series by sort of asking the right questions at the right time of the two props.

26:28Yeah.

26:58That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S. offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends. You can search by what matters. like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average.

27:38See if you could pay as little as$0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash start now. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. This week on The Business Podcast, Chancellor John Healy promised a new age of industrialisation. Is that realistic or perhaps just a slogan to get labour hearts fluttering? We cannot overlook the impact that Chinese imports into the UK economy could have on what are essentially productive businesses. From The Times and The Sunday Times, join me, Hannah Previtt. And me, Dominic O 'Connell, for conversations from the world of business and entrepreneurship.

28:21Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or find our channel on YouTube by searching Times Business. OK, so enough chat about the Lions there with Will and Alex. We've come across town in Brisbane to the Queensland Reds. Is this the headquarters, the training base? And one of the sites of one of the most famous Lions games of all time. It was on our Red Lions series, a massive fight at Ballymore. The Battle of Ballymore and the pitch is in the background. We're in the boardroom here, which, yeah, historic venue in terms of the history of the Lions. And I'm going to say, lads, that the Reds, I think, have just become my favourite super rugby side.

29:00Because after the press conference, they've stuck on a load of beers for us. Castle Main 4X, which is the name of the 4X hill, where the big grassy mound behind one of the posts here that looks very old school, very 89. Lovely stuff. It's really good. And we are joined by, enough chit-chat from us, assistant coach at the Reds, John Fisher. John, good to see you. Good to see you guys too. It's nice to hear some English accents. it's been a while well thanks for the hospitality first of all that's the first thing so you were at London Irish previously and Les Les Kiss brought you over here when obviously he came back over to this part of the world yeah that's right Les obviously had the opportunity here probably six eight weeks down the line after London Irish fell over and then said listen Fish meet me for a coffee in Kew tomorrow afternoon go and speak to your wife tonight and if it's thanks but no thanks that's fine still come and have a coffee and I'll respect your decision.

29:53But if you're up for it, you need to be up for it. Because if I go in there and say I'm bringing an Englishman over to Queen's and Reds, you better not let me down later in the day. So I went home to the wife. I said, what do you reckon? She said, absolutely not. And smoothed it over. And now we're here. And it's been incredible so far. Is she happy of the decision now? Living in Brisbane? I know it's a little bit cloudy today, but she has a nice life. She's very happy. And so are the kids too. So it's been an incredible experience. We were talking before over our Castleman 4X. Nice sponsorship plug there.

30:22just the team that you could have had or did have at Irish, do you sometimes wake up at night and go through the 15 and go, wow, what a size. And so such a shame that everything happened with what it did at Irish. Yeah, look, I think if I'm being brutally honest, before I actually got my teeth into the Queensland Reds, there was a period of sort of two, three months, and I found it very, very difficult, very difficult. I had worked with a generation of players there from sort of 15, 16, and I cut my teeth as a coach alongside them developing themselves and actually then breaking into the first team.

30:55So you're Henry Arundels, the Will Josephs, the Cunningham Souths, Afalabi, who we spoke about earlier, the Tom Pearsons. So to see them then going off to other clubs, having spent so much time investing in their development and them as young men was pretty difficult. But once you're trying to win super rugby matches, you get focused on the job in hand pretty quickly. But it would have been some team and I think everyone who was involved in the team at that point in time still realises that. We had something going pretty good towards the back end there, which is why it was such a shame, but that's life, unfortunately.

31:26Because your role predominantly was in the academy, so you would have coached a lot of those guys that you just mentioned coming through, but also coached against the current generation of young England players and some of the Lions squad you came up against, Finn Smith, I guess, and Henry Pollock and those guys. Yeah, yeah, of course. I had the opportunity back in 2018-19 now To work as a consultant with Englander 18s and 20s So I would have coached players who are now obviously playing for England And looking to push for a high honours So yeah, it's a pretty special generation I think Of English talent coming through now It feels so far away actually Which is why it makes it so special when they are actually now coming I remember I was laughing to myself the other day because when I was playing for Northampton Saints, this is back in 2015 now, we had a Premiership Cup.

32:21I might even be called the LV Cup back then. Premiership Cup. Semi-final away at Saracens. So this would be 2015. It's obviously about six, eight months before 2015 World Cup. And at the time, I was living with my wife's, don't ask me why, but I was living with my wife's family, her uncle and auntie in Northampton, big, big Northampton Saints fans. I remember coming down, it was away at the Allianz that day. Northampton Saints against Saracens away. semi-final of this Prem Cup. And my uncle said, Fish, you better have your wits about it today. They've got this kid in the second row, Marou Toje.

32:50I think he's the real deal. And at the time, Marou had obviously had some pretty standout performances for the England 20s, but obviously he hadn't really broken into the Saracens team at this point. Hadn't obviously played for England either. And I'm ashamed to say, I think at the time I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, we'll see. Like it's one thing playing well for England 20s. There's another thing, you know, getting it done against, you know, a Northampton team in the Prem Cup, which was obviously a repeat of the previous year's Premiership semi-final. Anyway, I'm pretty sure we come in at half-time and one of Jim's main messages was, how are we going to deal with this kid, Mario Toja?

33:22And I'm pretty sure I saw him. He generally did make, I think, two or three 40-50 metre line breaks in the first half. So that's when I knew the hype was real. Special player, special player. The other guy that you would have come across, I guess, is the sort of newsworthy man of the day, Ben White. Yes, I do know Ben. He's your Irish scrum hoff. Yeah, probably the most competitive man that I have ever come across on a training field. Wants to win everything. And it's no surprise to me, I think, that he's got to the point that he's at now. And I think he's very deserving to be here in Australia, that's for sure.

33:55The other person we have to ask you about in this season, I think it's almost contractually where we have to ask you about anyone about Henry Pollock this season. But we were chatting earlier and we were like, we'll save it, we'll save it for the pod. But as a young guy, if you were involved in academy systems and things, a young guy that you must have come across or been aware of. Yeah, I just was laughing because last summer when I was back over in the UK, I had an opportunity to go and do a little bit of CPD. I went into Northampton Saints. Obviously, no Phil Dowson and James Craig, their forwards coach, very, very well.

34:23And obviously, quite a lot of the players that we've mentioned who went from London Irish to Northampton Saints, wanted to reconnect with them. And walked into the facility there at Northampton Saints and was introduced to the team, obviously having played there previously, but when we went into their indoor facility, the first person who sort of came over and made a beeline for me and took his hand out and said, Henry Pollock, welcome to Northampton Saints. And I thought, yeah, fair play. Okay, just the aura and the energy the kid has, I think he's certainly a gift to the game. He seems to possibly sum up the character of some of these young lads who, a bit like maybe Afos in a different way, where he waved off Ellis Genge, where they're coming confident out of the under-20s.

35:04They've won a World Cup. They've won a Six Nations. They're sort of dominant players and they're happy to tell people about it. Did you get that sense from some of those lads, this newer generation who are really kind of pushing their personalities as well as their rugby? One, first and foremost, I think it's brilliant that this is happening. Two, I think if I look at it from my perspective and it's only really relative to how I coach, the generation of which Henry's in and Afo's in, charnas in that i've worked with it was very very important to me and i have coaches of a similar generation to us that these players actually do showcase who they are and bring their strengths to the fore from a very young age provided that they understand what's required of them in order to get better every day how to improve and what their currency is ultimately as a player as a professional player it's how good they are on the field how they deliver um because my generation as a player probably was one of the last generations where like you know as an academy kid you sat in the corner you kept your mouth shut you didn't say boo to a goose and I think that I don't speak for everyone but there was definitely I think a lot of members of my generation who really struggled with that and struggled feeling like a sense of purpose or feeling whether they fit in and those were some of their biggest challenges so I think that to cut a long story short this generation we're seeing now come through through my experience have been developed I think very well both as players and also been developed very well as young men to understand the culture they're going into but to also understand that in order to contribute to the culture they're going into they must be themselves like unapologetically how different have you found the rugby culture here in Queensland working with the Reds I guess that brash sort of confidence we see we assume that all Aussie sportsmen have how different have you found the young players coming through here you're working with the senior team here what's What's the culture like?

36:53Strong. I think that one of the key differences that stands out to me here is there's a huge investment, I think, in the professionalism back in the UK, particularly in English Premiership, if I look at the experience that I had. Players treat themselves like the asset. They treat themselves like racehorses. They need to make sure they eat the right things, drink the right things, sleep. They're borderline obsessive, I think, particularly the guys who play at the highest level in England are obsessive. here a blessing and a curse is that someone like harry wilson will say you know he just wants to roll his sleeves up and get stuck in um so they they have a like a real sheer bloody mindedness here and a stubborn bullishness here that i think is innate and certainly part of the queensland culture uh so they're very very ready and willing and i know it's cliche but the boys here will run through a brick wall i think what they love about the game here is probably a little bit different like obviously in my experience English kids particularly young forwards like are brought up to be infatuated with the set piece whereas I think here there is a real desire for the young players across across the squad to be attacking in the way they play the game have a very high level of skill have a strong appreciation for space regardless of position so here I think there's a real emphasis on the development of the all-court game whereas in my experience to create a contrast back in the UK.

38:14It's very much about like, right, what's the positional remit? To what extent can you do that well? And at times, arguably everything else is a bonus. You'll be one of two Englishmen, I think I'm right in saying, coaching against the Lions on this tour. Jeff Parling with the Wallabies. And then this game on Wednesday night here in Brisbane. Just give us a sense of what that means to you to be coaching a game against the Lions. It's unique, really. I think from a personal point of view, once, you know, if what happened at London Irish taught me anything, it taught me that, like, there's no point, particularly now as a professional coach, sat there looking to crystal ball and trying to create a five-year or ten-year plan.

38:54So it's just a wonderful opportunity, I think, for myself, my wife, my children, young children to experience and to experience this opportunity with a group of players that become very, very close to over the course of the last two years. Super rugby campaigns are different. You spend a lot of time with each other, traveling in hotels. Back in the premiership, it's very much more consistent with the seven-day week, day off. You don't travel. You don't stay overnight in different places. So you become very, very tight over here. So to go and have that opportunity with that group of players and just to see where they're at.

39:25Because every day you're trying to push the pace down here to improve these players. And that was a big responsibility we had when we came in here. because Les said to me on the first day, he really sensed the opportunity that the Australian game had and the club had to really push the ceiling with regards to how well they could perform. So it's just going to be exciting to see these boys who are well prepared go out there on Wednesday night and rip in and find out ultimately. There's an unbelievable Lions tradition of the tour games getting quite feisty. Like we mentioned at the top, Battle of Ballymore was a test match, but we've had, I don't know, Duncan McRae, we've had all sorts of teams trying to soften up the lines.

40:03Has there been any sort of chat about that, of trying to help out the Wallabies almost, whether it's tactically or putting the lines off their stride? Not really, to be perfectly honest with you. I think that we're very aware as a coaching group and as a team that there are a lot of different motivations in this group that plays on Wednesday night, whether players are looking to perform well to ask questions for the Wallaby selection. Some players are playing their last game for Queensland who have been here their whole life. Some players are young players who are getting their first opportunity and probably can't quite believe it.

40:38So I think that what the group understands as a team is they have an opportunity to go out there and put in a performance together and represent the state well. Because the reality is it's a small world over here. The boys that are playing Wednesday night together will probably be in the Caxton or somewhere in 20, 30 years' time getting together and people won't move around too much. So I think they just understand the opportunity they have together, which is quite an exciting prospect. But to answer your question specifically, this game for us is very much about the Queens and Reds against the Lions.

41:12There isn't really too much regarding how the Lions get on beyond this game. Is that your recommendation, go to the Caxton? Is that the pub near the Suncorp? Listen, all I'll say to you guys earlier, I went to the Caxton, which is obviously famous, the one just a couple of doors down from Suncorp with Lez off the State of Origin game. And it's a good time. And how does it compare to the ship in Wandsworth? Yeah, good point actually. Good point. As you saw, someone shared something with me on Instagram about the ship actually recently. I thought, goodness me, that's a blast from the past. Slightly different clientele, different crowd, but equally as rowdy and equally as fun.

41:46We've got to mention too that on the desk here that people can't see, but I'll put a picture on my social media of it, is from 1971. So Jim Tucker here, who used to be a journalist, is now the Queensland Reds media manager, has shown us it. It's the original bill. It's the lion from 1971. And the tradition then was that the lions would bring a stuffed lion, a little cuddly toy on them on tour. And in 71, they gave it to the team that would beat them first. And their first stop off was Queensland and they lost 11-15. And so at Ballymore, we still have the stuffed lion and it's got three flags in its head, a British flag, a Scottish flag and an Irish flag.

42:25and I think they've lost the Welsh one. On a night out, apparently. On a night out, yeah. So just talk to us, John, about the motivation, I guess, to be the team that beats the Lions. Like those sides that have beaten the Lions, the touring teams, I guess. Sorry, the franchise teams have gone down in history, really. Like Brumby's 13 and others in the past. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, really, to make a statement, isn't it? Yeah, I think everyone's aware of the opportunity. I think the reality is when you look very closely at the quality of player that we are coming up against. Maybe it's because I'm too English, but it makes me very uncomfortable to consider the prospect of winning before we even sort of get to half-time.

43:06We are going up against the best players in the world. So we just have to be at it constantly and find out really how good we can be. And not necessarily hang on for dear life, but we've been pretty clear with the players and I think the players are very aware that they're not going to die wondering on Wednesday night. So I'd love to be able to sit here and say, like, you know, we're very excited to be the team that wins, but there's a long way to go before that happens. It's funny, we were just in the press conference and Les, I guess, was asked that question. I thought he gave a very respectful answer, but I was thinking inwardly, he's probably thinking, I cannot think like that.

43:42We haven't even kicked the game off yet. We're in the process at the moment of trying to understand what the Lions are and what they're trying to build, the style of play, areas that need to be improved. You're prepping for a game against a team that's changed wholesale just from a couple of days ago. Have you spotted any traits that you can see building in this Lions team that will kind of, I guess, come to fruition around the Test Series? Anything in particular that catches your eye? It's probably been clear for a lot of people that the way in which they're attacking would be pretty consistent with what we've seen with the Irish team at their best over the last few years.

44:20Layers, options, tight, compact shapes. Players that connected out the back of those triangles with the ability to move the ball to space. Ability to kick on the run. Good stretch in their attack. So unfortunately for us, a wide variety of threatening options. Essentially every single time there's a contact. defensively I think that the pressure that I've seen them exert on the attack has increased game on game their willingness and desire to get off the line and get off the line repeatedly and force teams back inside and look irrespective of who they pick in the back row there's going to be a lot of pressure on the ball on the floor obviously having a look at the team that they've selected to play against us Curry, Conan, Jack Morgan in Curry and Morgan you've probably got two of the most significant handfuls in world rugby in that area of the game.

45:10So I think that the game, and Kizzy mentioned obviously a lot of the aerial contest, and we haven't even mentioned the set piece, it's just becoming more and more about pressure. I think in every single aspect of their game, they'll put you under huge pressure when they have the ball, as we saw in that first passage against the force, when I think that was something like, that went on for a long, long period of time, and their ability to keep the ball, and the pressure they put you under when you have the ball, the aerial contest, the set piece. There are some traits, I think, in and around the set piece, probably consistent with some of the personnel in that team.

45:41For example, if Atoge plays, which he is, we're probably expecting them to defend a certain way at the line-out because he's obviously very influential in that area of the game. So, yeah, you can see the state of their game or the shape of their game starting to come to fruition. One of the talking points for us after the Western Force game was the restarts and how that went horribly for them. But I guess you guys can't get too caught up in that because on Wednesday night it's different combinations, different jumpers, different pods. That's like a skill thing, not necessarily a trait thing. Yes.

46:17What we've also seen is there has been some inconsistently in certain aspects of their game tactically, I suppose specifically from an organisational standpoint, from the first game to the second game. And if you look at the way they defend the line-out or defend the seam of the line-out, or how they're defending with the extent to which they rush or blitz in the midfield. There are systems, clear systems, but then there's clearly license, it would seem to me at this early stage, within those systems for certain personnel to bring their strengths. Like Ringrose, obviously, with what he's doing with Leinster, is probably more used to being more aggressive defensively and coming up higher, forcing people back inside.

46:58You could see that in certain aspects of their game at the weekend, particularly how they defend the first few phases offline out attack. So it seems like there's definitely a framework, there are certain systems but ultimately it does seem like they've got an environment where strengths of players have licence, right, go and impose yourself and get good outcomes for the team. Do you think there's a tactical game going on here? Because it's fascinating how much overlap there is between Ireland and Aussie with Joe Schmidt, Johnny Sexton, Andy Farrell, they all know each other so well and it's been maybe surprising to us that we've seen the Lions attack a lot which we're always told is the most complicated thing to do quickly whereas previous iterations of the Lions have kicked the leather off it being quite conservative.

47:43The 17 Lions, I think they beat the Crusaders like 12-3 in a box-kicking fest. Do you feel like it's almost too much to ask for a Lions coach to sort of go, well show one thing in the tour games and then completely change it for the test team? Surely they can't overthink it that much, can they? with such short time to prepare for a series? I think that we probably need to appreciate, or certainly I would if I was preparing as a coach to play against the Lions in a test series when you have all of these midweek games on the lead up to it. We need to appreciate that if you look at the quality of player they have, they have the ability to respond or to adapt to the state of the game at that time.

48:21We've seen them try and apply possession pressure, keep the ball for long periods against the force, passages against Argentina, and they would have obviously held the ball for longer against Argentina if they hadn't turned the ball over so much. It's naive to think that if the game became very tight in the first test at Suncorp, that Gibson Part and Mitchell, you know, weren't able to go to the aerial game consistently, slow the game down, put their foot on it, send James Lowe, send Freeman to go and get it in the air, go to a set-piece game, try and create, you know, a transition so that they can then get to the set-piece.

48:49So I think the unfortunate reality is that they have the personnel to be able to play a variety of different ways tactically. they're probably just building avenues to their game should they need to lean into those in the set piece. If they need to hold on to the ball for 15 phases and score, they can. Big question for you. Once you've taken off your Reds jersey after Wednesday night and it comes back here for the first test, are you in the Caxton with your Lions jersey on? I don't actually have a Lions jersey. Or like becoming a Brit again? Are you sort of Aussie till you die now? Well, if you look at the tash and the mullet, I went into the barber and said, make me look like a Queenslander.

49:24He was like, right, say no more. I need to do it the part on Wednesday night. So the only way I can answer that question is Wednesday night, I am going to be an honorary Queenslander. And after that, we shall see. We'll see how it goes. And that's going to be a hell of an occasion. I know Matt and Les were speaking about it in the press conference, but hopefully a full house at Suncorp, the Lions in town once every 12 years. It's going to be awesome, isn't it? Yeah, it'll be special. This town definitely loves its rugby and they are ready and willing to get behind their boys. so I think the atmosphere will be electric on Wednesday night.

49:55Well John we really appreciate you joining us good luck on Wednesday and thanks for coming on the Ruck. Nice one, thanks guys, appreciate that. Okay well there you have it, a bit more than we were expecting Will Alex coming up here at the Reds being very very accommodating so we appreciate that but all teed up quite nicely for Wednesday. Yeah good to talk to the Englishman in the Queensland camp he's doing brilliantly John Fisher I mean if you look at the players who he brought through from Irish. I mean, they're just the names that we talked about earlier, but loads of others too, sort of Tarek Hafar, who's off to Leicester this season, next season.

50:30I just, you know, he's really been given a great opportunity here. And one of the great, like young, I mean, genuinely, we often talk about young coaches and they're probably like 50 because they're young into their coaching career. But Fish is genuinely like a young lad who's just doing brilliantly. One of the great promising talents of English coaching, We've said it on previous pods and we mentioned it to John, but that Irish team could have been unbelievable. Even just looking at the back row, Gonzalez, Cunningham, Pearson, and then you could have had Ben White, Sinti and Van Rendsburg in the centres, Arundel, Hassel, Collins, Loda.

51:03It was such a shame that that all went to pot. But largely, loads of them have come over here and hoped to give the Lions a bloody nose on Wednesday. And I suppose it's really easy when you're in the building and you're sat down in front of them to get ahead of yourself. But to me, being here at the Reds today, It does feel a little different to Western Force. Brisbane is more of a rugby city. I think the occasion... They've had a way better season as well. They've had a much better season. I think the occasion at some corp will be... I think the atmosphere will be better. Perth was good, but it does feel like...

51:33And we said at the top of the pod that we're properly touring now. It feels like this is more of a step into what a Lions tour really is. This is a rugby city. They've got a real thriving club rugby culture here. you know brothers and like quite some quite famous club names the equivalents in brisbane of of the ranwicks and the and the east eastern suburbs in sydney you know and it's and it's a really strong club rugby culture that flows up quite you know we were hearing today sounds far more seamlessly flows up into the reds than what i discovered in my year last year when i went down to sydney for a week and had a look around the how the the pro game is is operating in australia that in Sydney there's a disconnect between this club game and the pros.

52:15Whereas one of the reasons this is going to be sold out, 50 ,000 at Suncorp, is the club game is so tied to the state and the state are represented by the Reds. And it's a proper rugby city and we're here in a proper old rugby stadium. I was going to say, I do like a bit of Ballymore. It's remarkable. Obviously people can't see it, but we're looking out the window here from the very new stand, looking at the very old stand. and at either end we've got a grassy bank on 4X Hill to the right and an empty side on the left. You think it's remarkable that this was the site of one of the great Lions tests, isn't it?

52:49It's very cool. Almost like retracing some steps of Lions history. There you go. And if you want to hear more about Lions history, come on Alfie. Download the Red Lions. Listen to all three episodes of the Red Lions now tracing the history of the Lions and of the jersey from the 1950s all the way through to the modern day. Will and Alex did a sterling job on it if I give them their praise on the pod. That's a good commentary actually from that battle of Ballymore and the fight Nick Farr-Jones, Robert Jones is all kicking off that sort of stuff that's good. Well you can go and get that now wherever you get your pod from we'll be back with you on Wednesday the games are coming thick and fast which means the pods are coming thick and fast for you so we'll have a post-match on Wednesday for you in the meantime if you want to get in touch the email address is theruckatthetimes.co.uk this has been The Ruck the Journalists Rugby Podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times see you on Wednesday.

53:40This week on the Business Podcast, Chancellor John Healy promised a new age of industrialisation. Is that realistic? Or perhaps just a slogan to get labour hearts fluttering? We cannot overlook the impact that Chinese imports into the UK economy could have on what are essentially productive businesses. From the Times and the Sunday Times, join me, Hannah Previtt. And me, Dominic O 'Connell, for conversations from the world of business and entrepreneurship. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts or find our channel on YouTube by searching Times Business.