England's 6 Nations in ruins after their first-ever defeat to Italy

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1:15Alfie Reynolds: Rome it was a sensational occasion actually um and a real privilege to be here for one of the greatest days in Italian rugby history. It has to go down as one of their mightiest victories ever. I know they've beaten the Springboks. I know they've beaten every other team in the Six Nations, but 33 attempts at beating England, and they've done it. And the place was rocking. The atmosphere was amazing. When they kicked the ball out, Gonzalo Quesada and his coaching team were hugging. There were tears. There were laps of honour. They got clapped into the press room and out again. Like, what a stunning day.

1:52Alfie Reynolds: stunning day to be Italian fan I mean probably a brilliant one to be a Scotland fan as well because you go not only did we put 50 on France but then England lost to Italy like this is the perfect day to be Scottish but yeah we'll get on to England because there's a lot to say on them but let's it's nice to give Italy the credit they deserve and I'm pleased for someone like Lewis Liner who we spoke to on the pod who's like we don't want to be the underdogs and look they're not not here not at home not with that atmosphere and they deserved it they they had the game-breaking

2:22Will Kelleher: moment and they deserve their victory they're gonna be piling into that funky hotel that we interviewed liner at on thursday aren't they into that bar and just have a swanky bar i hope they don't have to pay surely none of them have got to put their hand in their pocket tonight they shouldn't they i think they'll have the freedom of rome won't they tonight and i think you're right as well that you know as you say italy have beaten other big teams before i think it's significant that they've now beaten everyone in the Six Nations. Yeah, it's done. The set is complete. England were the final one, weren't they?

2:49Will Kelleher: It's almost like from 2000 to now, and when they came into the Six Nations and it was established and all that, it's been building up to this moment in many ways. This is the moment where Italy have finally beaten everyone. They've belonged for a while. I'm not saying it's taken 26 years for them, all right, now they belong or anything like that, but I think that's important. They've done the full set.

3:07Alfie Reynolds: And they're a very good team, as we've kept saying. They've got weapons out wide. They've got brilliant centres. like Menoncello the way that he created that final try was exceptional running over Elliot Daly the ball to Marin like awesome fantastic and look I think everyone who wrote about Italy for the sort of 20 odd years before wanted days like this didn't they if you're a neutral if you wanted the whole tournament to thrive and to be successful as a six nations you need everyone to be able to beat each other otherwise you go ah it doesn't work so to have it now is fantastic so anyone who's been involved in this rise should take credit and the irony is that one of those people is conor o'shea who's a coach here and built a lot of pathways here and he has been hoisted by his own petard because he will now have to be part of the anonymous panel that gathers to discuss the

4:01Will Kelleher: future of the england head coach i feel like a word as well just before we get on to england if we're mentioning other people, Sergio Parise. Yeah. All those, what was it?

4:09Alfie Reynolds: He lost 100 games for Italy.

4:11Will Kelleher: 100 tests he lost for Italy and was just an absolute giant. It was over 100. Exactly. And so I think for people like him as well, this is probably a really special day because they help lay the foundations. And the final point I'll make as well is I think days like today are probably quite a good reminder for when we look at a team like Wales at the moment, for example, that there can be light at the end of the tunnel somewhere. and where the Wales situation is is different because it's it's the off the field stuff as well but it really wasn't that long ago that we were turning up to Italy games they were losing they were losing they were losing people saying why are they in this competition but you can get it right and you can have days days and nights like tonight and look they've got an opportunity

4:49Alfie Reynolds: to have a three win six nations and sort of do a version of a triple crown it doesn't work for them like that does it but like to beat Scotland to beat England and then to beat Wales and they've beaten Wales regularly recently so they'd fancy their chances there but what a sensational tournament that would be and like lifting another country up in the world game it's fantastic isn't it like we've watched some nations like Wales drift or Australia drift or Samoa drift and you think gosh this sport's small but when you get someone rising and a big country with a full stadium albeit with lots of England fans here that is just epic for the game at large isn't it

5:26Will Kelleher: And do you know what? Actually, one of the things that I have felt this weekend, and weekends like this totally underline how fortunate we are to do this job. When we've been in Rome, in the spring sunshine, just such an amazing city, like a brilliant city. I thought an Italian World Cup or something like that would be so good.

5:44Alfie Reynolds: Well, look, I think, so the bidding's open for the 2035 World Cup, the one that England are going to peek at if you listen to some of the people that are a few. and there's a possibility that there could be a Spanish, Italian, Portuguese type bid. You'd sort of want it to be a bit less disparate than that perhaps but I mean what an event that could be. They've got some big stadiums including this one and lots of great football grounds and I think everyone who'd come would have an amazing time. I think all the England fans in there are loads of them by the way.

6:14Will Kelleher: I've been actually really surprised perhaps naively about the amount of England fans that have been in Rome this weekend. it's a brilliant trip isn't it loads of them made the journey and they've seen history perhaps not the history they wanted to because let's get on to England here Will a third defeat in a row first ever defeat to Italy which is always going to lead to noise and all that sort of thing I almost don't know what to ask you as the first question here because England maybe how have how have England gone from a team that won 12 games in a row that were rightly by the way in the title conversation I know there's a lot of foolish predictions or a lot of predictions that look incredibly foolish now.

6:48Alfie Reynolds: It's been a tournament to defy logic, hasn't it?

6:51Will Kelleher: 100%, 100%. But they were rightly in the title conversation. How has that team wound up here? Two awful performances against Scotland and Ireland. A better performance today, but still not good enough. And they've lost three in a row. And they're staring at a Six Nations, which for the first time they might only win one game. Yeah, and that would be the statistic for next week,

7:11Alfie Reynolds: is that England have never had a one from five Six Nations. Six Nations, yeah. They have finished fifth before in 2018, which I think was the worst tournament since 1983. It's not regular. There is a world in which England can finish bottom. Yeah, it has to be a very, very significant point swing. I think they have to lose to France by 75 points or something like that, which won't happen. And Wales would have to upset Italy as well, which might not happen either. So it's massively unlikely they're going to finish bottom. Thank God for that, really, if you're an England supporter. But look, the issues here are deep.

7:44Alfie Reynolds: This is more than just like a, oh, it's a three-game blip. That, to me, looked better, as you said, but a broken England team, devoid of any confidence, any attacking fervor, any bright ideas, any nous. I have to be honest, leadership as well, that's a massive issue. like I'm afraid Maratoji getting a yellow card for a poor decision let the team down I'm afraid and this is a hundred capper there is there's no question about his ability he was the Lions series winning captain a matter of seven months ago but he is leading an England team here which doesn't look like it's got a clue and that makes you then think are they not trusting the game plan Do they know what the game plan is?

8:37Alfie Reynolds: Are they just not good enough at implementing it? Are the players just bad players? Are they lacking in quality? Lots of these things people will go, well, no, come on. But I'm afraid as great a victory this is for Italy, this is a seriously damaging evening for England.

8:55Will Kelleher: Is the most alarming thing perhaps out of all of this, we were having a chat in the press conference room before everyone came down there and trying to unpick things, that England haven't been able to respond. They had a really poor performance against Scotland, didn't respond against Ireland. In fact, I would say they were even worse at home. They definitely were worse, yeah. And then even here, okay, it was a better performance, but ultimately when it boiled down to it, when they put themselves in a position to win the game, they collapsed in the final 20 minutes, which is so weird because we were saying the total opposite of this team for that 12-game winning run where they had strength and depth, they had impact from the bench, they had learnt how to win these games.

9:31Will Kelleher: and to me it feels alarming that they haven't been able to respond to Scotland and to Ireland.

9:36Alfie Reynolds: And that's where, like I've heard Hugo Monnier saying on the TV tonight that when you're in a run like this it's one thing or the other, it's the coach or all the players. And he didn't give the answer as to what he thought it was but I think it is incredibly worrying for the coaching staff that they have demanded a response. They've given the team a bollocking. The players have been brutally honest with each other. they've had meetings they've had sort of heart-to-heart chats and challenged each other to get better like Amaro Toji was talking to us as the writers on Thursday night and he said we're going to be confrontational we're going to be aggressive we're going to be on top of Italy we're going to bring physical intensity and you're like none of that I would say some of that but they certainly weren't on top of it I mean look maybe maybe it's already the position we're in where we're going like oh well at least some of it's a bit better it's like guys step back you are the first ever team to have lost to Italy and yes as we've given them credit at the stop of this podcast this is the one of the best Italy teams we've ever seen he's the best and they're playing at home however this this team the Steve Borthwick England team has a unfortunate habit of being the first England team to do quite a lot of things now Steve Borthwick made a lot of records himself as a captain I don't know what the correlation is there but there is one he has overseen an England team who've lost by 50 points to France at home, by 40 points to Ireland at home, record defeats there.

11:02Alfie Reynolds: He's overseen an England team who's lost to Fiji at home. He's overseen the first ever defeat to Italy. This is not history that you just brush away and say, yeah, but everyone's good these days. Bounce of a ball. We're in the game, 60 minutes. It's like, this is stuff that has never happened before.

11:18Will Kelleher: And so it is alarming. So what do we think it is to go back to the question you were saying of players or the coach? because some people will point towards the game plan. We've seen plenty of people saying that. What are England trying to do? I mean, we've been trying to work that ourselves. I don't know how they're trying to attack other than kicking the ball in the air and getting the crumbs. So is that down to the coaches? Or has Steve Borthwick here been seriously let down by the players in these three games?

11:43Alfie Reynolds: Do you know what? This is a rubbish answer in some ways, but I do think it is both. Yeah. Because you're like, let me get this straight. England have employed one of the best attack coaches in the game in lead blackett. what is he doing what is he being allowed to do is maybe the better question to ask they can answer that if they want to when we speak to them through the week but i can't see a strategy in the 22 i can't see a shape i can't see catch and pass i can't see good decision making like some of the times they got into the 22 they would kick for the left corner to try and target someone like it was only based on trying to force a mistake and they're getting in the 22 again 10 entries today Italy needed seven I think to score all their tries this is a fundamental skill thing which then brings you to the other side of it and saying so okay the players aren't good enough or they're not being challenged enough like you now look across the team and you go I don't think any of this team gets in the South African squad let alone the starting side and that's the level that English should be aspiring to to beat the Springboks because that would mean they've got a good chance of winning the World Cup that is the level they should be aspiring to isn't it?

12:52Will Kelleher: totally that is the sort of thing as well that changes very quickly of course it does because not that long ago some of those players we would have we would have said would but you're like

12:59Alfie Reynolds: but it's where it was consistently going well it's now consistently going badly and they're not

13:05Will Kelleher: fixing fundamental issues in their game do you know what's funny about the game today though and this is irrelevant now because of how it ended up but around the kind of 50 60 minute mark when england have put themselves in a position of being 18 10 up i was thinking all right this is going to be a bit of a stinking performance but they're going to be good enough just to get the job done like they've just they just need to win they need to get past Scotland and Ireland win move on and I think they're going to be able to do that and there were some individual performances that were better you mentioned Mara thought he was having a really good game until that ridiculously stupid penalty Sam Underhill the same coming in late for Tom Curry I thought was excellent then he picked up a yellow card and there are probably others as well but then all of that is irrelevant because they didn't see it through.

13:49Alfie Reynolds: Yeah, and it didn't seem like there was much trust in the bench. And when the bench, the bench is probably justified in some ways because the bench came out on and to a man were pretty much dreadful. I thought Oli Chesson did a couple of decent things. He made a decent break. Stole the line-out, didn't he, as his first. Line-out still, which felt really important.

14:07Will Kelleher: It was like, oh, right, gosh. So he got the penalty, didn't he? But, yeah.

14:11Alfie Reynolds: I mean, look, you could kind of pick anyone. But Marcus Smith drops high balls. like Jack Van Portfleet's not adding anything like you didn't notice Pollock like I don't know it's just all these things that we're adding and adding and adding are taking and taking and taking now and it's I honestly I don't really know where they go now because they've had an emotional challenge they say they fundamentally believe in the game plan they say they fundamentally believe in the coaching staff so it's like well what do you do now where do you go like France lost they're Beatable, clearly. But can you imagine what France is going to be like next week?

14:51Alfie Reynolds: Angry, back at home. Maybe they'll go the same way as England where you go, hang on, we thought they were amazing and now they're collapsing a heap. Who knows? But gosh, you've got to have some tough conversations if you're an England player tonight and an England coach. Look in the mirror.

15:05Will Kelleher: How good do you want to be? And I think a part of the problem for... We've just been at the press conference and in the mix zone and speaking to Steve Borthwick and the players. and you heard it mentioned, I think I heard it mentioned a couple of times of, well, you know, before 2019 World Cup, England had a really poor year and then were able to bounce back to which my comeback to that would be like, yes, but that was an England team that had won a Grand Slam. Yes, there were some changes.

15:28Alfie Reynolds: They'd won two Six Nations in a row.

15:29Will Kelleher: And there were some changes to the team and whatnot, but it was fundamentally a group that had won two Six Nations in a row. They'd won a Grand Slam. They'd gone unbeaten in a year. They went to Australia and won a series 3-0. This England team have won 12 games in a row, but won nothing.

15:43Alfie Reynolds: Yeah.

15:43Will Kelleher: And that's the problem with, I think, that argument that they're going to put forward.

15:47Alfie Reynolds: Yeah. And look, I wrote about this after the Ireland game. It can turn around quickly. Like as much as it's fallen apart quickly, it can come back together quickly. But you're just going now that there seems to be so many fundamental issues that that is why we're so worried watching them. And fans at home are probably going to be even more critical than we are. And I think that's the thing that we're trying to get across to the players when we talk to them. because some of them can't see it it's three games they're and i think their issue there is if if there are certain people in the team that cannot understand why they're being criticized why there's what they call outside noise why supporters are frustrated to have paid lots of money to come here and watch them deliver that to them then i fear for them a little bit because you're like obviously people some people are pessimists some people are optimists some people in that change room are uber optimists but the danger is if they if they're not root and branching this behind the scenes they would come across as deluded everything's fine nothing to see here it's all okay three defeats and each week it keeps getting different it's like well we've only lost two in 14 now it's all we've only lost three in 15 it's a bit like lads yeah how long do you keep going on that yeah and look i understand i'm not going to criticize players for backing themselves and backing the squad and the team.

17:10Alfie Reynolds: And they get to see so much more than we do. We're not allowed in as much as we'd like to be. So we can't see the conversations that are happening behind closed doors. But I think if they're not deeply concerned and attacking this head-on, then I worry that they're never going to graft the nettle. And I think this is an issue with England's teams, maybe, is that it's all someone else's fault. It's all the outsider's fault. it's all the media it's all former players you guys are polarizing it too much and it's a bit like lads we want you to win like everyone else does your supporters want you to win and so when you don't win people are frustrated and they look at that and they go i don't understand why you collection of rugby players that i watch play for clubs and are very good rugby players cannot deliver i don't understand how italy who have two professional clubs have just beaten you i don't understand how scotland who've got two professional clubs have beaten you i don't understand why a nation of four million or so in ireland have got a obviously way better system than you for creating championship winning teams you get it if it's france because you go look how rich and thriving that is but i think it's fair for fans and media and everyone else to go why can't england nail it ever

18:34Will Kelleher: and let's get on to Steve Borthwick then because we both put questions to him in the press conference a couple of whatsapp groups I'm on with friends it is unanimous that Borthwick has to go what did you make of his response to those questions and where do you think we are with the future of Steve Borthwick as we're stood here in the Stadio Olimpico Saturday night

18:54Alfie Reynolds: so just to relay to our listeners you will have I'm sure seen the pieces that we've written on the top times and the you might have read the quotes from Steve Borshaw himself but essentially to pricey it the response was the RFU believe in my vision for the team things can turn around quickly look at 2018 to 19 as you mentioned and I've made this team better and look lots of people listening to this will be shouting at their phone whatever they're listening to this on or will immediately want to email us the rock at the times.co.uk if you do that they go how can he be that deluded but look he would point to the evidence of the 12 match winning run the fact that he's they've developed a lot of team that it's a very young team particularly with the one he picked tonight but to sort of answer the question about his own future look i'm sitting here now we haven't had enough conversations people we are a few yet but he's not getting sacked in the next week so like that's not happening they go to verona uh for a training camp for a few days and then to Paris it all comes very quickly they always do an end of tournament review that'll be the anonymous panel that I mentioned but man they need to look deep I my suspicion my guesstimation right now is that they'll still want to give him the summer however we come back to the m-word it's the manner if the manner of next Saturday is even more alarming that's a problem because the next game's johannesburg yeah and if this england team goes to johannesburg and play like that they will get absolutely humiliated and by the way that springbok coaching setup will delight in doing so and so will their public and so will their fans and so will their social media that will be a horrendous experience for anyone english if that comes to pass and they must avoid that at their peril and I don't know yet whether that will mean changing the coach you ask the players and they say it's our fault and so then you go okay well do we does the England team need a whole load of new players then if it's their fault so they don't want to

21:02Will Kelleher: sack him I don't think they want to sack the thing for me with Borthwick and I'm sure loads of people listening to this are going to totally disagree with me here and they can email in as you say the ruckatthetimes.co.uk I can see a world in which Steve Borthwick is still the right man to lead England to the World Cup because I think as a coach he could still put them in a position to succeed there which seems mental well withstood at the moment I know that but I think we have seen enough from him that when he gets it right it's not the most it's not the prettiest I understand that people might not love the game plan but he can be effective the question really for me with this England team at the moment and this is where the people at the RFU that are able to actually get under the skin of this team, get behind closed doors and find out the answers to questions that we're never going to fully know.

21:46Will Kelleher: Do the players still believe in it? And they say in public they do. And that for me is the fundamental question because a lot of what we've seen in these last three games would suggest that they don't.

21:56Alfie Reynolds: I remember having a conversation where after the 23 World Cup with someone who knows Steve Borthwick very well and that tournament was tough to watch for England but they got to the semi-final, nearly made the final. Should have arguably got to the final. Shoulda, coulda, woulda against South Africa in that semi-final and they got credit for that but not a lot of what came before that was very pretty. Yeah. And I remember the person saying to me, there are three things you need as a sports head coach. You need to win, to play good rugby, football, cricket, whatever that is or be popular. You need two of those three things.

22:36Alfie Reynolds: at the moment Steve Borthwick is 0 from 3 on those isn't he yeah because the rugby that England are playing is stinking the place out tonight like that was a dreadful game of rugby let's be honest it was an amazing atmosphere particularly after Scotland France that was in stark contrast and like that was a stupid game really like 90 points 50-40 like what on earth is that yeah but what an amazing thing as well but that was a performance only your mother could love wasn't it really and Italy, who cares for them, right? But if you play like that and lose, you're on a hiding to nothing really, aren't you?

23:12Alfie Reynolds: If you can't put any attacking shape together, if every time you have a ruck, you just go, caterpillar, kick, every ruck takes six, seven, eight, nine, ten seconds. Look, to me, it felt today, England were trying to get out of here with a one-point win. There was no other thing they were trying to do other than to win 2021 and just get out of here. And they got, to use that phrase again, hoisted by their own guitar because they were always vulnerable to a breakaway and look bang there it came men and cello has the moment and the game's done the popularity thing we touched on the other night well other after afternoon when we were sitting in having a nice coffee in the square on thursday and that is something that both week can't do anything about but he is massively unpopular with the england supporters and more so after tonight and look again social media is not the barometer of everybody's opinions but you look anywhere over the next 28 48 hours 24 to 48 hours and he is an unpopular England head coach and I'm not sure how he arrests that

24:10Will Kelleher: slide whether he always has been though hasn't he really whether other people need to step up and

24:14Alfie Reynolds: own it for him whether we need to hear more from the players whether they need to be more public with their messaging whether they need to I don't know give more platform to people like Kevin Sinfield and Lee Blackett and Richard Wigglesworth and people like that who might be let's be honest a more engaging sales people for the team because i've said this before but like the steve borthwick that england fans see on the tv on itv for the minute and a half before the game the minute half afterwards they don't like him and i'm sorry if that comes across as rude but that's true i think yeah i would agree for a lot of people yeah and that's and i remember having conversations with people at the rfu when he started the job because we kind of knew that this is not his strength to be the kind of like a valiant character that's just not he's not an orator and like you can't make someone change their personality and i remember saying to them like i wonder whether over time we might let someone else do the team announcement press conference for example because it's like well if he can't explain it or doesn't want to then maybe someone else should do it but look maybe he viewed that it was a good way he needs to own it and everything else and look he has massively improved and i think the thing that's difficult for him is that when he's at his best with us there's six or seven or eight or nine people in the room there's not the wider public so people don't see the more engaging version of borthwick

25:30Will Kelleher: and there are actually some times where there's often times you come away from chatting to steve borthwick you think oh man just answer the question steve like you know i'm not trying to get a horrible headline tonight he did he did no he did he did he did and and but there's also sometimes that you have conversations with him that as rugby fans i think are really fascinating Yeah, the detailed nuance. But I don't think, as you say, that people see that and have seen that side of him.

25:55Alfie Reynolds: Can I just make a quick point on that? The thing I think that's also alarming about what's happening at the moment is that Steve Borthwick was the anti-Eddie Jones in lots of ways. Eddie Jones is throwing grenades, big character, confrontational, funny at times, ridiculous at others, you'd love him or you'd hate him, and it was like the Eddie show. It was a whole circus sometimes. So this was like a complete departure from that to appoint Steve Borthwick. But the Borthwick thing was detail. He is going to be the most thorough, detailed England head coach the RFU have ever appointed. And it is the detail that is letting him down.

26:35Alfie Reynolds: It is the detail of the line-up. It's the detail of the breakdown. It's the detail of the attack. It's the detail of the defence. and you think if if he's the details guy why are the details some of the worst bits of England's

26:46Will Kelleher: performance that's another worrying aspect I think and one of the strangest things I think about this team is when if we go back to 2024 when you guys were in New Zealand and they were losing games but they were almost there they couldn't get over the line they were actually playing some good stuff yeah and Steve Borthwick at times spoke about we want to be a fast ball moving sort of team and there were times we saw that whereas to go back to the point you made earlier about the attack because I just don't know what England want other than other than kicking and contesting and trying to scoop up the crumbs and that sort of thing I don't know what how England want to attack and want to hurt teams and I think that's really alarming the other thing that I wanted to raise with you which I also think is alarming is that isn't it amazing how these three defeats have exposed so much about maybe the depth in some positions in this totally yeah and again look we We should go through some of them.

27:36Alfie Reynolds: Absolutely. They don't trust Rod and Davison. No. But they would have loved to have had Baxter and Stewart. Unfortunately, both of them are injured. They don't have enough depth at scrum half. I was going to say hooker as well. At hooker. Jamie George asked to play 70-odd minutes. I'm afraid they don't have enough depth at lock, really, either. They've got two Lions and a very good other lock in Alex Coles and nothing else. And Coles is coming through.

28:03Will Kelleher: I guess George Martin, they want to get back in, but he's had a lot of injuries.

28:07Alfie Reynolds: They don't have, like, I don't think you can blame Serb Atkinson for tonight. Like, it's his first Six Nations start. But he was asked to do a gainline-busting job and didn't really do it, I'm afraid. And, like, all of these guys are not shockingly bad players. But you're like, there are glaring holes, as you keep saying.

28:26Will Kelleher: But it's so funny because you go back, end of last year, I was honestly there thinking, there's depth here, they've sorted out the front row, the scrums improved, they've got second rows coming through their back row options are incredible they've got Dingwall was coming through and had a great game and a couple of great games in November now all of a sudden you look at it you're saying you can go through pretty much the whole team and you can go who's going to be your 12 do you continue with Freeman as your 13 option back three you have options but what are you going for in your fullback what does that look like and yeah I just

28:55Alfie Reynolds: think there's so many questions now for this England team in terms of this is this is maybe us doing what they don't want us to do and stretching to the polarities, as they say. But I think there's another thing here, and I keep thinking about South Africa because they're the best team in the world and they've won the last two World Cups. They're looking at the Six Nations going, we're going to smash everybody again.

29:15Will Kelleher: Do you think they're looking at the next World Cup at the moment, aren't they? And they are not bothered. No. They're not worried at all. No.

29:22Alfie Reynolds: We don't know what New Zealand are going to become under Dave Rennie, so that's very interesting. And France on their day. and they're never bad for long but you go again it's difficult but you're like you compare player to player let's say which is brutal, it's harsh but you go to me that England team tonight looks a decent premiership team it looks a decent collection of club players with a few who have been world class are Lions but you go you then look at the depth that South Africa, all of the sort of four or five different lineups that South African put together and you go, England can't hold a candle to that.

30:01Alfie Reynolds: They can't, even with their best players. If they had their best team out here, which they don't, because of Faber-Boso, no Curry got injured today before the game started, you've got no Baxter, no Stewart. I think even if you were to write down the 23s, you'd just go, no, no, no.

30:20Will Kelleher: You maybe get one or two. The final point I wanted to make, which I think today has probably underlined with that Scotland performance, which we'll talk more about with Elgin who was at Murrayfield on Monday's pod. Italy winning here and just the chaotic nature of this Six Nations and results. It feels to me everything is bunched up and closer than it has ever been, but also I think highlights how far ahead South Africa are of everyone. And I still think France on their day could be pretty close to them, but they might ship 50 against Scotland.

30:49Alfie Reynolds: I mean, what has happened there? That's a mad game. But this is, I haven't watched every single Six Nations because I've, like you, probably not old enough. Yeah. Watched bits of them probably, but not. I don't have a back catalogue of like, this is the ranking of all the best Six Nations tournaments of the last 27 or whatever they are. But this has got to be up there. And like, no one's a neutral really in the Six Nations, are they? Like, you either like one team or don't like others or you're from one of the nations. but this has been an unbelievable tournament for the neutrals. It made us look total mugs every single week.

31:25Alfie Reynolds: Like, I was having a bit of fun with people on social media because they were like, they were like, oh yeah, you've all been giving France so much credit and Scotland have just beaten them. How do you like that? And it's like, yeah, like, oh, so France didn't deserve any credit for tearing everyone apart, did they? And then I, before the tournament, predicted that England were going to win this game but in the paper the other day said that Italy were going to win this game and they go, oh, well, you can't do that. And it's a bit like, well, sorry, lads. What do you want us to do? Shall I say there will be a draw as well?

31:56Alfie Reynolds: Because I'd also said that on the pod the other day, I said I didn't really feel like there was a way that Scotland were going to beat them. Obviously, that was wrong. But at the start of the tournament, I'd predicted Scotland were going to win. It's defied logic in a fantastic way. And the enduring love of the Six Nations remains and actually has got stronger, hasn't it? What a brilliant tournament.

32:16Will Kelleher: It's a brilliant competition. It poses questions. It gives you incredible storylines every single week. And as they start to turn the lights out at the Stadio Olimpico, the story from here is Italy beating England for the very first time. But also the question of where on earth do England go from here? We will leave it there. Will, you're off to Verona. Yeah, I'm getting on the train up to northern Italy.

32:37Alfie Reynolds: And then over to Paris via the Alps.

32:39Will Kelleher: And I will join you in Paris on Thursday. I'll be back in the studio on Monday with Charlie and Elgin. So loads more pods coming your way. this is going to be a game that provokes reaction so the email address is the ruck at the times dot co dot uk give us your views we look forward to reading them thank you very much for listening and be back with you on monday