Seismic changes in English rugby & the 6 Nations run-in

0:15Will Kelleher: Hello, this is The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. The fallow week is done. We are rested. We are ready for the final two rounds of the Six Nations. I'm Alfie Reynolds, busy studio this week to my right hand side Will Kelleher. Hello. Also with us once again on the train from Wiltshire, the Wiltshire Express, is Stuart Barnes. All right, Barnsie? Good, thanks. Good, good. Train's on time again? Train perfect. Excellent. Two weeks in a row. Two weeks in a row. Wonderful. And also back in studio. It feels like a long time. Alex Lowe. It has, yeah. Good to be back in on the back of a busy fallow week.

0:50Will Kelleher: Which is what we're going to start on. So we'll get on to looking ahead to round four in the Six Nations. some massive massive fixtures but actually big domestic news Alex last week I mean you've all been writing about this at some point over the last few years and yourself and Charlie were writing a lot about it last week so as I say we'll get on to to the Six Nations but the end of promotion and relegation between the champ and the Prem the plans are to relaunch the Prem as a 12 team franchise kind of expansion competition from 2029 2030 and no relegation from the end of next season although I suspect we're not going to be seeing any relegation or promotion this year either so as I just said Alex you guys have all been writing about this for quite a long time this was the inevitable right really this is what we've been expecting for a long time yeah it's

1:38Alex Lowe: actually when you look back to the point many years ago six seven years ago that the RFU and the Prem decided between them that the gap from the champ up to the Prem was too big and the rfu decided that all the funding that was going into the championship was never going to help close that gap where i've been critical through this whole process and even last year we said to the prem when when we had them on the pod why the pretense why is everyone still pretending that they want and they believe in promotion and relegation when they evidently never did and they manipulated the regs to make sure the right teams were going up or not going up in right teams in their view to the point we've come to now where at least they've all been honest about what their what their intentions are it's going to be a closed closed prem in terms of promotion relegation they want to expand it from 10 to 12 clubs by 29 30 that'll be expressions of interest tender process in which rugby excellence is only one factor that will be considered but the view is that they believe now and they've got the champ board in line with this, that the only way to grow the professional club game in England is through this tender process rather than through natural promotion and relegation because the gap's too big.

3:00Alex Lowe: Now, I know Barnsley will argue strongly that promotion and relegation should remain and I would agree with him that that is the ultimate ambition so the the well if you look at it just as where we are now i think it's the most practical solution to the problem however you have to acknowledge that this has been the intention

3:22Stuart Barnes: all along i mean to me it's it's the americanization of sport it's there it's one eye on american football there's no doubt about that and it's the concept is to turn sport into a business and that is why we hear less about the fans and more about the investors and we have told you investors won't come in unless unless it's a good opportunity and what that basically means you can translate that any way you want but what it really says is what you do on the pitch is less important than what goes on in the boardroom and that is inherently not sporting And I would say, still, if that is the perception to the right of thinking, to the left you have France.

4:10Stuart Barnes: And France does have a model with promotion and relegation that goes from the top of France to the bottom of France. And I would say, rather than just say the investors won't get involved unless we give them what they want now, I would say we need a 20-year program to build there.

4:31Alex Lowe: I think the French system is the dream scenario where you have three really professional leagues with fluid movement between them. But the English rugby environment isn't the same as the French rugby environment. You couldn't sustain that many professional clubs in England. So they're trying to grow to a point where they can ultimately maybe have two conferences or a county championship system. I think the other thing to your point about Americanization is is it Americanization or is it just professional you know I think a lot of rugby values at the RFU espouse how many of them really apply to professional sport do you know what I mean like there's a separation so I guess I'm asking is this the inevitable consequence of the game going pro is that ultimately there's a separation between the romance as you described it and the values of the community game that that everyone can engage with.

5:29Alex Lowe: And then separately, there's the professional end where it's about careers and contracts and sponsors and investors.

5:35Stuart Barnes: Well, there's the Exeterization. Let's call it that, the Exeterization. A club came from absolutely nowhere. And yes, it was romantic and the fans loved it. And they've gone through a bad period for a year or two, but they've become a fantastic club. Let's be quite clear about this. Exeter are on the scrap heap. The next Exeter, there's not one. Now I'm not suggesting there's one right now and I'm not suggesting it's necessarily Ealing or Doncaster or anyone, but that dream is what sport is about and that dream has been trod in the dirt. And you can look at that any way you want, but this is what they're trying to do, so we're not having that.

6:13Stuart Barnes: Exeter will have to become a club who would work their way into a position courtesy of the franchises. It's not the same.

6:21Alex Lowe: Yeah, it's not the same, but that's professional sport, isn't it? I mean, one of the things I think there's a huge amount of pressure on now for the RFU and the Prem is to demonstrate that this expansion project is an expansion project and not just protectionism of the top 10.

6:39Stuart Barnes: Yeah, if they went to 20 teams, I can see what you're saying now. I'd accept that.

6:45Alex Lowe: Yeah, but to get into the Prem, you would now have to fulfil a whole load of commercial investment and rugby criteria, and you'd have to buy a premiership share, which doesn't have a value at the moment, but estimates range between the£9 million that the Prem bought back, let's say the Worcester Wasps share from the administrator, all the way up to£25 million. So somewhere in that range, a new club coming in would have to buy the share, they'd have to fund a women's team, and then they'd have to get all the facilities correct. Which is right. They'd have to demonstrate that there'd be adequate investment, enough investment to i guess to add to the commercial benefit of the prem as a private league now that will require a lot of money to do that so i guess now the pressure is on bill sweeney cybert massey taylor to demonstrate that the product that they are creating is valuable enough that big financial houses big companies want to invest in clubs whether it's cornish Pirates, Doncaster, Cambridge, Wasps trying to come back in Kent, that they will invest enough to get these clubs into the Prem.

7:52Alfie Reynolds: I've got two points on this. One of them, I think I slightly disagree with you on the sort of, there will be no Exeter. Because there could be, they could come from one of the lower leagues up to the champ where they then, you could either say stall or you could say develop, grow, get all the things in order that they should do, and then be accepted up into the top division. And the one example that Charlie wrote about the other day is this possible Birmingham franchise, which is really fascinating, perhaps teaming up with the Tom Brady investors.

8:26Stuart Barnes: They say Americanisation. And it is. But that would be taking a traditional club. They get excited about it. They get excited.

8:34Alex Lowe: But that's only where the investors happen to come from. They own Birmingham City. They own the 100 cricket franchise in Birmingham. Yeah, yeah. And the Phoenix. and they're looking at adding a rugby team to that.

8:44Alfie Reynolds: Which might be, they might have to, they can't necessarily create it from completely nothing. They might take a club that's already there, like Mosley, who are in the leagues and then grow them to a point where they get into the championship, establish their base, have enough money to buy a Peashare and then they're in. And the second quick example I was going to make is close to your home and heart is the rec would not be redeveloped without this. No chance. And I've spoken to people there and they'd say exactly that, that it's a bit like when you get a mortgage, isn't it? Which I'm going through at the moment for a house move.

9:16Alfie Reynolds: But there's that line in it that always says, do you expect to earn a bit less money in the foreseeable future? And the answer for Bath would have to be, well, maybe if we get relegated, yes. And so they go, okay, well, instead of borrowing this much amount, you can borrow that because we're unsure. And no one wants lack of security on that front. So people at Bath would say the rec redevelopment, which has taken 25, 35, 45 years, wouldn't be happening without the security of this system and nor would the Red Bull investment. So I like the romance of rugby and everything else. I don't feel very connected to the sort of pathway of English rugby because I don't have a club and the one I used to play for, I stopped playing for when I was 15.

9:57Alfie Reynolds: So I don't have a connection to that and I don't think it's a bad idea personally.

10:01Stuart Barnes: What happens with the, we talked about teams being able to basically prove that they're worthy of becoming a franchise what about the the shares the shares they've got what happens are we really saying that that at the moment these 10 clubs are going to say by the way you're failing we're going to have to kick you out now I've spoken to various owners who have said if that's the the way it'll be that is what will happen but does we really believe that because the flip side of this coin is you're saying oh you know if you can prove your point you can come up but if you don't prove your point do you stay do you drag it down do you do you have a premier rugby club in a part of the country where it's not providing what's needed where it's getting crowds of five thousand pounds where it's losing money hand over fist and it's going to be protected and that's my problem you there's there is a degree of of protectionism you you can use whichever word

11:04Alfie Reynolds: you want it would depend what the club was though wouldn't it so for example if we were in the pre red bull era of newcastle and this system was in place and they were to rate newcastle on all the little metrics that they'll have they would have been very poorly rated on things like the fact that they only spend two odd two odd million on their salaries the fact that they didn't sell out their ground the fact that they were consistently underperforming but they'd score incredibly highly on their geographical position their importance in the north of england wouldn't they whereas if it was like harlequins for example you say okay they're really high on selling out their ground they don't perform that consistently they've got amazing revenues southwest london is a good thing but do we need too many in southwest london which is where the ealing thing comes isn't it it would be spread across a lot of categories and it would depend wouldn't it it would basically be a case

11:52Alex Lowe: by case. So let's just create, to build on what Will said, in your scenario that in five years time, Ealing Trail Finals have been accepted in, but they're struggling, but also who've been accepted in are Wasps in Kent or Doncaster in Yorkshire. Both of them are on a similar level. The other two will be protected more than Ealing would.

12:12Alfie Reynolds: Because of the geographical position.

12:14Alex Lowe: I understand that. Just to use those as examples. What about an existing one?

12:20Stuart Barnes: Let's pluck a team out of the hat. Let's say Sale. They're in Manchester. There's no atmosphere at the place. They're struggling with crowds. They're not performing very well at the moment. And they've been a really good team. They've been a well-coached team. They've got the playoffs the last few years. But are Sale, at the moment, a club in a position that is looking to take the game as a professional entity forwards?

12:48Alfie Reynolds: I would say they are, yeah. Because they're growing in a space that's dominated by other sports well. And they're spending up to the cap and they've made finals and playoffs. Even though you turn on your television.

13:00Stuart Barnes: You'd say they are more than Gloucester, for example. You turn on your television and there's no one there.

13:04Alfie Reynolds: Well, it depends what game you're looking at. No, it's not out.

13:08Stuart Barnes: No, it's not, Will. It's not which game you're looking at. Sales average crowds are feeble. I would say they would tick a lot more boxes than Gloucester.

13:18Alfie Reynolds: on terms of performance, spending, all that sort of stuff. Yes, Loss have probably got a deeper history and they sell out the stadium more often.

13:26Alex Lowe: But I think the point of this system is that one bad season doesn't undo any good work that's happening. So if the imaginary club we're talking about, whether it's a Doncaster sale, Ealing, if over the course of three or four years there's a trend that they can't reverse and it's then having a negative impact on the success of the league, then a decision can be made. But I don't think it'll just happen in one season.

13:53Alfie Reynolds: It'd be like a five-year sort of assessment.

13:56Stuart Barnes: Will it be made? Let's get away, right? I've said sale because they have very poor crowds. Let's go to a hypothetical world and we'll say Bath have got poor crowds. They've been struggling on the field for three years. Are we saying that Bath at some stage could well be thrown out of the league?

14:14Alex Lowe: I would say that it's almost impossible. for that to happen for any of those clubs because there will be a shareholder in the league. So what you're basically saying is that the other shareholders will demote one of their own and then buy the share off them. Like it feels highly unlikely.

14:31Stuart Barnes: You just said it's almost impossible.

14:35Will Kelleher: Which is a bit like rugby league, isn't it? The kind of system they brought in where your St Helens, your Wiggins are always going to be right. That's what they want.

14:42Stuart Barnes: They want it to be virtually impossible. I know they want it to be impossible. and I'm just going to say now, rugby league is not the model they want to follow. There's been aspirations. From the day the game went professional, they talked woolly-headedly, obviously, about football because that's the biggest game and they look at football. Can you imagine football in this country without relegation? It is inconceivable. And you've just said it would be impossible for them to go down. So basically, you could have a useless team who play poorly, are doing nothing to develop the game at the club level or international level and they're going to be there forever.

15:18Stuart Barnes: That is an issue.

15:20Alex Lowe: I think there'll be pressure on them to not allow that to happen. Whereas at the moment, or in the last three or four years, there has been no promotion relegation, but there's been the pretense that there was. That's one of the things I think at least now, the kind of entry requirements, everyone knows whether they might disagree with it and they might be like skeptical that they'll ever get to a point where you might have enough clubs for pure traditional promotion and relegation. But it's surely better than this pretense that we're having. There's supposed to be promotion and relegation this year.

15:53Stuart Barnes: But the pretense is only coming from the clubs and the RFU. It's not us. We've known that. The fans know that.

16:02Alex Lowe: Absolutely. So what I'm saying is there's now, even this season, there's supposed to be a promotion and relegation playoff. Now, the promotion and relegation will officially end for next season. So the first question you ask is, well, what's going to happen at the end of this season? Because surely no one will allow a window to exist where Newcastle Red Bulls get relegated and then they're out of the system until 29.

16:26Alfie Reynolds: And Red Bull are gone.

16:27Alex Lowe: Yeah. And what I was told was that the RFU Council didn't want to have to change the regulations mid-season unless they had to. So they must, everyone within Twickenham must be assured that neither Ealing nor Doncaster will be able to come up. Otherwise, this would have happened immediately. It would have happened as of Friday, that promotion relegation mechanism, the playoff, would have been removed from the regulations. The fact it hasn't been means that even though technically it exists, it actually won't happen for the third year running. So you're talking about a Red Bull, you're talking about Tom Brady.

17:02Alex Lowe: Tony Rowe's been talking about he's trying to sell he can't sell while there's the potential that a team might go down and although it's not happened that the potential still exists

17:15Stuart Barnes: so effectively what we're saying is investors won't get involved this is like this is how the world is the people at the top the people at the top with all the money Tony Rowe is saying I'm looking to sell and maybe there'll be an American buyer very good for Tony Rowe extra fans not so good but who cares but then they wouldn't be there

17:36Alex Lowe: without Tony Rowe in the first place no I know if Tony Rowe's next door neighbour was as rich as Tony Rowe and 40 years younger then he might he might take the club off Tony Rowe's hands he's not selling it to Americans just because he loves he loves the dollar and the NFL they're just from what we hear that's where the investor the most likely investment houses are currently based in the USA I think if Tony Rowe could sell to his next door neighbour and the club could continue and grow, then I reckon he would do.

18:04Stuart Barnes: I just think that this is an option. It's about investment and financial security or it's about sport for the supporters and a different vision. A vision where the supporters see what happens on the pitch and that leads to relegation playoffs. I wouldn't go relegation. The gap's too big. but what's happening now and it's happening in the premiership we're getting in the prem sorry we're getting a lot of games and we'll get more and more that are absolutely meaningless and unimportant and nobody who's saying oh the investment model is a great model is going to stand up and say oh you who's buying your season ticket at x y or z half of the games you're going

18:52Will Kelleher: to be watch are pointless barnes i love that you i love your position because i actually think your position is what most listeners are going to be saying because this is something i find quite fascinating with this and and in your piece alex it said that the vote was supported by 96 percent of the rfu council and then the vote to end promotion relegation from next season passed with 93 percent but i think among supporters you have maybe even the majority it's certainly far more split than it is there which i find really interesting that you have kind of people with within the game and then people like the fans outside of it that have very different views and it's maybe something that i'll put to you barnsey like in in heart and in many ways i agree with the position you're taking but then i also kind of come back to the position of that's all well and good but it just doesn't work like the promotion relegation at the moment doesn't work and i don't think it worked before the rf you cut the funding to the champ and i don't and it certainly doesn't

19:47Stuart Barnes: work now so we can talk about it to allow it to work at some point first of all i i don't dispute that right now promotion relegation is a dead duck because of the gap. But what do you require? Listen, if you want me to go away for 10 years and try and come up with a model, then I'll go and do that. But that's what it's going to take. It's going to take a vast amount of time. And I'm not pretending it's easy. But what I am saying is I believe that sport should be, that the business of sport is on the pitch. Right now it is in the boardroom. and I disagree inherently with that. You know, it's linked to my politics, but I don't agree with that.

20:30Alex Lowe: I would empathise with that entirely. Before we hit record, we were talking about Arsenal. You know, you've got the Premier League and there's boos at half-time. If you're at home and you're not winning at half-time, there's discontinent. And at Twickenham, George Ford, a skill error twice, misses touch, makes touch and gets jeered by a corner of the stadium. Some Irish, but not all Irish. I knew people who were there, not all Irish. So the whole relationship in professional sport between the team, the organisation, the club and the fans has flipped to the point where it's now an entertainment.

21:05Alex Lowe: You go there and you expect to be entertained. You expect your team to win. It's no longer about, well, I'm going to go anyway because that's my community. That's what I do on a Saturday. And I'll pay my few quid on the turnstile and go and stand behind the post, go and stand behind the goal. That relationship has changed completely because it now costs£100 to go to an Arsenal game. it costs 150 pounds to go to an england game at twickenham and so people expect more that that is that's the march of professional sport and unfortunately because it that everything that you've just described about the beauty of sport and the connection that you have with it um is is rooted in your local club it's rooted in your community but elite professional sport is is franchises now arsenal are the same man city are the same the dallas cowboys are the same it might be sad to a lot of people that professional rugby is heading in that direction but it feels inevitable to me that that is the way it's going to go if it wants to survive as a professional sport or grow as a professional sport it doesn't mean it's not sad which i would

22:15Alfie Reynolds: completely agree with you i've got a wider point which may be finished up this whole section which i feel i don't know if it's exclusive to rugby but we work in rugby so we'll look at it through this lens but i think the sport or sport generally is terrible at explaining itself to the wider public i was lucky enough to be invited to do a quinn's fan event the other night and we were just talking at the cabbage patch pub about the nation's championship and no one knows what it is they literally don't know we've never heard of it they don't know that there's only one fellow week in the six nations now and like we know this because we're in the room we're talking to these people all the time this is our whole job is explaining these things to people and hopefully informing you guys on the pod and on youtube and in articles and everything else but we're right in the middle of it and the people who are paying all that money to go to all these games home and away who are loyal fans would hand on heart go i don't know what the structure of the champions cup is i don't know that there's why they we've now not got promotional relegation and no one explains it to them we try on behalf of them but i find that they barely explain it to us yeah they they we're really close to it but they're they're they're so enclosed in it yeah

23:24Alex Lowe: that they forget that it's actually the people's game.

23:27Alfie Reynolds: And actually, I think we'll get onto the actual rugby in a second, but I think this is also related to England's bad performance over the last few weeks. Like, who's the public face? Who's telling, not us, at Pennyhill Park in a room by the fire, but the public, this is our plan, this is what we're doing, this is our vision. Like, Red Bull aren't telling anyone what their vision is. We don't even know who owns them. And to be fair, even... We don't know. And we ask people and we try and write their names in pieces and they ask for them to be taken out. It's incredible, isn't it?

23:59Alex Lowe: The seismic change that happened at the RFU Council meeting on Friday and yet there isn't anybody from the RFU or Prem Rugby who's actually discussed it, explained it in their own words.

24:11Will Kelleher: No Q &A. Well, maybe just if I can wrap us up on this then. The question I wanted to ask just to end on, Alex, is what are the potential disagreements here? I was really struck when we had this massive announcement, right, at the back end of last week, and you had the section in there from Bill Sweeney, a section in there from Simon Massey-Taylor, from the RPA, from the Champ board. And I was like, this all feels very kind of amicable and nice, but are we bubbling away to potential schism and disagreement down the line?

24:37Alex Lowe: I think if you were to go through the pre-agreed quotes, the quotes from the Champ don't quite match up with the rest.

24:48Alfie Reynolds: But some people are happy with it, aren't they? Well, you quoted Simon Gilliam in your piece, and he seemed to be a bit more calm about the whole thing.

24:55Alex Lowe: Yes, but then he's been part of trying to drive a solution. And I think that's where, so Simon Gilliam, chairman of Breathe, came about 15 months ago to become chairman of the Championship of Clubs. And I think it was a smart move in the sense that he wasn't part of everything that had gone before. So that's where, going back to all we've discussed, if you could see where the train was coming from, you'd go, well, the RFU are at Fort here, they've cut the funding, blame them reinstate the funding well simon gilliam has come in and gone right well i'm just going to deal with where we are and he believes that this is the best solution for the champ and for any aspirational club because they're going to have to spend time in what they call the proving

25:34Alfie Reynolds: ground of the champ but he would want there to be promotion but he in future still to his core

25:39Alex Lowe: believes in promotion and relegation um which goes back to my point of he believes that that's the right thing but he doesn't he now recognizes that it can't work right now as you said Alfie talk about where the the conflict areas happen is that they the championship are still holding firm on a number of issues which haven't yet been signed off and they knew that they wouldn't get it there wasn't time to get it signed off before this council meeting so the option was hold out and delay it further and further or try and find an arrangement whereby they receive a guarantee so They've basically had a written guarantee that a number of issues will now be addressed by the professional game board, including funding of the championship is a massive thing, including the mechanism for promotion.

26:28Alex Lowe: Now, one of the things I understand is that the Prem would see an aspirant club, an expansion club as they call it, would have to tick all these boxes as we've gone through rugby and investment and commercial and fan base. but what weighting goes on each one? Now, I think the champ at the moment believe that you still need to have won the champ or at least finish top two to demonstrate your rugby criteria. I suspect the prem will see it very differently. As you're complaining about...

27:01Alfie Reynolds: They want to play God. We've used that phrase a few times. 100%. Pluck them. Thank you very much.

27:05Alex Lowe: They see, as you went through earlier, the geography or the investor or the business or the commercial value. That's what they're interested in. more than have you earned it on the field of play, which I think the champion clubs are still holding out for because that would at least give them something to hold on to that you have to have won that league, which would add benefit to the championship that you could come in and you'd still have to perform in that league. You can't just exist for a season. They want that element of competition in the champ and it would give them something that at the right point, you just flip it so that the winner of the champ doesn't have to then qualify through all the other criteria, they could then get promoted.

27:45Alex Lowe: So anyway, that's a long-winded way of saying there's still plenty being discussed in the background and the exact criteria and weighting that will go into an expansion club is yet to be finalised.

27:58Stuart Barnes: The question, do you want to build a bridge or do you want to build a brick wall?

28:02Will Kelleher: I feel like I've got so many different questions popping up in my brain as we're talking through it. I think post Six Nations, we maybe have to do a separate pod entirely to go through loads of this. and I'm sure plenty of people listening will have been screaming at their phones or as they're listening to the pod and agreeing with Barnsley and wanting to send us an email. If you do, then the ruck at the times.co.uk is the email address. Get in touch with us and we'll maybe try and cover it off.

28:23Alex Lowe: I don't disagree with Barnsley. I just don't know how you get to the dream scenario without trying to find a new way because the old way wasn't working.

28:32Will Kelleher: Well, fascinating. Yeah, do, as I say, do drop us an email if you want to. We'll take a quick break. Up next, we'll get on to the Six Nations action this weekend. so round four in the six nations this weekend ireland wales on friday and then saturday scotland france and italy england quite a lot to get into with all of these games i want to start off with scotland france though here i know we've got plenty to say on england and where they are and three of us are going to be in rome later on this week but scotland france i want to put to you guys a question that I sent to Mark Palmer last night, which is, if you can only have one, what's more important to Scotland?

29:11Will Kelleher: Beating France this weekend and so being in with a title shot on the final weekend or finally beating Ireland and winning a triple crown? I see. The last time you asked a question like this, I answered it too quickly and then regretted it. So I'm just now going to wait for someone else to go first. So sorry, if I can only offer you one. Yeah. So obviously the perfect thing here is Scotland do both. They win the triple crown. They're in with the title shot and then who knows what's going to happen that probably depends on other results but if it can only offer you one for this scotland team beating france this weekend which puts them in with a chance of actually winning the title on the final weekend which they've never really got to or finally beating ireland the team that they have had such an awful record against and they pick up a triple round i've now got my answer it's ireland isn't it well it's a bit hypothetical

29:56Stuart Barnes: because I mean are these games in an unreal world being played at the same time because if at the same time they're playing France the same time somehow they're playing Ireland then you've got either or but as it is it has to be France because to beat France gives them a chance to carry on

30:15Alfie Reynolds: you're a slave to the next game is that what you're saying

30:18Stuart Barnes: I think you're a slave to the next game if you're looking to win the title as we've discussed

30:22Alfie Reynolds: although Ireland

30:23Alex Lowe: has become their

30:24Alfie Reynolds: I'm wrong then

30:25Alex Lowe: their big their nemesis it isn't their biggest game as we discussed already this season I think if they could beat France at home they'd give themselves a better chance of beating Ireland

30:37Alfie Reynolds: No, but you can't that's not how either or works, mate you can't do

30:42Alex Lowe: But the either or is beat France with a chance to win the title to win the title means they have to beat Ireland So is France So I think

30:49Alfie Reynolds: my pitch for Ireland is that they have beaten France a few times recently, haven't they? they beat them when Mahmoud Hawass punched Jamie Ritchie in the face was that six years ago 2020 I think that might have been when France should have really won the slam that year and didn't England pipped them on bonus points and they've beaten them in the they won the game in the next year in Covid in Paris didn't they yeah that's when they won in the slam of France where Brees Doulin was messing about which was that overhanging game because people had Covid and got plays a week later whereas the Ireland thing is I think it's 11 in a row is it they've lost getting that monkey up the back the teams don't like each other you'll hate me for saying this Barnsley but they're in the World Cup pool with each other so having beaten them before a year out that helps

31:33Alex Lowe: can we say that if they win one of them they've turned what at the very start looked like a desperate Six Nations into a success brilliant from where they were after losing and the teams they would have beaten and beaten one of Ireland or France then don't you look at it and you go they lost to Italy and then they

31:52Alfie Reynolds: won all the others like what on earth is that or they won three of the others yeah i feel like

31:56Will Kelleher: alex and barnes didn't enter into the spirit of the question there's too many caveats and well that's not real i know it's not realistic but it's an interesting hypothetical you went straight

32:05Stuart Barnes: into like parallel universe i could i could i could only think about being in a camp i think you were playing france and gregor townsend said right lads we might lose this one but if we could be Ireland they say yeah we'll do that

32:20Alfie Reynolds: look Alfie's just thinking after this he's got to clip up a social media thing that lasts a minute and we've just made we've ruined his like nice neat question that then leads to the lovely answer the social media clip is gone

32:30Will Kelleher: which isn't how I planned the pod

32:32Alfie Reynolds: by the way to make it absolutely clear

32:33Will Kelleher: but it might the reason I thought that was interesting is because you have these two massive things two things that are often thrown at Scotland is well there's a few actually because you could say not backing up an England result which maybe they've done kind of in an unconvincing way but is not being final weekend in with a shot with winning it, which means they'll have to beat France. Never been in that position. Never been in that position. Or it's the Ireland thing.

32:52Stuart Barnes: It's interesting Scotland, because dare I say it, I think 23-26 against Wales doesn't back up the win against England in the slightest. And I suspect that when Ireland play Wales this weekend, there'll be a bit of head scratch in how Scotland won by three points. They didn't play very well. Wales were better. But look at the Welsh record. Scotland, that was when you get trapped in this thing about results or performances. Scotland had to put a performance and win. They won, but their performance was nowhere near where it needed to be. What was Mark Palmer's answer?

33:26Will Kelleher: He said, I think beat France this weekend, but ask me again on Sunday.

33:32Alex Lowe: He danced around it a little bit as well. A new answer once they've lost to France, the way he needs. He's a great dancer as hell, Mark.

33:39Will Kelleher: The other thing, maybe, to flip this round onto France, I mean, I don't think it's an exaggeration, is it, to say that this is surely going to be their toughest test of the championship so far and we were speaking about it on last week's pod barnsie of france have looked brilliant right i'm not disputing that but is there anything in the fact they haven't been fully tested they like they haven't been put under pressure in a really tight game where you're unsure of the result going into the final 20 all right the italy game on the scoreboard was close to be fair you might come back at me with that but that that still intrigues me with france i still think they're probably going to win the title but can scotland put them under serious serious pressure i'd say that you know

34:15Alex Lowe: italy have shown italy have got as close as anyone to to put them under pressure and yeah you could you could say that it was still being easy but it's still being easy you could still say in this championship if you could get them on the back foot what how will they react they haven't had to answer that question but one of the reasons they haven't had to answer that question is because they have been so so much on the front foot of their own creation that game in the opening night in Paris against Ireland, where they just...

34:39Stuart Barnes: That was the one, the first hour against Ireland was the one that told you where France are at the moment, yeah.

34:45Alex Lowe: It would be great if Scotland did, because then it would keep everything alive. You know, there'll be a hell of a party in Paris on the last day if they go and win the slam against England in the nicest rugby kit that's ever been made. We need to do a minute on that at some point. But it would be great for the championship, and it actually would be very in keeping with this championship of Scotland. were to win and allow it all to be live going in the last weekend.

35:10Alfie Reynolds: We had this, but maybe a bit too early for this discussion, but it's been a mad tournament, but it's been fascinating already, hasn't it? Definitely. It has totally not gone how lots of us expected, apart from France being excellent. And as we've said, Scotland are in the pits and now they could suddenly still win the title randomly. Ireland, you're looking at them going like, they're all tired, old, Andy Farrell's gone.

35:34Alex Lowe: They were miles off in Paris. It's like greatest result ever.

35:38Alfie Reynolds: It's a wild tournament. England are this amazing team that's going to win the World Cup and now the coach might get sacked. No one actually said that. You're polarised.

35:46Alex Lowe: England believed that that's what people were saying. No one actually ever said that. Of course not, no. But it's been fascinating, hasn't it?

35:51Alfie Reynolds: And we've all looked mugs throughout it.

35:55Stuart Barnes: And you just made the point about I'd have no confidence predictions. Before it started, I sort of said, I fancy Italy to beat Scotland. and we did this thing, didn't we? AI against the writers. And I thought, what am I going to do to beat AI? I think my fellow writers, they're going to go to Scotland. So I'm going to Italy. And I got that and I got everything in the first week. I thought, yeah, smart, Stuart. And since then, I thought, my God. And if you say, who's going to win this one? Don't ask me. Don't ask me. It's no idea.

36:27Will Kelleher: Well, speaking of that, then we'll do more, as I say, later on in the week. Alex, Will, myself are going to be in Rome. so we'll have a pod coming for you from Rome on Thursday where we're building up to the game. But how big is this week for England off the back of Ireland and Scotland?

36:41Alfie Reynolds: So I've been away and Alex and Charlie and Barnsley have been picking up all the slack this last week and I feel like I'm entering this week with doom in my English heart because I'm thinking I can only see it going badly and I don't know quite why but I think this is a massive week for England. This is seriously defining. And it sounds funny that because this fixture over the Six Nations era has been the least interesting of all of them because England have always won it. And they've not just played them in the Six Nations, obviously, but it's 32 wins out of 32, zero defeats. There's been one draw in a non-capped game in the 80s, I think.

37:22Alfie Reynolds: But this one feels enormous. It sounds from our information, and this pod will go out maybe after we've written this piece, that Borswick is going to completely throw the baby out with the bathwater and change the entire back line every single position so our information is that the back line could end up being Ben Spencer so Alex Mitchell's not fit, Vin Smith at 10 no George Ford, Serbackinson at 12 no Fraser Dingwall, Freeman back to 13 so no Ollie Lawrence who's on the rehab list now, Caden Murley Roebuck and Marcus Smith and you suddenly go that is not the team that they wanted to pick that was not the plan add to that the manner of the last two defeats where you think they've collapsed into a heap with no comeback no fight no spirit no energy no intelligence no game plan and then you go Italy are good they've got a fantastic scrum they could have their midfield back together that you've written about Barnsley Brex and Menoncello who are exceptionally good the last game over there England went over there was very tight nervy they've got a fantastic team and we're coming back around to your prediction it's got to happen sometime hasn't it Italy beating England so speaking of predictions that's one of those

38:38Will Kelleher: that at the time I wasn't confident enough to really go all in on it whereas now we're here I should have been properly predicting this from the start

38:44Alex Lowe: I think I think Will's point about the manner is what's most important here so England are kind of pushing a line that they're still 1-12 out of the last 14, which is statistically true. It isn't that they lost to Scotland and lost to Ireland. That is so alarming. It's the manner of... It's the performance. You know, you lose two tight games in a competitive Six Nations. That doesn't require emergency surgery. The fact that, as we record this, that's what we think the back line is going to be, demonstrates that these are panic stations. for England because of the manner in which they collapsed.

39:23Alex Lowe: In Scotland, there were some bounces of the ball that went the wrong way. I think the first yellow card for Arundel was harsh. That then obviously led to the red card rather than it just being a yellow. So there were things that didn't go their way, but there were also a lot of self-inflicted wounds. And even more so, I think what was alarming was the lack of reaction from Scotland to Ireland. Actually, it got worse. the lack of intensity you know talking to Courtney Laws in the week and he was staggered that an England team having taken such a hiding at Murrayfield could lose the physical battle and lack the intensity and the speed across the ground that England showed and he's right and one of the things that has frustrated me about the way that Steve Borthick reacted was he said well we weren't the best team in the world when we were winning 12 in a row, we're not the worst team in the world now.

40:22Alex Lowe: A, no one said they were the best team in the world.

40:25Alfie Reynolds: Certainly not journalists.

40:26Alex Lowe: No, there was excitement, encouragement, optimism building around this team. And it might be a coaching strategy to treat every game the same in how you analyse it, how you break it down, how you learn from it and how you implement those lessons in the week to retain an even mood around the place so that you you look like you're in control i get that as a coaching strategy but i actually find it um i mean insulting is probably too strong when i'm not insulted but i but i find i thought i find there's a real disconnect between anyone believing that that is a narrative that a rugby fan should buy into because if you can't be optimistic and hopeful and excited when your national team or your club team has won 11 12 games in a row then what is

41:16Alfie Reynolds: the point of any of it yeah no no don't get excited doesn't matter come on we're not that good

41:20Alex Lowe: no they're all oh all right there are grays to this so if England lose two narrow games they lose two narrow games it's disappointing it's not the end of the world the reason this reaction has been what it is is because of the manner as Barnsley put it and I just don't I don't like the idea that coaches could lecture their support and go oh everyone was too excited when you won 12 in a row well if you're not what is the point in sport what's the point in any of it stop cheering us we're not that good come on if you can't be optimistic and by the way they were hopeful and optimistic as well which is why the whole narrative was let's get let's get ourselves to Paris with a shot at the title which is absolutely the right thing to have said and Eddie Jones criticised Borthwick for saying it saying he'd taken his eye off the ball he hadn't and I don't understand where Eddie came from because he was the first one to generate a positive narrative when it suited him

42:12Alfie Reynolds: I want to what was the quote I want people to talk about the England team in the 2020s as one of the great teams, which he said in 2020.

42:20Alex Lowe: And then a year later, he was like, well, this is the fourth last campaign to the next World Cup or whatever it was, because he knew it wasn't going well. He was the first one to create narratives. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Borthwick saying, I want this England team to be going to Paris with a shot at the title. Because apart from anything else, what's the alternative that he wants? What, to just be going there? I'd like us to win three out of five and be fine, I'm all right. The alternative is where they are now, which is let's hope they're not going there to finish bottom.

42:44Will Kelleher: Barnsley can I ask you about the selection for what Will's outlined there you've been writing about this I know I mean that's pretty kind of punchy well just quickly add a statistical note

42:54Alfie Reynolds: there if if that is what happens so therefore every position the back line changing and one person moving positions that's never happened under Borthwick there have been times or certainly not within a tournament so obviously there were times like the USA game and then coming back for November last year where a lot of things changed because the Lions came back and similarly from the Wales game to the summer tour but the only equivalent would be during the World Cup pool stage where they played Japan then Chile then Samoa and there were fairly quick turnarounds and they changed most of the back line for that Chile game Owen Farrell came back and then he went from 10 to 12 for the Samoa game so there's basically no precedent for this amount of change Barnsley?

43:38Stuart Barnes: Well, what I would say is we shouldn't be screaming and shocked because this is exactly what the England squad and the time that Balthwick have with them is all about. And I've had people say, oh, England can't make many changes. Well, of course they can. They've got, how many in the 36 blokes in the squad? The whole point of having a 36-man squad is being able to pair them together and to be able to step in. So in theory, you can't turn around and say, well, we've made a lot of changes. That's why it went wrong. Can't do that because the squad prepares for internationals to make seven changes if that's what does happen.

44:20Stuart Barnes: A, I'm not saying the world's wrong or the sources are wrong, but I can't believe that because it's too much for my little brain to take on board. It's too shocking. but again I mean Steve Borthwick I think at one stage it was myself and Borthwick were defending George Ford and no one else and he was saying you know George is still a great player he's had a couple of iffy games and there's this talk about he's had two poor games he's got to go if you dropped every international who's had two poor games on the trot no one would have 20 caps in the world that's what happens and Ford has but it doesn't stop him being a very good player and I just wonder now how are they going to play if that was to be the back line and I think we should wait until we see it because it seems so crazy what's England's game plan what are they going to be doing because if Finn Smith's going to be playing there's going to be a little less strategic kicking a little less territorial pressure

45:25Alfie Reynolds: stronger defending at 10 perhaps

45:26Stuart Barnes: Well, right. Finn Smith misses tackles. Can we get over this rubbish? But George Ford isn't a strong tackler, but he makes tackles. Finn Smith, I see him miss plenty of tackles. But because the narrative is that Finn Smith's been a tackler, everyone shuts their eyes when that happened. We do that everywhere in sport, all sport. When it doesn't suit our purposes, we just ignore it. Ignore it. So I'm not worried about the tackling aspect of the game there. I'm worried about England's creativity because the lack of creativity was awful. Whoever plays fly half can have their work cut out with Menoncello and Brex if they come out there.

46:10Stuart Barnes: There's boldness there. Marcus Smith is a bold choice because I love Freddie Stewart as a bloke. He seems just such a decent guy. but England want to play pressing game where they kick a lot they force you to kick hurriedly under pressure and they hit you on the counter it's called the South African game what England have been trying to do is play like South Africa and then if they take George Ford out and they play Finn Smith they take the key kicking man out of the component part out of it and they bring in Marcus Smith a fullback who is brilliant at the counter attacking which Freddie Stewart's not so I can't it seems weird mixed messages to me in how they started off as a team who wanted to be a quasi-Springbok team to now they want to be slightly less Springbok with the ball in hand and slightly more Springbok on the counter-attack it doesn't add up to me

47:04Alex Lowe: to use your analogy they're trying to play Springbok rugby without any of the big beasts the Springboks have to allow them to do that and so what I think

47:12Alfie Reynolds: or the punch in midfield or the athletes outweigh that's what I mean

47:15Alex Lowe: they don't have they picked Arundel because they wanted some X-factor pace but then could never work him in a position in attack. Part of the reason they couldn't do that was because they didn't have a Damien De Allende at 12 to smash him over the gain line or a Peter Zefti at 6 to smash him over the gain line. So when they brought on Marcus Smith just before half-time last week, it was a case of please try and conjure something out of nothing.

47:38Stuart Barnes: But we have got no way of changing the platform in front of you. That moment then you had George Ford and he does go lateral but he will at times take a deliberate lateral line and expect someone to a Lange to come crashing through. That's how he plays it. It's a lot of fly halves. It's not a lack of discipline. It's begging for that point, and it hasn't been coming. And Ford and Dingwall is a player I have huge respect for. And Northampton, who play flatter and more lateral and create space on the game line, it can function. England don't play that way. yet Ford has picked to play with Fraser Dingwall.

48:18Stuart Barnes: They get lateral. No one can bail them out of that. Then what do they do? They bring Marcus Smith on. So you've got George Ford, you've got Fraser Dingwall, and you've got Marcus Smith. That is an imbalanced side in terms of physicality. It goes with my point about they want to kick like South Africa, they want to counter like South Africa, they don't pick the players. They've got this vision of how they want to game and they picked three smaller specimens.

48:46Alex Lowe: So I think that's why they'd be looking at Atkinson to come in at 12, more direct carrying at 12. But the area that I wonder whether they'll change, and I don't have any intel on this right now, other than it seems obvious, is moving Oli Chesson to six. Because the other area of their game has been a nightmare, has been the line-out. Now, the throwing hasn't been great, but they've had two front-line jumpers. they put no pressure on the opposition line at all and I wouldn't be surprised if they move Chesson to 6 as a big carrying beast big body and have Alex Coles in the second row to add or the other way around or the other way around however they packed down

49:27Alfie Reynolds: Coles would play more at 6 for the Saints

49:28Alex Lowe: last week Pollock was wearing 8 but packed down at 7 and Ben O 'erl still and played wing and then played wing so I think part of your thing about Ford is he's got no one driving the team forward they're losing the collisions and what's interesting and Charlie did a great piece on this on Sunday I don't think England's opponents are England have like they get where they don't fail is to get into the red zone

49:52Alfie Reynolds: It's 12 a game isn't it? 12 entries and 22 a game

49:54Alex Lowe: 12 entries and 22 a game which is a lot in the Wales game they converted a lot of them for an hour but the last two their average points has been 1.1 1.4 per entry because when they get there they don't have the punch and they don't have the guile and it's much harder to have the guile when you haven't got the punch because as Charlie outlined the closer you are to the try line the more defenders they can put in the in their defensive line which means there's no space so England's skills are then under pressure and their skills are failing them they don't have the power to break through and so I think teams at the moment look at England and think well let's just invite them in and then we'll pick off an interception or put charge down a drop goal so I think don't think this was the plan this week but I think as a reaction to where England have been they need more they'll sacrifice the X factor of Arundel for a better all round rugby player in Cain Murley they'll sacrifice the kind of the glue as he's sort of almost dabbing with faint praise I think they wanted Dingwall to help Freeman bed in into midfield that will have gone replaced by a more powerful more like a better athlete at 12 in Seb Ackinson because they're limp otherwise is they don't have the weapons to damage teams.

51:08Will Kelleher: Well, we'll see what the England team selection is, which will be out later on this week. Send us an email, theruckatthetimes.co.uk. Will and Alex, see you in Rome. See you in Rome. Can't wait. And Barnsley, great to see you. Always good to have you in studio. Go well back on the Wiltshire Express. I will. Thank you very much for listening. Back with you on Thursday. This has been The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times.