Where does Welsh rugby go from here?

0:25Thank you.

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1:16Alex Lowe: welcome to the ruck the journalist's rugby podcast from the times and the sunday times alfie is away awaiting the birth of his daughter and will is off exploring the norwegian fjords i think. So this week it's me Alex Lowe joined by Elgin Alderman. Hello how are you doing Alex? I am very well. Had a good weekend watching Schoolboy Rugby Saturday, Saracen's Bath on Sunday. Did you go to Cardiff?

1:42Elgan Alderman: I was not in Cardiff. I was spared perhaps the new lowest day in Welsh rugby because to avoid last year's Autumn Internationals I scheduled my wedding for the last weekend in November so I was in Suffolk for the weekend for my first wedding anniversary.

1:56Alex Lowe: Wow congratulations. Thank you very much.

1:58Elgan Alderman: Yes, managed to catch the last 20 minutes of the Wales-South Africa game, including the Ebon Etzabeth red card, which, I mean, didn't quite overshadow a 73-0 win, but certainly became a big talking point out of nowhere towards the end of that. Major.

2:11Alex Lowe: It gave everyone an intro, at least at the principality. On Saturday, a kind of grotesque event for any number of reasons, and that Etzabeth eye gouge was the last of them. We'll get into all of that on this pod. we have for you an episode packed with news and talking points. Really, as we reflect on the weekend, we look ahead to the World Cup draw on Wednesday, the start of Europe. Of course, even at Zabeth disciplinary hearing will be confirmed, I think today, Monday, we'll probably be up before the beak, Tuesday or Wednesday. And I guess we should start in Cardiff, you were enjoying a much more pleasurable time this weekend, Elgin, but Wales, the result, the game, the optics, the Dave Reddin smiling in the box, the Etzabeth thumb in the eye of Alex Mann.

3:00Alex Lowe: It was the whole thing was just pretty grim, wasn't it?

3:03Elgan Alderman: It was. Dave Reddin has made a big point in all of this WIO consultation of wanting people to forget history. But sadly, the sight of him, a small little smirk in the crowd, which, of course, I'm sure he wasn't laughing at the fact Wales were losing 73-0. But the optics of that, of course, anyone that knows their Welsh rugby history immediately thinking back to Colin Chavez in 2003 after Wales were losing to Italy, eventually lost to Italy. He had gone off. He was caught smirking on the sideline. And I've never actually seen the raw polling data for this, but Colin Chavez, within weeks of that incident, was claiming to be the second most hated man in Wales between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

3:42Elgan Alderman: So it became this part of Welsh rugby folklore. So just because of all the vitriol that's flying around at the moment, I know that a lot of people just seeing that smile suddenly thought, oh, here we go again, here's another bit of Welsh history that will not land well with the Welsh rugby public.

3:59Alex Lowe: Yeah, Dave Redding, he did an interview pre-match in which he sort of talked through the various stages. He compared it to the seven stages of grief that he has to go through in any kind of change project. And there's resistance and there's anger. And he's copying all of that right now with his vision for what he believes will be the future of Wales, probably three professional teams but one of the problems they need to solve is who takes the fourth slot in the urc i think london irish are still in the mix for that i think those talks are ongoing um but he's got himself into a position in wales where whichever way he turns he's facing aggro i know the game was scheduled in years ago but plenty of contracts were ripped up during covid time this game was supposed to be happening in covid it was very unnecessary we talked last week on the pod about the sporting balance versus the money and whatever they earned from a low crowd at the Principality Stadium I just don't believe that money alone isn't going to fix whilst rugby I don't believe it it was worth I guess the heartache the aggro the the negativity that it generated for the players and for the team I actually had last week there was a lot of

5:12Elgan Alderman: things said and written about how this was the game that no one wanted to take place I actually had a bit of sympathy with the occasion only because I looked back to the records I think it was the 16th extra November test Wales have ever organized so it's a thing that they've done for a very long time last year was actually given all the all the talk about finances last year was actually strange in that they only had three it seems that suddenly they're talking about you know financial apocalypse and suddenly they're not organizing the fourth one it was a bit strange last year so I had a bit of sympathy for that reason like we said it was organized so many years ago it's not a bad luck either to cancel a match because you think you might lose um obviously it was different in the 2010s where there were fewer players playing outside of wales so wales could still have that's the point isn't it they would have lost some players to the prem they would have lost some players the top 14 etc the crowd which was about 50 000 again looking back at old old numbers i was actually was surprised it was that high in a regard 50 000

6:11Alex Lowe: And paying punters?

6:12Elgan Alderman: Well, who knows? There's been talk of tickets being handed out. Certainly I knew some people that were trying to offload a few in the last few days. But it was interesting to see that, looking back through the old Wales Springboks game, that even when both teams were sort of in good positions, it's never been a big pull for the Welsh public, which I think perhaps tells a story of these autumn internationals for Wales. The only time the Springboks have ever attracted more than 70 ,000 to Cardiff, I think, in the last 20 years or so, has been on the back of a Six Nations Grand Slam or a Six Nations title, which says something, I think, for perhaps going back in time, the interest that is perceived to be there for these autumn internationals in Wales compared to the reality of the situation.

6:54Elgan Alderman: There've been 40 ,000-odd seats for Argentina games Samoa in the past. So the fact that there were 50 for this game, again, like we say, not sure how many of them were paying punters.

7:06Alex Lowe: That is interesting, though, because South Africa have such an enormous following that I think they were banking on huge droves of Bok fans heading down to Cardiff from London. I was in Dublin the week before and there were probably 10 ,000 maybe more South Africa fans at the Aviva Stadium to the point where a lot of the Irish journalists were pretty angry at how that situation had developed and their conclusion was that the IRFU are charging too much money for tickets. Not enough Ireland fans can afford to go. So clubs in Ireland are seeing it as an opportunity to sell those tickets as packages over to travel agents in the UK and South Africa fans travelling over.

7:45Alex Lowe: But I guess the pull of Ireland v South Africa is rather different to Wales, South Africa. But when Wales were Grand Slam champions, I'm surprised that that wasn't the hottest ticket of those autumns because there are so many Bok fans around.

8:01Elgan Alderman: Yeah, it's always been the case that the All Blacks has always been the biggest pull and other fixtures. And you look back to, you know, Wales used to play autumn internationals against the likes of Romania, Fiji quite regularly. Then they moved away towards prioritising Australia, New Zealand, South Africa for this very reason that they do attract more fans. But I think what, just looking back at those numbers, it's sort of, there's this big feeling, I think, outside of Wales that, oh, this malaise can't possibly go on. It's this great rugby country where everyone's born with a rugby ball in their hands.

8:31Elgan Alderman: And a lot of that is just rosy spectacles for a Wales that doesn't exist anymore. A lot of people have been saying, a lot of South Africans were saying in the Boulipsi, Khaleesi, Razia, Rasmus, they were saying things like, oh, we went through this in 2017-18. But South Africa is a country of 65 million people where rugby is still so front and centre of the nation's identity. They'd already won two World Cups by that stage to win and have since won two more. It is just of a different magnitude to what's going on in Wales, a country of only just more than 3 million people where, you know, I think Richard Collier-Keywood saying, the chairman saying that when he sort of took over, there was just no money around to spend on anything.

9:13Elgan Alderman: So I do think it's a false comparison when people say, oh, South Africa have been through this a few years ago. This was the latest example of how what's going on in Wales at the moment, there's no obvious end in sight. And there's no God-given right for Wales to be a leading rugby nation. You have to be well-run. There has to be passion among the people, passion for the leagues that the regions are playing in, interest in the success of the national side, etc. So it was just the latest chapter in what a lot of people think could be, I mean, I hesitate to use the word terminal, but people just aren't sure where the green shoots are going to come from at this moment in time.

9:54Alex Lowe: One of the criticisms of this game was that it clashed with a round of URC, and yet... They did quite well. They did, right?

10:00Elgan Alderman: The Welsh region, they'll have to disband the national side and keep four regions instead. Scarlet's got their first win of the season in the league against Glasgow. Cardiff won away to Zebra. Osprey's almost won in Edinburgh. And the Dragons were quite close to levelling the scores against Leinster in the last 10 minutes when there was a contentious, dangerous tackle not awarded. So it was actually one of the better weekends for regional rugby in quite some time, strangely.

10:25Alex Lowe: So Ed to Beth. that, you know, I said, everyone would have spent an hour in the press box writing one of the easier reports to write if you're in our shoes because there's no jeopardy in the game. You're just waiting for records to be ticked off, etc. But then the story changed in the last couple of minutes, even at Sabeth with his thumb. We've developed this, or rugby developed this terminology about the eye area being protected. This wasn't the eye area. This was a thumb on the eye. which looked to me like for a protracted and deliberate amount of time. Now, we'll discover whether that is what he's charged with, whether it's reckless or deemed to be intentional, but I don't think there's any way of avoiding a ban.

11:09Alex Lowe: Do you?

11:10Elgan Alderman: It's certainly, in my memory, the most obvious in-game example I can recall of seeing an incident with the eye area, an eye gouge of that ilk. And based on the evidence, the fact it was acted on during the game, you'd think that I think the low end for a ban is 12 weeks and it can go anything up to a maximum ban of four years for an incident like this.

11:33Alex Lowe: Intentional contact with the eye, low end, entry point, 12 weeks. Maximum, I think a mid-range 18, top end 24 plus to a maximum of 208 weeks. That's if it's intentional. Reckless is slightly lower, six weeks for the low end, 12 weeks for the mid, 18 plus for the top with the same maximum of 208. And Alex Mann's reaction immediately told us something was up and he was very frosty afterwards.

12:03Elgan Alderman: Well, Eben Eter had allowed onto the field to shake hands at the end of the game. So there was that moment where Alex Mann gave him a few more words afterwards.

12:11Alex Lowe: And you're right. You're a long-time watcher, studier of French rugby where this kind of behaviour was routine back in the day. But in the modern game, I think of Schaltberger and the Lions Tour in 2009 when he should have had a red card. But I can't think of too many other egregious incidents given that there are so many cameras around. It's almost impossible to get away. There have been players banned for it. Chris Ashton got banned for it. I think there are a lot of incidents, eye area incidents, where there's a hand in the face, a finger ends up in the eye area. It's not deliberately going in to cause damage.

12:50Alex Lowe: It just ends up being reckless. This, on the face of it, looks as bad as it gets.

12:57Elgan Alderman: Yeah, I agree with that. It's rare that an incident of foul play, an incident of any officialdom in rugby, seems to unite everyone in how they viewed it. So yeah, like you say, absolutely. Don't recall many, many cases of this ilk.

13:12Alex Lowe: there are a few suggestions from South Africa I think Brian Hibana was making the point he felt that maybe Alex Mann had had a go at Etzabeth in the ruck previously from the footage I've seen they were definitely in close proximity didn't look to me like there was anything close to hands towards the eyes but they'll have better angles in any disciplinary hearing but regardless of the provocation that's yeah I think it's as bad as it gets and he will be facing, you know, he doesn't have a long disciplinary record. He's a fiercely tough player who I think does play on the line and has done for 140 test matches.

13:55Alex Lowe: But I don't think he's been banned since 2012. So his record will be clean in that sense. But I think he's got a long time out of the game coming up, I think.

14:04Elgan Alderman: I think what was strange is that you often see games that are one-sided perhaps get a bit fractious towards the end, usually because the team that's losing gets a bit uppity, they don't like how it's going. And that's why you look to that and you think, why have you reacted to something when you're about to win 73-0? I mean, well, firstly, of course, why would you do that anyway at any stage for a match? But especially because it came so late on in this incredibly one-sided game, it did just come out of absolutely nowhere.

14:30Alex Lowe: On the subject of discipline, a colleague of ours, Martin Ziegler, wrote a story over the weekend which touched upon a debate we had on the pod after the Ireland-South Africa game on the use of yellow cards to punish props in the scrum. Ireland had two props, Simbin, to get to Africa. And we just had a discussion, quite irked some people, but I think it was a legitimate conversation about the use of a yellow card if you are just not as good as your opponent. If you remove the better prop and then he has to then be replaced by his understudy, is that actually going to solve the problem? So it was just an interesting debate that we had.

15:07Alex Lowe: but Martin Ziegler filed a piece over the weekend saying that he understands that unions are going to put a proposal through to World Rugby that yellow cards shouldn't be used for scrum penalties and to discipline props who just aren't as good and I'll just read an excerpt from his piece Rugby unions authorities are set to call for a review of the law around scrums that allows for players to be shown a yellow card just for being outmuscled the law is expected to be on the agenda when the Six Nations top executives meet for the tournament in the new year. From that, a proposal could go to World Rugby's Shape of the Game conference in February, where law changes can be brought in, usually after trials.

15:48Alex Lowe: However, under World Rugby rules, any subsequent law change would only take effect after the 2027 World Cup, and so would not be seen as an attempt to spike the Springboks guns before the tournament. And I think that's fair, that none of this would be, it's been interpreted in a way as the whole debate as a slight on the box, as a way to depower them. I don't think that's the point here at all. It's just about what's the best way of managing the scrum and making sure it remains the contest that we want it to be. Now, if you're just way better than the opposition as the box were over Ireland, you deserve the benefits that that brings.

16:23Alex Lowe: So penalties, penalty tries. But the proposal that's going to go in is that even if a prop is bailing out to avoid going backwards, the penalty should be enough, not a yellow card. What do you think?

16:35Elgan Alderman: If the prospect of fewer yellow cards irked some people, then I'm probably going to irk them even more by what I think. Because I spent my entire rugby playing career as a piano player, not a piano mover, usually standing at inside centre going, come on lads, let's get the ball out already. So my view has always been, but I'm happy to admit that I'm a scrummaging filler's time, but my view has always been that there are too many penalties and advantages at scrums. Because like you say, sometimes it's just the job is to push the other team off the ball and win it. you've done your job let's play away nothing nothing makes my heart bleed more than when a referee will run back 30 to 40 meters for a penalty advantage when the team has won the ball you've also then got the fact that from these infringements you can obviously get three-point penalty opportunities these things can build up but I'm happy to admit that you know my bias does come from spending an entire career in the back line but that has always been my view that there should just be fewer penalties let alone and then there would be fewer yellow cards but just because there are fewer penalties in that regard um in terms of i mean i suppose this proposal is sort of suggesting that not all offenses are are equal when it comes to building up but that sort of already exists you you don't get players sim bin for holding on to the ruck three times do you so there are already things that are regarded as being that can add up to a yellow card or something like that so it would be quite a change if they brought that in but for me personally from my from my position with a clean white shorts and my hands in my pockets waiting for the ball to come out it it wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest I do think that there was a conversation

18:09Alex Lowe: around why there wasn't a yellow card shown for the penalty try that was awarded to South Africa and my understanding is that it was because that was deemed to be a a team failing rather than Paddy McCarthy was on the field at the time rather than his his fault and so therefore a yellow couldn't be shown. So I think there is a difference as to how the referee sees it. But I 100 % agree. I mean, scrums are now often places, they're not just a restart. And there has to be a contest. The whole point of Rugby Union is every element of the game is a contest. But they're often now an opportunity for teams to scrum for penalties rather than scrum as a contest to restart.

18:49Alex Lowe: So we'll keep an eye on that one. It'll be on the table when the Six Nations meet. won't be in for the Six Nations. We'll see how far it gets in the World Rugby Shape of the Game forum. And these things always have knock-on effects. I was at Saracens on Sunday, and Saracens started the game by having Noah Coloria on one wing, and then either Gonzalez or Theon McFarlane on the other, two brilliantly dynamic players, tall guys, great winning the ball in the air, and they were set up to just target Bath on the wings with high balls. Bath actually dealt with it really well, and the game didn't unfold in this aerial contest that I thought it would, but half-time, there's a bit of a chat going on, there's a lot of aerial contests in the game now.

19:38Alex Lowe: It's a tactic to play off the high ball, and that's all come from World Rugby changing a law a year ago to remove the escorts, to remove the blockers, to create this contest in the air. but now just means that that's become almost the preeminent tactic for every team is to hoist the high ball and play off the crumbs as they call them, a term from Aussie rules. So these conversations, that's what the Shape of the Game conference is there to do is to try and work out what the unintended consequences of all these things are.

20:09Elgan Alderman: With the high ball and the escort changes, I think what's perhaps led to that situation is I remember people suggesting that the Caterpillar Ruck was going to be done away with because of the five seconds. And as part of that escorting regulation, where actually they seem to have come back with a force and box kick's still such a huge part of the game, I still think it should be made much harder to box kick, essentially. And I think then we might see a change in some of that high ball. But like you say, coaches will always find a new way and everyone cottons on pretty quickly and then World Rugby acts to change it and then coaches find a new way of doing it again.

20:42Elgan Alderman: It's just an endless cycle of that, usually.

20:45Alex Lowe: We're plowing through the news of the weekend. two more big stories really. One, the demise, certainly the pause of R360. Friday morning, we had a release from R360 announcing that they were going to delay the launch of their competition for two years. It was slated to begin October 2026. They're now looking at 2028. And the explanation to quote them was that the decision will provide, quotes, the necessary runway to strengthen R360's credibility, continue collaborative discussions and partnerships with stakeholders, and position the league to launch at full scale with maximum global impact from the outset.

21:27Alex Lowe: Now, I thought that language was fascinating. So an admission that they needed to build credibility shows how they know that they're perceived from the outside, the need to build partnerships with stakeholders. There was a letter sent by Stuart Hooper, one of the board members to the players who'd signed up to this which I think relates to that comment in which he said they're going to use the time to enter discussions with the unions in the hope of securing essentially permission for players who join R360 to play test rugby so it strikes me that this is them they sold this as a proactive decision because they thought the market would be better they'd be in a better position to spend two years building up to a launch which I totally agree with.

22:13Alex Lowe: I think one of the big challenges they've had with R360 has been the timescale. Trying to get all of this done by 2026 in the year before a World Cup, when as soon as those eight unions announced that anyone who went to R360 would be ineligible for test selection, made it, for me, made it impossible to see how they could launch pre-World Cup. Delaying it to 28 means they will have access to some big-name players who will retire from Test Rugby post-World Cup. So you could imagine the Ardy Surveyors, the Sia Khaleesi's might be interested. But will it get that far? I'm not so sure.

22:54Elgan Alderman: I remember you writing during the Lions Tour in Australia about how R360 had been something of a spectre, just sort of hanging over the entire tour about what might come afterwards, about obviously all these players in one place at the same time. Just based off what you were experiencing then, what you're hearing and witnessing now, does it feel even more ephemeral than it did then? Does it feel less concrete than it was last summer? I suppose it'll always feel not concrete until it actually starts. That's the main problem with something like this.

23:25Alex Lowe: I remember we were in Sydney, third test weekend, everyone was in town. All the R360 people were in town, the unions were in town, A whole load of player representatives were in town. It felt like it was the talking point of the third test week. And there were a lot of really positive voices around about it. Significant figures in the game, certain it was going to happen. Not certain what form it would take and what players would be signed up. But certain it was going to launch. But the timing, as I say, has always been a challenge. And then as it's gone on, the issue of detail has been a problem.

24:02Alex Lowe: And they have been reluctant to share who the franchise owners are, who are the backers who've come in to actually buy the franchises, where's the investment coming from. And while they might not want to publicise that through the media, it's become apparent that player agents in Australia and New Zealand in particular, where they're dealing with rugby league players who are being targeted, had been asking for details of the funding and the financing and had supplied a deadline of December 1st. The International Rugby Players Association had asked similar questions on behalf of their representatives, the rugby union international players, and had not received the answers despite promises they'd come in September.

24:46Alex Lowe: Then the unions announced their decision to bar anyone who signs up from playing test rugby. then the NRL announced anyone who leaves the NRL to join it will be barred from returning for 10 years um more recently the British and Irish Lions uh basically sent a message to the Red Roses that if they go there they won't go on the inaugural Lions Tour women's Lions Tour to New Zealand so the establishment was was throwing hurdles in their way anyone who who spoke to um the people that the organizers behind it so Mike Tindall or Stuart Hooper or Mark Spores they were incredibly convincing in their vision and if you're in their company you'd leave the room going that is bold that is a bold vision but you understood what they were building what they're working towards people left jobs to join the venture but it always felt as it went on once you've gone from the vision and the brochure to actually the meat on the bone they couldn't supply enough information.

25:49Alex Lowe: And I don't just, as I said, I don't just mean to the media, although we are asking all the questions, but it seems like to the authorities and to the players that didn't have enough information. I think partly it's because of the timescale. They're trying to get everything done so quickly.

26:06Elgan Alderman: I was just going to say, it felt like to me that show of force was the death knell for this first iteration. And there's no guarantee that in two, two and a half years' time that's going to change. They're going to change their view.

26:17Alex Lowe: Yeah, there isn't. And just there's loads of small details which for people around the game have been sort of red flags that this wasn't going to work for 26. A couple of examples given to me. One, just take London, the London leg alone. The chat was the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Three days of rugby in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next autumn. Within the same month or two that Twickenham is going to have to sell half a million tickets for three England tests. and three days of Nations Championship, those tickets for the R360 leg aren't obviously on sale. And a ticketing expert said to me they should have been on sale for months already.

26:57Alex Lowe: Another, which is where the sales pitch for R360 is compelling if you've got an idea with the greatest players in the world all playing in one competition. But what happens if you lose a couple of props and you need to recruit? Where do you get the backup from? because can you just pick from Leicester Tigers or Cardiff? Are they going to be willing to allow a player to go out on loan? How do you produce the next generation? I think the only way, as I see it right now, the only way that they can get hold of those players, the best players, is to pay compensation. Now, we know that the RFU spend£90 million a year, I think, on the professional game in England, men's and women's.

27:37Alex Lowe: so the compensation that would have to go down to Leicester Tigers or Bath or whoever to allow them to keep operating at the levels they are when the best players are somewhere else would be enormous and that's that's been one of the questions that is being asked of R360 and as far as I'm aware there's no real answer yet about what money would filter down into the the premiership and all the other leagues, in order to allow those clubs to keep operating at the level they are now, that pyramid, I guess, how R360 slots in with the finances, just hasn't been articulated. And so I think there are a lot of big questions that they will need to answer if there's hope of getting off the ground in two years' time.

28:23Elgan Alderman: For me, for the integrity of the sport, there would have to be regulations around players not being able to flit about too much because I immediately think of some of the instances in the T20 franchise leagues in cricket where I think we had Mohamed Amir playing for three different teams in three different leagues in six days because they just flit about wherever the market wants them because it is essentially completely unregulated in that regard. So, you know, would you have players being loaned from one franchise to another? Would you have people just being called up randomly for one week and sent back?

28:51Elgan Alderman: Yeah. These are big question marks over these sorts of franchise leagues.

28:55Alex Lowe: Yeah, and I think initially they could have launched as a rebel league and taken on World Rugby and said, right, we are going to throw the money at all the best players in the world, sign them up, and then you'll have to change all your eligibility regulations or your World Cup in 27 will be denuded because the best players will be with us. But they chose not to take that route. They chose to try and engage the unions. The timescale just was never going to work for me.

29:21Elgan Alderman: We'll put a date in the diary for December 1st, 2027 to talk about it again.

29:25Alex Lowe: Yes, yeah. Plenty more news and the World Cup draw still to discuss. on The Rock after the break.

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31:16Alex Lowe: The other story of the weekend, qualifying players. and England's ranks could be, certainly the accents could change in that England squad within the next year. Hoskins to Tutu, the former All Blacks number eight, is bound for the Prem. We've known that he's been in talks for a while. Newcastle Red Bulls appear to have secured his signing. He's no longer part of the New Zealand set up. So he is qualifying on family grounds or re-qualifying either for Fiji or England. He's not played for the All Blacks for three years. now the rule change that world rugby made wasn't was sort of designed for Hoskins to go and play for Fiji rather than for England that was the intention but you can't block moves the other way so he's coming to the prem and I don't think he comes to the prem without Steve Borthwick having made it clear that he will be in his thoughts Benhard Jantz van Rensburg as it stands or as it stood, along with Hanrao Liebenberg at Leicester, did not qualify for England on residency grounds because of brief appearances they made for the South Africa under-20s during a two-year window where playing for the under-20s at a Junior World Cup bound you to that country forever.

32:31Alex Lowe: Now, obviously, Van Rensburg and Liebenberg don't have family ties to England, so they can't re-qualify on family grounds. But the RFU, it appears, have successfully appealed to World Rugby. And so Van Rensburg and Hanro Liefenberg, should England want him, would both be available on residency grounds in the months to come. How do you feel, Elgin, about both of those? I think, for me, they're different situations. What do you think?

32:59Elgan Alderman: For me, with the re-qualifying stand-down period, which I think a lot of people were in favour of that as a move coming in, like you say, primarily to bolster the playing ranks available for Tonga, Samoa, Fiji. Tonga and Samoa in particular have benefited with a lot of players. It hasn't been a panacea to all ills because they still play club rugby in England and France. They're still not always available in between World Cups. They're often slightly later on in their career. We might talk in a minute about Manu Tuolangi, who's currently 34 and he might be able to play for Samoa when he's 36 and he hasn't ruled it out yet.

33:33Elgan Alderman: So it does tend to happen to players at the ends of their career. But inevitably there have been a handful of instances of teams flitting between and i know this is a phrase that a lot of people don't like but it's an quite easy short and tier one nations we've seen jack dempsey go from australia to scotland alec hepburn go from england to scotland jean klein go from ireland to south africa and henry thomas go from england to wales for me i think part and parcel or at least should have been part and parcel of this stipulation is that if it's a nation in the six nations or the rugby championship as was a tier one so-called nation then perhaps you should be limited to to one of them and that it should be a drop down mechanism which this this this ruling did come from something similar in rugby league like many laws in rugby union came from rugby league first and the rugby league stipulation obviously international rugby league is a smaller fish in terms of how a smaller pond rather in terms of how many nations take part but part of that regulation is england australia and New Zealand are on a different pedestal to the other nations so you can swap down quite regularly but it's basically England forever once you've done that Australia forever once you've done that at the top level and I think this this repatriation policy should probably have a a similar thing so that Hoskins Tutu would be able to play for Fiji not necessarily for England not because I don't think he has any ties to England because he does have familial heritage with England and I know lots of people whose heritage is very fluid in terms of they might be on the paper more English, but they might feel closer ties to Wales, for example.

35:10Elgan Alderman: I know a lot of people with those sort of heritages. But I think for this repatriation policy, I think there should be an element of a top nation. It's one and done, and then it's a drop down situation.

35:21Alex Lowe: Yeah, I think it's really hard. So his dad played for Fiji. His mum's English. Chandler Cunningham South born here raised in New Zealand comes back to play Ricky Flutie qualified on residency for England and played for England I think if you've got an English parent it's very difficult to introduce a rule that prevents you if other people would qualify on those grounds and you can't just because you played for the All Blacks I think it's difficult for World Rugby I can see why they didn't do it he would become the first player capped for another nation to be picked by England in the professional era.

35:59Alex Lowe: Jamie Salmon obviously played for New Zealand and England, but not the first player from overseas by any means. But I just think he's the kind of player that Steve Borthwick will have, if not contacted directly, because I'm not sure what the rules are, but will have made it known that a player of his ilk would be welcome into the English game. Now, the system over here is Borthwick has wanted Joe Marchant to come back from France. He wants Junior Kapoku to come back from France. But England can't do anything about it. They don't have the authority to sign anyone. The closest, sort of the muddiest waters were around Sam Burgess when he switched from Rugby League to join Bath.

36:41Alex Lowe: Before that, Andy Farrell was encouraged by the RFU to switch codes and join Saracens. But no longer do England have that direct influence. but what they can do is tell Hoskins Tutu if you come and you're playing in the Prem you've got every chance to play for England now Joe Marchant is coming back he's signed for South Sharks for next season which is massive for Steve Borthwick another outside centre option I just think the difference between a Hoskins Tutu and a Benheim Jansi van Rensburg is key for me because if you've got an English parent then it's very hard to say you shouldn't play for England I think if the RFU are spending 30 odd million pounds a year just to the premiership plus their investment in academies to be challenging a world rugby regulation in order to parachute in i mean he's a hell of a player benard yancey van rennsberg but what does it say to seb atkinson what does it say to fraser dingwall what does it say to max ajomo where they're striving and they've come through the system to try and play for England that actually England want to try and get World Robby to change the rules in order to import a player.

37:56Alex Lowe: Any player who's qualified on residency to play for England has done so organically because England don't have that pull. They can't recruit in the way that Scotland have recruited and Ireland have recruited project players. England don't have project players but Van Rensburg would be the closest to a project player than England have had and I don't think that sits particularly well alongside all the investment they're making in the pathway and into the prem do you? I think what looking at it from a

38:25Elgan Alderman: a global rugby sense I think a core of the injustice is that it's a it's a the sort of policy that teams with the biggest playing pools already can benefit from because England and France with their big playing leagues are the leagues that can attract lots of players who then become eligible you take Argentina as the classic example almost every attempt to talk to reduce residency and make moves to make it harder things that happen they always seem to come out of Argentina because Argentina don't have a professional league at all so they can't benefit from that in any way so it's one of these situations where you know the best way to make a small fortune is to start with a big one and that's how England and France can benefit by attracting these players to their leagues I think the Jancy van Rendsburg one what is it's one of these classic examples where every nation to a degree is at it but they're all just trying to broaden their player pool there's no guarantee that Benhard Jancy van Rendsburg will well currently there's no guarantee that he'll ever play for England nor is there any guarantee that he'll have a long successful career with England because history is littered with players that have qualified along these lines to great fanfare and then have just haven't for whatever reason injuries or or just you know other players taking their chance being available it hasn't happened in the the gilded way people have thought but it's all just down to thinking okay you know five inside centers go down suddenly we've got another really good one available to us and it was a big issue during the Lions tour of course because of all of the the Scotland and Ireland players who had qualified by various means some of them residency some of them on heritage but but it's like with many things in rugby it's one of these laws where oh it's a scandal and someone else does it but um we'll

40:11Alex Lowe: also give it a go as well i think if you're steve borthwick and your job is to to build a winning england team you apply the laws as you can and if you can persuade world rugby to make benheid yancey van rennsberg available for you and he's eligible then in steve borthwick's mind he's as um viable an option as atkinson or fraser dingwall but he's he's england qualified and therefore he's an option. I think your point about building squads is key and this autumn we've seen, we've spoken so much about the game is 23 men now more than ever to the point where teams are holding back some of their better players in order to be on the field for the last half an hour to go and actually nail the game.

40:59Alex Lowe: That means instead of it being 15 with eight understudies, if it's 23 first-choice players, then you need 30 first-choice players because there's always going to be injuries and suspensions, which means that there can't be any room for a drop-off, which means that England and France and Ireland are all trying to build squads of 40, probably, where the difference between the number one and the number 40 is not. It is as small as possible. Now South Africa have got an enormous player pool, and we saw the team they were able to field in Cardiff missing pretty much 25 players pretty much that i think they've capped 50 players this year they've got incredible depth and everyone else is trying to work out how to get into the 2027 world cup with a 33-man squad that is as strong and versatile as possible and so if you're steve borthwick you're checking the rules you're checking the eligibility and as soon as the that there's a red rose kind of lights up next to van Rensburg's name then he'll consider him as as fiercely as anyone else I think the challenge it will then throw up and this will be a discussion for as and when it happens really but it's just squad harmony how do you keep Fraser Dingwall or Seb Atkinson how do you keep them believing if alongside them is an imported player he's a cracking player we saw again his performance for Bristol at the weekend man in the match performance I did wonder going into the game whether TNT might make him man in the match because he is a very newsy person to interview but actually he deserved it like outstanding on both sides of the ball as always he'll benefit England as you say certainly through competition and through depth but it will raise significant debate when it happens I'm sure

42:50Elgan Alderman: like all things in professional sports, it won't sit well with a lot of people, I'm sure. But equally, while things are able to be done, people will do them.

43:01Alex Lowe: Yeah. Right, Elgin, it's World Cup draw week, but different this year.

43:06Elgan Alderman: Yeah, we've got the expanded 24-team tournament coming up in Australia in 2027, which means that instead of the four groups of five model that we've grown very accustomed to, it's going to be six groups of four this time around on Wednesday, this draw. So it will look a bit different. It'll throw up, I think, more exciting combinations of teams because especially looking at Wales' opponents at the past five or so World Cups, it seems to be Wales, Australia, Fiji and Georgia and another team every time without fail. So there should be some fun combination of teams. I always just think that any sense of novel matchups always makes a tournament more interesting.

43:45Elgan Alderman: So the teams are now set in stone after that Belgium-Samoa game sealed Samoa's place in the World Cup as the final team. The teams are split into four bands of six teams and each pool will have one player from each of those bands. You've got Australia, the hosts. They'll definitely go in Pool A from Band 2. So they'll be drawn against a team from Band 1, which obviously we'll get onto in a minute. But Australia and Band 2 are looking like one of those big teams that you very much want to avoid.

44:12Alex Lowe: Yeah. Well, alongside them in Band 2, So Fiji and Scotland, plus Italy, Wales and Japan. Japan, very good recent record at World Cups, but look like they're coming from some way back as Eddie Jones tries to rebuild them. So yeah, band one, top six, South Africa, New Zealand, England, Ireland, France and Argentina. If you're England, what's the worst draw you could get?

44:37Elgan Alderman: The worst draw from band two, you've got Australia and Fiji, I think looming largest is the biggest.

44:42Alex Lowe: I don't think Australia by home World Cup may have recruited some more NRL players by then.

44:47Elgan Alderman: They might have Mark Noanganitoise back as well as Joseph Swaliti. Yeah, maybe a Payne House as well, depending on what's happened going on with Bo Saldo. You never know. In band two, then band three, a few possible ones there. I think Georgia, Uruguay, and then Tonga just because of their rugby heritage. When they spend a bit more time together, they can be a challenge as well. But I think Georgia and Uruguay in particular from band three. Band four, Samoa, who have snuck into band four, like we say, only just sneaking into the World Cup at all. When they've got more time together, when they've got players that are perhaps unavailable because of club rugby, they only lost to England by one point at the last World Cup.

45:28Elgan Alderman: They almost didn't make this one. And then Portugal, again, darlings of the last World Cup, they could swing a surprise or cause some trouble. I think otherwise, the other four teams in band four without saying too disrespectful, I don't think anyone will be too worried about Romania, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe or Canada. But great to see those nations taking part and especially return of USA and Canada from North America, but also Zimbabwe back for the first time in a long time. Hong Kong in for the first time ever.

45:55Alex Lowe: You spoke to Manu Samoa Tualangi in the week. Manu who has a Samoan flag tattooed on his elbow. leaving the door open for a residency switch as was intended by World Rugby moving from Tier 1 to Band 4.

46:11Elgan Alderman: Yeah, so Manu's 34 now. He'd become eligible for Samoa again. Of course, the country that five of his brothers have played for. He'd become eligible for Samoa in 2027, a few months out from the World Cup. He would be 36 by then. And it's one of those classic, Manny Tulane refused to rule out. Essentially, he was saying, it's one thing to say I'd like to do it and it'd be fun. It's another thing to think I'd be able to improve. It's a World Cup. It's not just a summer jolly, etc. So certainly on his current form, I mean, last season he was great for Bayern as they reached the top 14 semifinals.

46:49Elgan Alderman: He played most of the first early rounds of this year's top 14. So as it stands, you'd think he certainly would improve their squad if selected two years' time. even he's not sure yet whether he would be ready for it, but it is still on the table as a thing that could happen.

47:07Alex Lowe: Yeah, it's understandable that Manu of all people would go, if my body's ready, because his body has let him down. I mean, it's incredible physique, power, but it's let him down a lot through his England days. But you say his form has been great for Bayon, but his fitness too. He's played more rugby in France. It's such an attritional long season than he often managed in an English campaign.

47:31Elgan Alderman: Yeah, very much so. And when we were at the Lensbury for the European launch last week, I was talking with a colleague and we were wondering if it's something about similar to fast bowlers back in the amateur era. Maybe if you just don't train as much and just play rugby, then you're in a slightly fitter state. But no, I mean, we've seen players go out to France and struggle with the intensity of having to just play week after week in these long seasons. But for a man who certainly last season, the start of this season, it's worked wonders for him thus far.

48:01Alex Lowe: So World Cup draw, we think the toughest for England could be, say, Australia, Tonga or Georgia and summer or Portugal. I guess the easiest draw could be allow them to build really into the knockout round of 16, which is new this year in 2027. I guess Japan, USA, Hong Kong or Zimbabwe or Canada. The same would apply for Ireland. For Wales and Scotland in band two, obviously South Africa would be the toughest opponent, New Zealand, Ireland. England, France or Argentina, there's no easy game there from band one, obviously. And then band three, same, Georgia or Samoa.

48:44Elgan Alderman: What will be an additional area of interest when the World Cup finally comes around will be, because of the alteration in format, it means there'll be a last 16 round as well. So that extra round of jeopardy, even though it might throw up, for example, South Africa versus Uruguay in a knockout match, which on paper you'd think South Africa will win that convincingly. When it's a knockout match and things are on the cards, you know, it can boost the minnow ever so slightly. So while we might still see all the teams we expect to win, just the fact it is a knockout last 16 game, I think should add an interesting bit of jeopardy to any of the big nations in that last 16.

49:24Alex Lowe: The tournament will move quicker. So it's a bigger tournament with more teams, but actually it's a week shorter than the France World Cup. You get to the knockouts a week earlier. Teams won't have a week off in the way they did in France, so you won't have a two-week gap between pool matches. So it'll move quicker. knockout rounds earlier and we'll find out the draw is Wednesday morning they'll then determine I think the fixtures and the venues in January and then it really is all eyes on Australia quick round up of the Prem we've talked about Saris I think Gloucester's first win of the season was notable John Mitchell who spent some time during the November working with Gloucester on a unpaid basis consultancy basis probably keep his own coaching eye in as much as anything else has helped them claim a first win of the season.

50:14Alex Lowe: But we are sort of brief stop in the Prem post-autumn. It now operates really as a launch pad into Europe. Elgin, what catches your eye? The start of Champions Cup, I guess, Antoine Dupont coming back to lose at the weekend with a typically inventive assist, little dab chip over the top. What excites you about the start of the competition?

50:39Elgan Alderman: I think there's a game on Saturday that perhaps not in terms of current form, but in terms of pedigree and a bit of history, that La Rochelle versus Leicester game in La Rochelle on the Saturday looks like an interesting one. Even though La Rochelle, not the force they were of recent seasons, they're down in 10th in the top 14. But then those Saturday night fixtures, you've got Leinster v Harlequins late on Saturday as well. And then 8pm kickoff, Bath v Munster again, two great European clubs there. And then on Sunday, Poe, who are second in the top 14, so they're having a great season, they're welcoming Northampton to there.

51:16Elgan Alderman: So that should be a fun one on the Sunday as well. But I think coming so soon after the autumn, so soon after one little round of league action, as is the case everywhere, it'll take a bit of time for people to get invested in the Champions Cup fully once we start seeing Toulouse versus Leinster and fixtures of that ilk in knockout rounds.

51:36Alex Lowe: Well, plenty to look forward to in Europe. It's been a news and issues packed pod, this one. Elgin, thanks for joining us. Good luck. Best wishes to Alfie and to Rachel for the imminent arrival of their new child. The Ruck family growing. The Ruck family growing. And Will will be back from his holidays by next week. We'll see you back on the Ruck next Monday, by which time we'll have had a World Cup draw and the first round of Europe. Thanks very much.

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