Wild scores and thin crowds: how healthy is the Prem?

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1:12Alfie: Hello, this is The Ruck from The Times and The Sunday Times. We've got loads to unpack, so coming up today is the freewheeling, high-scoring tri-fest we got between Northampton and Bath a good thing. We'll talk attendances, synthetic pitches and all the latest from round three in the Prem. Plus, the Champions Cup returns. We had a Bledisloe blowout and some new laws from World Rugby. Welcome along. I'm Alfie Reynolds. In studio alongside me today, Will Kelleher, Charlie Morgan. How are we doing, boys? We're good, yeah. We've gone for the long-sleeved, like, polo neck pod. Coordinated what we're wearing, which is great to see.

1:47Alfie: And some photos for those watching on Timesport on YouTube. The backdrop's looking snazzy. So we've asked our mate Mark Asplund, one of the Times' awesome photographers, to pick some of his best snaps from around the game. Community game, England stuff. I'm just looking at how you're framed.

2:03Charlie: So you've got Ellie Cooldun's... She looks like she's eating my shoulder, which is entertaining. But Jono on the other side, flanked by two greats on the pod.

2:10Alfie: And not just you two. There you go. Asper's centre's a whole lot. There's so many photos. He's taken so many brilliant ones that we've had to pick a selection. But that's good fun. What was also good fun was round three in the Prem. Charlie, we saw each other at Saracens Bristol, which wasn't the pick of the games. We picked the short straw, didn't we?

2:27Charlie: I mean, just you going through in the intro there, how much went on this weekend around the world is nuts. And yeah, we were at that game, which was kind of a bit flat. But the rest of what went on in the Prem was great. And yeah, so eight sides have got at least one win. The only two at the bottom, I would argue. Newcastle have been really encouraging. And even Quinn's sort of at sale. I thought they were much improved. So, yeah, a lot to get into and a lot of good stuff too.

2:53Alfie: And Will, it was a trip to Sandy Park for you at the weekend? Yeah, I haven't been there for a long time. We'll get into it. And I guess you try and look for the positives as much as you can, but it was so glaring that there was one massive empty stand. The rugby on show was pretty good. It wasn't a vintage Prem game, but it was quite entertaining. And another thing we'll probably get onto too was one of those games where the team that decided to start defending a bit better ended up winning. So, yeah, it was a funny weekend, wasn't it? It was lots going on. Yeah, well, it's a funny start to the season in a way because it's such a short block.

3:26Alfie: Three games and then it's Champions Cup this coming weekend. But if you look at it after this first block, if we are calling it that, even though it's a small sample size, the thing that stands out to me, seven out of the ten teams have won two and lost one. What do you take away from that of what we've seen from the league so far?

3:42Charlie: I think sides are grasping to really get into a stride with their identity, their technical identity, and say someone like Sale, that's changing. And what's happening at Sale also is the big turnover of players because they've signed a lot of players. So those are a lot of moving parts to get right and get into a rhythm with. If you're trying to pick the league 1-10 this year, you'd have real trouble, I would say, 2 down. It's been predictably unpredictable, I would say. That's an intriguing place to be too. I think this has been Prem Rugby's cold opening. You know, at the start of a TV show or something where you get the bit, or like a Bond film, where you get a bit of the film, then you get the credits.

4:25The opening credits. And then you go. And actually, it's like something else I've been gorging on recently, like Celebrity Traders, where everything's up in the air immediately from the start. What's Richard E. Grant done? And then everyone has to calm down and go... Gaffed it. Yeah, exactly. And then everyone has to calm down and sort of go, So, right, can we sort of start the game properly now? It feels funny that there's been a lot going on. I'm not sure most teams have got better from last year. Well, should we go through it if we look at the league table?

4:53Alfie: So Gloucester first at the moment. So I would say the two that have definitely improved from last season are Gloucester and Newcastle. And Saints have done it in sort of patches, but then they just lost the Bristol game, which they'd be very disappointed with. And the others, I think, are struggling, as Charlie said, to maybe know exactly what they are. Like Leicester, Saracens, Sale, yeah. And how they're going to play. And maybe that will be something that we sort of see a bit more when we've got through that one round of Europe and then into the derbies after that. And that will try and ignite the league a bit more.

5:25But yeah, I think the fact that no one's unbeaten, most teams have sort of won two, lost one. I don't know if that necessarily means the league's high quality, but it might be a bit closer this year. Like last year we had a sort of runaway top five, didn't we? and there's a cast adrift middle section and then a very cast adrift Newcastle, as we have had in the last three seasons. So maybe it's tighter, but not necessarily because everyone's better.

5:50Charlie: Well, Saras is an interesting case because they've had strong, interesting sides out all three weeks that have been a real blend of youth and experience. But we know that Brendan Venter has laid out certain squads over a prolonged period. So everybody knows who's playing and it's almost as though, right, he's saying to the players, you know, earn those spots in the more important games that come. So we'll see Saracens sort of figure out what their gun 23 is. And that's really interesting. But that does compromise continuity and therefore makes it probably harder for cohesion at the start of the season.

6:26Charlie: So that's another kind of compromising factor. Saracens will 100 % get better just because of the selection stuff. Never mind sort of, they've got decent availability, but someone like Leicester haven't had Oli Chesn, who's their sort of figurehead, one of their very best players. Poor Harlequins haven't had four, probably four of their best players, as we've touched on before. And guess what? They look loads better with Marcus Smith back. So, but I would make the point that, although it has been a cold opening, sixth of the season's gone. So you've got it, you've got it, with 10 sides, 18 regular rounds, you've got to hit the ground running.

7:06I do think your point about continuity is interesting, Charlie, because after that Exeter game, we were chatting to Rob Baxter. And it was actually a question more about the crowds rather than the stuff we're seeing on the field. But he made what I thought was an interesting point about he thinks that the Prem teams have been slightly distracted by the fact there's a one-off European game coming. I think the continuity point is interesting with both Saris and Newcastle, because Newcastle clearly don't have any cohesion because they've signed a whole new team over the summer. and you saw that writ large in a couple of Exeter tries where Werner Cox just lost on the blindside wing and the other one is Saris changing their team a lot.

7:45I think their attack just looks so clunky. It looks really hard to watch and the games they've been involved in have been tough to love because they're throwing the ball on the ground a lot and it's all a bit messy. Whereas the Saints stuff looks so well connected because that's been drilled for 10 years.

8:00Alfie: So much slicker and actually Saracens were helped by the fact that Bristol looked even clunkier than they did at the weekend. But I thought actually, yeah, Saracens won handily, but I didn't think they looked that great, to be honest. They're one of those teams that, as we've said already, you maybe have some question marks over. I'm also interested in Sarri's of almost what's the deal with Owen Farrell? Like they've admitted that in Prem Cup weeks, he's basically a coach. He played in this game, but what sort of role does he have in the team? And then just the final point on that game on Bristol is they were really disappointing.

8:27Alfie: I think they will be really disappointed with their performance, perhaps slightly expected because of the team, particularly of Tom Jordan, Charlie, dropping out a couple of hours before kickoff as well. But actually, you look at Bristol's first three matches, away to Sale, home to Northampton, away to Sarri's. Two out of three there is actually, I think, a pretty good return and a relatively decent start to the season. Look, you've mentioned kind of defence there and we've got to get onto this. I think this is arguably the talking point of the weekend. Charlie, we were watching this in the press room at the Stonex.

8:55Alfie: Northampton 71, Bath 48. Like just mental game, absolutely mental game. Incredibly entertaining. Defence at times was awful. The attack at times was blistering. I guess ultimately, the question I've written down for both of you, because there's a big conversation around this, that sort of scoreline, is this good for the game?

9:16Charlie: So the big sort of criticism in the past of Super Rugby was that, oh, this is like basketball. But I can't remember too many, if any, scorelines that mad. You have to say, though, that Super Rugby was the competition out of which spawned this great New Zealand side who were renowned for being able to turn sort of half gaps into seven points and go 7-14-21, even in the midst of quite an abrasive test match. That was sort of their calling card. I was quite interested in sort of, because as I say, as you said, sorry, we were watching it, sort of listening to the TNC commentary and Austin Healy made the point that, look, this is a product of years of, sorry, A gradual sort of thing where coaches have stopped thinking too much about how to stop sides and started thinking about how to impose themselves on opposition sides.

10:09And it feels like that.

10:13Charlie: It feels like sides are better from transition situations after they've forced turnovers through their defence. They're slicker with their handling. They're more intuitive with stuff in broken play, more creative with their strike plays. and that's a lot of stress that defences are being put under. I'm going to make the point later in a piece, hopefully going live on the website today, that defence is also feeding attacks too and that plays into the transition point. But five tries across the weekend were directly made from turnovers, either interceptions or we had one at ours where there was a strip.

10:49Charlie: Strip, yeah, for the glory try. And Farrell's sort of 20 metre pass feed space immediately. So all of those things are going on. And one reason, there's loads of things you can talk about. As I say, advances in attack, I would say refereeing... The refereeing one is interesting because Prem referees are refereeing some of the biggest test matches now, and those test matches are still a big fight over the breakdown. But I feel like, as a collective, Prem referees are very good at facilitating a fast game. And one of the things that led to the avalanche of points at the end of the game in Northampton Bath was Olly Lawrence's yellow card for a jackal that wasn't quite technically perfect and he goes off because it's after a line break.

11:31Charlie: There's that feeding into it as well. One point I want to make, because I think it's timely, bonus points. So the bonus, there were nine out of 10 teams got a four-try bonus point this weekend, which is nuts. And I think a lot of times sides go to games going, if we can get four tries by hook or by crook over 80 minutes, that's actually a decent result. And that feeds into a game where, I mean, I've heard Jason Gilmore say that when Harlequins have hosted Bath before, they lost, it was a game last season and they lost, very early last season, they lost something like 35-50. And he said, look, we came to get a tri-bonus point.

12:09Charlie: And you're like, you've just lost by quite a few at home. But the attack, it was clearly like all on ending a game with an attacking result. And I think it's a bizarre situation. and whether that, I think it is part of a growing trend, but this game just really, really highlighted it, didn't it? Well, so I'll do my opinion at the end here, but I want to do a bit of a stats drop because that point you've just made, Charlie, is absolutely bang on about this being a global growing trend. And to give them their dues, all of this data is through Oval Insight, so thanks to them. This is why I have got my laptop with me to take you through some of the numbers here because I think they're all really instructive.

12:49Go on, run us through it. I'll be as quick as I can, but highest aggregate scores in the Prem, that one was 71-48, so 119 points. It's second all-time in the Prem behind 94-33, Northampton Bristol last year, which I was at, and just ahead of 106-12, Richmond Bedford in 99. There have been eight occasions of 100 or more point games in the Prem, and five of them have been in the last two years. Let that sink in. Also, Bath scored the most points and lost in the Prem. They beat, they scored 48. Bristol lost 47-53 in 2002. And there was a Wasps-Quins game, which sounds a belter, 46-48 in 2021. I can't even remember that.

13:31There must have been in COVID. Was that what, did Barbary score a hat-trick? Anyway, so. Just pluck that out of you. Maybe it was COVID. Yeah. So on the general trend thing, the last six seasons of the Prem have all been the most high scoring seasons of the Prem in history. So we are now at an average of 63 points per match aggregate score across the two teams. Last year, it was 59. The year before that was 55. There's been, it's largely been over 50 since 21, 22. The years that have been above 50 in the Prem era, before the 2020s, were in 99, 2000 and 98, 99. So when coaches say this is cyclical, they're sort of right because we did have a period in the early or late 90s, early noughties where there were lots of tries scored.

14:22We can get onto the opinion bit in a minute, but I would say possibly some of that was because there were some really quite poor teams in the Prem at that time, like West Hartlepool, Bedford, Richmond, da-da-da.

14:32Alfie: Okay, let me jump in because there's a lot to try and unpack here, but those stats kind of show the point that this has been a trend that has been coming, that has been increasing. And we are going through a period where loads of tries, loads of points. Charlie, you've outlined some of the reasons that that could be prioritising attack, the way the game is officiated, various other things. My question originally to you guys was, ultimately, is it good for the game and is it good for the league? So onto my opinion bit of it is that I thought that if you've got a problem with high point scoring, you can't have a problem with Northampton Bath.

15:06Particularly that game was exceptional, I thought. I was watching that at home. I wasn't there. And I was like jaw dropped about the amazing handling. There was one particular try. There were so many tries, it's hard to remember all of them specifically. But there was one incredible try where Tommy Freeman broke from his own 22. and actually the best bit of all of it was the fact that Northampton recycled the ball within about half a second and then passed it through three forwards. To jump on that. And slight home score on the left wing.

15:36Charlie: That was slight home second try. Arguably the best try of the weekend came from a defensive stand of about eight to ten phases around the Northampton 22. And then broke. And really good. That's what I'm talking about. about, this is mad to say in a game that featured 119 points, but you could make the point, if you're playing Devil's Advocate, that defence won Northampton that game because they won the last half hour 31-7. That, as I say, that was a great snapshot of slick transition attack to use a sort of buzz phrase that Sunvestor uses a lot, used structure to get out of structure because that stream of offloads you're talking about starts with three forwards up in a pod that we see all the time and they break out of that and then it's the stream of offloads.

16:22Charlie: But it all comes from defence that's actually a bit defiant and actually they managed to carry that on for the remaining half hour and that's where Bath subsided. But we have this debate in all sport, don't we? We all like our cricket and the best cricket game is a balance between bat and ball. And the worst version of sickly sweet 100 or 20-20 games are sixes are just, there's no tariff on a six because you're just hitting so many of them that it's like, well, there's another one, whatever. Like Canada Premier League the other day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where the boundaries are so tiny where even bouncers are going for six over the keeper's head.

16:57That's not entertaining. I think generally sports fans, whether they're rugby fans, football fans, cricket fans, whatever, want variation. So if every game was 71-48, you start going, man, that's difficult to get excited about. Now, equally, if every game was Sale Saracens from last two Sundays ago, we'd all be bored out our minds. And I would say when we were all growing up in our teens, Prem Rugby largely was really boring. You look at people are funny about old games. It's all just nostalgia. And that's probably a problem of like society as well. We're always looking back at something that never quite existed.

17:36But people look back at the halcyon days of, oh, you remember that game? We could hardly see the ball. And it's Bristol-Worston. It's 5-6. What a great game. And the pitch was just mud and no one could run or catch. And you speak to one of our journalistic colleagues, Mark Elwin, who's written a book about some of this stuff. And he, for his glory and maybe his sins too, has watched all of the 1971 Lions matches. And he will tell you they are absolutely unwatchable tripe. They're dreadful. but they're lauded as some of the greatest rugby that's ever been. I would say, and I've said this before on our podcast.

18:10Tell everyone the email address. That the skills in rugby, and particularly domestic English rugby, have never been better.

18:18Alfie: Well, that was part of the point here. I was thinking of why are we seeing more tries, a game more based around attack, and I did wonder if our skill set's simply higher across the whole team. They definitely are. Including the forwards. And then the other thing, I think the point you make about, I don't think this game wasn't a problem because it was, it wasn't a problem that it was high scoring because the skill sets were really high. It was really entertaining. What an amazing spectacle. In the same way that a couple of weeks ago, that Sarri sale game you mentioned, that wasn't bad because it was defensive.

18:48Alfie: It was bad because the skill sets weren't good because there were dropped balls. And the game kept stopping every five minutes. And that's a bit like the Sarri's Bristol game. We watched Charlie, which was a real, because we were having all these conversations in the press room at the Stonex. And then it was like, well, careful what you wish for after the 11-0 or whatever it was at halftime in the game we were watching, Charlie. And then the final thing I probably want to say on this, which I think does relate to your point, Will, of what does a six mean in cricket, if that's what you're seeing all the time in the shorter format, is I think it does feel something to me that tries feel like they're worth less at the moment because we see so many of them.

19:25Alfie: That's undeniably true. We were talking about this before off-air. Football is the global sport. And one of its great selling points is that a goal means a massive amount and there might not be one. Whereas there's basically never a game anymore where there is no try. So the event of a try being scored is not unique and is not that special because you see a lot of them. And also, it's sort of counterintuitive in some ways, but it's basically the only manner of scoring points anymore, particularly in the Prem. Sarri's two penalties, by the way. Yeah, and to be fair to Exeter, that they pushed ahead of Newcastle on Sunday because of a penalty from Henry Slade.

20:08But I think I looked, it was the 11th successful pen hit this season in the Prem, which is not very many. And we know that basically only people are going for sevens. And Exeter possibly started that with their pick-and-go stuff because Gareth Steenson hardly ever kicked a goal, did he? But there was an era where you had lots of different ways of scoring points. You had penalties, tries, conversions, drop goals. but now you've basically only got converted tries because no one really goes for pens. And that's not just specific to the Prem but the Prem is an outlier on all of these stats and the Super Rugby point is interesting because that is always the sort of down with faint praise thing.

20:46It's like Super Rugby.

20:47Alfie: Well, I saw our friend Jamie Wall tweeting over the weekend saying, oh, you guys all like this stuff now, don't you? Northern Hemisphere used to slag off Super Rugby. But the funny bit about it is that if you look at all of the data across every edition of the Prem ever of the top 14 of the URC in whatever form it was, of the Six Nations, the World Cup and Super Rugby, this season and the one before it in the Prem, blow all of that out of the water. So it is way more high point scoring and way more high tri-scoring than any edition of Super Rugby ever was. So that probably gives fuel to the people that go, it's like basketball.

21:22But as Phil Dowson said, oh, no one watches basketball, do they? That's not the richest league in the world almost and has people earning 400 million a year. like quite a lot of people like basketball to answer your question because i'm wary of having

21:35Charlie: spoken for a long time and not answered it the first time um i think we'll find out whether it's a good thing for the english game in next week in the champions cup and challenge cup fixtures but probably more permanently in the autumn like can england's coaches harness this style and harness this the the innate kind of characteristics of the domestic league into you know success for the national team and I guess that is one of the metrics that the Prem wants to deliver.

22:02Alfie: And that's kind of been one of the big questions so far. One of the important questions of Steve Borthwick's England tenure isn't it? How do you mould a successful England team out of what is produced in the Prem? And to be fair to Borthwick I think it's really difficult. Look I want to move us on just because there's a whole load of other talking points we want to get through. If anyone does want to give us their views on is Northampton, Bath, is the high scorelines, the loads of tries a good thing for the Prem, then email address theruckatthetimes.co.uk or you can have your say on the 1971 Lions and whether it's actually right.

22:32Alfie: That was Will's words, that was not mine. Attendance, should we talk about attendances? That's a bit of a talking point. Will, you were at Sandy Park, there was a whole stand had no one in it there, but it's not just at Sandy Park, it was a conversation at Mattioli Woods Welford Road on the Friday, Sarri's once again, Charlie, there were a lot of empty seats like there were the week before, so this is a bit of a worrying thing across the league at the moment. Yeah, so we had, I would say, three out of the five games were poorly attended and the Tigers won. They had a better crowd than most other teams, but it just happens to be that they have one of the biggest stadiums in the league along with Bristol and it wasn't full.

23:07So we can do them all kind of individually, but I'll start at Exeter because that's where I was. And it was just alarming to see the North Terrace where the sort of main standing bit at Exeter at one end, completely empty. and I haven't for some reason been there for quite a while but talking to people who are there every week, they're like, we have never seen that. That's basically never happened since Exeter became a proper Prem team. So what's the reason for it? Well, I think there's a lot of reasons there. One of the most obvious ones is that it's insanely expensive to go to Exeter Chiefs.

23:40They do have quite a variation of ticket prices but their top tickets are pretty much the second most expensive in the league behind the wreck which is always full and kind of always was full even when they were rubbish wasn't it yeah they just have the perfect captive market with lots of disposable income in Bath don't they really and in Devon it's different it's quite an inaccessible ground it's on one junction off the M5 you can't really park there you get sort of park and ride buses in it's a bit fiddly particularly on a Sunday the local train station Digby and Salton is a bit of a nightmare to get home from, which I experienced even just trying to get back to Bath on Sunday night, it's not the easiest place to get to on a Sunday.

24:23What I would say back to that is Exeter don't play on Fridays. They're one of two teams that don't play on a Friday because the council don't let them, the other being Sarri's. So they've only got two slots they can possibly play. Saturday afternoon, which they might say, oh, sometimes that's difficult because the people that might come are playing themselves. And then Sunday afternoon and they say, oh, Sunday, I can't possibly sell a Sunday you think well you're going to have to come up with a better strategy there lads and some of that might have to be reducing some of the ticket prices which they already have done and still no one came so the crowd was 7 ,071 I think it was which is less than half full and you might say there's loads of different reasons there Newcastle for all their improvements are still not the major attraction in the Prem people might be saving themselves for Bristons a couple of weeks or Champions Cup, well they're away in Toulouse aren't they on Sunday so they weren't saving themselves for this weekend coming Sunday tricky but£97 to sit in a grandstand,£87 elsewhere, there are some other seats that are sort of on the wings of stands that are 60 odd, that is a lot of money Premier League football prices really It's way more, way more than Premier League football prices, I was sitting with Mark Stevens who used to be the media manager there who's now a freelance journalist and goes to Anfield a lot and his ticket for the cop is 35 quid and look football's got a lot more money a lot more people a lot more home games a lot more games generally they can afford to do that and if they charge 97 quid there'd be a riot and people try and burn the place down but Tony Roe has been very proud of the fact there that they have expensive tickets and has been very very very reluctant for a long time to reduce them but I hope they're not pricing out the people who have supported them through the championship era all the way through to them winning the double and everything else, which is a problem.

26:12Sale's slightly different, I think. They only had 5 ,000 there, which is really poor. And I think that's possibly a hangover. Talking to people there, they think that might be a hangover for them being poor last season. And they admit quite openly they have got quite a lot of fair weather fans. And so if they're losing, there's a lot of other stuff you can do in Manchester and other teams to watch.

26:32Alfie: And Sale have also always had that battle, haven't they? And the club worked really hard to try and get people through. And they've reduced ticket prices a lot as well. So I think they've either kept them similar or slightly upped them in the best seats, but reduced everything else to try and drive a crowd. Yeah. And they're not quite there yet. Tigers is a different thing. Like, you're a man from that neck of the woods. Lots of people travel in, don't they? Yeah.

26:53Charlie: So I wanted to sort of highlight. Ross MacDonald tweeted me to say that the sort of lower attendance on the Friday night is because they just don't, Friday nights don't work particularly well for Leicester because they've got a lot of fans from the surrounding areas who have to travel into the city. And that's, in evenings, that's difficult. And with transport links, that's difficult. So, and, you know, as Will said, they've still got a decent number there. It's just that... What was it, 16 ,000 out of 23, 4? Yeah, it's just the occupancy rating is what the Prem are after, right? And it just looks crap when there's loads of empty seats on the telly, basically.

27:31Alfie: And you don't want to be too negative, do you? But it's more, I think, one to keep an eye on, as you say, Charlie, with the less, I mean, most clubs would bite your hand off for 16 ,000 fans to come through the turnstiles. So it's more a wider point. It's been very notable, hasn't it, to start the season really quickly, Will, before I move us on. And we don't need to go back on them again because we did enough last week, but the Saracens thing is separate, I think. They're just not dragging people to that stadium. And we went through all the reasons why last week, so we don't need to do it again.

27:57I would say that I think Prem Rugby would be quite concerned because they have been desperate for a couple of seasons to just, above everything else, drag people to the game. Occupancy, they want to be 90-odd percent. And they were tracking seemingly quite well with last season up until this weekend. And they will have dipped. And maybe some of it is the fact that the teams that find it toughest to sell were all at home this week. Whereas if you had Bath, Gloucester, Saints all at home, you'd go, OK, well, it looked fine, didn't it?

28:25Alfie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Also, the other thing, I mean, it's just cost of living, right? Like you look at the news at the moment about the price of petrol and diesel and everything. 70 quid to fill up the Corsa, mate. It's a man who's slogging it back and forth on the M4 a fair bit right there. But I think that's going to come into it as well. We wanted to mention it because I think it's worth mentioning. I know it's a bit more on the negative side of things. What about synthetic pitches? We've kind of got a few different stories this week, don't you? But this has come off the back of the game we were at, Charlie.

28:51Alfie: Pat Lamb afterwards admitted that he rested Pedro Rubiolo, Steven Luatua and AJ McGinty, basically because they were playing on a synthetic pitch and that synthetic pitch at Sarri's. I was trying to think of like, what's the point here? What's the talking point? And the thing that struck me, Charlie, is we've seen the Prem identify now. We don't want to be playing loads of matches when the internationals are away because we want the best players in the league to be playing in the league. And so through November and through Six Nations, we don't have rounds of the Prem now. Could we not extend that to the synthetic surface as well?

29:24Alfie: Is it a problem for the league if you don't have the best players playing because of the pitches they might be playing on?

29:32Charlie: I think it is. I tried to push Pat Lam on it a little bit more just to say, isn't it just bizarre that there are certain grounds and it's not just Saracens and Newcastle have a synthetic pitch, Gloucester have a sort of hybrid surface. Is it just not odd that a team can have a kind of material advantage for having this pitch whereby teams feel that some of their players and some of their best players, in the case of Bristol at the weekend, feel like they can't play players on it. They feel like they are materially weakened. And it's not a new thing. And it's probably, and if Saracen's fans will probably feel like they're getting sort of a disproportionate amount of heat from us over the last couple of weeks.

30:14Charlie: But I've been at, because I've been at the Stone X the last two weeks, it's probably more in my mind's eye. but the Bristol thing was on the back of Alex Anderson stressing after the sale won there, saying, Luke Karandiki is fit. He could have played. He just doesn't want to play on this pitch and we want to manage it. And that sort of hit me a little bit in the round two post-match stuff. And then throughout the week, when you see sort of the narrative moving up to Bristol's selection, you're thinking, this is a side that have won two from two. they're going to Cape Town in the first in this one-off set of fixtures which Pat Lam has said is frustrating so you would think that it would be quite a good week to sort of target you know we can go to Saracen's get something and then we're set up really well to rest and then they've got two home games coming up but they didn't and they and they move and there's you know they you could say why two it's two of the players are Rubiolo, McGinty and Luatua those latter two are guys in their mid-30s who've signed one-year contract extensions.

31:20Charlie: And you could say, you know, that's dicey in itself. You're probably sort of going to have to make those compromises anyway. But it still just jars a bit. And it's not, you know, as I say, it's a continuation from last week. It's not a new problem either. You know, this has been happening for multiple years. And it's just maybe time to have a conversation about these synthetic pitches. And I know, having done a bit of sort of digging around over the last couple of days, sort of previously the data showed that the incidence of injuries on these pitches was about parallel and the severity but the severity was slightly higher i.e there would be more of those of those injuries there would generally be sort of more serious ones on artificial pitches and that can be that can be random right that can just be a very bad injury that's happened to happen on a synthetic pitch but there is a paper from October 2024 put together by the RFU with help from the with help from World Rugby I believe that does show that there's more injuries as well and more knee injuries specifically and that is through a lot of that is through abrasions too but also soft tissue stuff and I know for sure that this week that the RPA are going to go to the RFU and Premiership Rugby just to seek assurances over that and make sure they absolutely understand what you know what the what the sort of patterns are with with synthetic pictures i think that's a good thing i think it's just good to sort of put that out there and get that discussion going i have to say one thing i do want to say is that when you're one of the coolest things about turning up to to saracen's game there's a sea of junior games going on on that pitch and how cool must that be for those for those junior sides it's really cool that they can incorporate that incorporate that sorry but yeah I just think at elite level when crucially when players are going from grass to sort of rare enough game rare enough away games on these synthetic pitches it's just got to be monitored as carefully as possible so that's I've just got this in front of me that study that you unearthed Charlie says the rate of knee injuries was 44 % higher on artificial pitches compared with natural grass while there was no significant difference in severity or burden So that's interesting because we've always been told before that there's a marginal, if no real difference.

33:37But that study from a couple of years ago shows that there clearly is. So they're interested in that. And as Charlie says, this has been an issue for a long time since Saris were the first to put in a plastic pitch. Jack Knoll basically never played away at Saracens unless they absolutely had to. And as a by-the-by, Chiefs kept getting home semifinals, so they didn't really have to. So it's been a longstanding thing. And the players that have grass pitches and play on the plastic ones absolutely hate them. They absolutely hate them. It's one of the things that people are so militant about, isn't it?

34:10And you've seen horrible, gory grazes and injuries that people have posted on social media in the past, haven't you? But what I've learned chatting to other people around it this weekend is that you might think that you put in a plastic pitch, leave it. Happy days. Kids can run on it. It's all fine forever. but they need a lot of maintenance. And the Newcastle one was relayed in the summer, so that's a fresh one. And those that have walked on it, unlike me, feel it's much springier than the Sarri's one, which feels like it's quite short grass and there's concrete underneath, which is a problem.

34:46And definitely the ball bounces differently on artificial surfaces, doesn't it? Sometimes when you kick the ball up and it goes boom, and you think, whoa, that wouldn't have happened on grass.

34:55Charlie: Before the sale game, Alex Kozowski spoke in the week about how it's just a very distinct place to go and play. And he mentioned the balance. He mentioned sort of the wind that swirls around there. So maybe it's another, like Gloucester's pitch is fairly new and they'll have to maintain that a lot. And I'm sure Saris do, but it might be another thing for the long list of things that Saris needs to do around that stadium is relay the pitch to modernise it. Because that was, I don't know when they last updated it, but for everyone who knows what they're talking about, they've said it's the oldest version of it.

35:24and technology moves on.

35:26Alfie: And it might be frustrating for teams, but ultimately I think it is a problem if teams feel like they can't play their strongest players. And also, surely you want some sort of uniformity or regulations across the league, although Sarri's and Newcastle might say differently. Let's finish off on maybe matters on the pitch because there's been a few kind of more off the pitch there. End of round three, we break for the Champions Cup, which we're going to come on to really quickly from both of you. most convincing side so far, Charlie? I'll come on to least convincing in just a moment, but we've spoken about there's a lot of teams very similar records.

36:00Alfie: Most convincing side. You can interpret that any way you want. I think... I feel like... Sorry to jump in, but... Go on. It's got to be Saints, even though they messed it up at Bristol, hasn't it? Yeah, I think so. Just when, as proved by 71 points, you can't defend them if they attack properly, essentially. and sure a bit like when we get to the World Cup the most of the narrative is who can stop the box surely the narrative in this prem already is if anyone can start defending properly against Saints they've got a chance

36:31Charlie: Can I put in a word for Leicester? Go on They this is stealing a point that somebody was talking to me about earlier but that tight loss sorry tight win sorry at Newcastle will age well because it will get harder and harder to go up there they were within a conversion of Saracens and that was after a really poor start and a flat finish and they defied a poor start and a bit of a flat finish to beat Gloucester who are getting a lot of props at the minute so I think they're going really well I think Bath will be happy as well but they rotated a lot and were in that game before sort of falling away with their starters curiously when the starters came when the sort of more regular players came off the bench so yeah they'll be pleased there are it does feel I would say Gloucester-Leicester Saints, Bath, Saracens too.

37:22Alfie: Half the league then. Half the league.

37:24Charlie: But they will be sort of, I think they feel like a bit, they're establishing themselves maybe a bit quicker.

37:29Alfie: By the way, Northampton, we're all focusing on the 71 points. They scored 59 at home in their first game. So at the moment, how many points do you need to score if you're going to travel Northampton at Franklin's Gardens? Least convincing team just before we have a very, very quick break? Well, there's, I guess, least convincing you probably have to say Quinn's, but they showed a lot more. Like, they had a week where basically every print publication did a deep dive about how crap they are last week. And fair play to them. They were winning that game until the end. And, like, we maybe don't have time to get onto the wildness of that.

38:02Well, no, we might because we're going to get onto some of these law changes. But that was a particularly mental way of losing that game to sail away. But we can get onto that. But I feel like I'm finding X's are quite weird. I'm not sure they know quite what they are. They've really flattened off from the end of last season where they just zoomed into that final. And I think Rob Baxter's finding it tricky to understand exactly how to push their buttons at the moment as well. They miss Len Iketow massively, don't they? Yeah, but Will Butts are good. I mean, he's not world-class centre like Len Iketow, but he'll be decent.

38:33And I think I'm much higher than I thought I was going to be on Newcastle. I've seen them twice out of three now. And you can see elements there that they're going to become a coherent, proper team. But it's just going to have to take some time.

38:49Alfie: They look far more threatening than they have done in recent years, don't they? Charlie, least convincing. Do you want to name the other half of the league?

38:56Charlie: I think probably Quinn's, notwithstanding the improvements that they clearly made against. I said at the top that finding a tactical identity, I just think that goes a long way. And I think if Quinns have found that in that sale performance, then that can be a springboard. But that's just so important.

39:15Alfie: Well, it's set up pretty nicely, isn't it, really? If you look at all the teams, there's some question marks, there's a few green shoots as well, some that seem to be going really well, but everyone pretty even in the table. So look forward to it after the Champions Cup. We'll have a quick break. Up next, we'll finish with any other business. We're going to chat World Rugby with a law amendment, the Bledisloe Cup and the return of the Champions Cup.

39:40Alfie: Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most advanced heart rate sensing in an Apple Watch. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, could tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. For general wellness purposes only, not intended for clinical use or to detect, diagnose, monitor or treat medical conditions, requires iPhone 11 or later. Hi, I'm Katie Prescott from the Times Tech Podcast.

40:12Alfie: AI is already changing business and medicine, but could it also change the way we look after our own health? In a special episode in paid partnership with Vitality, we look at how AI, wearables and everyday health data could help shift healthcare from treating illness to preventing it. Listen to the Times Tech Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. At PwC, we optimise the systems that put your data to work so you can scale your AI from proof of concept to competitive edge and accelerate your tech evolution so you can redefine what's possible. From blueprint to breakthrough, we take you further with tech so you can outthink, outpace and outperform.

40:57Alfie: PwC, so you can. PwC refers to the PwC network and or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. welcome back final section of the pod we'll start off will and charlie with the law amendments well one law change and one law clarification shall we call it from world rugby last week this is that knee drop tackles and hip drop tackles will start being penalized for people that don't know knee drop tackle is when a player drops to either one or both knee before making a tackle basically it's already illegal to make a tackle when you're on the ground so that's been clarified and is going to start being penalised.

41:35Alfie: The hip drop, which we saw over the weekend a couple of times, is when tacklers use their body weight to pull a player to ground, they land on their legs, it increases the risk of injury. That'll be outlawed from November. Where do you want to take us? Where do we want to go with this? Is this a rubbish way of saying this? But this is a bit like, you know, sometimes you see someone once who you don't know in the street and then every day you see them and you go, why do I keep walking into this guy? Was it a bit like that with a hip drop? I'd never heard of hip drop tackles last week and now they're everywhere.

42:08But once you know when to look for it. Was I just not noticing them before? So it seems to me that this has come from sort of via rugby league. And there's also been tackles like this in the NFL, which have injured people badly. And as you explained, if you imagine someone breaking away and you're kind of like diving on their legs, but you're dropping your body weight onto the back of their legs, which is quite dangerous.

42:28Alfie: It's not just wrapping around the legs and bringing them to the ground. It's kind of wrapping and then your body is falling on their lower limbs, which leads to loads of injuries. And yeah, I mean, sounds sensible. My question would be how on earth are you meant to tackle someone who's breaking away from you like that other than like diving on their back, almost higher up like a cheater kind of tackling them from behind. That's one for a defence coach. But the thing that I'm sort of avoiding the question by talking about the sale, Quinn's incident, which was encapsulated that tackle perfectly.

42:57So if people haven't seen it, George Ford's playing at the line. He gets intercepted by Cunningham South, nicks the ball off and goes away. Ford then tries to chase him, tackles kind of by his backside and then falls his way onto his legs. Cunningham South injures himself. But what was fascinating was that they saw that because they were looking at another incident elsewhere and went, OK, that's one of those new hip drop tackles. and then quite rightly Ernie van Ryn said to Christophe Ridley that law's not in the game yet I was reading about it in the week it's only coming in in November and so Christophe Ridley goes yeah you're right actually we've had so many law amendments I can't keep up but this is not in play yet so in a month that will be illegal but it isn't now Sale have a penalty they kick to the corner more or 25 metre more penalty try win the game Quinns do.

43:54No, Sayle won the game with a penalty try. So you think, what a mental way of losing that match for Quinns. They've basically had something happen to them that isn't illegal yet, but is going to be illegal in about four weeks' time.

44:07Alfie: Yeah, I mean, that is mad. And one of the things that I thought of when looking at this is, how hard is this going to make things for officials as well, to judge a lot of it? Things are happening really quite quickly. The whole knees on the ground and that sort of thing. The other thing, Charlie, and I feel like a lot of the questions at the moment, if we're talking about the high scores in the Prem, is we need to be speaking to defence coaches because how do you deal with all of this? And how do you defend on your line, I think, particularly with the knee drop?

44:34Charlie: Yeah, so there's a clarification on the knee drop where they've said that if it's simultaneous or close to simultaneous, then the benefit of that is going to go to the defender. But it seems to me that those pick-and-go situations are going to become even more weighted in favour of the attack. And the Leicester-Gosta game, that was decided with the efficiency in the 22, wasn't it? But there was a snapshot there where I think it was Joe Hayes on defending in the sort of guard position down to one knee. And you're going, you can't do that. You've got to stand up more upright. I think with the hip drop, another...

45:07Charlie: I mean, you don't really want to look back at it because it's quite gruesome, to be honest. But Leroy Carter scores despite being the victim of a hip drop tackle from Rob Valentini in the Bledisloe. and sometimes those hip drop tackles will happen by accident because a player's made a tackle from behind, gone high and is trying to put their legs somewhere and they happen to come down to the side of a player's knees where that knees and ankles can all be put under pressure. So, yeah, it's another thing to be looked at with referees. I always feel for players having to unpick habits in real time and that's what is going to happen again here.

45:47Alfie: And for those of you that may well be wondering, didn't World Rugby say they wouldn't change any laws in the build-up to a World Cup? I think the exception to that was when it was around player safety. So that is why these are coming in with less than a year to go into the World Cup now. Just two tiny quick thoughts. It definitely should come in for player safety, but it's 100 % going to lead to more tries, which we've just said we don't like. We didn't necessarily say that. Look at Twitter, mate. People hate tries. They want 6-3 in the mud, don't they? Six ways. Definitely in the mud, not in the synthetic pitch.

46:20And that's a synthetic pitch, so there's no mud there. But if you can't defend on your goal line as easily, we're definitely going to get more tries. And if there are more penalties in midfield because someone's hip dropped, what are you going to do? Kick to the corner, maul. They've cleared that up, and that's much easier to score a maul now. Hooray, we've got more tries. The other thing it reminded me of, which was about... They have to introduce a law at some point globally. They have to pick a date. but it is a bit mad to do it in the middle of lots of people's domestic seasons and it reminded me of the one they clarified in 2018 and I do remember this but I have also looked this up so this isn't me being the most nausea bloke ever but you know they changed the law about once the clock had gone dead you usually couldn't kick to touch but then they said well actually we it's more fun if we let people kick to touch and they have a line out there was a Connor Wasps game here we go January 2018 Oh, no, it was before that.

47:13It was late 2018. It was coming in 2019, I think, where Connacht got a penalty right at the end of that game. Wasps were winning it. Connacht kicked to the corner. They also changed the ref. Jerome Garces had been on and Mathieu Reynal... This is really getting into the weeds here, isn't it? He was a ref. That law had been announced was coming in in January, but wasn't in. So it's the final play of the game. The clock's dead. Connacht kicked to the corner. And Reynal says, no, that's the end of the game. You can't do that. and John Muldoon, the captain, said, no, no, you can kick to the corner now and carry on.

47:45And Raynaud went, oh, yeah, you're right. What happens? Cournot score. It goes to 18-0 and they kick the conversion to win the game. And EPCR at the time had to go, we're awfully sorry, but that was totally wrong, but we can't change the result. And it reminded me of that. You think you're introducing laws in the middle of a season. Definitely people are going to get it wrong, which is what happened with Ridley. And to be fair to Ernie Van Ryn, he reads the news. Well done. He basically helped them win that game.

48:14Alfie: And Christoph Ridley admitted, yeah, sorry, I got that wrong. I want listeners, when they're listening to this part of the pod, think, how many other rugby pods are you getting Wasps Connacht from late 2018 referenced when we're speaking about this? There you go. Enjoy that. Just a couple of final things to round up and finish the pod. Bledisloe Cup, Charlie, New Zealand 50, Australia 19, 24 years and counting since the Wallabies won the Bledisloe. What do you make of the match?

48:39Charlie: Yeah, New Zealand convincing, despite not having Ardis there, they seem to have kind of tidied up their solidity under the high ball, which is a big question mark after the greatest rivalry series. Damien McKenzie came in at 10 with injuries to Ruben Love and Richard Mwanga and looked really good. It's in vogue now and Finn Smith talks about this really well and actually showed this in that try that we were talking about earlier, that running threat from the back of three-man pods. Damien McKenzie was awesome at that and did that twice in the lead up to two first half tries. Ben Donaldson actually then did it for Australia and it was close at half time and Australia had chances afterwards, but blew those chances and their bench always looked a little bit fragile.

49:20Charlie: And so it proved and New Zealand pulled away for quite a sort of a pretty kind of nasty scoreline in the end. But so first kind of setback for Les Kiss in charge of the Wallabies. but if they can respond this weekend, then they'll still be feeling positive about their season so far, I would say. Are the All Blacks going to come up here with any players? Every week they play, they get four injuries. I was just looking at, because I remember getting the email, Asafa Amoa, HIA, Anton Segner, HIA, Leroy Carter, high ankle sprain, as we mentioned, Ethan Blackadder injured his calf. They've got Ardy Surveyor out, loads of others.

49:55You think it's a funny one because the more they play, the more you go, man that's a tough game for England when they come up here around Scotland but then they keep losing four players every time they play.

50:05Alfie: I think it's going to be an interesting conversation we have in a couple of weeks though for the All Blacks and for the Springboks of what does November mean to them because we all know that greatest rivalry series. Razzie loves the nation championship so much that he didn't want to call it what it was in the summer. Yeah he couldn't remember the name of it exactly but what does it mean for them because the greatest rivalry was like that was their year right and that was the thing that a year out from a World Cup was kind of there touch point? Is that the right? That will be what they refer to to build into the World Cup.

50:32Alfie: So what does November mean for both of them? I think it's quite fascinating. It's the France game is what South Africa... For the box, actually. Yeah, you're right. They might get two of them. Yes. They might get two of them. And I've seen, actually, one of the South African journalists tweeted a picture of the ever-expanding Springboks trophy cabinet because they took delivery of their fourth replica World Cup the other day. I think they'll quite like to have the nation's championship trophy in there. Maybe Fred Sirius' nation's shield or whatever that is, the Hemisphere thing that he was advertising the other day?

51:01Alfie: They'll have the Nations Championship trophy just gathering dust in the back somewhere and the Hemisphere Shield. Well done, lads. I'll save my Fred impression for another week. Yeah, I think that's great. We're going to have to do that as an extra, the Ruck extra, I think. Champions Cup, loads of fixtures, as we always say. Far too many of the English teams in it, but we've got one round of it this weekend. Is it fair to say, in terms of English representation, in terms of the teams that can make a meaningful impact on it Northampton and Bath are the only teams maybe

51:31Charlie: they're both at home which gives them a bit of impetus Saras is going to Connacht is very interesting that's going to be a really interesting game Leicester going to Poe that looks very tricky Gloucester Bordeaux

51:45Alfie: is quite fun although a massive challenge I fear

51:49Charlie: for the Prem sides a little bit and I wonder about their rotation policy as well just given it's a run off and Pat Lamb we sort of asked him, didn't we, sort of, have you made this rotation on the strength of the fact that you've got this tricky trip to Cape Town? And he sort of elected to answer, well, actually, we find the timing of that game and where we're going extremely frustrating. And actually, if you think we've got back-to-back home games after that, that suggests to me that that's what they're targeting. And then this one-off is a bit of a hindrance to them, to be honest. So you wonder how many other Prem teams are thinking similarly.

52:28Well, I know Gloucester are and I don't think they're going to go full bin juice, but I think there'll be a few key players that don't play on Friday night and that is just going to be the worst possible thing for EPCR people in Switzerland going, oh man, opening night. Let's see what Team Bordeaux bring, but they're still not great shakes in the top 14, oddly, but they look unstoppable every time they play in Europe. And if that game ends up, Gloucester have been a lot better. They're playing at home, everything else. And their depth is improved. So Lewis Ludlow playing seven, not Jack Morgan, feels like, okay, well, it's not a complete drop-off to an academy boy, is it?

53:07But if that game ends like 60-10, we're all back.

53:12Alfie: We're back. It's our yearly first weekend of the Champions Cup. What is the Champions Cup? And actually, interestingly, we asked Rob Baxter about this on Sunday. and he's always loved Europe and actually because he's so secure there he can talk about things that might happen in five, ten years time with quite a lot of security. But he was like, no, we're going there to try and win that game, Toulouse away. And if this team is going to become anything any good in the next two, three, four, five years, we need to get used to winning back-to-back Europe and Prem. You've got a tricky game, Newcastle on Sunday got through that, now it's Toulouse away.

53:49you've got to get used to that double rhythm. Having said that, they might bring their best team and get absolutely hosed. So, both of the ones, we said that last season, they got to the semi-final. They've got Montpellier at home, who are a tough team, won the Challenge Cup last year. Interested to see what team they bring, conversely, but I feel like Bath will go fully loaded, which is why they were lighter for Saints.

54:12Charlie: Hips to point, perhaps, but Quinns and Newcastle in the Challenge Cup, really important for both of them. Van and Newcastle have got... Scarlet's away. That's a good game. Scarlet's away for... For Newcastle, yeah. OK, nice.

54:24Alfie: OK, well, good stuff. Challenge Cup maybe for those two teams. Champions Cup. Always some intriguing fixtures, but I joked just a moment ago that we have our annual What is the Champions Cup podcast. I think there's every chance we're having it next week because that question always comes up and that question is relevant. I think you have to keep asking it if the Champions Cup has these question marks over it. But let's see what the opening round delivers and we will review all of that next week on the pod. Looking forward to it. Will, Charlie, appreciate your time as always. Lots to get through there, wasn't it?

54:52Alfie: That was like attendance, synthetic pitches. What is the Prem? We had an identity crisis. What are we doing here? Are you okay? But look, good fun. Appreciate all of you that have been listening, all of you watching TimeSport on YouTube as well. If you do want to send us an email, the email address is theruckatthetimes.co.uk. We'll be back with you next week.

55:14Alfie: Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most advanced heart rate sensing in an Apple Watch. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, could tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. For general wellness purposes only, not intended for clinical use or to detect, diagnose, monitor or treat medical conditions. Requires iPhone 11 or later. Hi, I'm Katie Prescott from the Times Tech Podcast.

55:46Alfie: AI is already changing business and medicine, but could it also change the way we look after our own health? In a special episode in Paid Partnership with Vitality, we look at how AI, wearables and everyday health data could help shift healthcare from treating illness to preventing it. Listen to the Times Tech podcast wherever you get your podcasts.