Will a 6 Nations match happen in the USA?

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1:26Alfie: Hello, this is The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. Welcome along. I'm Alfie Reynolds and coming up today, rugby's greatest rivalry reached its conclusion in the USA. The Springboks take the series 3-1 with a commanding fourth test victory. Speaking of the US, could a Six Nations match take place stateside? The Red Roses were back in action and back winning. And why has Steve Borthwick been given a contract extension? Covering all of that with the panel alongside me, we have Alex Lowe. How are you, Alex? Very well, Alfie. Thanks for having us in your new home.

2:03Alfie: You are being very generous by attributing this to me, but it's good to have you weren't here with us last week, so you like the new surroundings? Yeah, it's very nice. It's a little bit different, isn't it? It feels like we've gone up in the world. Also alongside, Charlie Morgan. Right, Charlie? Hi, mate. Yeah, I'm climatised now, so ready to hit the ground running. And when he says climatised, for those that are watching on the Timesport YouTube page, it means he's wearing a second layer because the aircon in here is effective.

2:25Elgan: And also back with us, Elgin Olderman. Right, Elgin? I very well think, yes. It's been a bit strange now that the Greatest Rivalry is over because I feel like we've been thinking about it and researching about it for about the past four months now. So it's strange that it's all over, about. Still some stuff to talk about, I'm sure.

2:39Alfie: And a big part of that research was Rugby's Greatest Rivals, the series that we did. You can find it on the Rug feed, a six-part series which goes through the history, the rivalry between the box and the All Blacks. So if you haven't listened already, then do go and search it out. But we'll start there, shall we? Fourth test in America, South Africa 43, New Zealand 28. I mean, Charlie, we said last week that a lot of our discussions was We viewed the three test matches in South Africa as kind of the main part of this series. We expected the fourth test to dip in intensity and quality. In your opinion, did it?

3:14Charlie: I think the injuries that New Zealand suffered in the third test compromised them quite considerably. Taking out Ardy Surveya, as well as Quinn Topiah, Luke Jacobson, who've been so important to them. And then Surveya, just his star quality clearly led to a little bit of a dip. For the All Blacks, I'd still think they were certainly in it. And until that controversial Kirtliarenza try in the second half, the margins were fine again. But I think it was a real reinforcement of the quality South Africa have. Not necessarily a reinforcement of their depth, although we know their depth is amazing, because they didn't make wholesale changes, did they?

3:52Charlie: But the consistency of their selection was contrasted with how New Zealand had to change things up and therefore lost a bit of cohesiveness. and that really told and I thought actually that the most telling thing about the game was how South Africa played with a little bit more freedom and I think they look better for that and they look more rounded for that and that was a real warning to the sides that they've got to try and take them down next year.

4:18Alfie: Yeah Alex, you were there in South Africa for a couple of the test matches and I suppose if I was to try and distill this series into totally oversimplifying it would be that the box got better throughout and New Zealand didn't. I think New Zealand looked battle hard and were excellent in the first test, were still good in test two and three, but South Africa have been able to really progress through it. What have you kind of made of it, both the two test matches you're at and then also as it's reached its conclusion? Yeah, definitely. The two tests at the Ellis Park game and the Cape Town game were epic.

4:48I came, I dialed in from South Africa. They were both huge occasions, but the step up in quality and intensity from those games compared to what we saw in July was huge. was huge. What was fascinating from the first one was that New Zealand got so little foothold in the game, but the sharpness and execution was so good that they kind of pulled themselves out of a hole and won it. And that sharpness was the theme of their tour really, wasn't it? They don't need many chances to score. Their willingness to move the ball, to run into space, always kept them in the game. The problem they had was that each test there was another failing.

5:30Scrum in one game, the line out, they were having to then bail out the front because test two, the line out was a disaster. But all the way through, they couldn't win the aerial battle. And against South Africa, that's a critical facet of the game, which although they can always be a threat when they've got the ball, if you don't have, if you can't be sure going into a test whether you can have two or three of the fundamentals in place, then you're going to struggle. Whereas you're right, South Africa were profligate in that first game. They just couldn't convert the pressure that they brought into the points.

6:05And once they solved that problem, then they were, it was always a case of New Zealand trying to find a way to overhaul them, I felt. And to be able to deliver that level of consistency, I guess the dominance they had in Test 1, but without the points on the board, but then to deliver it, test two, three and four, just reinforces how big a challenge it's going to be for anyone to beat them.

6:29Alfie: Yeah, well, maybe on that point, let's go on to it. I'll reiterate, actually, I said this last week, but I still think it's impressive, the series we've had and how entertaining it's been and how close it's been for the most part, given that New Zealand were second best in the scrum, line-out didn't function, lost the aerial game massively. I think it says an awful lot for the stuff that New Zealand did well. I mean, Elgin, I think it's been really telling this series of discussions within kind of rugby, that it feels like a bit of a line in the sand almost, of like, right, now we've got about a year to go until the World Cup.

6:59Alfie: We've just had the two best teams in the world going hammer and tong at it for four tests in a row. What are the big takeaways, do you think, for both of these teams?

7:08Elgan: I think, I just want to start by saying, I think what summed up how just dominant the Springboks are at the moment was the fact that Morne van den Berg was man of the match in the fourth test, when I don't think many people would have, other than people in the weeds of the game, he wouldn't have had a huge amount of name recognition. You'd think of Cobus Ryan, now Grant Williams, and then they just throw in Mourne Vandenberg and he's the man of the match in the Fortes. So we know again that the Springboks have got two, three players in just about every position that can do just about an all-court game.

7:36Elgan: So nothing that we didn't really know there. It's just been a really good hammering home of that. The All Blacks, we've seen them just rediscover a sense of speed and purpose that I think they lost under Scott Robertson. now under Dave Rennie with this first campaign sorted. Again, we saw it in Baltimore, some really excellent close quarters handling that really put the Springboks in trouble on a few occasions. I think what I'd love to see for next year is so many teams will know they can't match the Springboks up the middle necessarily. The Allbacks have shown that if you have a sense of guard, a sense of speed about it, you can trouble them.

8:11Elgan: I think back to how Japan did it 11 years ago. Obviously, it was very different 11 years ago. That was the start of the Springboks downturn. But when I see teams like Wales say we don't have the strength to compete with these big teams, I always think, well, why aren't you trying to do other things? A sense of invention, a sense of guile. And I hope that over the next year, the All Blacks show that you can find things and try things a bit different to get beyond the team that you know you can't quite match up the middle. 100%. I think I was reading, Lawrence Daly wrote about it in the Sunday Times and Clive Woodward posted something on LinkedIn referring to the idea of what that England O3 team did was have a mentality.

8:49If there's no point chasing the best in the world, we have to become the best in the world with our game and our identity. And this series has reinforced, although it finished 3-1, it was so tight for so long, reinforced that the rest of the world, Englands and Irelands, the only way to beat someone like South Africa on their day is to do it your way and not try and replicate them. And I was in England camp last week asking some of the coaches about exactly that point that has really been rammed home, I think, this summer, that if England are going to try and become what they want to become, they have to do it their way.

9:26And I think a lot of the time, under Steve Balfour has been chasing of trends and Razzy Rasmus in this sort of typically tongue-in-cheek way made that point when we were over in Johannesburg that he praised Steve Borthwick for being a detailed coach who was very good at following trends. And we know exactly what Razzy was getting at with that.

9:46Alfie: He was able to say it and it not sound like an insult, but we all know that it's an insult. It was Razzy to a T. It looked like it was one thing, but it was actually the other. And England now, having come through their July, that has to be the challenge for them and the rest. And I think what's really interesting for New Zealand and watching how they've tried to play, you know, they're not pretending they can be South Africa. And we know that they don't have those strengths as good as South Africa have them. And not many teams do. France might have the power. But the way that New Zealand have tried to move and attack space, and I was a long chat with our friend Ben Pegner, who was really going through that kind of detail of how it's very French-like, very Toulouse-like.

10:31It's not a copy, but it's the idea of keep the ball alive, move it, play at speed, and try and back your way to beat them. And obviously, South Africa won 100 % and Tess won. But what it does show is that on a given day, if you have full faith in who you are, your identity, you can certainly sting them and you can beat them. And I think that's where England, just from an England perspective, But all the chasing pack, you have to be fully buy into your identity, which I feel the All Blacks now are in the way they weren't last year.

11:03Charlie: Yeah, I'd say two things on top of that. One, I agree with it broadly. I would say there's certainly areas where they're almost non-negotiable that you have to be better at. Air is one good sort of example. But sides have to sort of confront South Africa's strengths and they need to polish up those areas like the air, like the scrum, like the line-up. I would say that's why I have a bit of faith in France being able to go to toe with South Africa, because they really struggled in the air. In the 2025 Six Nations, that was one big reason that they got turned over at Twickenham. But in the 2026 Six Nations, they were a lot tighter there.

11:41Charlie: And the second point I wanted to make is just to back up what both of you guys said. I had a really interesting chat with Mark Mapletoft, who's the head of pathways at the RFU. and he said that he's had a lot of conversations around the concept that you could look at an Irish team, you could look at South African team, you could look at a French team and they could be wearing blank shirts but you'd have a really good idea of who they were from just the way they're playing and watching them and England have wrestled with that for a long time. It's not necessarily a recent thing and one reason for that is maybe having this big player pool, you maybe go too far towards moulding it towards what your players are rather than having that conviction.

12:26Charlie: But I do think the conviction, as the point you made, Al, is the key thing in this World Cup. Who's going to have the conviction to put their chips into their side of play and back it to beat the box? You can't just Juwe against a team like South Africa or any of the best teams. That's not what they're saying. You've still got to be able to try and compete. But take the line out as one example. South Africa knew that they weren't, New Zealand were never going to maul them over. So they were competing inside their own 22, they're competing in the air because they knew they could. So if you know that that isn't a weapon, then you're going to struggle.

13:01So you have to be able to contest in these areas. I'm not saying you just ignore them. You have to contest, but you have to do it in your way. And the South Africans might hate the fact that New Zealand were kind of Japan-style scrums, the ball was half in for half a second and out. But that's the way that New Zealand were trying to play. It's the way Japan played it in that one game in 2015. You have to find your way of doing it. But yeah, you can't neglect some of the key areas. And for New Zealand, it was just a masterclass in the air from South Africa. And a lot of the set pieces, but Damien Valemsa and their wings were, they just ruled the skies and they were phenomenal winning everything.

13:39Alfie: Yeah, it makes it so fascinating that game in November at the Stade de France, just because you feel like France at the moment, I don't think they might necessarily attack quite as well as we've seen New Zealand, but you do think they're probably the most all-round team to be able to take on South Africa. So what is their approach and what is the kind of balance in their game? I cannot wait for that fixture, Alex. I think there's also, it's not a new development, but one of these I was asking Lee Blackett and Richard Wigglesworth was about, with the number of playmakers that teams now deploy. And the All Blacks have three with Jordi at 12.

14:09South Africa have a 10 and a 15 who are so integral. and I think you're going to say France obviously ended the summer by having Jalbert playing at 15 obviously Ramos can do that as well that's it's not a new development but it's something that really kind of I think became will become so critical going forward it was a real takeaway from I guess from the rugby champ and the summer that having those twin playmakers and I was talking to Marcus Smith and George Furbank about exactly that over at Quinns you know that's what the whole Quinns season is going to be based around those two dovetailing.

14:45Charlie: What did Blackett and Wigglesworth say in answer to those? So Blackett was, he told a story of when he was at Bath and he told Johan van Graan, you have to have two and a half. His view was you have to have two and a half playmakers, two out and out and then someone who's comfortable. And he said, and then we'd pick a midfield of Will Butt and Olly Lawrence and then we would win the game comfortably and be like, okay, you can do it. You can do it in that sort of South African way of De Linde and Jesse Creel, but his point was you have to have two, and ideally you have a third who's like an organiser.

15:21So a Geordie Barrett, or in England's case, like a Seb Atkinson, who will cover huge amounts of ground and be an organiser, as well as having the two kind of established playmakers at 10 and 15.

15:33Charlie: It's maybe getting into the weeds, but I think the importance of... So I had to pick a sort of composite team of South Africa and New Zealand from this series. And Will Jordan was one of the first names, I thought, even though Ethan Hooker was kind of probably superior in the air on that wing for a lot of the series. But him as a roaming playmaker is probably one of the half. So you've probably got a 10 and a 15 as one and two, a half as Geordie Barrett, who's a unicorn and can do everything. And then if you've got a right wing who can roam and overload sides and not just kind of pick up touches on the other wing, but be a distributor towards the other wing, I think that's really important.

16:10Charlie: And I think that's going to be a big kind of thing we'll see over the course of this World Cup cycle.

16:14Elgan: It's possible that France might have four playmakers at the Stade de France because people might have seen Louis Bielbire had 15 minutes to fly off during pre-season. So that's just something I'm just going to throw in there at the moment.

16:25Alfie: Yeah, no, in the age of positionless rugby, I mean, André Esthazen was consistently coming on in the pack, wasn't he, in this series. So we're certainly there. Shall we get on to the US side of this, the fourth test? It happened in Baltimore. more. We've seen a number of these matches and test matches take place in America before. Typically, Alex, I'd say generally they haven't particularly worked. The Ireland All Blacks won when Ireland first beat the All Blacks is kind of held up as the pinnacle, isn't it? But a lot of these games, the atmospheres haven't been great or they haven't sold out or there's been various issues.

16:54Alfie: Now, it did look like it was a sellout at the weekend, but was this a success in terms of taking a match stateside and that can open up all the various conversation points and issues around this topic. Yeah, I mean, it definitely changed the feeling of the series as we discussed at the start. Totally. You had this discussion about really is it a three-test series plus one? You know, the game, if that game had been first, it would have looked a different game because the players would have been at full speed and intensity would have been high and the All Blacks would have been at full strength.

17:25It looked like a good occasion to sell out the Baltimore Raven Stadium as a feat. Now, World Rugby put a lot of money into it happening. They could have taken it to Dublin, They could have taken it to Qatar. They probably would have done if Qatar Airways had come on board as a sponsor, which they didn't because of, well, we know why. Spain was also an option. But World Rugby topped up the money available to South Africa and New Zealand because they're trying to make an imprint in America. But they're not trying to make an imprint to break America. That ambition, which was there when they gave the World Cup to America, has been long abandoned.

18:03They know they're not going to break America. All they're trying to do is access a small percentage of the TV rights and the commercial value that's available in America. And so this game in Baltimore, which was an unusual city choice, no real huge tourism market or anything, but was designed because it's part of the process of identifying cities and building databases for the 2031 World Cup. So to have had 67 ,000 or 65 ,000 record crowd for a rugby game in America, success. All those fans are now on a database, success. New Zealand, South Africa will have earned money, extra money from going there than if they'd played it in South Africa, success.

18:46It allowed them to activate commercial partners. South Africa, one of their big things at the moment is trying to broaden out of their market, the African market. So the shirt sponsor had been an African mobile phone company, for example. They've now got Nike. They've now got Coca-Cola. They're trying to expand their brand in a way that the All Blacks have done. So they were able to activate some of those sponsorships, which from a commercial perspective is important. So again, success. But how big an impact did it make in America beyond those who were at the game at the start of the NFL season?

19:25and the production of it was marred by the communications with the referee.

19:31Alfie: Ten-minute break in the middle of the game because the rest didn't speak to each other yet. Which is shambolic. When they announced the series, when they announced the game was going to be in Baltimore, I spoke to Rian Oberholzer, who runs SA Rugby, and he said that before signing up to it, they'd sought and received assurances from the promoters, TEG, and Wasserman, who are now called the team, had come on board to help with the whole production of it. Assurance is that the same issues that undermined the second New Zealand-Ireland game in Chicago wouldn't be a problem this time. And they were a problem this time.

20:09And, you know, is that a big deal overall? Well, if no one from outside the game is really watching it, then maybe you could say they would have got away with it. But you only have to look at what the NFL did in Melbourne in a cricket venue, Aussie rules venue, that has staged top-level rugby union, rugby league, to show what needs to be done and what can be done. They took over the city. The spectacle was extraordinary in the MCG. And we've been there for a Lions test. I've been there for State of Origin. It's difficult to have a sport played on a rectangular field in that enormous cauldron. But rugby has done it.

20:45And the NFL staged a remarkable occasion. and the detail that they go to in the NFL, and I know they've got loads of money, but the detail they go to to make it perfect is extraordinary. Like they're hiring out the Marvel Stadium and they refit everything in the MCG because it's a showcase. You know, 100 ,000 people, more people watch that game than went to the Lions second test in the MCG, over 100 ,000 people. And yet when rugby went to Baltimore and did the same, there was devils in the detail. Do you know what I mean? There were issues, the communication thing. It just shows that the detail isn't the same.

21:25And if you want to go make an impact in America, you have to come in and have everything right, just like the NFL did in Melbourne.

21:33Alfie: I think a point that you mentioned that I really want to highlight because I think it's significant here is the sense that this is no longer about rugby cracking America. Originally, when the two World Cups, like the men's and then the women's World Cups that are coming up in America were first awarded, There was a sense of the sport trying to increase in those markets. Whereas now, as you say, it's very much more about getting a small slice of that massive commercial pie. So in answer to kind of your question of how much are these games breaking through or growing the game? Well, not really right, which actually gets me onto the other side of this story.

22:06Alfie: It certainly links. Last week, loads of people would have seen this. World Rugby has ambitions for a Six Nations game to take place in the United States. with this weekend's Baltimore test between South Africa and New Zealand expected to increase interest in transatlantic fixtures. I would question whether these sorts of games do increase interest in terms of America in those sorts of fixtures, but maybe they do if there is a whole big pot of money on the table. But Six Nations games happening in America, Charlie, you're cringing slightly.

22:35Charlie: Yeah, it's one of those things, a concept that comes up and I immediately just thought, no. And that was because, and it was really interesting you mentioned the NFL-Melbourne game, because that was what I thought of. And now the NFL, and again, really difficult to compare them both, but the NFL now have a decent history of bringing these showcase games abroad. And I think it is accepted around the league by everyone as a necessary evil to promote the product. They do it properly with a lot of money behind it. But crucially, they do it as part of a schedule that has 17 regular games as part of a longer league campaign.

23:17Charlie: I think if you're doing it for a Six Nations game when sides have five and a maximum of three home games and somebody is giving that up, I think that compromises, from a competition standpoint, that compromises it a hell of a lot. and it feels to me trying to, certainly meddling with the Six Nations feels particularly dangerous because of how it's growing as a commercial. It's a very strong commercial entity, probably one of the very strongest in the sport. But from a competition standpoint, look at the tournament we've just had this year. Fantastic. And so the timing, I think, of this coming out made it jar for me just because of where we're at with those two things.

24:02Alfie: If they were to take a Six Nations game to America, do we have any sense of which one it would be?

24:08Elgan: The one that gets mentioned is Ireland-Italy, because with all of these things, what people try and do is pick an area of America that has links to, you know, historic links to a certain place, which is why France, it's always talked about they're going to play New Orleans. I think New Orleans Pelicans are playing the NBA game in Paris, for example, and they're playing against San Antonio Spurs, who've got Wemben Yama, who's from Paris. So they always try and do these things that have links, which is why the big Irish-American community, the big Italian-American community, it's been mentioned Boston or New York, possibly.

24:38Elgan: I think if you wanted to have a£5 bet, the 2029 Six Nations game that is an Italy home game against Ireland, that might be the one you're looking at. But not that I think that would happen, but I think that is the sort of game that they're thinking might happen, were it to be a Six Nations game. I'd say that an Italy home game would be the one right now because they're the biggest, certainly if we follow England, if you took the England fans out of the Stadio Olimpico, it would be less than half full. It's the big away trip that so many people do. So in that sense, Italy would probably see some benefit in going, so long as the money would work.

25:14But I don't know why you'd compromise the Six Nations that way. The Nations Championship is supposed to be something different. We've already had games being played on neutral territory in that competition. if you want to test things and try things and break boundaries then the Nations Championship is set up to do that the one thing I would say about breaking America is that rugby won't break it in the way that you want the Beatles could break America for football to break America it's required the signing of David Beckham on hundreds of millions and then David Beckham buying his own club and signing Messi and that's to try and get a football for professional football in America.

25:59Alfie: Yeah, even then you could argue it hasn't broken America. Right, so that's not the intention. Now, it's not to say that a World Cup there can't have a legacy. And there are rugby communities in the States and there are universities that play rugby. And, you know, that can have an impact. If athletes who, high school athletes who are going to university who don't make an American football team, but they see these big rugby occasions and rugby is available to them at university and some high schools, then that can have a positive legacy. I'm not saying that that isn't the potential from hosting the two World Cups in America.

26:33It definitely is. But it's not the driving force anymore because I think they know that the World Game knows that establishing a significant professional league in the States is so hard to do. So it's now about big games, big occasions, big sponsors. And then the knock-on effect of that, hopefully, is that those small pockets of rugby communities and those universities that do offer scholarships and give young athletes in America a chance to play the game, it can give them a boost along the way. But we can't say that that's now the intent.

27:07Elgan: And we've seen most sports realise that expansion doesn't necessarily mean transplanting an entire part of your sport. It means taking games to somewhere. So think about 15 years ago, it seemed almost inevitable that Jacksonville Jaguars would become the London Jaguars. And it hasn't happened and it probably never will now because they've realised we don't actually need a team there. We've got the three games in London. There are now nine international games in total this season, starting with Melbourne. We've seen rugby league come to that realisation as well. So often the history of rugby league is, let's set up a team there.

27:40Elgan: Oh, it hasn't worked. Set up a team there. Oh, that hasn't worked. Now the game in Las Vegas, jumping on with the NRL. And next season, a Wigan-Warrington game in Dublin as well. It's just an opportunity of going, we have a product. We're going to take it to a city, try and get them interested. and then we're going to go back. But as long as that is a show, a spectacle, like Alex said, then that's what it relies upon. Yeah, I just don't think it enhances the Six Nations by taking a game to America.

28:03Alfie: Well, that's the thing for me, and I hate being that person in rugby that as soon as there's something new or something different, you're like, no, but with this I am, no, don't do it. Because the Six Nations, as you've all said, is so good. It works so well. It's basically the only thing annually anyway in the sport that works so well every single time. As you say, Alex, I think if you're going to do it, do it with the Nations Championship, which is new, is already at neutral venues. That makes a lot more sense. But I think doing it with the Six Nations, for me, and I think most rugby fans will probably say, is a big no-no.

28:32Alfie: We'll leave it there. We'll have a very quick break. And then the other side, we're going to be asking why has Steve Borthwick been given a contract extension?

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31:02Alfie: So welcome back. You may well have seen last week this news got a lot of attention, particularly in England rugby circles, but the RFU will extend Steve Borthwick's contract to the end of the 2028 Six Nations. It's basically an extension of four months, really, taking him from the end of the World Cup until the end of the following six nations. England did the same with John Mitchell, ahead of the Women's World Cup last year. They essentially, gents, have said they don't want coaches looking for their next job during a World Cup year, as you would expect, Alex, with England, with Steve Borthwick, always a big reaction to this.

31:34Alfie: A lot of fans saying it's unnecessary, it's undeserved. Do they have a point or actually is there not too much in this? So what it's not is a show of faith in Steve Borthwick, because if they were absolutely adamant that Steve was the man to lead England to the future, as Ireland are with Andy Farrell, and as South Africa are with Razzy Rasmus, he'd have been signed up for the next four-year cycle. So it's not a show of faith in him. So I wouldn't read into... Stuart Barnes wrote a column about he hasn't deserved the extension. It's not an extension based on performance. For me, it's an extension to make the RFU's life more straightforward.

32:17It's a hedge, as Charlie was saying just before. I think the RFU are trying to avoid the two worst-case scenarios. So, scenario one, 2015, Stuart Lancaster gets given a mega new deal. England bomb out in the group stages and they have to sack him. If you look at New Zealand at the last World Cup, they almost sacked Ian Foster in the year before the World Cup. He won in South Africa. He clung on. But by the time they got to the World Cup, Scott Robertson had already been appointed as his successor. And he nearly wins the Web Ellis Trophy. They lose by a point to the Springboks in the final down to 14 men.

32:51So they were that close to having a scenario where Ian Foster wins the World Cup and is sacked on the same day. So those two scenarios, you know, it's very tricky trying to manage a succession plan around a World Cup. Because the RFU, as Conor O'Shea said on that podcast, they seem to put everything in the World Cup basket. which is a mistake in my opinion but what they've done here is give themselves a safety net a hedge so that they're not backing Borthwick and then having to sack him but they're also not creating this awkward situation where they're trying to recruit a replacement now it doesn't preclude them from firing him straight after the World Cup if they need to he's not guaranteed to get that Six Nations but he could still go on to do that Six Nations And it just buys them time to work out what they want to do for the next four years.

33:43It's just interesting to me that it's not a show of faith in the head coach.

33:49Alfie: Yeah, it doesn't guarantee that he's going to stay longer. I think there's a lot of England fans who will be thinking, why on earth would he be staying beyond the World Cup? And actually, to be fair to them, to me anyway, it does feel like the end of that World Cup is a fairly natural point for the whole Borthwick project to come to an end. Alex mentioned it there, though, Charlie. Conor O'Shea, in that interview with the BBC, spoke about the World Cup a lot, which is often what we hear with England, isn't it? And the RFU, that building towards the World Cup, judges on the World Cup, which seems, was it incredibly foolish that you're judging like a whole tenure, a whole four years on a knockout game where you could get a red card or injuries or whatever the case may be and you might be unlucky on the day?

34:27Alfie: Seems fickle, doesn't it?

34:28Charlie: I think the theory goes that England's multi-club system benefits more from that really, really precious extended pre-season they have where they can build cohesion to a degree that they don't, to a sort of level that they don't get a chance to do in other tournaments. England have a good record in World Cup. Steve Borthwick has a good record as a coach in World Cup, whether as a head coach in 2023 or previously with Japan and England. And I think that's important to remember. But I do think that quite an interesting contrast to draw is with Ireland. So Ireland supporters have to deal with a lot of sort of jibes about their World Cup record, which is really poor.

35:16Charlie: But over the last two World Cup cycles, their consistency in six nations and actually also what they've achieved outside of those windows with serious wins in New Zealand. They went to South Africa and drew 1-1 there. I think under Andy Farrell, they've achieved a great deal. And I think their supporters have got a lot of enjoyment from that, whereas England supporters are always dealing with, it's been levelled at this RFU regime before, but Jan Tomorrow, you know, a big point that Conor O'Shea made was that they feel that they've fixed the pathway systems that were kind of broken around 2020-ish.

35:56Charlie: I think I'm right in saying. And they feel that they're on a good footing with that. They've won one Under-20s World Cup. They haven't, they've not done that since, but they do feel like there's a generation coming through that's going to give them a lot of quality. I think the short answer is it did feel jarring to me to continue to listen to judges on the World Cup because, and actually I think if, to go on to expand on what Alex was saying, I agree, it's certainly not an endorsement for Steve Borthwick this short contract extension. And yeah, it's a reflection of where the sides have been over the course of this World Cup cycle, which is two steps forward, two steps forward, both three steps forward, saying we'll give them, in the case of that 12-test winning run, but the Six Nations were certainly two more back at least.

36:43Charlie: And now they're sort of treading water again and trying to get momentum towards 2027.

36:48Elgan: Charlie mentioned the 2023 World Cup where obviously England's Steve Borthwick came so close to doing well that tournament. I think I'd be shocked if anyone's opinion of Steve Borthwick has changed in the past four years based off the circumstances in which he took over the job where they took so long over Eddie Jones that they got rid of him so close to World Cup. They had to parachute Steve Borthwick in earlier slash possibly later than they would have wanted to. People will still remember that game against France at Twickenham early on in his reign. People will also remember the fact that with a few months time he did turn a team into a team that could do well at the World Cup and it feels like that little period has on the one hand hamstrung people's opinions of him ever since but equally possibly is keeping him in the job now because they know what he did in that that quick turnaround whereas maybe if he'd started after the 2023 World Cup he might have been gone by now but that little period where the RFU prevaricated over Eddie Jones then brought Steve Borthwick in it feels like everything that's happening now is still as a result of things that happened four years ago really.

37:50Conor O'Shea sort of rather mangled his language but he said he said England are unequivocally probably one of the five teams that can win that World Cup and they will go in with a puncher's chance as they always do as Charlie said because the way that England really base everything and the coaches look at it now give me the players for two months and I can turn them into something which is essentially what Borthwick did in 23 and they were a point away from beating South Africa again as it was in 23 the draw really lends itself to England based on form. Now, if New Zealand were to drop their group game against Australia, it looks a bit different.

38:26But for England to reach the final, their route on form would be beat Wales in the group stages, beat Italy, Australia and Ireland. So those teams can reach the final without having to play New Zealand, France or South Africa. So you've got four years of largely underachievement and then going, well, beat those teams to reach the final with saying everything's okay. And that's the problem I have with that whole approach that the RFU take and coaches within it. And, you know, Conor was, again, sort of talking about, well, he's the eternal optimist. He's quite a good company in that sense. But he, like, when England were winning, he's like, well, don't get so excited because, you know, they're just winning games, but don't get over excited.

39:12And now they've had what he called a horrendous Six Nations and a decent summer, but not a commanding summer. So we don't get so down. Sport is about results. It's only under pressure coaches and under pressure regimes that go, well, just stay level, everyone, just stay level. If we're all staying level, there's no point in sport because the joy of winning is why anyone does it. England should be talking about winning Grand Slams, which is tough and rare, but that's what they should be targeting every year instead of trying to explain away subpar performances in Six Nations on the basis that, well, if we can go and beat Wales, Italy, Australia, Ireland and reach the final, then four years has been a success.

39:59I think there needs to be more scrutiny on an annual basis. As Stuart Barnes wrote in his piece, the Six Nations Championship is an annual examination of where you are just in the Northern hemisphere. And England have had one second place, and then they were dreadful this year, second place the year before, fourth or fifth year before that. The annual examination, they failed. So to then pin it all on your finals at the end of your, it's like failing the whole way through university and then hoping that you can ace the finals, and that'll be enough when you've forgotten that the coursework along the way is actually really important.

40:35Alfie: The thing that I've been chuckling along at is, after you said that it's kind of the that never get too high, never get too low. It just took me back to the post-match press conference at Twickenham after England had beaten New Zealand and trying to get Steve Balfour to say anything, kind of, that it was a significant day or really positive. He was, like, not going anywhere near it. I agree with what you guys have said. I feel like the actual contract extension in itself is actually a bit of a storm in a teacup. It's like, you can see why they've done it. They don't necessarily need to. It doesn't guarantee that he'll stay beyond the World Cup.

41:05Alfie: I think the wider points it gets to in terms of how the RFU operate and people losing patience with this Borthwick project is for me what it puts a bit of a spotlight on. We'll get on to the Red Roses probably next, but Elgin, one of the things that Connor said in that pod was John Mitchell has been hired for two weeks over a four-year period, really to deliver semi-final and final week. But they're basing this Borthwick and the England management team model on the Red Roses model. If the Red Roses had lost that World Cup final, does John Mitchell then coach into the Six Nations that follows and everyone thinks Is that OK?

41:38Or does he, do they have to get rid? Like, what were the vibes around the Red Roses?

41:43Elgan: I imagine it would have been quite similar to the previous World Cup where Simon Middleton saw into the next Six Nations and then it moved into John Mitchell because obviously the Red Roses went into the 2022 World Cup expecting to win that one as well. And they're now on a 39-game winning streak, which is tremendous, but that shows that it's a very different landscape, women's international rugby, to men's international rugby. The Red Roses go into every game just fully anticipating that they will win. And the one game that they hadn't won was the only one that mattered. And John Mitchell got them into a place where they were able to, you know, they're able to turn up on the big occasion and on the small occasion, as was last weekend, you know, a slightly smaller occasion, a World Cup final.

42:22Elgan: But certainly I get the sense that in the, and even in the most recent John Mitchell contract negotiation, it was an RFU deal rather than sort of Red Rose's head coach deal. So there was a bit of wiggle room there as well. And we thought that might've been a, you know, are planning for the future where someone like Emily Scarra or Sarah Hunter would be maybe phased into that role behind this super coach figure of John Mitchell. But no, fundamentally, yes, it was all about winning that game. And if he'd lost, then I don't think he'd still be the head coach now.

42:51Alfie: Well, good segue there, Alex. Let's get on to the Red Roses. Let's finish off because if the England men's team are inconsistent and there's question marks all over the place, the Red Roses are the machine that just keep on winning. Red Roses 48, Australia 15. I think the thing that probably had a few people, Elgin, raising their eyebrows was half-time. Australia led here 10-5. Really strong second half from England, which we see them do all the time. John Mitchell afterwards actually said, it's an absolute joke to be worried about that because they scored 43 points in the second half. He's right, isn't he?

43:20Alfie: I mean, we can try and create a narrative of, oh, it was close at half-time. But once again, the Red Roses do what the Red Roses always do.

43:26Elgan: Yeah, the stat that people started talking about was that it was the first time the Red Roses had been behind at halftime since November 2020, which I elected not to use out of taste because they'd actually lost a game in 2022, which is worse than being behind after halftime. And they were behind at the hour mark against Canada in 2024. So out of taste, I chose not to include that statistic. But yes, that shows how rare it is for them to ever be behind. But you know that when they take off their starting front rows, they just bring on the second best or perhaps the best front row in the world.

44:00Elgan: So there's just no let up whenever they're playing. You know, we've seen them struggle in the opening half before. They've done it both last two times they've played against Ireland, in Ireland and at Twickenham in the first game back after the World Cup. We've seen them struggle against Australia before in Brighton during the last, in the World Cup as well, just gone last year. Because a team like the Wallaroos, and John Mitchell has said this before, they can start well and they can put you under trouble. but you just know that the Red Roses are an 80-minute team. So they've got through another, I mean, I'm not even going to call it a banana skin, really, because it was always going to be viewed as a warm-up game, really.

44:34Elgan: They struggled, then they showed how good they are, and now we get into the real stuff.

44:38Alfie: So on that, then, it was interesting to me that John Mitchell also described it as their first pre-season game, which I get the PWR doesn't start until, was it November or end of October, whatever it is. So in a sense, it is. I mean, is that fair? Is it a bit of a bad reflection on this whole new WXV format when you've got the England head coach basically saying like, oh yeah, that's just a pre-season for playing Canada and the Black Ferns.

44:58Elgan: Yeah, I think the Red Roses are viewing this as a three-test series against Canada. One at Sandy Park and then two in Canada. That is the rugby rematch tour as they branded it after the World Cup final. And John Mitchell has said more than once in interviews in recent weeks that he's likening it to what we've just seen with New Zealand and South Africa. So he's not hidden away from the fact that that is sort of their main focus. New Zealand, the Black Ferns at Twickenham is obviously a huge occasion as well. There's going to be more than 50 ,000 people at that game. We've just seen New Zealand win in Lyon against France, which is quite encouraging for what they can do, because I think after winning the World Cup at Eden Park, that was sort of a cool, phew, we won the World Cup.

45:42Elgan: Now let's go back to just sort of, not to be too crude, but it feels like they're really good rugby players and they just meet up in the car park, whereas England are just this relentless juggernaut. And then we're talking about America, that game at the very end in New Jersey against USA. That will have some significance as well, just because of all the things we've been talking about, about trying to spread interest. And I think there is more scope for growth within women's rugby in USA, not in the amount of money that's involved, but just in the sense of how much the sport within the USA can actually grow.

46:17Elgan: Not just Alona Ma and Sevens, but the fact that there isn't a women's NFL to compete with in the same way. So when you look at all those six fixtures as a whole, I don't think it's a disrespect to the Wallaroos to show that that first step did feel like the curtain raiser and a bit of a blow the cobwebs away before tougher tests await, to use punditry jargon.

46:38Alfie: And you haven't seen too much from the Red Roses then to be too concerned about how they're going to look when it comes to those bigger test matches against the Blackburns in Canada.

46:45Elgan: I mean, Canada have the ability to beat them and the Black Ferns historically also do. So you are staring at a team that's won 39 games in a row. It's a fool's errand to try and predict when they will lose. But those four games are opportunities where they could. Those are the biggest opportunities that they could lose. So if they're not going to lose in any of those four, then the winning run will surely go above 50 and who knows where it'll go.

47:09Alfie: It's got to come to an end at some point. That's what I said about England's trip to Italy and Rome and Six Nations, Alex. I did. Well, let's not ignore it. It came right this year. I was right this year. Gents, we will leave it there. Thank you very much for all of you that have been listening. Those of you that have been watching on the Times Sport YouTube page. Just a final reminder for the 5th of November, an evening with Lewis Moody. Alex is going to be chatting to the England legend about his diagnosis for MND and all the highs and lows of his career. You can go to thetimes.com forward slash events to get your ticket for that.

47:40Alfie: Alex, Charlie, Elgin, pleasure as always. Be back with you all next week. This has been The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and Sunday Times.

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