Will Bath create history? And why is R360 'delusional'?

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1:25Alfie: Welcome back to The Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. Ahead of the Premiership final, two cracking semi-finals over the weekend, means it's Bath and Leicester heading to Twickenham on Saturday. Alfie here along with Will. Hello, how's it going? After that weekend, all good. What a weekend. Well, yeah, great start to it, wasn't it? The first, the Friday night game, Bath-Bristol, that first half was one of the best premiership rugby first halves you've seen for a while. It was coming through the telly for us who were watching it on the telly, how much that old place was bouncing.

2:01And it was brilliant that Bristol threw the kitchen sink at it. particularly with Ellis Gens snarling and swearing and shouting at fans and stuff like that. It was exactly what you wanted from a local rivalry Friday night semi-final, wasn't it? And we'll get into more of the detail of the game in a sec, but just Bath kind of did what they've been doing to teams all season of get to about 60 minutes. You go, oh, there's Bath, they've gone.

2:26Alfie: Which you think is probably, as you say, we'll get onto it, the challenge for Leicester this weekend when you look at the final of how can you counteract the strength and depth ultimately of Bath. and their ability to pull ahead in the second half. We're also out and about today. So we're at the TNT offices in Chiswick. So Prem Rugby and TNT have had a briefing today. We're going to chat about the semifinals. We're going to look ahead to the final as well. It's also been a week of R360, some big news off the field, some Lions news as we creep closer to the start of that tour as well. But the briefing we've been at today, Will, I felt the mood has been almost a reflection of what we saw over the weekend in that we've had these two brilliant semifinals.

3:08Alfie: And the mood here today and speaking to people from Prem Rugby has echoed that, I think, in terms of the positivity around the league at the moment and kind of where the league's at. Yeah, and we must say that we must give credit, I think, to the guys at Premiership Rugby, particularly because some of their predecessors were not very good at telling people what was going on and sharing information about what they're up to and answering questions and stuff like that. whereas the newer leadership who have been in place for about four or so years now have been to pull back the curtain a bit seeing us a couple of times each through the season and keeping us updated and you'll see if you read the paper and if you read a website and listen to the ruck that we pepper in some of the information that we get from them and the questions we ask them and for example things like the away end trial came from one of these days where we were sharing ideas with each other between the media and the execs and judging by the comment section there might be some people that aren't too grateful but look it's a great great opportunity to just kind of take the temperature perhaps as sometimes executives say of what's going on in the league and English rugby and ask them some good pertinent questions and to be fair to them they don't shy away from them and they do answer them so it's been cool today it's been pretty so there's some stuff that's going to be coming out later in the week that we can't talk about here but in terms of the overall positivity and I suppose where the league is off the back of what was a really difficult time post-COVID and losing clubs but 30 sellouts this season up from 18 the season before the final as we've spoken about previously has sold out in record time yeah I don't know it just felt to me that that we know that not everything is is always rosy and rugby has certainly plenty of challenges it it faces a sport and in England we've seen that in quite sad circumstances in in the last few years with the clubs that have been lost but overall it feels to me anyway you've been in more of these meetings and had more of these days will that the the league is in a pretty good place right now yeah and this is where and we'll do it in more detail at the other end of the pod but I think the R360 threat is getting some of these executives sighing a bit because they're going oh we've just been spending the last four years trying to sort out the game and tidy up all these silly loose ends that we've left frayed for a long time and we're establishing all this new good stuff and then these guys come along and try and blow it all apart so one of the people i was talking to do was saying that they feel a bit gaslit by the guys trying to start the r360 thing because all their bump is talking about how much club rugby struggling and how on its ear it is and how struggling and financially unsustainable the whole project is and they go that's an analysis from two, three years ago, whereas yes, they're not all rich and don't have enormous ownership profiles of all these teams yet, but the things that they feel like they've established over the last three or four years, like more stringent salary cap stuff, financial monitoring panels, a better professional game partnership between club and country, a five-year newly improved TNT sports broadcast deal, a bit more around the marketing and the player kind of hero-gramming, They feel like they've established a much better base for the premiership to grow from.

6:23I do feel like a lot of it is genuine. I've been in plenty of these sorts of briefings with other people in other places over the years and you just think the wall's being pulled over our eyes here and we're getting a very sanitised version of the truth. But I don't feel that with the guys at Prem Towers.

6:39Alfie: And I suppose the flip side of what we've just been saying as well is there is still the whole situation with Newcastle bubbling along, for example, which could become a much bigger story throughout the summer. And the word on that is that they're getting close, that we should perhaps expect some movement between Red Bull and Newcastle Falcons over the summer, and they may even end up being called Red Bull something in the title, which if that's a way of getting a good deal over the line, I think that's a small price to pay for changing the name of the team. But that's interesting in itself. And if they do manage to get that done, it's one of those things of, I was talking to someone else last week or so, and they were likening it to a bit like the Friday of a stag do, where everyone gets a bit excited and someone ends up pouring wine over their head and everyone else goes, maybe we should be doing that.

7:23It's like if a big investor like Red Bull comes along and sort of goes, well, hey, we want to invest in English Club Rugby Union, then maybe other blue chip companies and big businesses go, oh, hang on, we'll pour the wine over our head as well.

7:37Alfie: That is not an analogy that I was expecting at this point in the podcast. But there you go, you never know what you're going to get from us. So, yeah, I found it's been an interesting day, a positive day. One of those days you come away from feeling pretty positive. But also off the back of a positive weekend. It was a good pair of fixtures, wasn't it? Let's get into the rugby then because the two semifinals I thought were brilliant. I think Friday night in particular, as we say, that first half was awesome. And you say we'll talk about R360 later. It's the sort of intensity and rivalry and passion that you can't manufacture that.

8:09Alfie: You know, that was Ellis Genge absolutely snarling coming out of the tunnel. It was Bristol, who I thought for 40 minutes were absolutely sensational in the way that they troubled Bath. And then, I mean, Bath's what we've seen this season, isn't it? They are the best team in the league. They've got the best strength in depth. And that 20-minute blitz just after halftime where they just absolutely shredded Bristol, took the game away from them. And that was it. Yeah, it was awesome to watch. and I was sitting on my sofa with my Barth supporting girlfriend who was quite keen to make sure she actually did go to the Premiership final with her ticket.

8:40Alfie: Our two households have very contrasting emotions for this game as we were messaging throughout. But I loved, I was secretly like, well no not secretly, I was keen for Bristol to make a really good game of it because it had the potential for Barth to just blast them and it kind of be like oh what they've sort of, I don't know, sauntered into the final without really a scare but they did get a proper bloody nose and certainly Tom Dunne got a whole bloody face, I think, didn't he? It was unbelievable. Looking at the pictures of him afterwards. But, yeah, I mean, like, Calavetti, Revovo. I just love, I mean, yeah, the premiership's had some decent bits of skill over the years, but over the weekend we saw some unbelievable bits of, like, individual talent, didn't we?

9:19And the first one was Revovo. And I'm not saying I've picked this up and no one else has, but the thing that I noticed about it, which I loved, was so Will Muir chased a bit too strongly, which Austin Healy pointed out. the telly I was slightly naive because he was on his own he didn't have cover so if Rovova beat him he was toast but the thing I thought was cool was how Rovova let the ball sit on the ground for about half a second longer than he could have done so that when he picked it up he was straight into his hot stepping routine it was awesome and then he burnt away and matter just goes and splats I think it was Ben Spencer and off they are and Genge then picks the perfect pass that misses Kloska and hits done through the hole that was such a such a good try and then if we go to the Tigers one I had a perfect view of the Adam Radwan Superman dive catch and for some reason it really immediately reminded me of people like the cricket will remember the 2015 Ashes where England bowled Australia out for 60 at Trent Bridge and Stuart Brault got eight for 15 and I can't remember what batsman it was and I should have looked it up but it might have been Adam Voges who nicked one to third slip and ben stoke caught it behind himself and that was um there was some amazing commentary from i was listening to it on the radio at the time jonathan agney on tms who went like oh the ball was gone it was behind him how has he done that and it was kind of like that with radwan even to the point where stuart broad's reaction was like pollard's reaction where he grafts the face going oh wow how has he done that because it was a horrible kick wasn't it from pollard so Oh, yeah, I just loved within those battles, these bits of amazing skill that kind of lifted the whole thing.

10:58Alfie: Yeah, and I think on Bristol, we'll come on and speak about Bath more in a short while when we look ahead to the final. But I thought this could be some kind of, you know, group therapy session for me. Disappointment of that 20 minutes in Bristol not getting to the final. Because at halftime, I was thinking, oh, this would be amazing, like ruining Bath's year at the record. It would have been the best thing ever. But credit to Bath, as I say, They were brilliant in that second half. On Bristol, I think it's a really interesting one. So immediately, like, discussions I was having with friends from home was what we've spoken about previously of kind of style versus substance.

11:30Alfie: And I asked them, like, and in fact, it's interesting today, I saw Bristol encouraging people to buy their season tickets for next year and their kind of marketing strapline is in 16 of the 18 Prem rounds this season. They got a try bonus point. Like, they have been this unbelievably entertaining team. But will that win you matches? Will that win you silverware? And I think the general feel this year actually is Bristol. They have kicked on A because they're back in the top four. I think there's a huge amount of credit for the way in which they went about their business on Friday night at the wreck, even though they didn't get over the line.

11:58Alfie: And so I think if this is a platform for them to build upon and hopefully get themselves in position to win silver, I think everyone's actually pretty OK with it. And the final thing I'd say on them, if you actually want to look at Bristol this year, and I think Sale as well, if you want to bring it on to the second semi-final, is home field is so important, which we know already and makes an even bigger mockery of my prediction last week that we were going to get two away winners. I feel like you did that to be interesting. Well, partly because you had already picked the favourite. But I think you look at the league and you look at Bristol's form post Six Nations, that they were second for so much of the season.

12:34Alfie: Like not getting a home semi-final, I think for Bristol and Sale and those kind of small margins in the league that we know is so unpredictable and so congested is pretty key for ultimately getting yourself to Twickenham. Yeah, and also, I'd agree with that, and for a very different reason, same with Sale, who actually won more matches than Leicester in the league season. Bonus points have always been an issue with Sale. But five fewer bonus points, and they're finishing third in the graveyard slot where no one's won from. Still, the stat survives another year. They were behind and then had to go to Tigers rather than hosting them.

13:09And the time where that semi-final was flipped round, they won, didn't they? And made the final in 2023 against Saracens, didn't they?

13:16Alfie: Do you worry that the door, the championship window, if we can call it that, for sale is closing? So what's this? Their fourth year? Four of the last five. They've been in the playoffs at least. Yeah, OK. Four of the last five in the playoffs. They got to a final, which they lost to Saris. Yes. I don't know. Yes, I think. And I think it was quite soon after the game. So it's hard for some of these coaches maybe to have that kind of helicopter view and look at it in the round, I suppose. But Alex Anderson basically offered that up, really, and was saying, like, we've had a lot of these now and we can't keep losing them.

13:50Alfie: And also, it's always a balance, isn't it? On the one hand, Leicester, I thought, were excellent in that first half of the way they controlled the game. There's always a flip side to it that I think Sale will look at their performance and think, yeah, we weren't at the level we needed to be for that 40. Really disappointing. I felt they really didn't turn up in that first half, and they were hounded at the breakdown, which is not great if you're Ben and Tom Curry. Let's be honest, two of the best in the business. To be schooled at the breakdown, that's poor. Their scrum was poor. I mean, Nicky Smith took Asher Apokifor-Jaw to the cleaners, let's be honest, and Will Griff-John came on and steadied the ship.

14:29And then Leicester defending was brilliant, but I felt that George Ford looked really quite panicked at 10, which is unlike him, and that was probably because of the pressure that was coming from him from the Tigers defence. They couldn't get their attack going at all. There's a lot of credit in them coming back into it and getting level and getting it to 16-all like they did but there was sort of never a point where you thought Saylor actually going to do this even to the end when we had the slightly controversial potential no-arms tackle from Freddie Stewart. It was kind of, you know sometimes when you're watching those games and you've seen a lot of rugby and you go they're going to score here and others where you go I'm not sure they're going to do it.

15:04A bit like maybe Ireland, New Zealand in the quarterfinals of the World Cup. There was never a point in those 40-odd phases where you were like, oh, wow, Ireland are going to do this. Whereas sometimes you just get that feeling in your bones of going, they're going to score here. And I just never felt Saleh were going to win that. And it was like, I favoured them to win. And I thought they were going to turn up and be all steely and angry. And it was poor.

15:26Alfie: Yeah, I agree. And it was also a game as well, which so unlike him, Andre Pollard from the tee was like, Leicester actually could have been a lot more out of sight. They left nine points out there plus the drop goal, which was a horrible effort of a drop goal. So, yeah, that's very unlike them. I mean, they could have won very easily there. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, we've said it a few times, but if we sort of push it on to, like, Saturday. Absolutely, yeah. Tigers. We're going to owe, like, a public apology to Leicester, aren't we? Oh, don't worry. We've already had people in my DMs going, you've never backed us.

15:58We love it. Yeah, and it's a bit like, okay, fine, but like let's look at the league table. Say I'll finish with more wins than you. Fine. Leicester seem to be rolling the Tom Bowler every year and picking out a little ticket and then going, oh, we finished eighth this year and then rolling it again and going, oh, premiership final. It's just so, their whole setup is so random. And like, look, you can see it's unfortunate for them because they had a long-term sustainable plan with Steve Borthwick, Alec Walters, Richard Wigglesworth, Kevin Sinfield, Tom Harrison and then England go, yeah, thanks for that.

16:27We'll just supplant that into the England setup. And then they made a bad decision and recruited Dan McKellar, which didn't work at all. He didn't fancy it and went home. And so then they go, right, we've got a very last-minute decision to make. OK, let's go and pick Michael Chekka, which has ended up being an inspired decision, but it's only a one-year sugar rush. And he had to change defence coach. He's had to change defence coach halfway through the year, but he's galvanised them clearly and given them something to fight for. He's given them a good tactical plan. He's lent into the sort of Tigers-y elements of the game while also connecting them more off the field.

17:02But then he's gone. And then Jeff Parling is an excellent young coach. But you've got to imagine it's going to take him 18 months to get his stamp on that team properly, especially with the characters who are leaving. Cole, Pollard, Youngs, Montosia, etc., etc. So I find Tigers so interesting. They remind me a bit of Chelsea, where Chelsea just sort of go, who should we have as manager this year? I don't know Moresca alright cool what's he going to do Champions League okay cool and all those years where they would like Roberto Di Matteo just comes in for five minutes and wins the Champions League and then they sack him they're just sort of so it's sort of madly unsustainable but something about that place and the people in it they sort of randomly get it right every now and then

17:47Alfie: and I think it's absolutely fair that fans are in your DMs and having a go at us because we did but it's not any of that unfair this is a rhetorical question to the people who are now going to come back into my dms but is any of that unfair do we think i'm not saying it's the executives fault i'm just or no i think you're right at the club it's just surely like lots of other clubs they would prefer to have quite a long-term sustainable view of things and a stable plan and i've said lots of that's not their fault because the rfw took all their coaches but it's just so this is totally the opposite blueprint of what you think about how to get someone to a premiership final there's no book in this there's no like how leicester built their dynasty because also the next point is like it's fairly likely if Bath were in the final we will have had six winners in the last six editions of the premiership and there's a debate to be had of whether that's brilliant balance or there's no dominant team everyone's fairly similarly average and the league is not very good at helping teams create dynasties because they're always cutting off the top of them by getting rid of their players debate for another day maybe but if Tigers win it they've won more Prems than anyone over the last five years and you think what Tigers who have been like up one minute way down the next it just seems so random I think is the phrase I'd use and you hope if you're a Tigers fan or an exec or a player that the parling era lasts a bit because you can't keep doing this really, it's obviously worked this year They fascinate me, Leicester, particularly this year.

19:20Alfie: You mentioned as well Ben Young's Dan Cole, Julio Montoya, this kind of swan song. It does have almost a little bit like Northampton last year and that kind of last dance feel to it. And it's funny, actually, because thinking of the game at the weekend, I can't work out whether I feel that it's written in the stars for Bath to complete this amazing kind of treble winning season, and be champions of England for the first time in such a long time for such a historic club of English rugby, or whether Leicester are absolutely going to ruin the party just with everything we've spoken about, the Michael Checker effect, this team that we can't quite work out, but they found a way to get themselves a home semi-final.

19:59Alfie: They found a way to get themselves to Twickenham and they will find a way to end up being champions at the end of the season. It's a really fascinating balance. So Tigers fans, tune back in because this is the bit where I write you off again. and I'm going to use a technical phrase here so watch out for it. If Bath don't win the Premiership final it's one of the great bottle jobs, isn't it? I mean Bath are... Unbelievable bottle job. When was the last time you think that there'll be a team that was such heavy favourites? Was it one of the Saracens teams where they were so clearly the best team in the league?

20:29Maybe when Exeter made their first final in 16 albeit, I haven't got it in front of me but I'm pretty sure they weren't that Exeter were top of the league but then Saracens beat them but you just thought like Saracens was that team who had done lots of great stuff and were doing great stuff in Europe and stuff like that. They were always going to win that final. And Exeter have talked since about how they were just quite happy to be there at Twickenham and looking out the window going, wow, look at us, we were playing in the championship six years ago. But yeah, after that, I mean, you've got Chiefs Wasps was probably flip of the coin territory and literally went to extra time, didn't it?

21:01So fair enough. I mean, the Quinns Exeter won. Even though Quinns had done Bristol and Ball, you probably thought, Chiefs are probably just going to beat them here, aren't they? And they didn't. So that was 100 % a massive shock of a premiership winner. They were only the second team to win it from fourth, weren't they, Quinns? And then we've had some tight ones. Northampton were favoured last year, probably, weren't they? Sarri's were favoured to beat Sale before that. Leicester, Sarri's was really tight, went down to a drop goal.

21:30Alfie: So, yeah. OK, so if we do feel then that Bath are heavy favourites, which makes sense, we've said consistently, They're clearly the best team, clearly the strongest squad. What about the weight of history and the pressure of history on this Bath team? Or is that irrelevant because of the experience of losing in the final last year, the experience of winning the Challenge Cup in particular this year? Do you think there is a balance there between 29 years? 29 years, yeah. So I think in terms of 1996 and all that, so the last time we won the league, as we were down at Bath saying last Monday, I don't really feel like that's got much relevance for the players because if they're slightly younger than me and you, Alfie, they weren't born.

22:17So they've got no lived experience of Bath winning stuff and then not winning stuff. Do you know what I mean? If you're Charlie Ewells, it doesn't mean anything to you 1996 other than old people telling you that's what happened and you might have seen an old picture on the clubhouse wall somewhere.

22:34Alfie: But he has also been there a long time and a Tom Dunn and you know how much it means. But what I mean is as in you don't have that baggage of 96, like you remember the great old days kind of thing because it doesn't mean anything to you. It's not like what is Kieran Donoghue was born in the noughties. Like he doesn't. What's that? 96. Oh, when my dad was in his 20s. like do you know what I mean it's whereas the the thing I think that is more relevant and is a pressure for them is that they are so fancied and they're so favored and they're so clearly have been the best team in the league they're so expected to win that comes with a pressure and their argument on the other side like talking to Charlie Ewell's last Monday who wasn't on our pod but I chatted to him separately he was going like look I think I would have felt a bit more worried about these knockout games a few years ago because we hadn't played in any like Will Stewart said it on our pod didn't he that when they made their 2020 semi-final they were just like we were just not ready to win anything we were just kind of lucked out got into the semi and then got battered by Chiefs and it was all like well that wasn't anything really was it whereas Bath have had they've now won two playoff semi-finals last years and this year's they've won a prem cup final yes it's a development competition but some of those players have won a final and they've won a challenge cup final and obviously the flip side is they've lost the premiership final and there's a debate to be had over whether it steals you to do the next one or whether you get the memories jangling your head going oh no this is happening again if it doesn't go your way but i don't know i feel like also looking at the character they've got in their team they've probably got enough people who won't be that worried about that like does fin russell care not bothered is he yeah and like we say that because we know what type of guy he is and sometimes it's a bit flippant because it's not as if he doesn't care about anything no it's his demeanor he's so chilled out which he admits himself relaxed yeah he doesn't feel any weight of kind of anything um so now so you're saying bath you're going for bath i think bath should win it will win it and would deserve to win it I'm not saying that Tigers wouldn't deserve to win it I'm just saying that Bath have shown us the body of evidence to go we are the best team in England and the dominant side of the year and that would be justified that they then won the title whereas Tigers would be kind of like wow what an incredible achievement they've kind of come from eighth last season and looking a bit of a basket case to suddenly getting their act together kind of out of nowhere one season only one season wonder sort of thing and it would be a remarkable story in itself but I think if Bath lost you'd sort of go unbelievable what about the character of these guys and it should be a great occasion like I'm really interested to see it's been sold out for weeks it's been sold out for weeks but Bath have been on track for this basically the whole year so I'd imagine there's going to be a lot of Bath fans Leicester as well are such a well supported club the news on that is that they get 5 ,000 tickets each the teams in the final but Tigers have got 10 ,000 season ticket holders so these tickets for Tigers fans have not even gone on general sale because the season ticket holders have taken them already.

25:44So there's going to be half the season ticket holders who can't even get a ticket. Which is a great place

25:48Alfie: for the premiership to find itself. They're going, how brilliant, because there's people who are annoyed they can't go. So they'll buy one earlier next year. Well, I tell you what, I'm either going to make it three from three for bad predictions or I'm going to redeem myself. But I'm going to go Leicester. OK. I'm going to go, I just feel we've had a couple of quite, like quite tight premiership finals in recent years. I think back to last year. They're usually good, aren't they? It's normally, I mean, it's a great day out. Yeah, it's a great day out. We've had some great finals. I remember last year thinking, oh, Northampton should have more than enough to beat Bath.

26:19Alfie: Plus then Bath got a red card early on and it was still a tight game that went down to the final play. So I just, yeah, partly to be different. I'll go for Leicester to round off this utterly mad season. I mean, I have to say Bath for all I've said. Diplomatically as well, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they should win it. They should win it. And it would be a great story, like, finally getting it done. Like, we can talk about 96. the players might not have any relevance to them. But if you just look at even just silly things like go and Google 1995-96 team photo of the Bath team and just sort of look at it as a piece of archive and history and go, that's the last team that won the title for Bath.

27:01As you said on last week's pod, it's been a season of sporting teams winning stuff for the first time since whatever. so yeah I feel like I've got to say Bath and they would be worthy champions

27:14Alfie: yeah they would be they'd be very deserving but let's hope we get an absolute cracker of a game we'll leave the premiership there just to flag our plan is to pod post-match in the stands at Twickenham so I like what we do following England games throughout the autumn and the Six Nations so hopefully that will be in your feed either Saturday night or possibly early Sunday morning but we'll have something out there for you too giving it the test match treatment exactly to reflect on the game Up next, we'll finish this pod by going through some of the big news lines, a bit about the Lions and R360, the potential new rugby competition.

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30:11Alfie: slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Okay, so we've been speaking about the Premiership final, but the Lions is underway next week, Will, when they play in Dublin on Friday. This week you are... Next Friday, we've got the Lions playing their first game. Exactly. And this week you're heading to Portugal because the Lions have their kind of warm weather camp. In order to prepare for going to the winter in Canberra. Yeah, Canberra and Adelaide, exactly. Getting away to Portugal. So basically, the Lions is here, is essentially my point.

30:48Alfie: And news which, since the squad announcement, we knew we were going to have some sort of news. It was just defining what players it would be, because obviously players involved in the Premiership final, in the URC final, are not available for the Lions this week. And therefore, you'd imagine it's unlikely we're going to see them in Dublin for that Argentina game. We've also had injury news. So I suppose I'll say first the injury news. Xander Fagerson, geez, you feel for him. But he is out. He has picked up an injury. So Finlay Bielam is in to replace him. He will be touring Australia. And we've also got Jamie George and Asher Opoku-Fordor that have been called up to the training camps.

31:24Alfie: They're not a part of the squad necessarily that is going to be touring Australia at the moment yet. Exactly. So, yeah, just bring us up to date then, kind of this story that we knew was going to be a story quite a while ago. Yeah, so we flagged this on the squad announcement day, didn't we? That there's bound to be early call-ups for this training camp and that Argentina game. And we said there'd be a pinch point probably around hooker and tight head prop, which has come to pass. And it's sort of, that's not us being super sleuths. That's just kind of looking at who would have been likely in the finals.

31:53So if you look through the list of absentees, there are 16 who can't come to training this week. and they are Ronan Kelleher, Dan Sheehan, Andrew Porter, Tyg Ferlong, Will Stewart, Olly Chesson, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan, Jack Conan, Josh van der Fleer, Jamison Gibson Park, lots of Jays, Finn Russell, Gary Ringrose, Hugo Keenan and James Lowe plus French-based Blair Kinghorn. So obviously loads of those are Leinster boys and two of them are hookers and Tyg Ferlong and Will Stewart are tighter props. So those were the tight areas. And then Xander Fagerson's out with a calf injury. he picked up in April and has not been able to recover from.

32:31So come on down, Jamie George, as we broke on the Times on Sunday, which was one of those guys that we flagged initially that it was sort of obvious that he would be the next cab off the rank. So the understanding with him is that, and Asher, who's coming in as a tight head, is that, firstly, they're not really bad carriers. They're not going just to fill numbers. They would genuinely be the next cabs off the rank.

32:54Alfie: Asher being, like Jamie George being the next cab off the rank is no shock. In fact, I think a lot of us would have had him in our original squad. And did. Yeah, exactly. Asher being the next cab off the rank is interesting, isn't it? But then if you look through, where are the tight heads? Who else would you have? And like, listeners will come in with their list, but I can't see many. Like, there was a good tweet from Paul Edison, our journalist friend who works for New Associates, Sportsbeat, who said was Joe Hayes a high tackle decision away from being called up to the Lions because if in that premiership semi-final if Matt Carley had said yes Freddie Stewart did tackle Cowan Dickey high and did knock that ball out illegally or without any arms therefore Sale then scored went to the final is Joe Hayes in the Lions squad this week and not Ashura Pogiforger as an available tight end because there aren't many knocking around like Wilgrif John I guess is another one but he's going to be in Wales camp you'd imagine for their summer tour but looking around the place you're not you're not looking through an absolute catalogue of world-class title props so maybe the Asher thing is a surprise but his value guess comes in being able to play both sides as well and I wouldn't be surprised at all if he ends up playing in Australia because the understanding too is that Tyg Ferlong is seriously struggling with a calf injury he's not been playing he hasn't played since the Leinster Northampton semi-final.

34:16Alfie: You feel like the test spot at the moment is... Will Stewart's to lose. Will Stewart's, yeah. Well, Finney Beelium's a 50 kapper, as is Stewart, and has played a lot for Ireland when Furlong's not been available. But yes, I mean, Stewart's... Let's pray to God that he makes it through the premiership final because it would be an absolute savage shame if he didn't. But yeah, looking at it now, you're going, well, how does he lose his spot almost? He's got to have an absolute disaster to not play in the tests. But look, we knew it was coming. It was always going to happen. Injuries, absentees and everything else.

34:47But I'm slightly fearful that this Argentina game is going to be horrible.

34:52Alfie: I was going to ask you this. Do you think we're on the precipice of maybe a talking point next week? Yes, definitely. You look at the game and so you've got a whole host of Lions players that you've just listed there that aren't available. You're going to have Argentina players that aren't available because it's outside of the... The top 14 guys in the barrage are not going to be available. They won't be available because it's outside the kind of international window. Which is just hilarious. That's just so rugby, isn't it? And then also you've got the whole fact that the Lions are then going to jump on a plane the next day to get themselves to Perth on the other side of the world to prepare for a warm-up game kind of less than a week later.

35:26Don't call it a warm-up game, Alfie. Don't talk like the Lions started talking. They're not warm-ups, they're tour games.

35:32Alfie: They're warm-ups of the Test Series. Yes, but the Lions is about the whole thing, not just about the Test Series. I know you and Alex feel very strongly about this. Sure. Otherwise, why are you going in like a week's time if it's not about the warm-up games? Well, why do you go to World Cup warm-up games? No, well, yeah. No. Anyway, we can have this debate when we're out there. But are we on the verge of the discussion of it's great for the fans because trying to follow the Lions is a really expensive, difficult thing that most fans are priced out of. So playing a game here like they did in Murrayfield four years ago or this year they're doing Dublin is a great thing for the fans but is there a discussion we're going to be having of how actually viable is this when you properly look at it oh yeah and like let's let's not be too misty-eyed this game is not about the fans this is about the commercial sponsors of the lions and trying to sell out a big stadium and put on an extra game that makes the whole business money and brand awareness for the partners and it's good for sky sports who can put it on the telly on a friday night like this isn't about oh thank god because we can get loads of irish kids coming to watch the lions like that is not high on the old priority list i would imagine for this match which is maybe a bit cynical but probably absolutely true um the japan game four years ago was a basic a bit of a disaster because if you remember rightly it was the game alan win jones in inverted commas dislocated his shoulder which i think was slightly misdiagnosed because then 18 days 18 days later he was playing again which surely then didn't actually dislocate his shoulder but um so the captain got injured the game was rubbish it only included the celts because the premiership final was on the same day which was that premiership game between quins and exeter which was awesome the one thing i remember we've sorted that out do you know the one thing i remember from that game was that they also ran out of beer right do you remember that i remember we got it wasn't it so there was only 10 000 people there at mowfield they didn't know they couldn't get a pint or something crazy yeah so oh, look, we need to check these things, but I'm not sure that the Aviva game sold out, which, if it is for money, is a shocker.

37:43If you can't even sell out a game, a home game, a Lions home game. And lots of people will have an issue with the Lions playing at home to start with. And I flip-flop on this a little bit because the whole history of the Lions is they're a touring team, they don't play at home. But then you look through the annals of history and you go, oh, there's loads of times that Lions have played at home, they've played France, they've played rest of the world teams and all that sort of stuff. So we always think we're coming up with new arguments around the Lions and they've all been had before over the last 100 and 200 years.

38:09Alfie: Well, we'll maybe put a pin in it for next week and hopefully we get a great occasion in Dublin. But there just seems to be a few, I don't know, teething problems. If the Lions have had three training sessions, Argentina don't have their full team, the game's not sold out, what are we doing it for? Well, I'll already be on Australia by that point. Yeah, well, I'm flying the next morning so Alex Lowe will be our man on the ground telling you all that's happening in that game. Let's round off with R360. Big story last week. This is a new global franchise competition. That's broken in the times by Alex.

38:42Alfie: Exactly. Top 40 players in the world could earn a million pounds a year. A 14 round competition. So kind of travelling around the world, F1 style, jumping from cities to cities with eight men's franchises and four women's sides. Will, what do you think of this? It's one of those that if you look on social media or the Times comment section, there's a huge amount of scepticism. So I think my fundamental position is twofold. One is the easiest thing in the world with these things is to go, new idea, hate it, and not really think about it more than that and just go, no, hate it, rubbish. I happen to actually hate it, I think, but I think it's worth a discussion about how it could work because sometimes disruption is a good thing because it forces people to go and get their art into gear and do things and actually i think some of the execs around different tables are welcoming the disruption because and they're probably thinking because we can then go but look at all this structure we've got and look at how this is all based on sand this other rebel competition i think the difficulty with it well there's loads of difficulties and we we can talk through a lot of them is that as yet no one is prepared to put their face and name to this or explain how it's going to work no one's no one's prepared whether it's we know the backers are guys like Mike Tindall and Stuart Hooper and the Wasserman agency I feel like it really needs one of their major figures to come out and explain the detail because at the moment there is huge cosmic holes Grand Canyon size holes in their plan like if you just try and put any of it into reality in your own head you come up with six different problems and like we we could spend hours going through all of them but just little things like how do you get 400 people all around the world week to week how do you play a match one week in new york and then the next week in madrid and then the next week in hong kong and are they all just fine with that player welfare is that good like what happens if injuries are picked up how why would a club side so let's say Northampton or Bath in five years have an academy if they're just growing players to get nicked by R360 every year it kills the whole pyramid right and Owen Slott's written about this in our paper and Alex Lowe's talked about it as well Stephen Jones wrote a column about it too and a bit more impressed he is by it than the Nations Cup which we also have been writing about but and I don't know like what do you think what's your my immediate thought was one kind of what I mentioned earlier in that when there's no historical precedent for something, why would I tune in and watch this?

41:35Alfie: For example, the one I used earlier, Bath-Bristol, Friday night, historical precedent, genuine animosity amongst some of the players because of the rivalry between the two teams, a competition that you're invested in, a storyline you're invested in of Bath trying to win the English title for the first time in three decades. So much stuff that you buy into. Whereas when you get kind of dumped this new competition on your desk, it's kind of like, right, OK, why am I interested in this? And if they say the eight men's teams, which is something that happened with the hundred, I found not that I think I was ever going to be someone that was all that interested in the hundred.

42:11Alfie: I'm kind of a fair weather test cricket fan rather than someone that they were probably aiming that at. But a big thing for the hundred was also like, OK, the nearest club for me in terms of the city I grew up in of Bristol was in Wales. It was kind of, oh, so you'll be a fan of the team. I can't remember what they're called now. Welsh Fire. The Welsh Fire. And it's immediately like, no, I've got no interest in that. I don't care about. I've got no connection. So that was my immediate thought. And then I suppose the big question, which maybe brings us on to what was said today, is where does the money come from?

42:41Alfie: Because if you're looking to pay the top players in the world that much, in theory, all the players, even if they're not on that kind of£1 million mark, would all be getting paid much better than they are at the moment. How do you fund it? how do you pay for the marketing the travel costs that you've just been talking about how do you fund the whole thing because quite quickly it becomes a incredibly expensive operation and how do you do it without completely ripping up the current and well because all the people who are trying to put this together are saying we're doing this to help the game and the cynics on the other side are going you will kill the game by doing this because you're basically taking the icing off the cake at every level in every competition around the world so therefore you're just left with sponge aren't you after that and who wants to go and watch sponge every week so but i guess the counter argument to what you've just said there and i agree with a lot of it but i'm just offering the other side is this competition's not for you and me like the hundred it's not for let's be honest we're already too old we're in our early 30s me and you we're regular sort of dyed in the wool rugby fans who want to stand on the terraces at the stoop and at the wreck and at Wellford Road and at Sandy Park, etc, etc, etc.

43:56And this isn't for us. This is for a global entertainment audience. And if you're just thinking about the UK, all those people who watch the Six Nations are half interested and then never watch premiership rugby. The whole fundamental challenge of rugby union has been trying to capture... England-Wales gets 9 million people watching it on the BBC or ITV. And then the best case scenario sometimes for TNT Sports match for a premiership is a few hundred thousand. So where are all those people going? Like 8.5 million who are not watching premiership rugby. And that's what this is for. And it's attracting them by going, if we had Taylor Swift and Beyonce playing in Las Vegas.

44:41Oh, and by the way, there's three rugby games on the weekend. Would you come to that? And people go, oh, that sounds pretty cool.

44:46Alfie: But is there a single example of that working in a sporting sense? I mean, there's so many more people that have a better understanding of this than me, a lot of them probably in this building on various floors above us. But if I look at the Premier League, the biggest football league in the world, it is based off the kind of historical success of English football and the tradition of it. If you look at the behemoth that is the NBA or the NFL, it's still based upon the traditions of those sports, whether it be Vince Lombardi back in the day with the Green Bay Packers or Michael Jordan's Bulls through the 90s.

45:22Alfie: And I suppose even, I mean, I'm trying to think of a competition that has been created that is then incredibly successful with the IPL, but that's still based upon kind of the... comparison to the IPL because cricket well rugby doesn't have an India as in well that's what I was going to say is that's based upon a country that's religious about their rugby has a lot of money and 1.3 billion people like the countries that love their rugby the most there's tiny but that's what but that's Zealand Wales but that's my point no market that if you but if you are saying then that this new competition wouldn't be aimed at people like us at rugby fans who is it aimed at and how are you going to get an audience?

46:00Alfie: Entertainment. Yeah, but so much of those competitions and sports now that are along the entertainment side, you know, the Super Bowl with the NFL, it's still based upon the foundations of what the sport was for years and years and years. It hasn't just been parachuted in and said, here's the Super Bowl, isn't it great? And everyone watches it. And actually, the other comparison would be Formula One, which it's taking inspiration from because it's this travelling circus that goes around the year through 24 races across the globe and it does Monaco and Bahrain and Italy and Brazil and Australia and stuff like that.

46:30But then you go, okay, yes, there have been teams that have come from rich owners and randomly popped up from nowhere. But if you're a Ferrari fan, that means something, doesn't it? Totally. Like that's a brand that you've associated with. That's cachet. That's, I don't know, history. That's a type of sort of experience that you want to be part of, isn't it? Whereas if you're supporting the Google Giraffes against the Roc Nation Panthers in Sao Paulo with random bunches of people playing together, you're going, why should I care about this? I totally agree with that. And the other, like, obviously having loads of conversations with lots of different people about this, whether they're just mates or other journalists or execs or whatever.

47:12And lots of people make the good point, which is like, we've already got this competition. It's Japanese rugby. It's a short, sharp thing. it doesn't travel around the world but it's the place to go if you want a payday your Richie Mwangas your Peter Stefftoy your Chesling Colby's and look Mwangas won loads of titles does anyone care? does it add to the lore and the cachet of his career that he's won several league one titles and Japanese rugby fans might go absolutely oh my god yes definitely he earns an absolute packet if this creates another version of that why it was going to fizzle and die within five minutes but I guess the other side of it to give their side would be but we will have all of the best players in the world playing for the teams so you won't get like an amazing front row and no 10 for example because i because i guess that's the other criticism you go you've either got to have all of the best players or it doesn't work because rugby's not a thing where you can just go oh yeah but we've got messy you'd be like yeah but what what's messy doing behind a pack that's getting steamroller do you know what i mean it's that kind of but i still have to have the whole thing for it to work but i was still

48:20Alfie: questioning the ultimate team game who's going to watch it so to use your example if it is in sao paulo then you're not going to sell out even if you have all the best players in the world like maybe you do if you put on television products i think it's still very good other events and rugby's just part of the weekend it's not you're not going for the rugby you're going for this unbelievable concert entertainment week of stuff and there just happens to be sport there yeah i think that's what they're thinking it's not like we are watching x vy in the rugby it's sort of like you're coming for this big party you're coming for this huge event but that we've had that and that was sevens yeah well that's another comparison which when i was in my early 20s was great fun but you didn't watch any of the sevens and you didn't really know who any of the players were but you went out and had a great day and like it is interesting and i've this is why i think it's it's too easy and too boring to just go rubbish idea hate it which is which is what we're not trying to do probably are a little bit no i know what you mean but this is where it requires someone from r360 to put their head above the parapet and explain the plan here and i suppose actually off the back of that then if i am being positive the one thing that i think this does cut to the heart of and i know it's such a complicated issue is there are too many matches the players play too much so if someone has a solution for them to play less then that is a good thing and obviously it would be completely understandable of why the players would want to sign up for that and look we've outlined already that there are clear player welfare issues with this new competition as well but would there just be enough money that everyone just goes well i'll take it i'll get on a 14 hour flight and play the next weekend or enough so few rounds that it's not back-to-back weeks i don't know but then but then but then the other thing to that is that they're trying to go okay but we're not going to play it at times when test match is on so that the players that we pick can go and play internationals but then you go okay so let's look at a calendar where we go six nations r360 summer tour more r360 world cup where's your break yeah if you're antoine dupont if you're players yeah when are you having a break but we should mention here because you've mentioned it a couple of times there's been a fair bit of cold water poured on it here today where we've been at tnt sports towers um and it's funny isn't it because you'd imagine that if you were establishing r360 you'd probably think that tnt sports would be quite a good place to encourage to show it but our our friends here have told us that is absolutely not going to happen you'll read it by the time you listen to this pod our piece will be out on in the paper but the execs here have called it delusional they've called it commercially unsustainable and they admit that no one's come to them with their full plans but they're saying look I've seen a lot of people come to us with these sorts of powerpoint presentations and think they've got the answer that everyone's been dreaming of for years but it doesn't look like it's going to work so you'd imagine that they I suppose they would because they're partners of premiership rugby and it looks like an amazing threat to premiership rugby but it was pretty strong from um the guys here that they really think that this is not going to happen and then look talk to the guys on the other side and they said it's not a case of this might will this or will this not happen it's like when and whether they can make it work That was the line in Alex's piece, wasn't it?

51:36So look, it's fascinating, but also echoes of history. We've had World Series cricket, we've had David Lord in the 80s trying to sign up people for professional rugby. History is an echo. These things happen and almost none of them have worked, but all power to them. And if they want to come on and explain what their plan is and have a proper deep dive into it, or the door is open, please come on the ruck, explain what you're doing, we'll give you a fair crack, we'll probably ask you some tricky questions but if you don't have the answers then 100 %

52:07Alfie: then don't start the thing absolutely we will leave it there for this week as I say we'll be with you from the stands at Twickenham following the Premiership Final this weekend that'll be the next pod in your feed probably Sunday morning if you do want to drop us an email and I'd imagine there will be plenty of you that have your view on the whole R360 thing or any of the stuff we've touched upon as well of are Leicester a good team? Leicester fans you can get those emails ready. I didn't say they were a bad team. I'm hoping that loads of Leicester fans have a draft ready for if they win the final just to drop into our inbox to say you guys don't know a thing.

52:44Alfie: The email address is theruckatthetimes.co.uk. We appreciate you listening. We'll be back with you on the weekend.

53:02Alfie: 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. Dominic O 'Connell and Hannah Privet here from the Business Podcast. Join us for a special episode with President of the British Chambers of Commerce and former Chief Economist at the Bank of England, Andy Haldane, and PwC's UK tax leader, Claire Blackburn, as we look ahead to John Healy's first budget.

53:42Alfie: We'll discuss the challenge he faces trying to get the economy growing, with an uncertain geopolitical backdrop and a party that's not keen on making cuts to public spending. We'll also ask what businesses are looking for, whether the government will be in a position to deliver or if more tax squeezes are on the way. Listen to The Business wherever you get your podcasts.