Episode 25 - The Matt Merritt Interview - The PWR Season Return Special

In this Episode, Carl and Matt Merritt delve into the world of rugby, focusing on the growth of women's rugby, the challenges it faces, and the importance of community and accessibility in the sport. They discuss Matt's journey into rugby journalism, the economic implications of rugby viewership, and the need for better analysis and coverage. The conversation highlights the significance of innovation in rugby events and the impact of coaching changes on player development, particularly in women's rugby. They conclude with thoughts on the future of rugby broadcasting and the role of social media in engaging fans. In this conversation, Carl and Matt Merritt delve into various aspects of rugby, focusing on commentary engagement, broadcasting rights, and the growth of women's rugby. They discuss the need for more engaging commentary, the future of rugby broadcasting, and the importance of global TV rights for women's rugby. The conversation also touches on the challenges faced by Welsh rugby, the state of women's rugby in Ireland and Scotland, and predictions for the upcoming Premier Women's Rugby (PWR) season.

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Rugby Football League's podcast. I hope you all enjoyed last week with Darragh Coyle on, where we, heard everything about Irish rugby. I see a couple of comments on YouTube as well about people that have been in the youth system and stuff like that to understand they're now playing rugby.

progression path. So it was really good to see that people are getting some sort of benefit out of it. Darragh, another top bloke, really good to get him involved as well. So this week, as I mentioned, we've got Matt Merritt on. So Matt Merritt's,, a world renowned writer, should we say for, , for rugby, especially women's rugby.

So this is a PWR special. So we are talking about all things women's rugby ahead of the season opener, which is actually, so this, this episode will go out on the fourth. So. On the 5th, we've got the season opener for the PWR. Obviously got the women's X 15 going on at the minute as well, so not all of the England pros and other pros around [00:01:00] the leagues are available, but gives us a good chance to see some, uh, other talent in the PWR as well, so really good catch up with Matt.

I know it was a different change of pace getting a journo on and, uh, and understanding the different aspects of it. But obviously somebody's got to write about it rather than us bleating on about how we think we could do it better, etc, as fans and players, etc. So, we've actually obviously got a journo on who's managed to make a semi pro living out of it, as he self declared.

But very good at what he does. Very articulate, a really interesting bloke as well. And somebody that loves the women's game and was able to put up some amazing arguments and discussions around it and even hung his hat. On a few predictions for the season ahead as well. So it was a really good one to get on, , slightly changed pace to what we normally do. There's a few things happening in the background as well. Hopefully the grassroots rugby attendances is going to come back in the near future as well.

So, we're doing that. Don't forget to catch up on the rugby return. It's been delayed a little bit due to, [00:02:00] uh, issues with the software. But, um, I have been back to training. I have been back. The game got missed due to unavailability. Um, but We've got a game on this weekend which will be the 5th as well, so alongside a PWR season opener.

We've also got my potential return to rugby, depending if I get picked obviously or don't get crocked in between. But, don't forget to catch up with the rugby return, it's going to be going out on YouTube specifically and then obviously available on sort of Instagram and TikTok. So catch up on that.

Make sure you get involved in this one. And this one's a really good one. It's completely different chaser pace. So get involved, comment on it. It's really good to get involved. And don't forget get watching that PWR cause what a tournament that's going to be this season.

This week we've, uh, we've got Matt, Matt Merritt on, um, self, self confessed semi pro rugby fan. Is that, is that correct, Matt? Yeah, well, I can't quite make a living off it, but if someone's going to pay me to spout my opinions, then, you know. And, uh, the majority of your opinions is [00:03:00] around being a massive advocate for the, the women's game as, as well.

Obviously we thought we'd do this episode ahead of the PWR season. Opener starts on the 4th or the 5th of October. Is that correct? Yep. Spot on. I keep saying there's no Friday games. No. So yeah, the 5th, 5th now. So obviously this pod will go out on the 4th. So perfect timing. We thought let's get it out there.

Let's um, let's spread the word and. Hopefully at the end, Matt, we'll, uh, we'll get you to hang your hat on some predictions for the season and we'll hold you to it throughout the year. No worries. I just wear different ones when I put my article up. I see. Yeah, just, just keep differing every time. Yeah. Um, for those that aren't aware, Matt, obviously you, you write a lot of, uh, a lot of rugby pieces for a lot of rugby sort of articles and stuff.

Can you just sort of go back and forth? So through your journey, how you got into that, did you play as a kid, et cetera, and sort of where you're at and what you've been and where you've seen? Yeah, sure. So [00:04:00] I, I, I followed rugby as a kid. My dad played, so my dad's from, or was from Exeter. So deep in rugby heartlands down there in the Southwest, um, and joined the Navy.

Long before I was born, played for the Navy, um, and then settled in Portsmouth. So, so when I was growing up, we'd kind of always watch the six nations, that sort of thing, chuck a ball around, played a little bit at school, um, never really joined a club, uh, everyone wanted to join Havon and Portsmouth. We're in a pretty sorry state back in the early nineties when I would have been kind of looking for a club as a kid.

Um, so, so never really. Um, got into it and then fell away because it's, uh, it's not a place where you, you've got tons of rugby fans and you find people, you kind of build a little community around it. But, um, 2015, so, so coming up for 10 years ago now, um, I lost my dad and one of the ways I was looking to.

Reconnect was kind of thinking about memories and we had the World Cup in, in [00:05:00] England. So rugby was everywhere. And that was kind of, that was our thing when I was a kid. So it was a really nice way to reconnect. So kind of dived into that absolutely headfirst. Um, Watching every game, kind of soaking it up and then literally just put all of the clubs in the premiership into Google Maps, right?

Where can I get to easily? Um, by pure chance, London Irish were the first team I booked tickets for, uh, and without realizing I booked for the St. Patrick's Day game, which was always a hell of a party. Yeah, within about 10 minutes, I was like, I'm hooked. This, this is it. This is my team. This is where I'm going to be every week.

Went to the next game and realized it wasn't always quite such a party. And I went always 20, 000 people in the stadium. They're quite often 2000. Um, but that was it. I was hooked. So started following Irish the next season. I bought a season ticket, got chatting to some people, found out one of them ran the supporters club, um, kind of became mates [00:06:00] and he found out I'd got a little bit of a Kind of background in journalism, so I'd written about music for some years, covered a bit of theater, things like that as well in, in local press and in kind of, um, web scenes, underground magazines, things like that, from a music point of view.

And he said, I'm just looking for, for driving traffic to the supporters club website. Do you fancy writing some stuff? No problem. Turned up at a kind of pre season event, like all the call clubs have. Bring the season ticket holders down, you know, meet the players. Um, and I was chatting away and they're like, Oh, Petra Stuplesy is over there.

You're interviewing him in a couple of minutes. Um, and okay, whatever. I went over, I had a little chat, wrote some notes down and that, it kind of went from there, wrote player interviews in, in, um, in the sports club website. pretty much every week. So I spoke to all the players there, started to kind of try and focus on players that are coming up.

I was sponsoring Ollie Hassell Collins coming [00:07:00] through the academy. Um, so obviously wanted to give him and his mates a bit of coverage. Um, and then from there, um, I started watching women's rugby because I came across it on the telly. I knew it existed, but it was hard to find. I saw a game and thought, Oh, you know what?

This, This is great. And no one's covering it. There was nothing out there. You get write ups on Red Roses games occasionally and Sky covered them for a little while and then kind of dropped it unceremoniously. Um, so I just kind of chanced my arms, started dropping it into Women's Players DMs, which sounds like a horrible thing to do.

Just saying like, would you be, would you be up for a chat? I want to promote the game. Um, And I had a blog that I'd been using for my theater coverage anyway, so I kind of repurposed that and just started publishing a few interviews that that turned into kind of building a bit of a rapport with, with some journalists and then we went into lockdown and [00:08:00] because I was a bit known to, to Kind of the, the media people at that point, I got invited to cover a game at Twickenham in lockdown, which is the weirdest experience of my life.

That, that must have been proper odd, like being, like, people talk about it now, like, at football and stuff like that, and they talk about being able to hear players. calling and like making those decisions and things, but that must have been odd sat there as a journalist sort of listening to all of that.

It was a double header game. It was England, um, women v France women and then England men v Ireland men. Yeah. So for the women's game it was me and one other journalist in the press box and then on the other side of the stadium just to kind of social distance. There were two other journalists. Um, and that was it.

And they were turned up and they're like, Oh, you know where the seats are? No idea. Never been here as press. Just, just find it. So you're just wandering around the stadium with no lights turned on trying to work out where the hell we're going. Thankfully, a guy called Harry Latham Coyle, Brilliant [00:09:00] writer, um, pick up his stuff.

Well worth checking out. Um, kind of took me under his wing cause he'd been there before and kind of guided me where to go. Um, and it was, it was fantastic here. Every word spoken on the bench and it was a, it was a noted game because. England were felt like they might lose to France, which at Twickenham was a big deal.

Um, Simon Middleton, who was the coach at the time, um, decided in the, I think it's the 58th minute, he just emptied the entire bench. They did kind of eight swaps at once and completely changed the course of the game, which felt like insanity at the time. Um, and yeah, from, from there I started picking up bits and pieces.

I did a, an opinion piece on, uh, in rugby world. They used to have a. So someone would argue for and someone argue against, um, I've got the against for should, um, should we let Welsh and Scottish teams into the premier 15s as it was at the time. Um, uh, and from that ended up writing their season [00:10:00] preview for, for the last season of premier 15s.

Um, and, and that just kind of led to. Getting some offers to write for Rugby Pass and went from there and it's been great. Done a bit for World Rugby as well for the WXV tournament and anyone who is willing to pay me to speculate or cover a game or whatever, um, yeah, or always willing to, to share an opinion.

Brilliant. And it's the game of rugby does bring people together like that. As you said, like that, you've got that passion because it was what you did with your dad. And then a lot of stuff there, obviously it opens the doors. People are willing to have that conversation and understand that as well. And I think the, the women's game is going great guns.

And I think the way that even they're promoting within themself is massively admirable because They've had to lead the charge a lot of it themselves as well. So a hundred percent, yeah, the clubs don't, or haven't historically wanted to put the effort in some, some have [00:11:00] tar everyone with the same brush, but not many do.

So players have had to become marketing experts. They've had to, to become social media gurus, just to be able to get a few bums on seats to watch them play the game. Um, And it's only kind of in the past couple of years that they started to realize the value in a lot of ways of the women's game. I mean, coverage is on TNT, so through Discovery now, which is fantastic, albeit that it puts it behind a paywall.

But they used to kind of stream a couple of games here and there, and then clubs would have to do their own. Web streams, which is great, but some clubs wanted to put the games out there. But it meant that a couple of years ago, there were, there were clubs who'd only be seen once, maybe on a stream the entire season.

And then other clubs, Quins and Saracen's lead in the charge, who you could watch every single week. Do you think the current coverage is enough? It's better than it ever has been. I think there's always space for more. Um, and [00:12:00] I am. I'm concerned about casual fans finding the game, but it's 30 quid a month for that.

So if you're, if you're a massive sports fan and you discover women's rugby on top of all the other sports you love, then, then great. But if you're someone who's like, I'm kind of intrigued by this, that's a lot of money to, to pay out to find out it's, it's cheaper to go to a game. So, so they're going to get more fans through, through live, live viewing where there's team close by.

So if you're in London or kind of the central South. You're fine. You've got plenty of clubs, but if you're up in the north, this is sale. And that's it. Yeah. They got Durham. Is it Durham or they sort of fell by the wayside now as well? You used to have DMP, so Darlington Island Park Sharks. Um, they were.

When they last did the league restructure, they were dropped out and they've never really recovered. So there's, there's champ teams up there. Novocastrians is a really good championship level team, but the championship, [00:13:00] kind of like the men's game, gets scant support from the RFU. Yeah. Um, so if you know where to find it, it can be found, but it's apart from those nine teams in the PWR, it's hard to find the info if you're not already kind of semi aware.

Yeah. Do you think the, um, uh, I touched on this, I'll drop that a little bit. On the, the Instagram, and you've mentioned on it, a comment on it, the price of being able to just be an armchair rugby fan is accelerating to, to say the least. And even then, coverage is average at best's. Fair to say? Yeah. 90 quid.

90 quid a month is. It's a lot of money in the current crisis, like, economic crisis, really. And the biggest ones we're going to lose is kids. And the biggest option, opportunity for kids to get into the game and potentially become pro is in, within the [00:14:00] women's game. Is that clear? 100%. I think that, I think we're potentially missing a boat on, we've done, again, I think, again, it could end up like the men's game where people have managed to go pro, think they've done enough, On that bit and then take their foot off the gas, because that's what's happened with the men.

The ones that sit around, they got pro, they got that, they got the sticky label, they've done that. Now it's not their problem. Somebody else has got actually turned a professional. Yeah, absolutely. I think the women's game has learned a lot from the men's in as much as it's elite. It's almost unfair. In some ways to call the PWR truly a professional league.

I mean, the players are absolutely professionals in their approach, but there's a lot of women in that league who aren't getting paid a penny. Yeah. And, and most of the ones who are being paid, it's, unless you've got an international contract, you're not being paid enough to live off of. You're just getting.

A decent stipend, it's boot money, it's all boot [00:15:00] money, except the tax man's aware of it and there's a paper trail. Um, yeah, your point around kind of the cost to watch it, I think the English game suffers, TNT's coverage from a camera set up, things like that, it's great. Visualize the game beautifully, but it costs a lot to get it.

It's the same few voices every week. Um, I don't think there's a lot of variety in their presentation. The women's game is getting a bit like that as well. Do you think their analysis is good enough as well? Because like you watch, if you ever go to the dark side and you sit and watch Monday night football or anything like that, you've got Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville standing up there pointing, drawing on what they do, how they do this, do that and.

Showing people in their funny little way, but you don't see that at rugby. You don't see what a pro, like they say, Oh, I would have done this. Or we'd have done this. Yeah. He's very, [00:16:00] and actually that's something that's dropped away. Sky used to do it back in the day. I mean, Will Greenwood would always talk a hundred miles an hour, but he would get his board out and draw diagrams and talk people through it.

And that was great. Yeah. Um, I think that there's this weird misconception that rugby is complicated and we've got to simplify it. And I hate that. I think, I think rugby is actually really simple. If you get into the depths of it, of course, it's complicated. Every single sport is. Rugby is pretty simple.

It's 15 massive blokes against 15 massive blokes trying to get a ball to the end of a pitch. Essentially, that's all it is. And I think we should revel in the technicalities of it, Bill. NT's coverage, to your point, they don't always go into the detail they do. I'm in Norse, so if they gave David Flatman an hour, hour a week show where he just showed me scrums.

I'd be in heaven, uh, absolutely. Yeah, just look, here's where this guy dipped his shoulder a little bit and the scrum fell apart and [00:17:00] here's what he should have done. I'd be all over it. And to be fair, when they used to have that kind of magazine midweek. They tried to do a bit of that with kind of getting local teams in and stuff, but that just seems to have dropped away and it's become very formulaic.

They've got a lot of good people, but it's the same combinations of good people, week in, week out. Um, and I think it just needs a bit of a reshuffle. Um, they've, they've brought some, some great talent in with the women's game coming in. Yeah. And I think, I think the biggest thing for me is TN, if I'm interested in rugby, but I don't have an allegiance to a team, TNT has all the English rugby and it's 30 quid, but premier sports is half the price and has French rugby.

It has champions cup and challenge cup for rugby. It's, it's got the URC. So actually we might get loads of casual fans, but they're going to want to follow teams in another country. Maybe. Maybe. We're going to get kind of people in the West country suddenly become, [00:18:00] I was going to say Dragons fans, but that's a bit extreme, but maybe Cardiff or Ospreys fans, we're going to get kind of people in the North who are massively underserved with rugby.

Um, they might start following Edinburgh and Glasgow and I'm great for Edinburgh and Glasgow that they could get more fans, but yeah. We want to look after our own, right? We want to build that pathway. We've lost, what, five professional teams or elite teams in the last two years. Lost track now. Yeah, it's obscene and I think geographical distances are also the killer of the game.

I know that a lot of them have been there, but you've got to add more teams in. There's, we've got to inject some more into the Premier League. There's got to be more. A hundred percent. And there's clubs there that could do it with a bit of swap. Ealing's not the option because it's another London club.

It's just in the, like they've, they're there because they've got the money. Like you need something like a Coventry, you need a Nottingham, you need. [00:19:00] Doncaster would be perfect. Donny or Rotherham one of them just some and then it'd be brilliant for sort of a Pompey or Hampshire sort of area because to get the Queens is an egg it's the cost and Because the games are on a Saturday afternoons everyone that loves the game that wants to go and watch the game is usually by in the game and it's If it was closer, I think you'd get more game, more people going to a game because they could just finish theirs, jump, jump on the train with a few mates, few tinnies, get over there, watch a game, go home.

100%. And if you make the game an event, and rugby doesn't play a huge amount of games through the year. So it's not hard to make most of your fixtures and event. If you really put the effort into it, people will travel. All manner of distances. I don't know if you've ever had the misfortune to be on a train to London on the same day the Army Navy game is [00:20:00] on.

I was probably one of them degenerates on that, or one of the coaches. It's been me a few times, but I've also forgotten it's on, and got the train up there, and oh my god, it's It's like another universe. Yeah, that's a no disrespect to the lads playing in it, but it's not a top end quality game of rugby that there's some good players turn out different years, but it's a hell of an event and they've, they've made it one that you absolutely want to be at and that you, and it's not expensive.

It's going to be 30 quid to get a decent ticket and go along and have a party. And it's sevens as, as done the same sort of thing or not that London's got a sevens event anymore, it's been dropped from the circuit, but I think, I think the rest of rugby needs to learn from that and it needs to, it needs to build back up and, and that's pretty, like you say, it's bringing in more clubs.

It's more geographic diversity. It's, it's having a second tier that's. properly supported. I was following Irish both their seasons in the [00:21:00] Champ. I actually loved it. There's so much fun going to those smaller clubs. They might not have pretty stadiums that look fantastic on telly. I mean, we were at Brentford and that's the best stadium I've ever been to.

It's phenomenal, shiny and new and fantastic lights. But give me a game at the Menai in Penzance. Any day, like, it looked like a potato field with rugby being played on it, but it's just such a joy to be there. Everyone was having a fantastic time and you just got hooked in the buzz of it. And they also contributed by the lethal.

Similar, similar situation. I was a Pompey, I'm a Pompey fan, always have been, so I've gone to football and Pompey went all the way down to League Two and I had a season ticket. And I'd go to like Accrington for like a midday kickoff and you think, how have we got this low? But. They're also some of the best days out because it is so shit.

You just, you ain't got to worry about nothing. We've, we've, we've stood in the away end at Atkinson once and Sky and their [00:22:00] infinite wisdom decided to put the camera van on top of a scaffold tower in the middle of the away end. Which was built with scaffolding as well as it was, and then Pompey scored a penalty, and I've never seen a cameraman nearly die at a game because he was getting shaken every Yeah, he must have felt like he was sailing in the middle of the ocean just side to side, bless him.

But yeah It's just so much fun. Yeah, like, I don't know if you've ever been to Goldington Road where Bedford play? No, I haven't, no. Great, great little stadium and it's got, it's got a really nice atmosphere. They can pack 5, 000 fans in it. They've done like under 20s internationals and even women's internationals there in the past.

Yeah. And it's, it's got a great vibe. It's also got one corner that's about two foot lower than the rest of the pitch. So there's like a quarter of the pitch that you're guaranteed if you get a scrum in it. You can just drive that scrum straight over the try line. So there's like tactical advantages to it, which just brings me so much joy that it's [00:23:00] not just some G perfect plastic pitch.

It's just, it's got its own quirks and its own kind of vibe that makes it. Completely unique, and I think we need to celebrate that, that rugby's a niche sport. It's never going to get the collective crowds that football can. You can, you can match a football match with a rugby match, but if you look at the amount of people who are spending their money to go and watch football every week, rugby's never going to get to that.

So stop trying to be that, be your own thing and revel in it. I think there's, I think there's that, there's an element of people do expect us to try and get to that level. We, we're worried about breaking our values, etc, etc. But then we're not building on the values that we've got and we don't push it forward.

And I think probably the women's game is the best way of moving that forward because it brings everyone together. 100 percent and, and people. Can see [00:24:00] themselves in the women's game in a way they can't in the mid I've met and kind of interacted with loads of men's players and there's some that I would consider friends and they're lovely guys, but mostly they're from kind of middle class backgrounds, many of them have gone to private school, Henry Arundel landed at.

London Irish as a kid, this exciting young kid, and he's a fantastic player, but he went to Eton, how many people in the stands are going to be able to relate to, like, him, him growing up in a kind of an elite school and, yeah, you're destined for great things when you go there because everything's, All the pathways are laid and you've got to really screw up to, to miss it.

Um, but you go to the women's game and like Sadiq Kabeer for my money, she's probably a year, maybe two years away. If she, when she gets back from fitness for being world player of the year, she's phenomenal. Um, and she's still basically a kid. Um, she's only going to get better, but she [00:25:00] grew up in like on a council estate in London, like that's as real as you can get.

Like anyone can relate to her story and the fact that she only, she didn't have a clue what rugby is till Briony Cleal came and ran up, um, worked as a PE teacher in our school. Yeah, madness. Um, these are people that have grown up in the places we've grown up. They've, they've lived the, like, trod the paths we've trodden.

I mean, we're, we're Pompey lads. Yeah. Hombre. We played for Portsmouth women and then ended up playing for Quinns and playing for England. Like we can see that pathway. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, they're taking it back. So put the married name on and destroying scrums in the amateur game for fun. I pity any team who rocks up and just sees her.

Yeah. Oh, she's at one today. They've got Donna Jones as well. Um, she's come across as a forwards coach for, for Haven as well. They've got some [00:26:00] really big movements there. And they had 50, 54 women or something like that. The other, the other week for training on a Tuesday night. And it's just exceptional.

Like I can't, I hate it as being a gospel boy. I hate having to give, have a praise, but. As we had the, we had Will Knight on and Oz and um, obviously had Sean Shepps on and I popped over in the, while I was back in England and sort of met up with them and they're, what they've done over there was phenomenal.

I went to the, they had a pre season friendly against uh Brighton. Yep. And They had 54 players there for the game. Brighton turned up with 17. Haven't had 54 players trying to go for the first two. Yeah, it's what you want, right? And they had a, um, Red Roses U20s game there. Blew my mind. But at the same time, that's exactly what we should be doing.

Look at the amateur clubs that have good facilities, whether it's like Grasshoppers, Dings, [00:27:00] Crusaders, where, where Bristol Bears women play their games, um, there's plenty of clubs like that up and down the country. Darlington, Modem Park, one of them, get your, get your under 20s games there, make them free or better, better yet, don't make them free, charge just a couple of quid because a ticket costs someone a pound.

They're actually more excited about the one that's free because free free means this doesn't hold value. But if I have to pay, even if it's a shiny coin in my pocket, it means more get those games there and people will come. And I have no doubt that haven't getting that many players through the door because some of them came and watched.

Future Red Roses, um, players that probably will go to the World Cup this year. Um, like Lillie Ice Campion, we're playing in that game. Yes. Um, it's great to see. And as you say, even as the under 20s tour or any of that, any of those other games, there will be certain games that don't need to be played at HQ as well.

Yeah. Go, go round, go [00:28:00] round, like go and play them. Yeah, okay. They're filling the doors a lot of the time, but those, some of those preseason games, they're not, they're not the autumn internationals, et cetera. Those random friendlies that they're going to play against lesser clubs or lesser national, national teams.

They don't need to be at HQ. It's brilliant, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't always need to be over at um, Gloucester. You don't need to constantly go back to Gloucester as the backup option. Yeah, yeah, it's Gloucester, it's Northampton, it's very occasionally Exeter. Let's see how many other clubs out there.

And you know what, if it's not good rugby facilities, there's guaranteed to be good football facilities and it's Pretty easy to paint some lines and put some crossbars up. Um, we do it for World Cups, we play it, uh, right in there. What's the harm in, I don't know. Well, going to Coventry for one, or, or looking at, I don't know, get Elland Road, put a rugby, put a rugby union game [00:29:00] in Elland Road and get Mossborough Stadium, try and do something like that, like, why can't we go, like, go, like, Wembley.

Yeah. Rugby League managed to get the door open, why can't we go there? Yeah, absolutely. And again, Rugby League pains me to say it as a Union fan because, you know, you've got to have that banter between Union and League. That's, as long as it's friendly, it's fun. They're actually pretty switched on in how they use Wembley and they make it a full day event.

Yeah. It's like a big deal. Um, but, let's do more of that. The, the Prem Final is, it doesn't, it doesn't need to be at Twickenham. Find somewhere else for it. Make it up, make it up. Make clubs bid for it. Yeah, like, well, worst case, do what happens with, um, if whoever wins it the season before, they get a hold of it the next year.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there might not be that final, but it opens the door to other clubs playing, other fans [00:30:00] seeing neutral clubs at their own grand. Yeah, and you never know how it might inspire. I mean, Gloucester had the final for the PWR. All the last premiere 15s as it was, um, not the season, just gone the season before.

And there was a lot of stink when they got announced because they were playing really well. Gloucester get the final and they're going to win it because it's a home game. Yeah. Gloucester had been really mediocre every season prior to that. So you know, they, if, if they'd announced at the beginning of the season, the final is going to be at Gloucester.

No one would have batted an eyelid. It was only because they like Sean Leonard. invested years in getting that team in his, his build and it had finally all clicked and got there. And actually that's another point in the women's game. Tend, although the trend's starting to change, historically they've given coaches years and years to, to build their, their team.

Yeah. So, so we've seen the value of it. Shortland's been at Gloucester for years. [00:31:00] He's painstakingly The team that played the rugby he wants to play, beautiful running game, good passing, but a really strong, um, pack. We've seen it, uh, it's Harrison's Alex Osterbury built some really good teams there.

They've struggled a bit over the past couple of seasons, but they'll be in the final four again, whether or not they make the final and win it, it's here nor there, but I would be shocked if they don't at least make the semifinals. But then we've seen other clubs, they've seen a lot of shifting. Leicester Tigers have only been in the league a season.

They're on the second coach. Same thing at, um, at Trail Finders Women, um, where they have Giselle Mather, who's one of the best in the game, um, brilliant mind for rugby. She's there a season. She, she'd been there to be fair before the team really existed, building the pathways, but then she's moved on. And the optics of it are terrible.

They've moved Barney Madison, who's a player in the men's team and was an assistant coach under [00:32:00] Giselle into head coach. He's never been a head coach in his life. I know Barney. He's a really good guy. And I think they've, they've kind of stitched him up. We've put him in a, in a position that's going to make him unpopular with fans.

Um, so he's going to have to take some time to win them around because he's replacing a legend. Um, Do you think they've used him as a sacrificial lamb because they can't find somebody else to take the role at the minute or have they got a bigger plan but it's not ready to happen yet? I think this was their plan, but it's suddenly happened probably two, three years before they expected it to, because he was in the playing squad and he had to retire to take the role.

So I think their plan was he would assistant coach again this year, and then maybe he'd be head coach under Giselle as well. DOR next year and then eventually take it over fully and I think her going probably made them go well we were going to move to this eventually anyway let's just do it now and it just.

Was there a lot going on behind the scenes [00:33:00] there then Matt do you think? Everything I hear is that Giselle had a vision for how things would Progress, really strong vision and Dave Ward, who oversees all rugby at Ealing, um, had a different vision, which is fine. These things happen. Um, but it just, it's not a great look and sometimes you have to, you have to give people that time.

Like if she'd been there three seasons. There'd been no progress and, and he was like, I don't agree with your vision. We're going to move on. You totally get it. But she had one season of building a team from scratch and yeah, they didn't do great, but Exeter are the only team who's come into that league and immediately been good.

Yeah, it doesn't just happen overnight, does it? And it doesn't matter how much money you throw at facets of the game. It doesn't change anything. You've still need time is you can't buy time. No, no. [00:34:00] And, and like you can, you can sign good players and Giselle did. I mean, she's the first signing was Abby Dow.

You can't get much better than that. Um, yeah. When you, when you sign in those players because their names and they'll get bums on seats, but equally if they're a Red Rose or they play for GB7s, as a number of their signings did, and do, you're also signing a player you're not going to see for half of the season.

So you've got to give the players that are sitting underneath the chance to, to build up, because most of those were either players at other clubs where They would lower in the pecking order or they came from, from champ clubs. So London Irish Emeralds, which is their amateur women's team are in championship one and two or three of their players signed for Ealing.

Um, and we're kind of dual contracted and you know, they, they might end up doing fantastic. They, they picked up some good young players and then they're developing them through, but it takes time coming up to that level that. I [00:35:00] mean, if you're going from playing some good teams to suddenly you're lining up against a front row that's got Hannah Bottleman on one side and Sarah Byrne on the other, and Lark Davies sat between the two of them, that's a big step up and it's going to take you time to adjust to it.

So I spoke to, uh, Mark, uh, down at Portsmouth early on in the pod, I think episode nine or something, he was on, uh, Mark Witcher and he'd obviously been part of the women's game and sort of coached a few, few players that had gone on. And he's, he said that the gap between the Prem and the championship and below so vast at the minute, it's not accessible for players just to step between the two because the availability.

Isn't consistently there. Do you, do you ever see that gap closing or do you, do you see that getting bigger or do you not see the gap that, that Mark sort of said that's there? I think he's a hundred percent right. I think [00:36:00] the, the way the amateur game, which is everything that isn't the PWI is, is structured ends it to having a gap because you've got champ one is kind of North and South and both are pretty chunky leagues, so while that's great Player travel, it limits people driving from one end of the country to the other on their day off.

Yeah, um, yeah, that golf is, is, is massive and, and having two kind of championship, one Leagues, one North, one South. It lends for a really nice end to the season because you get playoff final to see where the North or South is better. But it just means there's a lot of players playing at a level rather than being able to get the progression up and down.

And even with, with. Kind of that many players at that level, they're having struggles. We've had one week of the season and we've already had a game called off because one team couldn't field a front row. And if you speak to any clubs in [00:37:00] the greater London areas, so Henley, London, Irish, Richmond, um, anyone around there, they're all struggling because.

Prem clubs, PWR clubs are losing players to internationals because WXV tournament is about to kick off. So that means for their kind of preseason warmup cup tournament that they've just run, they're borrowing props off of champ one clubs, which means champ one clubs don't have any props, which means they can't, can't play games.

Um, so it's, it's a real struggle. So what I would say is if you're a young lady. Woman, girl, trying to get into the game front row is the place to be you'll get some game time Yeah, and you get to eat as much pizza as you want and everything like that as well And you're the coolest people in the game except for maybe Ilona Marr.

Yeah. Yeah, she's as we said about people Forging a path through their own social media channels. She's [00:38:00] absolutely riding it. And you know, that might drop her in a year's time. She might have kind of the bubble might have burst because she's an Olympian and that, that has a, a kind of timescale, but fair play to her.

She is maximizing that. And she's got enough personality that I think she'll still be a big. Figure in a year's time. It's just that people might have forgotten it's because of rugby. Um, Yeah. She set the target to be part of the, the fifteens world cup and she, so she wants to be at the world cup. So hopefully she doesn't lose her way.

And people think she's just a social media star. Um, yeah. And it'd be interesting cause she's only played a couple of games of fifteens. Top level. I don't even know what position is not. I don't really care. As long as she's involved, then it means she's doing pre and post match interviews, which means we've got gold coming our way.

Well, um, what position do you reckon she would play at 15? I'd, I'd, I'd be picking center. [00:39:00] Yeah. I mean, if I was given a choice, I'd be trying her outside center. Yeah, she's a, she's a big unit and she's a fast runner, so she can punch hella big holes in defenses. And she can play as well. She's got hands on her as well.

She can play. Like, it's not like it's just pure size at playing sevens, she can play as well. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why part of me thinks, do you really, I mean, it's tough for USA because they've got Kate Zachary, but she's a, she's an eight who can play 13. So do you stick her in the backs and put Alona Maher off the back of a scrum?

Because you wouldn't want to do it against the top two or three teams. But if you're, if you're USA playing, I don't know, Spain or someone like that. Why not have someone like her who can just pick the ball up off the back of a scrum and run like hell. I watched the Spain women's, uh, quite a bit, to be fair out there.

They're easily accessible to go and watch the games out [00:40:00] there. Uh, they usually play down at Lavera. They're no, they're no mugs. They've got a very, very good side. And to be honest, I think off that sort of, you know, Around the sort of pack area, I think they dominate, there's, there's potentially gaps through their backline in Spain, but fuck me, they don't half tackle, they will tackle anything and everything, and I just, some of it, I was like, that ball's gone.

And then next thing they've just made, they've made this cover tackle out of nowhere. And I was like, this is. And it's like, it's so cheap, so cheap. We'll go down to Lavera, it's only, it's about 40 minutes down the road from here. And their pitch is not the greatest, shall we say. There's, uh, there's lots of little bits that look like Margate Beach dropped on some of it.

But it costs like 30 quid for all four of us to go and watch an international game. And we did that for the men's as well. So there [00:41:00] was a double header. So Spain against the USA for the final and Canada against Brazil. And I think it cost us 45 euros for the four of us. They, they made a full day of it.

The kids were able to do bits out the back. There was a DJ between, there was PlayStation fives with rugby 24 on it. The kids loved it. They had an accident. It's exactly what you want, right? Yeah. Every, everyone gets something out of it. The kids in the best, with the best will in the world. They don't even care about the rugby.

They're having a great time regardless. So you can, you can sit and enjoy the game knowing that they're entertained and they're not gonna bother you. Everyone wins. And yeah, yeah, I agree. Spain, Spain are a good team. They're, they're that classic team of like, if they can keep all of their best players fit, they can scare people.

Yeah. Their only worry is depth. Well, I think obviously Bimba, she's come across to, to Queens as well and added strength there. The, um, the, the young 10 that signed across from Barcelona side as well. [00:42:00] She's, she's slotted in at Queens. She's, yeah, I think they're going to play her outside center. So that'd be quite exciting.

Yeah, they've got some very good players that are now being exposed to the PWR as well. And I think it's great to see there's some exceptional players in the, in the Spain women's team. And yeah, and a lot of them kind of turning up in French teams and the French league, nearly impossible to watch, but phenomenal talent across that French women's league.

When, when they finally get some sort of deal and I'm hoping like rugby past TV, pick it up or something like that, that that'll be fantastic. Cause, cause the quality over there is pretty good. Yeah. Like there's fantastic rugby there, put it on a. A channel where people can get it and it's absolutely accessible in France.

France are fantastic at making sure all their sport is televised. Um, they've got kind of national regulations and things like that, which is great. Stick it on a rugby pass TV, hell stick it on YouTube. Let people see it. Um, let people get out there and get access [00:43:00] to it. Um, it's what we keep talking about.

It's just access. Just get, get people to be able to get their eyes on the game. Um, If you're all this week, I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but, um, David Flatman has been covering the Prem Rugby highlights for years on ITV and he kind of announced in the week, well, I'm not doing it anymore.

It's a shock to me as well. And you know, that is sad because rugby loves tradition more than anything else. Um, but actually they've got like Squidge Rugby doing it now. So the ITV highlights is Squidge, it's, it's, um, Lizzie Musso's, like rugby with, uh, The thing is, it's the guys who does rugby NORS. So actually what they're doing is hooking the people who aren't accessing rugby through the traditional means and those people in front of them.

I'm not sure it's the right move because I'm not sure people who are watching or getting their rugby fix through social media really give a monkey's about watching ITV at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night to see the [00:44:00] highlights. But what they do get is. They can stick on TikTok, uh, this person you've seen talking about rugby on TikTok and there's an ITV logo in front of it and they're, and they're able to talk over actual live footage and react to it.

Um, so that, that's quite exciting and that makes me think that we're about to see another. I mean, we must be close to the point where the 2003 team don't hold value just, just because they have those medals, um, that they should be commentating on anything anymore. And the day, I mean, Woodward did a fantastic job winning that World Cup, but the day I never have to see him.

On a panel on ITV again will not be a day too soon. I don't think there's a single time that me and my mates in our group chat, one of them will drop in a message watching it. Why the fuck is Sir [00:45:00] Clive still there? Yeah, he's great and all power to him for what he did. Um, and even Johnny Wilkinson. Yeah, what he did, it's not relevant now because all he does now is say, I won the World Cup, I'm fucking great, and it's boring, yeah, you've done it, and moan about everything, that's what really frustrates me, like, and Johnny Wilkinson is, is dull as ditch water, he just doesn't have a presence for that sort of role, he is the man who absolutely should have a whiteboard and a pen.

And be breaking down why things work, because if he's just sitting there talking, he's not engaging anyone at all. Just, just give him, as you say, give him the scribbly board and say, well, I could have done this, I've done this, I made this decision in this game because I've done this, this and this. This is why this player has made that decision.

If anyone's going to talk sense about the game and be able to talk about it because they've done it, it's that man. Absolutely. But, I mean, the rest of them, they kind of need to start moving off. Ben Kay's still pretty good, to be fair. [00:46:00] Yeah, I like Ben Kay. I like Lowell when you see him. He's an engaging personality on TV, but he doesn't add anything comms.

It's, it's just kind of cliche every time he speaks, they just need to be getting more variety in there. So even if you're still using those guys, freshen it up, you get more guys who are kind of a year, two years, three years removed from the game. We can talk from personal experience. I want to hear like, let's talk front row again.

I want to see someone analyzing Ellis Genge or someone like that and going, yeah, well, when I propped against him. Yeah. Here's how I dealt with it, or, or here's, here's kind of what I did. Well, this is what I couldn't, this is why I couldn't deal with it, because he does this, this and this. So special, because he doesn't always look like he's a special player.

No. But, those little, fine details, and we will get there, we, we get to kind of see changes. I mean, it was, It was forever the same people [00:47:00] when, when Sky had rugby and then when they lost all the rights, kind of the current group that's the TNT group became the kind of main voices and faces of rugby. I think you get an inevitable kind of changing of the guard every, every kind of decade or so.

Sky went. BT sport crowd that's now TNT became the face of the sport. And I think at some point in the near future, some sort of rugby rights are going to have enough value that someone else is going to come in for it. So I can see PWR getting snapped up by a different provider. They'll build a crew around that.

That could become the kind of face of rugby. And then they buy the prem rights and bring them across as well, or vice versa. Um, Do you think Amazon, Amazon primer in there? Do you think they've sort of, they've touched their toes in the Auman Nationals or the Autumn series or whatever they wanna call it these days, but I think their coverage was half decent [00:48:00] and made it accessible for a decent price point for people.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, liked what they did a lot. I think they're, I can see 'em coming in for internationals again, a hundred percent. I'm, I'm just not sure they've got the interest in doing weekly for a full season for, for a. A domestic league, because they want something that they can buy their own.

Yeah, they do say that they can go kind of worldwide, don't they? That's proper ballroom tennis. So, like, if you kind of, they're willing to throw some money at that, why can't they throw it at the women's game? Which is, what, it's only six, seven months of the year, really? Because there's not that many games, is there?

I think if they can, if they can see value in it, if they can get the world cup final doing big numbers on TV, outside of the two countries that are playing in it, that's when Amazon will go, there's money in this for us and they'll swoop in and take it. I honestly think, I don't know [00:49:00] if you've ever checked out the rugby network, I think it's called, it's the kind of app slash website that, um, the U S men's league, the MLR set up.

Yeah. Great. Thanks I think that kind of paid for version of that with British rugby on it. So that it's accessible, it's portable, it's easy to watch on the go. It's an app that you can load in through Firestick, Roku, whatever. Yeah. Is that another thing that people have got to pay for though? That's, that's the hard, cause they won't be able to buy all the rights.

Unless they get all the rights against all of it. That, that's why I think, I think if we want to see big money, then it's got to stop being Prem Rugby trying to get their slice and PWR trying to get their slice and the URC trying to get their slice. Package it. Go out and go, look, this is a ton of rugby.

It's, even if you take South [00:50:00] Africa out of the mix, it's, Two big rugby markets in the UK and Ireland, plus you get an Italian rugby in there as well, um, try and get like, why, why isn't the organizing committee behind the champions cup and the challenge cup trying to get like the French teams, the French leagues on it as well?

Build a big package deal on a point where people can come and play, watch rugby. Like if people in the UK will pay out for the, like the NBA app or the NFL app so they can watch all the games. You've got about 40 quid a month or something like that for the NFL under zone for four months of the year or whatever it is.

Because you know, you're getting everything and you know that every game is going to be an event, make it worthwhile for people, make them only have to go to one place and they'll come and they'll book it. It's the old, the old classic argument about music streaming versus [00:51:00] pirating. Everyone went to Napster and LimeWire, but the moment iTunes came out and it was easy to go to one place to buy music, people were quite happy to pay.

And then when you could just pay a flat fee and have all the music in the world at your fingertips with Spotify, people are quite happy to pay for that as well. People don't mind paying a fair, reasonable price for a decent product that's easy to access. What we've got is half decent products, sometimes Very decent sometimes, not so much.

They are really expensive for the amount that you get. And that just, it's going to turn people off. I mean, the men's, the prem rugby, they they've already, they've lost three teams. The more than that, they've lost three teams worth of fans because they've done nothing to engage Waswister and London Irish fans to say, stick around this league.

Well, so, so Bath have now been given the recruit, the scouting area for what was London Irish, so [00:52:00] Portsmouth is now covered under Bath. That's interesting because Portsmouth was London Irish and then it was Quince. It's now, it's all under Bath. So they, yeah, so they're chopping it all up again. So probably Quince have snapped up that kind of streak of Berkshire.

And West London, the Irish had, so that gives them all of that area. But for the existing fans, some of them are still going to games. I know some have become explicably fans of other teams really quickly. Um, and some that just go along cause they need that rugby fix. I also know hundreds who just. Won't attend a prem game because they just feel the league turned its back on, on that group of fans.

And, and I've heard the same from Worcester fans as well, and they're just never going to get them back. And I know they're aiming for the next generation, but the generation that they're missing right now are the ones who've got money to pay for stuff. So they need to spend it. To invest a bit of effort in engaging them as well.

I had Lexi on, uh, who's still halfway through her journey at the minute, from going [00:53:00] from John O'Groats to Land's End, uh, with her wheelchair challenge. And we were speaking about the women's game and obviously she's a big Exeter fan, goes home and away, watches the games, go watches the Red Roses and stuff.

And I think we discussed the point that the, I believe the way the women's game gets to the level of the men's game is by a global TV rights agreement. I don't think the product is big enough to have just one league push that forward because nobody's going to sign up for a nine team PWR for seven months.

They're going to need an agreement for every women's league across the world, one global rights, one stop shop. This is how we're going to bring the game forward. Do you think would have the bollocks to do that if there's any crazy enough as in as in who would buy it? yeah, who what what sort of broadcaster has the [00:54:00] sort of dynamic idea of Trying to wrap that up and move that forward in that one Right now, if you, if you can get right that us momentum, ESPN is probably the only one I can see going, yeah, let's, let's get stuck into that.

And if you get ESPN, then you're on Disney, you're laughing all the way to the back. That's that's. I don't think there's any, terrestrially you'd have to, you might package up, you'd get the rights for the world, but you'd have to chop it up and you'd be selling to kind of terrestrial channels in the individual markets and that just gets messy as hell.

You don't need one game here, one game there, none of that. Netflix aren't that way inclined. I don't think they're looking at the Premier League and they're looking at YouTube boxing. I think they're a very big event. They might sign up for a World Cup, they might sign up for a Six Nations, obviously they're trying to get involved in that, but I don't believe them [00:55:00] getting involved in a global product like that is, is on their remit.

No, not right now. What will be interesting, and it's a, it's a much bigger product right now, next year Netflix take on WWE. Hmm. So every week they'll be having, I think it's Raw. The live broadcast will be Netflix worldwide. They've reduced it from three hours to two hours already though. Yeah. Cause they don't want it on for too long.

But that'll be the, the kicker. If that, if that does big numbers and they're like, actually people are willing to all log in at the same time. And. Their servers can handle it, cause that's gotta be a hell of a strain, especially that first one. Um, then they might start going, well, what, what other things can we get?

And it might be like, like the women's game a couple of years ago, England Rugby would stream some games and the clubs would stream some games. The final was on BT [00:56:00] Sport, so, so that one game was treated like a marquee game. So you might get a point where. A provider picks up the women's game over here.

And I really hope in the next couple of years, that provider is ITV or BBC or channel four instead of TNT. So it's really accessible. Um, Premier, Premier sport might even, they've seemed to be trying to make big movements around it. And if it's still at an affordable price point, as you said, it's what 15 quid a month.

Yeah, for champions, champions, and if they've got almost everything, which they would have by that point, it would, it would be an asset for them to add. Um, yeah, worst case, they put it up to 20 quid a month and you've pretty much got seven different leagues of types of rugby to, it's just, I don't, have they got much of an app, have they got much of something to use on your phone to like, go into a game there?

Their apps all right, um, premier sports biggest thing is. You can subscribe to it through Amazon Prime. [00:57:00] So you can watch it through Amazon's app. It's not contracted either is it? So I think you pay a slightly more. It's month by month. Yeah. Yeah, so I think there's, there's the one that you get the discount for the year, don't you?

And then I think if you opt to do a month by month, so you could have a quiet month. I don't fancy watching any of the games you don't subscribe to it. Yeah, just unsubscribe in July, subscribe again in September. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, um, it'd be lovely to see it on Terrestrial, but it's not happening. They're not backed enough.

I don't think anyone really is bothered by Terrestrial anymore. Most people have got a Sky or something. Most people don't have the standard four channels anymore, even on Freeview you don't. No, you've got iPlayer, that's the thing, if you get it on the BBC, you've got iPlayer. And that's, that's worked really, really well for the women's Premier League in the football.

Yeah. Because BBC got hold of that. So that's probably the dream scenario because it just puts it in people's pockets. [00:58:00] But yeah, getting on something where it's, it's, it's reasonable. People get hold of it. And maybe something we've not even thought of. There, there are big players in. In other countries, markets who aren't operating in the UK at some point, more of them will want to get a foothold.

We've seen some come and go. We had, um, premier sports was via play for a couple of years, which is a massive player in that kind of streaming market in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. They came over here, never quite. landed the way they liked and just sold it back to Premier Sports or an Irish company and off they've gone.

Um, but you might see Premier Sports picking up other competitions. There's a competition called the Celtic Challenge where you, the, um, Irish, Welsh and Scottish unions put together kind of packaged up women's teams. So last year there were two Irish teams, two Welsh, two Scottish. Um, I think there's three, three Welsh now, I think there's three Welsh teams set up now.

[00:59:00] So I was, yeah, and they're doubling their games cause they're going to play home and away rather than one or the other this year. There's talk that within a couple of years it will be the four Irish provinces, which will be massive. Because instead of the Clovers or whatever the hell they decide to call themselves here on your Wolfhounds was one of the teams.

It's Leinster. Leinster means something. Munster. Yeah. Munster have got incredibly passionate fans. It means something. Imagine that. Imagine that then being able to play at Fowman Park or, uh, yeah. And had it as a big competition, let's, let's see, like, Leinster versus Glasgow. Yeah. That's a, it's a cracking game in the men's game.

It's an event game in that league. Let's make it an event in the women's game as well. And that means that those players, the more you do with that, the more those players aren't in the PWR, which would be a short term hit for the PWR, but it also means more spots for English players in that league. So [01:00:00] you're exposing more of your English talent to elite level rugby, which means you've got an even bigger pathway for the Red Roses.

Everyone wins. I think the Irish game is making really good movements as well. We spoke with Daryl Coyle on this, on last week, and uh, we were talking about the 37 contracts that have been handed to the Irish women's set up. And as you said, most of them are probably centralized contracts. They're still having to do other bits on the side.

Um, I think the intent is there. And apparently it's been bounded around for a little while. A little bit longer than possibly people wanted, but from what I can understand and what I've read and what Dara's sort of seen and heard within the, within the area, the IRFU have actually done it without having to withdraw it within a year like the IRFU did.

Yeah. And you know, it's, it's kind of drawn a line under a horrible time in, in [01:01:00] Irish women's rugby. They had some real issues with the previous kind of leadership in that space, really. Poorly treating the women's game. Um, poorly treating some of the players. Um, Kleena Maloney, who's one of their best players, basically got cut from the team because she dared to speak out about their treatment publicly.

And, and only now that kind of all of, all of the people who were in power have gone, is she finally back in the team. They've probably lost two or three of their best years at rugby, um, but they're doing the right thing. They're, they're giving people contracts, they're focusing a lot of attention on their sevens team, which is still probably one of the best pathways for development in the women's game.

Probably one that the men's game doesn't use as much as it should, to be honest, and the women's game have really exploited it. Um, so, so that's, that's reaping benefits for them and, and Ireland are still, they're Quite a distance away from, from England, France, New Zealand, and that's not going to close up in the next few years.[01:02:00] 

But they've got some fantastic young players coming through and they're, they're a joy to watch. Aoife Wafer, their number six, who's come through is great. She's just box office, runs into everyone, smashes through stuff, works the same level in minute 80 as she did in minute one. And if they can, they're a few more players like that, then they're going to quickly close the gap with.

Most of the other teams and they're going to be scratching at that bubble of the top three or four. I reckon, I reckon that's probably eight years away, potentially, they've probably got a, they've got a few, a couple of World Cup cycles to get back, get up to a level of probably competing where the Red Roses are, or were a couple of years ago.

100%, but I can see them leapfrogging. Australia leapfrogging, the USA, potentially even Canada, and then being just outside that kind of France level. [01:03:00] Yeah, and it's a big statement, it's a big intent, and it's great to see, again, it's another, another federation back in there. Their women's game as well. And let's hope it's not just a token gesture, but a lot of them seem to actually mean it and they're going through the process and making sure that it's actually a long term viability, rather than just saying we've given these contracts because we've seen the games more marketable rather than say, and then actually.

A year's time. Sorry, we fucked up. We didn't do the match properly. We've got to take that away from them. Yeah, absolutely. And we've seen it in Scotland have been slow to adopt contracts, but they're in place now. They're, they're reaping the rewards of it. And I think where you really measure it is some of the players that you thought were the best players in the Scottish team.

Struggling to get into it now because other players are building up and taking over. It's like Rona Lloyd, who, who, who would have been kind of one of their [01:04:00] star backs a couple of years ago is now quite often on the periphery of their teams. And that's, that's fantastic to see because they're really developing.

I think the team that's potentially going the wrong way, certainly in the. The home nations as Wales, their mens, their mens is probably in the same situation. To be honest, Matt, maybe there's something fundamentally wrong at the a WU and from what everyone says, I think it is, they, they've ruined the game.

The club game done a pretty decent job of ruining all their, their, um. The, any connections between the pro and the amateur level and the women's games stagnant at best. Yeah. And there's just, coaching is terrible. Ewan Cunningham is, he seems like a lovely guy, but I look at their team, which is, I mean, about a third of their team comes from Gloucester Hartbury.

And they are a joy to watch. And yet the moment they pull on that red shirt, it's like all the life's drained out of them. It should be the easiest coaching job in the [01:05:00] world. You wear a shirt that's half red most of the time and you're fantastic. Just pretend there's still a white stripe and go and do exactly the same thing.

Yeah. It's not difficult. But, like, likey George. It's like she's never played rugby sometimes when you see her in a Welsh shirt. It's I think there's a bigger issue there. I don't think it's down to solely whether a coach I just don't think they seem to have got All of the setup, it's whole, it's just disjointed all the way through that.

Yeah, I, I think it's the, it's the visible tip of the iceberg. Like they're not bothered that they're not getting results from their coach, which tells you they're not bothered about anything else. And they'll catch up eventually because they're a proud country, um, particularly in rugby terms. So at some point they're going to end up with so much egg on their face.

They're not going to be able to handle it anymore. And, and they'll, they'll, catch up, but it's, it's a real weird blip time. I don't like to see it much, much as Wales are the team I most like to see England beat. I like to see England beat them because they're normally pretty [01:06:00] good. It's just a bit dull if it's an easy fixture.

Yeah, no, it'd be great to see them. actually having a go and sort of creating that, that rivalry that the men's game has as well. That'd be, at the minute we've got France, we've got New Zealand up at the sort of the top echelons, but the, the local regions of the local country, like we're not, With miles ahead, like it's proven with the six nations, how many times we've won that?

And that gap's not going to get closed suddenly either. Is there any point of partaking in the six nations when it's nearly a foregone conclusion? Like everyone you talk to about formula one, uh, Lewis Hamilton was in it for years. I stopped watching it. Then somebody else comes in on a cycle. Some like there's a little bit of movement around and people get.

Lose a bit of interest, regain a little bit. France aren't closing the gap. The gap's getting probably a little bit wider potentially at the minute. Obviously we've [01:07:00] now sort of caught up with the Black Ferns. And sort of it's gonna be between the top two. Is France ever really gonna close that gap and properly compete for the title at the minute?

Unless there's a serious injury crisis at England? I can't see that either. No. I, I, I think France has got the players, but something's not quite there, whether it's, whether it's fitness, whether it's sharpness. Yeah. The, the men's, the men's team are exactly the same. They're, they're, they've got probably the best team in the world at times.

But they do the French way and they'll blow up and somebody will punch somebody in the throat randomly or red butt somebody and they'll completely blow their own game up and they'll throw everything away that they've worked so hard to get to. It's just the French way. And a lot of, it feels like a lot of French women's players retire relatively young as well.

They kind of do a, do two world cup cycles and then go, you know what, I need to go and get a job. I need to [01:08:00] start thinking about how I'm going to live When I get older, so, um, they, they had nine is Pauline Bourdon, who is great, but she, she used to be in a tandem with, uh, Laura Sansouce, who was phenomenal.

Um, and actually they're a couple, um, outside of rugby as well, which is fascinating. Like two people competing for the same position or a couple, just blows my mind. But Sansouce at 27 and probably the best scrum half in the game, literally the best scrum The female equivalent of Dupont, when, yeah, I'm just going to hang them up.

I'm off. And that, that tells me this, there's something they're not getting a support. They're not. And, and it might be purely money, but my heart tells me it might be more than money. It might be advice. It might be help to think about kind of what the future is like, because that It doesn't always [01:09:00] need to be like, here's an extra 10 grand a year.

It might be, you know, we can only pay you this much, but we can give you access to financial advisors. We can, we can pay for your education and get your degrees and things like that. It's something that works in other smaller sports. I'm an ice hockey fan as well. Yeah. Um, British ice hockey, not particularly good, but they still get some decent, um, players over from America and Canada because they hook them up with uni degrees when they come over.

So they hook players over. They do a degree while they're over here. So they get a degree from a British university and then they go home again. Yeah. So everyone benefits, but it's not a huge amount of cost. So there's so many other things that clubs can do. And, and nations could do to, to really support those players without having to do what the men's prem did have probably shot itself in the foot by giving people big wages straight away.

I mean, you look at it. Now there's multiple players [01:10:00] at every team are on 250, 300, 000 pounds a year. Yeah. And for those players, more power to them, they deserve every penny they can claw out of those clubs. Yeah. But the clubs have shot themselves in the foot because now they're having to sometimes give that, give a hundred grand to a pretty mediocre player and that hamstrings them and it's costing them a ton of money, especially in a sport where it's really easy to get injured and be out for a long time.

And the thing, there's also a lot. And then you drop down to the championship. There's no buffer. There's no backup. They're on pay peanuts. Like we had Charlie beach on really early doors as well. And Charlie saying about his experience in there and the golf, he said, he probably only hit sort of 40 grand when he was in the print back then, as soon as he dropped to the championship, he was lucky if he was near the 20 mark.

Uh, and I, Nobody's paying any bills, not in the current life, not even years back, like, that is [01:11:00] basically you're getting paid pub money to go and play nigh on pro game and expected to train twice a week and your gym sessions outside and then play A very, very high standard of rugby because it's no Mugs League, either the championship, you're, you've got the people that have come down from the prem.

You've got the ones that didn't quite make it. And then you've got the nippers that are coming through from prem clubs trying to prove the point. You're getting battered. There's no one. There's a grace is around, but then you'll get a proper game of rugby and it's brilliant to see. But we just, again, we don't get to see it enough and they don't also get rewarded.

It's bonkers. Almost all those clubs are semi pro now. Ealing are fully pro. I think Doncaster might be pretty much all the rest are. Pro was within the title, but again, I think some of their salaries are around the 15 grand mark, which is the minimum wage. I like open that we're a [01:12:00] semi pro club. All these players have jobs and they train two days a week, if that.

It's just not sustainable. And actually there was a brilliant piece in, I think it was the times, maybe 18 months, maybe two years ago, it was showing that there were players in kind of the third, fourth, fifth tier who were earning more than championship players. Because if you've got like a rich sponsor at a club, you could play some, pay some ex pro to turn out fair.

Their team that was looking at it and I was monitoring that money like they are in the top couple of divisions So there's a lot of a lot of I'd imagine not literally anymore But brown paper envelopes that mysteriously appear in someone's shoe while they're out on the pitch Going on down there and you look at it.

You look at like a team like Rosslyn Park is absolutely stuffed with ex pros Yeah, who, who work in London now, they've almost all in finance [01:13:00] and they turn out for those teams on the weekend and probably get quite a tasty little kind of chunk of pocket money for someone who's got a well paying full time job.

And there's guys in Jersey, Jersey, obviously the same, they're coming up through the leagues, Jersey rates obviously went bust. They all decided to stay there, play rugby for their local club. They're flying through the leagues, they dominated the level 7 or whatever it was last season. They're up, they've gone the level, uh, level above now or something like that.

And they're flying up through the leagues. But they're all financial lads. They're all working on the, the, and brilliant fair play to them. They've got to play rugby. They're, they want to play rugby. They want to stay in the area. They're going through it the same as Camberley did it. Camberley done it a few years.

They, they had a big rise up through the leagues. They've sort of hit a plateau as well. So they, they got sort of missed out on most of the league that obviously haven't just gotten to that too. So [01:14:00] they kind of got held back. So they've kind of hit a plateau, Camberley, but they want to try and take that up as well.

But I think Jersey have just gone into that league. You've got, you had East Grinstead, East Grinstead had it, didn't they? So they had the Geezer come in, pump money in. He was paying Geezer stupid, stupid money. Then he had a big falling out and then decided to start unscrewing the doors off the changing rooms and stuff to start a reclaimed point.

As much as it goes in, it can come out so quickly in this game. Absolutely. Yeah. And, and actually, um, It almost, I could see, I can, I don't think it will happen, but I could see a road where we go down almost the Japanese rugby model, like the Japanese league. All the teams have kind of normal team names.

Now, three, four years ago, it was like, yeah, versus Toyota. And, and all those teams were corporate sponsored and all those players had a nominal day job. For the company that they work for, which is [01:15:00] hilarious. I mean, there is no way like 80 cap Kiwi players were actually rocking up to be the security supervisor or whatever the hell it was.

But that was kind of the tick because it was a company league. Maybe that's where we end up. Probably not to that level, but like franchisee type teams at the top level, because that's the only way you can generate money. And if it fails somewhere, someone can buy it and move it. You can't move a club that's embedded in its community and you shouldn't, but I think there's too many stakeholders now.

That's the, that's the biggest issue. It is, it's become a business before it's become a profitable business. It's um, it's going to almost take a rival league coming in and doing something different and the prem falling apart and someone else sweeping up the pieces before it, before it's done.

Fundamentally changes. Yeah. I can't see it [01:16:00] changing under the current guard. No, no. But something needs to, at some point or we, we we're, the men's game is at risk and, and maybe it is May, maybe the men's game is gonna diminish in 10, 15 years time, rugby will be a primarily women's sport, also have sort of men playing.

It would be a bad thing. So this, I think. This year then, the PWR, what's, what are you going to hang your hat on then, Matt? Who's, uh, who's going to win it? Who's, uh, who's going to be the shock of the season? What we, what we got? Well, I think it's really hard to bet against Gloucester Hartbury, but I'm going to.

Um, I think there'll be in the mix. I think the top four is not going to change very much. I think it's going to be, Gloucester, Surrey's, uh, probably Exeter and Bristol and Bristol. I've got better year on year and Dave Ward's doing a grand job there. And I think it's their year. I think they're going to, they're going to take it home.

I think with the world cup coming, they've got. Key England [01:17:00] players in key positions, the way the league is built, that it will finish before the Six Nations. So it's a really compressed season. So all those players are going to be playing like Billy O. The final happens, and then they go off and they're with England until the World Cup thereafter.

So they're going to want to Hit four at the right time. So with, with an all England front row with Abbey board in the second row with Holly H's and pulling the strings at 10 and Cara Bevan, who's, who's going to want to lock down the wealth nine shirt at nine as well, I think they are, they're poised.

And actually I think they're, they've got a young winger called Renika Bonner, who I think might be a bolter to make the World Cup squad as well. If you get a couple of. Back three injuries and you want a young player to bring through, she might be the, the bolster that comes through. So, yeah, I'm going to hang my hat on, on, on Bristol at the top of the league.

And I think if you're going to ask me the other end, I think it's probably Leicester Tigers. Cause I just don't see them. They've [01:18:00] got their top end talent is phenomenal, but they've only really got that in three or four positions. In some other positions, you look at it and you go, have you even got a ball?

A prem level player there, let alone an international, I just don't think they've got the depth. Uh, the stability issues at Ealing could unwind that situation or I think Ealing will be down there. I think your bottom three is Tiger's Ealing sale, but I just, I think Ealing have got a little bit more. Top end talent who can just win a game on their own, um, and they'll probably fluke a couple of games that, that Lester maybe won't, although Lester have got, I shouldn't have favourite players, you know, you're allegedly objective when you cover the game, but I absolutely do.

And my all time favourite player to watch is Amy Kikainer, she is at Lester. She's quite a She's, she's magic. Yeah. So if she is on one, she might. Drag that team kicking and screaming to a win it absolutely doesn't deserve and I think with that bottom [01:19:00] three one win will probably be all the difference because I think they're all going to really struggle this year.

What do you reckon the shock of the season is going to be then? Who's going to sort of come out and who might throw the cat amongst the pigeons? With what, who they've signed and what they've done. I think the top four will be the same top four, but if I, if you wanted me to put a flyer on an outside bet to make the final from, from basically nowhere, I think I might say Quinns.

I think they've signed very, very well. I think they're in the right places. They've made some good signings. They've, they've made some, I think you, you mentioned the, the, the Spanish back. It was, I think it's a really good pickup. Alex Calendar is a fantastic pickup. I actually think they made some canny kind of.

Um, kind of depth signings as well. Bimba's one, Emma Swords at nine. It's a really good signing. He's going to put pressure on Lucy Packer to kind of fight for that shirt. Uh, and, um, Ella Cromack, who's uh, [01:20:00] 10 for England under twenties. She's got a full season under her belt now, playing 10 there. Yeah, so that can only help her as well.

So Quinn's, I suspect they'll be kind of middle of the pack. I if they line everything upright, they've got the quality to. To fly right through it's just whether they can do it consistently and again, another team that's had quite a big coaching set up change over the off season. So it'll be whether that works for them, whether that takes time.

Interesting. Matt, it's been an absolute pleasure, mate. Um. And great to shine that light on the PWR just ahead of the season opener. Uh, hopefully we can obviously catch up towards the end ahead of the RW. Yeah, see, see, see where those, uh, those hats were hung and how far you miss, but then we can look, we can start saying I'm ready for the Rugby World Cup because that looks like it's going to be a barnstormer.

There's, I think [01:21:00] they've announced 50, 000 tickets already sold on day one of ticket sales. So. Looks like there's going to be some big crowds ready to go, so. Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to be really, kind of, they've not been, and I like that, but, but some, some media people would have gone, well the tickets aren't even technically on sale yet, because it's all pre sale, and they've sold 55, 000.

Twickenham. Yeah. For a, for a double header day, which is, a smart move. You get the bronze game and the gold game. And they're about to put the Stadium of Light, which should be the England's opening game, that's about to go on sale as well. So we'll see what happens. I'm waiting for the Brighton games. I want to get a lot to Brighton and see a game there.

You don't want to go Stadium of Light. I've been up there. Watch Pompidou 1. 0, um, and it's a long old day up there. It's a long trip up the trade, but it takes forever. It's a great place. And, you know, there's always that hope in your heart that you're going to see the women's version of Japan, South Africa.[01:22:00] 

Yeah. No, it'd be phenomenal. Um, Matt. Thank you so much, mate. For everyone that obviously is, that wants to hear from Matt, Matt, where can you find most of your articles so people can have a, have a read and listen to you, spout your opinions on the old black and white? Yeah, absolutely. So, um, almost everything I've written for the past couple of years is on Rugby Pass, so go on Rugby Pass, search for my name.

Um, I'm on, um, Uh, Instagram at Matt Merritt, uh, Twitter the same, although Twitter X is a bit versatile now, so I try not to post over there as much, but, but yeah, threads, blue sky, it's all at Matt Merritt. So pretty easy to find. Well, it's been a pleasure, Matt. Thank you so much for jumping on. Great to have a Pompey lad as well.

So, um, thank you very much. That's it. Catch you soon, buddy. Take care.

Right, so that brings another episode of Rugby Through The League's podcast to an end. Just want to say thank you to everyone that's got involved, everyone that's commented, everyone that's, [01:23:00] been listening, subscribing,, all of those bits. It's great to see that people are taking some sort of value from what I do.

 And we're looking at adding some more bits to the bow as well. Obviously, we've got the rugby returns. Don't forget to check out that. Obviously, completely different change of pace this week with a journalist that writes about rugby rather than being a player or a DOR or a coach or anything like that.

 It's good to get a different aspects on the game as well. And the PWR obviously is back. So it's great to get women's rugby back. Be in that limelight again. And some great players, obviously the Women's 15 International Games are run at the minute as well.

So some great bits to see there and some, um, some emerging talents in the, in the PWR as well. So next week we've got Tom Martin on. So Tom is. A sevens performance analyst for the All Blacks, so it's going to be a nice late one for me because of the time differences, but Tom's obviously been involved in two Olympic cycles, , Been able to work with some amazing sevens players within the, obviously the all black set up.

I believe [01:24:00] he's come to an end of his sevens as well. So we'd be able to find out whether he's branching across the fifteens and what his plans are for next, the next sort of part of his career as well. But what, uh, what a team to be working with is the all black seven. So hopefully we can find out what.

Ticks and how that makes him tick and what makes the all black sevens work so well apart from what seems to be getting that gold medal over the line recently. But it's a really good, really good guest again and another different aspect of rugby. So let's uh, let's get, get subscribing, get following, get liking, get it shared with everyone else.

Whatever you, whatever you can do to grow the pod, it will help. One last thing for me, thank you and goodbye. 

DSC_0343: Okay. And that is all for this video.