Cardiff Central Top of the Bottom! Missus!

In this podcast episode, the hosts discuss recent signings and departures in the Cardiff rugby team. They mention the re-signing of Harry Millard and the fresh signings of Dave Southworth, Ed Byrne, Joe Cowell, and Johnny Goodridge. They discuss the strengths and potential of these players and express concerns about the team's depth in the back five forwards following the departure of Shane Lewis-Hughes. They also mention that other players like Thomas Young and Ben Thomas are still on the team. Welcome to the Cardiff Central Podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Cardiff Central. As always, I'm Harley in the hot seat and I am joined by both Carwyn and Dan this week. So how are you both doing, gents? Yeah, not bad, mate. Not bad at all. Yeah, look at that. So, Steph, good bank holidays? I was putting up DIY all weekend, so no, in short. That sounds like a great weekend. I was cursing whoever the Amazon gods were, whatever we got the cabinet from, because they didn't explain how to set up a latch and a hinge and I didn't have a flipping clue and did the instructions the wrong way around. So I spent the whole time trying to unscrew when I should have been screwing and then screwing when I should have been unscrewing. That was annoying. Yeah, there we go. I said to you just before we started, I wanted to rant about something. There we go. If nothing else, I know how to push people's buttons. What about you, Dan? Just pottering in the garden for me, living my dooly midlife crisis, which is quite fun. Yeah, I'm very much the same. I've recently got into barbecuing and smoking. As in smoking heat, as opposed to cigarettes. So I did beer can chicken all the weekend. I can see why you've got a full face, Mike. I feel like I give the Ben Affleck on the balcony energy, to be honest. Anyway, right. So we've got quite a fair bit of news to get through. So Powerdust has done a load of business this week, this weekend, last week. So we have re-signed Harry Millard. We've also got fresh signings in Dave Southworth, Ed Byrne, Joe Cowell. And in the coaching department, we've also brought in Johnny Goodridge. I can't read my own handwriting. So what do you make of the business so far? The one I know best is Byrne, to be honest. Very solid player. I can never remember. He was at Bristol as well, wasn't he? Both were at Bristol together, were they? And then he's got a brother, isn't he, that also plays. I made this up completely. Pretty sure he has. Yeah, he's a very solid player. He's not going to blow the houses down. But in terms of having a player that's going to be there pretty much all season, very consistent, I really rate it. I think it's a really good piece of business. I think he's a good scrummager, decent around the park. Yeah, he plays a good understudy to Don Machowski when Don Machowski's away with Wales or unavailable because of injury. Yeah, he wasn't at Bristol. Just Brian at Bristol. Ed must have visited. Yeah, Dr Spear's always a really good pick-up. You don't play 100 times for Leinster unless you're alright. And six Ireland caps, which it's very hard to break into loose heads. I almost feel like playing 100 times for Leinster is harder than breaking into the Ireland squad. But yeah, I think what Jocky said as well about experience and leadership and bringing a bit of that Leinster culture into Cardiff is important as well. Don't know a huge amount about Danny Southworth. I had a little look at his highlights yesterday, just on pure numbers on paper. Six-foot, 18 stone, converted number 8, 25. That could be a Ricky Carray sort of clone, really. I suppose he's a big ball carrier, massive prop. So numbers-wise, great. I think just from the few clips I saw, quite raw still. I think he's 25, but he's probably a bit younger in rugby terms, hasn't played a huge amount. So they'll probably work him hard with Mellon and Bubba and the new South African forwards coach whose name I can never remember in pre-season, and see how they go. But he's got two guys to learn from there, Indoma and Byrne coming in, which isn't a bad school to learn from, and coming from Exeter, which, like Leinster, is pretty good environmental culture there. So, yeah, don't mind that at all. And then Willard's solid sign-in won't have cost much as a winger available all season. Just hope that knee injury wasn't bad, because it looked painful as against Edinburgh, just the way it got caught as he was kicking it, and his knee bounced in all sorts of random directions. So, obviously, I think he's done knee ligaments once last season as well. His knee's only not long back from that. So, fingers crossed that's not too serious. But decent business. Don't know anything about Johnny Goodridge, by the way. CV looks all right. Worked with Jockey before, so, you know, as a skills assisting attack coach position, seems pretty solid. The two things that stood out to me is, one, as you pointed out, he's worked with Jockey before, so, you know, there's a bit of familiarity. So, that's all about, you know, always just help the coach. But also, you know, he's been quite close ties with them, Clifton College and the other one, Cwestridge, I think. He was at Cwestridge. He's from Hartbury as well. Yeah, so, having some contact... You know, he's probably got a few contacts there he might be able to, you know, give us some... And it also helps with the club's plans to sort of work with these institutions in England to sort of let them down like that, maybe sort of retain them on our books. So, I mean, that's sensible. So, not officially, but basically, the club have, sort of, confirmed, without officially confirming, that Thomas Young, Ben Thomas, said they're all still on the books. They've definitely got more seasons. Unfortunately, Thomas Young out for this, which I do believe we did cover last week, but I can't remember. But anyway, yeah, big loss. He's been very good for us this season, as he has since he's come over the sevens. So, yeah, I can't think... I believe the only other thing in terms of squad is Shane O'Shea's going a little bit further east? Yeah. We're just discussing it off the top of the... I'm pretty sure we had a chat about it before that that was a possibility. On paper, it makes sense. I know Dave Flanagan particularly likes a six that is good in the line-out and does that job really well. And I know Shane Lewis wants to play a lot more six. So, on paper, it really does make sense. And he's not getting the game time at six at Cardiff, so where can he get game time? So, yeah, on paper, it makes sense. Will he get the game time he hopes with someone like Woodman coming through? I don't know. You know, it depends. And I know this is possibly going to sound harsh and maybe shit. But, yeah, I lost you for a second there. But, yeah, I think... Apart from highly cutting me off, because apparently I... It's hard to take it too long. In short, it seems like a good deal all around. It seems to make sense. Yeah, so, yeah, anything you want to add to any of that, Dan? No, I just... I was listening to what Carwyn said about Owen Lane last week. It's a similar-ish thing with Shane Lewis Hughes, really, about whether he reached his potential. He was very good in that, what would it have been, sort of 1920 season, just before Covid. And then he comes back and makes a mark in the Autumn Nations Cup of 2020, when it was all behind closed doors. And then since then, he picked up an injury, Feb time, and, yeah, it just... He never... It's hard to say about potential, because, you know, do you have more potential than you actually reach, or as good as you reach is as good as you're ever going to get? But I think if he'd not got injured just after that Wales call-up and had kicked on and played a bit more test rugby, you kind of do half wonder where he would have got to. But when he came back from injury, Josh Turnbull was undroppable pretty much at six for us. And he's not... The problem Shane's got is if he's not starting at six, I know he's played a bit of second row for us, but he's not an obviously versatile enough guy to stick on the bench at sort of 20, in the 20 jersey, because if you lose your seven, you know, he's not going to slot in there. And second row, it needs must for us. I don't think you actually sign him as an obvious 4-6. So, yeah, ideal world with proper budgets, we keep Lane and Lewis Hughes and have a proper squad that's competitive, but we're not in an ideal world. So I think it's the right decision. Yeah, I think just touching on that thing on his ceiling, when he came as a squad, I'll take a lot of what Pivock said in the press with a pinch of salt, but he did used to compare him to Alwyn Jones in terms of work ethic and driving standards in training. And, you know, what, 100%, when he got this opportunity in a Wales shirt, he never let Wales down. I laughed when Dan mentioned the Australian Cup because I'd managed to scrub that name from my brain, to be fair, because it's such a horrible time. But in fairness, I think Shane was one of the bright sparks of that team, along with another player who hasn't really perhaps seen his full potential in a Wales jersey, in Jim Botham. You think of both, you know, the pair of them started against England, wasn't it, in that competition? And, you know, yes, there's all sorts of competition in the Wales back row, but they were 21-year-olds or 22-year-olds at the time, and you're thinking, hello, these guys could be in two or three years' time when Tips is perhaps moving on, as he has now, or perhaps then a couple of other players moving on as well, and Josh Navidi and things like that. Maybe they were going to be the next cow off the ramp, but it hasn't worked out in that sense, partly due to injuries, partly due to competition for places and selections and coaches and all sorts. But, yeah, I'm sure he's hoping that this is an opportunity to reinvigorate his career, and the way the Dragons have gone about business in the last couple of days, it looks a bit more positive than it has previously, so fingers crossed that it does so for his career. It does leave Cardiff potentially a bit short, though, in the back five forwards now. I know Jockey said this week that they're still working on recruiting, and it's all a bit up in the air, but I think for the first time in a long time, you look at our back row stuff, and we've got good players there still, like Botham and Mann are your sixes, with Donnell, Mackenzie-Martin and Fallah at our eight, but then you've only really got Thomas Young at seven, if you're classing Botham more as a 6-8. Then into the second row, they confirmed today that Seb's still there, but we're pretty sure that Teddy's contracted. Not really sure about Thornton, I'm pretty sure he is out of contract, but whether they've offered him a new deal or not remains to be seen. But across that, particularly second row and seven, I think we are probably lacking, ideally, three, maybe two players. We definitely need to look into bringing in a lock-in, possibly an out-and-out seven. I think Botham and De La Rua can play there, but in terms of senior fetcher, Young's your only real option there. Obviously, we know how attritional it is, as he departed with one working arm the other week. Yeah, another reason I'm laughing again, Dan, is because I saw on Twitter, I think you put out the other week, when Dan Edwards from Bristol... Dan Thomas. Dan Thomas? Why do I want to call him Dan Edwards? Dan Edwards. Dan Edwards is the last of the fetchers, basically. Dan Thomas, take him as well. This is a really piss-off game. Yeah, sorry, Dan Thomas, the Bristol seven, who, fair play to him, we're talking about a guy who, a couple of seasons ago, a lot of people were saying, maybe should be in the Wales squad, the way he was performing for Bristol, and was performing lights out, to be fair. Him and Thomas Young were probably two of the best sevens in the English Prem at the time. And... Yeah, you said something like, I kind of need a natural seven, and I remember thinking... Oh, yeah, we do. Yeah, it's weird to say, we should have one. Yeah, I was still thinking, no, but we've got Ollie Robinson, we've got... It's like reeling him off of my brain, I'm like, no, he's gone, he's gone. Yeah, it's bonkers. The interesting one is Dela Rua, you mentioned there. I know, having had a brief chat with him after Wales-Italy, he sees himself as a seven. Which is interesting, as you say, because I think, like you, he doesn't seem a natural fetcher. I thought it worked really well, the balance of that back row with Bedele and Morgan Morse against Italy. The back row balance worked really well with... Dela Rua doing some of the hard grunt work and sort of tackles around the legs and Bedele getting in over the ball. Funny enough, he ran past me the other day. I think he must live around here somewhere. But I do think... Yeah, I do see him as a bit more of a Botham-esque figure, which is someone who seems more comfortable in a six, hard-working six role. Similar to Shane, but in a slightly different mould. Again, it's more of a hard-working six as opposed to a line-out option six, plus the hard work that Shane does. It'd be interesting to see what they see with Dela Rua next season, if they see him as a seven or as a six. Probably not an eight, but perhaps. The only other name to mention is William Bradley is still technically employed by Cardiff, but I don't know if we want to start a... Hashtag where's William? It's been 18 months off now, I think, since he played. They don't even include him in injury updates when they do them occasionally now. It looked great when he was playing for the Rags and breaking into the first team a little bit, but you worry that losing this much time at this stage of your career is a bit of a killer, really. Yeah, considering we've just been talking about how it seems to have affected Lane and Shane with shoes and various other players, like Kombia as well, actually, over at the Dragons, it's... Yeah, it's a bit of a shame. Anyone from the Rags you think might be able to step up seven more years at all? I just think, you know, there's some good players in there. The Hud brothers have been really good this year for the Rags and, sure, more consistently good in the second row, but I just think, unfortunately for those guys, the gap is so big now, particularly for forwards, the sort of S&C jump. Yeah, in an ideal world you'd sign them on and give them sort of six months of just gym work and see where they are, but we don't have the luxury of signing players to go in the gym for six months and give them a go, so... No, I don't really think so, unfortunately. Yeah, the reason the EDC is coming in is because that gap is just too big for those sort of guys. Is... One player just jumped to my head, just because we were literally just talking about him now, Bedell. I'd be interested. The way he played against Wales-Italy... Yeah, I can't see Leicester letting him go in a hurry, to be honest, I think they've signed him up pretty long-term, they've made a pretty substantial financial investment in him when signing him. I don't know if you could get him on loan or something, even that would be interesting. I want to say he's been playing for Heartbury in the Championship quite a bit. I don't know if he's go in there as well as playing for Leicester, or if they've just loaned him out to the Championship team. Yeah, there's... That's not normally a Leicester feeder. Yeah, no, I don't really know where they go. It's normally somewhere like Nottingham, isn't it, for Leicester? Yeah, I don't know where they're usually, but it's definitely... 99% sure it's been Heartbury he's been playing for. Anyway, time Will Boyd back is my solution to that problem. Everything we bear if we get Will Boyd back. He's just a Twitter celebrity these days, I see him replying to all the Scarletts' tweets, slagging them off, basically, as his new four-time job. And all the more reason to bring him back. I don't know, Osprey seem to have an unusually high number of setters, maybe Nick one of theirs. Jack Morgan looks pretty happy. I'm so going to get some angry ones, that message in the morning. Last bit of news, moving on to the women's game. So, they have announced the Women's Under-26 Nations Summer Series. So, a bit similar to how the Men's Under-26 Summer Series worked last year. So, you play three rounds in July. So, on the 4th of July, Wales will be playing France, then England following a few days later in the night, and then on the 14th, they'll be playing the host Italy, as this will be based in Parliament. Which, if you're not, sounds like a really lovely couple of weekends if I could get the time off work a few days ago. Two weeks in Parliament. Gentlemen, thoughts on it? Good for development? I think one of you pointed out that, actually, they've got three non-Under-20s jokers, which seems a bit odd. Yeah, well, that was you, Dan, wasn't it, that pointed to that, and then I started ranting about it. It reminds me a lot of the Olympics and GB football team getting to have three over-23s, if anyone remembers that. Why? Is my main question. I don't quite get why. Just to clarify, this is the over-20s bit, not the series. Yeah, sorry. The whole idea of an under-20s summer series is brilliant. I've got no issues with that at all. I just don't quite get why you'd have three jokers in there. Yeah. As simple as that, I just don't quite get what it does for development. Because what do you do? Do you bring in 21-year-olds, 22-year-olds, in terms of props, perhaps, that could do with it in terms of their development years? Then I kind of understand it. But if you're talking about a 28-year-old full-back, why? It sort of depends who you bring in. If it's used for a front row of 20- to 24-year-olds who are still developing in the game, I get it. But if it's for something else, I don't quite understand the thought process. But that's my main rant on that one. I don't know if Dan feels the same or similarly or differently. Yeah, don't disagree with any of that. I can't think of a logical reason to include that off the top of my head, other than they don't think there's enough under-20s players or something. But it doesn't really make sense. Just from a Wales point of view, I just hope that the WRU resource it properly and put the effort into it. Obviously, we've got the under-18 regional competition, which seems to go all right, but can they expand that? Can they put a bit more resource into that so that we're properly feeding into those under-20s then and make sure these girls are playing properly from when they leave their under-18s and they're not getting lost in the hole? Obviously, the Celtic challenge you guys discussed last week will help with that. But I think there's still a risk that your 19, 20-year-olds don't play quite enough aside from this to properly develop by the time they're 21, 22 to be stepping up to senior professional women's rugby and Six Nations and stuff. So as long as it's part of the WRU's hopeful wider strategy to develop the pathway, then it'd be great for Wales. But I can foresee an unfortunate circumstance where the WRU sort of think, oh, that's great, they've done that for us, we'll just send a team off and they get hammered and it doesn't really matter then and it probably ends up harming us more than anything. Yeah, that's happened too many times in the past, isn't it, to be honest about it. Just to correct my own rant, it is three under-23s players. So it makes a little bit more sense. Especially if you're talking front rowers, front five, it makes a bit more sense. But yeah, at least we're not having, with all due respect to Charlotte Harries, I did have a small feeling we might have Charlotte Harries joining like Craig Bellamy or Ryan Giggs sort of join the ranks. But yeah, it does make sense a bit more. The only problem then is if you get like a 22, 23-year-old prop going up against an 18-year-old or 17, because actually 17s and 20s do have 17-year-olds, that could cause equal problems. But yeah, I think as long as it's used wisely. Maybe it's just, you know, maybe there are a couple of players who've been a bit injured, maybe not. And, you know, if they sort of say they can't have senior appearances or something, that might be a good extra caveat on it. Yeah, so... I was looking at the England women's squad, sorry, quickly. Maud Muir's 22, she could play in it. This is where you've got to be. Cecilia Tupelosto's only 20. Yeah, that's true. Maybe that's what we should do. Great, great idea. We're winning it. We're winning the whole thing. Literally just field her. She's coming at 12 as well. I'd just love to see her have one game at 12. It'd just be wonderful. And then, you know, might get a try score by her back then. Sorry, after I chatted with Jotty the other week about loving a ball playing 12, I've now got the image of him having to take Cecilia Tupelosto at 12 and just go, for fuck's sake, every week. Just looking at it. I want a ball played. There's this amazing, like, physical beast of a 12 we can pick. Yeah, but I don't want it. To be fair, I think she could do a job for Cardiff. If you want any more Wales rugby chat, just a quick plug for one of the other pods. So we're going to do a special bonus wrap episode tomorrow night. So me, Catboy Hugh Griffin, and Julia, who's basically big on women's rugby, we're going to just do a quick review of Wales, Six Nations, the whole government. Basically, it's probably going to end up being the same rant I said on here last week, but, you know, with less praise of Rachel Malcolm. Moving on, so one game for Cardiff Interest this weekend. That was the Premiership semi-final, for the Rags, up against Llanddowri. Dan, you watched this. I was barbecuing. I meant to watch it. I'm just worried. I'm terrible at this, and we had to get someone with Dan's expertise in to cover the Rags to help Cal win, so it's not all him. Yeah, Rags, I can't actually... Was it 34-13, I think, in final score? Something along those lines. The scoreline actually, I think, flattered Llanddowri a little bit. I thought the Rags played quite well. They managed the first part of the game really well, picked up a bit of a pointless yellow card, which probably should have been a red. I don't really know what Aaron Pinchas was doing, but he definitely throws a punch, but I don't think the TMO picked it up quite on the screen. It was literally a case of the referee walks over to the side and looks at a tiny monitor, like VAR, but worse. But, yeah, so they managed the yellow card period really well, scored a good try, Morgan Allen gets over some close range, and then Llanddowri have just got this ability to turn it on. I mean, they are so good for a semi-professional outfit. The sort of accuracy of their attack, their clinical edge, how they turn decent attacking opportunities into tries so regularly, and they just sort of... They scored twice in five minutes, and then Max Page scored an absolute pearler from the wing, and it just took the game away from us. But we were in it. We were in it for long periods. We defended really well, actually. Set piece was really good. It just didn't quite have that attacking edge that they did to turn a couple of half-decent breaks into tries. I'd love for the Rags to develop a pick-and-go game around the red zone, because we flick this ball away from the base at nine, and I have our attack every time, because we never look like we're going to catch it, or we're never really set properly to latch and drive. And we've got some really good players who can just pick and go. I mean, I back Morgan Allen of many ways, and he's like 35 metres to pick and go. But, yeah, it was a decent finish to what's become a decent season for the Rags. I don't know if it was yourself, Carwyn, who wrote the preview for Sporting Wales on the website last week, but Griff Rees mentioned in that just sort of what a tough old season it's been. They didn't know if they had a squad at the start of the season, and then I did some stats today for the season. They've used 68 players this season, the Rags, but only had 25 contracted semi-professionals in the squad, so you've got sort of 40-odd players there just dipping in. There's been 10 first-teamers, but none of them have really... I mean, you know, Willis Halaholo is on that list, as somebody who plays one game, so they've dipped in and out a bit. There hasn't been many academy players, because there's not really a senior academy this season. There's Cam Tyler Brocott and Lucas de la Rua and Adam Williams, and that's about it, really. And then I think it's 25 permit players they've had to use. They've used Cardiff Uni, Cardiff Met, Swansea Uni, Ponty and Merthyr, both had players in the 23 on the weekend, and we had loads of lads from St Peter's and St Joe's coming in as well from local Cardiff teams, which is a bit of a step up for those guys. So, yeah, just getting the team out on the pitch regularly has been a success. So to finish fourth and to push Tenderbury all the way in the semi-finals is a really good achievement, I think, and it leaves the squad actually quite well set for next season in the EDC. You've got a good core of young semi-professionals there. You can go through sort of Sean Moore, the Hud brothers, into Joe Williams at nine, Luke Pollock's been really good at outside centre, Derry Cross and Joe Goodchild in the back three. And then what will be a much better senior academy next season with, obviously, Harry Wilde will be a bit more available, and then we've got players coming in, Joe Cowell, mentioned earlier, is coming in as a tight end from Cardiff Met, and a bunch of the seven or eight lads who we announced are going to be senior academy members a few weeks ago from our under-18s, Tom Bowen and Steffan Manuel coming back. Olly Das from the Welsh Exiles programme from Hurst Pierpont College looks quite a handy winger slash full-back. So the squad should be in quite a nice position next season to kick on and be a little bit more reminiscent of the 2018, 19, 20, 21, 22 successful RAG squads that won Welsh Cups and Welsh Premierships. Yeah, basically, yeah, echoing what Dan said, and I'd probably go a bit stronger and say, I think Cardiff, from where they were pre-season, start of the season, over summer, I think they've overachieved. And I think that's almost bizarre to say when you think Cardiff have reached the finals season on season or been there and thereabouts, Cup finals, wins. Last season, obviously, lost out to Centre in the final last year, but I think you look at the start of the season, Ponty were going well, Potterpool were going well... Aberavon started, yeah. I don't know. I was going to say Aberavon started really well. Yeah, exactly. So you're looking at those teams and you're thinking, OK, it's going to be a bit of a bum fight really for Forth, and I think I use that term pretty much every week for about three months on this pod. But I think the situation that they've managed to get themselves into the play-offs, semis, and not been blown away by a very strong clandestine side, including some really experienced players, some players that obviously are playing professional rugby last season. For instance, you think of your Taylor Davises, you think of a couple of the other lads there, and then you've got really good academy prospects like Max Page, who I think a couple of the Scarletts boys are already losing their shit about, so this is going to be interesting going forward. And on the right, he looks like a good prospect. But I think, yeah, that interview that I did with Griff Rees was quite eye-opening when he said, I didn't know if we were going to have a squad at the start of the season. And he was just quite open about that. He's like, I didn't know where we were going to get players from. And I remember chatting to him at the end of last season about it and saying, what is the prospect? And if you turned around to him and said, what do you want to see happen with these players? If you ended up with four players that were in the Rags team last year in Wales jerks, you've then got people like De La Rua playing against Toulouse in the Champions Cup. I think he would be really glad to see that happen. But that also does reflect, as you said, the situation that they had pre-season, situations they've had during the season where they've had to find players because that level of 20 to 24-year-olds they normally go to, they're not there. So they've had to go elsewhere. They've had to use Cardiff Met, they've had to use local clubs. So, yeah, I really do think they've overachieved this season. So I think it's a really good achievement to reach fourth and not be blown away as well in the semi-final. I think it's a very good send every side that I'm going to finish second in the final. I'm going to throw my hand out of the limb, but that meatball sounded like tasty as hell. Just a word as well for Send every captain, Jack Jones, really nasty-looking neck injury late in the game. Totally innocuous, no malice in it, though he just carried into contact and the top of his head's compressed into his spine pretty much. A real shame that he won't leave them out next weekend as well because he's been a great player for them in the second row, but best wishes to him. Yes, absolutely, and Calvin alluded to it, so Boz will be playing Newport in the final. Boo! Just a natural reaction. Yeah, so what's looked like it should be a good game. I believe it's on SLC? Yeah, it probably will be. Do you guys have... I can't read my notes, I can't remember what I've written down for the kick-off time. Is it three o'clock again? They were 5.15 both last week, which is quite an S4C sport time slot on a Saturday evening. Yeah, it might be, I guess, maybe... Oh, even weirder, third BBC sport, which has been wrong before, 20 to 3. Ugh. 20 to 3? Pete must have moved it earlier, especially in time trouble, must be. Pinting in the streets. Fighting the tractors coming down. Extra time for feeding your sheep. That sounds bad, doesn't it? No, I... I've got to say, I only see that going one way, I really do. I think Newport are on such an upward trajectory, I don't... I don't know if we would have to batter Newport up front to get the win. And they can, they can do that, I'm not saying they can't. But the way Newport are playing out the back and everything else around Matt O'Brien, who will be available, he's assured me. It's going to be bonkers. I think they should win that. And I'm not going to say comfortably, but I don't think it'll be a one-sided win. I don't think it'll be a one or two-point game. I think it could be a one-score game, but maybe six or seven points. As I said, on the wrap, we did do predictions of this game. If you two want to throw them out, feel free, but I won't press you for them. Yep. What, for the final? Yeah. I can't predict a Newport win, I physically can't do it. So I'll ask you to say something to everybody. I've gone very strong the other way. There we go, there's your balance. Who said this couldn't be on the BBC? All right, so moving on to the senior side then. So Cardiff Rugby start their summer tour, not summer tour, their South African tour. I mean, given the weather the last couple of days, it's basically a summer. So we'll be playing against the Lions up at Ellis Park. Difficult place to go, managed to beat them. I'm personally not so confident. What do you guys think? I'm trying to work out if it's the worst time to play the South African side or the best time. Because you look at Scarlett's going down there at the start of the season, that sort of derailed their season. Highcourt's Dragon's season, I would argue, had already been derailed by not winning four of their first five at home, whatever it was. But playing them at this point in the season, I just get to the stage where you just go, do you really, what's the point? I know that sounds really horrible to say, but I do feel a little bit like that. At the end of the day, you're going down to South Africa, they've all got a lot more to play for. So they're going to play first teams. Lions are fighting for the top eight, they should get there. I personally don't see... I'd like to say a couple of points. I'd like to say a tri-bonus point or something, but I don't see much more than that. But I said the same thing about the Ospreys when the Ospreys went down there. So you never know, but I do see it as a case of yes, Cardiff have nothing to lose, but the other teams have a lot more to gain. So I think it's one of those situations where they're going down to South Africa in that situation. I think from a squad point of view, it's probably quite a nice time to go in terms of just two weeks as a group together, have a few beers out there. I'm sure we'll be relatively relaxed, I can imagine there'll be two of us. I don't think they've actually gone yet. I don't know when they plan to travel out, but it seems like they've been in Cardiff at the start of this week. So they're obviously not too fussed about getting out there too early. To be honest, until you said we were playing the Lions, I'd forgotten who we were playing. I knew we were in South Africa, but I didn't know which South African we were playing. So I thought I'll have a look at the league table. They're one place ahead of us, but 14 points ahead of us. We're in just our own league in the bottom five, which I'll claim we're top of. The other thing that strikes me about the Lions is that they've got a plus 89 points difference, which is mad for the 11th. That's the fifth best points difference, but they're 11th. They've scored 424 points, which is mad as well. So defence could take a battering on the weekend, and it might be quite a high scoring game, to say the least. I guess we try and score four tries as well and see how it goes. Plus 89 points, plus 13 tries. What a stupid stat line that is. They average 3.7 tries a game. We average 2.7. That is quite heavily inflated by the boxing budget. Yeah, that's true. I had a look at it a few weeks ago. It's something like they hammered it into the box. Bar that, they hammered dragons who went out there, despite having a red card early doors. They basically hammered the side they should have hammered, and the other side they've not lost by much. So that's why they've got the plus 89 points difference. I think that game is a write-off, and it's about not giving up. Having said that, the other teams have a lot more to play for. Shaft, obviously, all they've got to play for is for it to be a tune-up for the week after. I assume they rest players for our game. That's what I'm wondering. Do they send them out earlier? Do they think, we'll send some more top boys up to London early? If they come back, I don't know. I don't know if they think, they've been here three weeks, they need to come back for a couple of weeks. They don't really have much to play for. The best they can do is take our spot as 12th. The top of the bottom league spot. The top of the bottoms. Top of the bottoms. At least that's one thing for us to think about later. Your point about not flying out, I know they do say that because it would be at altitude. They either say, get there a week before. Or go the day before. I can never remember which of the African teams are altitude. Is this the big, big altitude one? The Lions one? I think the Lions and the Bulls are part and parcel, but I think Pretoria is marginally... Which one's the one that tells you how high up it is on the way? That's the Bulls, is it? The Bulls is the one that tells you it's massive, but I think Ellis Park is still fairly high. I think those two and Blomfontein for the Chiefs are all quite high up. And then Cape Town and Durban are pretty much sea level. Is it Ellis Park we're playing at? Yeah, Ellis Park. 1,724 metres. 82% oxygen. Sounds fun. Sounds a lot when you say it like that, doesn't it? 82% live. Sounds fine. Easy. If your blood sats drop below 95, they call the doctor. I hadn't realised that was the case either. Maybe we just don't go on Saturday. Maybe we just don't turn up. A 28-0 loss is actually quite disturbing. Oh, I'd better stop going down this route again. It reminded me of the horrible connotations of Champions Cup for doing Covid times. A 28-0 loss is better for us. Obviously, one team has beaten the Lions at Ellis Park. They did it quite uniquely. So, moving in more towards tactics. Lions like counter-attacking. So, we're just going to make them have the ball the whole time, so they can't counter-attack. I'm not sure we necessarily have the pack bill to do that for a full 80, but... We can give the other team the ball. We can give the other team the ball easily. We can do that every time we get the ball. Hey, we've got the ultimate jack-off threat in Team Mr. Beer. It's an interesting one. No one's expecting the 10th and the next ball. Even though they've seen him do it week in, week out, he still gets away with it. He will be very key, though, Tina, over the next two weeks as our resident South African now. Maybe that's why we signed him. They're going to be hard and fast-tracked down there. He's going to be used to kicking in those conditions and that's going to be a hugely kicking game out there. If he has good games, then we've put ourselves in with an opportunity, certainly. You'd like to think him going back to South Africa, he'd have a little point to prove of never making it to the pro and not quite making it to the pro sides there. I'd be keen to see him have two real stormers. A bit of a South African joke there. For 80 minutes. I was hoping that wasn't deliberate. There's the Munster tactic, there's the Ospreys tactic of performing well in the last 10 minutes and just running away with it out of nowhere. Obviously in the Challenge Cup as well. I don't think he's doing that. No. I was about to say, on record, that would be slightly out of character for Cardiff this season. I think, I said it already, bonus points for four tries is what you aim for and then anything else is a bonus. Pardon the pun. There we go. Come on now, Harley. I've explained so many things. The world's a bit dry. Yeah, I think it'd be interesting, as I said, season's right off. Jocky said he's going to try and go fully loaded. Well, that looks like there's so much I'm interested in. I'd like to see maybe a couple of players get chances just because it's been a lot of minutes for not a lot of players. Might be interesting at 12. Ben Thomas and his partner welcomed a son on Monday or Sunday, I think. I wouldn't like to ask permission to go to South Africa for two weeks immediately after my partner had just given birth, necessarily. So if he doesn't go, then I don't know whether, I mean, Halaholo is perhaps the obvious choice, but whether they could slot Abithym in there to give him a go or maybe even... I just nicked it off and it's Brady. Put Grady in like he did in that last Wales game and give somebody else a go at 13. Abithym's boot in South Africa would... Him and Tina's kicking together would be quite fun, pinning the opposition back, looking for a couple of 50-22s and all that. Abithym. Yeah. Yeah. On that, I think it could be quite likely. Yeah, I don't see it. I see Jocky just turning up old very keen and saying, it's not like he had the baby. He's not going to... That would be rather out of character for Jocky. So, yeah, I think if Ben Thomas isn't available, I'd go Abithym. Personally, I think like a lot of people, we're keen to see a bit more of him at 12. There's a lot of talk of him being able to play there. I think it's about time he's got an opportunity to start there. So I'm trying to think of the last time... I'm trying to think of the last time he started, actually, full stop. It feels like it's been a while. Six Nations period, probably. Lents for maybe or something. Yeah. Lents again, probably the last time he started. I think the only other time... Would he have started at Glasgow? I don't think we took Cam Wynnet to Glasgow. I think we might have left him at home on that game after the Six Nations. It might have been, yeah. I can't remember. I know he definitely played Lents for the game, because obviously that was in the Six Nations window. It feels a while. Maybe it isn't a while, but it does feel a long time ago. I think that's just more of a sign of how ridiculously fixtures are at this end of the year. Yeah, surely. It's a completely different rant, which could easily be fixed if we got rid of Europe and moved to Six Nations for the summer. What? Wait, no, I'm not doing unpopular opinions anymore. Any other points made about this game this summer at all, season in general? It would be nice to finish with a win at some point in one of these three games. Still, having lost out on that Edinburgh one, best chance probably the Sharks, to be honest. It would be nice to get the three-peat. Yeah. It was the Sharks who we absolutely battered there randomly a couple of years ago, was it? Yeah, last season, 3-5-0. Thank you, I've got to put money in the Wraps fine jar now, every time I mention that game. We've got a bit of form there. They'll have eyes on other things. I seem to remember our form falling off a little bit before we reached, before we got to the final in 2018. I think we went to South Africa and lost a couple of games and then lost to us, Brasier Judgement Day, when we didn't play anybody. So, yeah. I think there's... and the Sharks have been quite poor as well. I had the misfortune of watching that game against the Scarlets a couple of weeks ago when they bought everybody to park Scarlets and I didn't fancy them at all, to be honest, even with the quality they had on the pitch. I scored one or two nice tries but, yeah, I would definitely have fancied Cardiff on that night to beat them. So, yeah. The obvious concern about going to South Africa is that we might play a bit for the first half and then they'll go in a half-time and go, right guys, let's just bully them and just go very direct and start battering us off the park. I.e. the Edinburgh tactic. I.e. the Edinburgh tactic, yeah. I'm kind of glad I wasn't on the pod last week with Craig from Scotland because I think I would have annoyed him by just ripping in to Edinburgh about how boring I found it to be. Do you know what? Craig would have joined in with you because he is really fucked up. I'd rather lose than win like that, if I'm totally honest. But, yeah, that's always a concern. But if they go out and give it a good go and if they have a productive two or three weeks as a group in South Africa as well, I don't think that does any harm at all to culture building and relationship building ahead of the next season. I think it'd be nice to see if Dhanjothi tries to go with the squad that the squad or team he's looking like for the next season. I know we can't obviously do that. Some players aren't going to be around or whatever. And you can't just exclude his career because he's the leader next season because he's too good to leave out. But it would be nice to start seeing if Ben Thomas Grady is going to be our top 13. Let's give him another run out because, you know, I think the longer they play together, the more instinct they're getting and getting better at defending the 13 channel. I saw Gabriel Hamer-Webb put on Instagram that he's going out to South Africa. That would be... It'd be quite good to see him. Yeah, I assume he's registered because otherwise why would we take him? So, it's what he is. He's injured from the loan spell, I guess. He went back to Northampton for a bit. I don't really understand what happened. We signed him for next season but he's just been here the whole time anyway. So, I don't really know what his state of play is. But my assumption would be if we're taking him... Maybe. I don't know. Maybe Bath just needed the extra member in training or something for a bit. We've got... Millard's probably injured. Adams was injured for the last game. Don't know if he's back or not. And then Lane's obviously leaving. Summerhill sounds like he's leaving. So... So, Bangor's only just come back from... Why wouldn't you pick Hamer-Webb? On Summerhill, we probably should talk about that. It's the LinkedIn post, isn't it? Yeah, he's been shopping his highlight reel around the place and stuff. Same as Lane. It's the same as Lane and no issues to a degree. He's been a great player but budget cuts... He's 30 now as well which is weird to say. We're bleeding tarty backs out of our arses and we're struggling for sevens. What's going on? I really like Summerhill, just on it. I think he's a really good finisher. An underrated finisher. I really do think that he's always done a decent job and worked hard. I can't really fault him. Perhaps aerial stuff could have been slightly better if you're picking holes defensively. Could have been slightly better if you're picking holes. If he had an opportunity one-on-one against a fullback, I'd back him almost every time. I can only say good things, to be honest. I've always enjoyed seeing him whenever he got a run out of fullback. I always thought he did really well there. Brilliant finisher on the wing but I always thought he was quite sound at the back. Before we ended up bringing Liam Williams over and Paul Amos had an injury but him stepping up was really well done. Are you going to update your squad spreadsheet? Yes, I will. I'll bring it along at some point. Not many players who are unknown now. A couple up front, I think. We're still not sure about Daniel David Hughes, whether he signed one-year or two-year deal or what happens to him. Don't know about Kieran Parker as well. I'll bring it along in a couple of weeks. If things go dreadfully this weekend, we'll just gloss over the Lions game and I'll bring it along. One thing I forgot to bring up during the rights game, Rhys Lettrick's first game back, how would he look? Destroyed, to be fair. Won three penalties off the top of my head. He looked really good. I suspect that's a run out before heading off the South Africa job. I would imagine he'll be benching behind Azzurrati this weekend. I said he's been one of my signings of the season. Yeah. I think we'll go on to that sort of thing after Judgement Day. Do maybe a little power of 10 for rewards. I'll dust off the tacks. Where's my tacks? I'll put on something on my bottom half. Hey! There's an image. I think on that note, thank you all for listening. Thank you very much Dan and Calvin for joining me on my incoherent rambles. I was just going to mention Rhys Bloomberg. Ignore that last bit. Edit the last bit out. I slightly put my hand up and then put it down again. There's a raise hand thing on this Zoom monarchy. That's one of the positives about using Zoom. I just wanted to mention it because I had the opportunity to interview him last week and I thought he's been Cardiff's CEO for a couple of years and he said he's been part of Cardiff for 13 years. He's left three or four times. Part of that interview I thought he spoke really well on Cardiff this season. Not saying he deserves all the credit or saying he doesn't but he spoke about the messages that they've sent out as a club, as a company, as a region and I thought it was spot on about the positivity that they've tried to convey with the youngsters coming through. They knew there was a good crop of youngsters with Alex Mann, Mackenzie Martin, Evan and Cam Winnett coming through and they knew they were going to be a positive thing to rally the fans around, rally the troops, everyone around that culture and I think that's a really positive thing that's come from this season is how well the messages have been coming from Cardiff throughout the season. I've really enjoyed it, really taken pride in it to be honest. A Welsh region has done that so well. Hopefully as for the Dragons, I know that there will be arrivals but hopefully in the future you can have a similar influence on them because it's not been a positive place for several years so hopefully it can be in the future. Congratulations on a brilliant 13 years of service at Cardiff and all the best for the future for him. Anything you want to add Dan? No, that covers it nicely. Top bloke, good appointment with the Dragons. When you say hope he has success, not too much success against teams in room black preferably. I still want them to win one in 14 but as you said, the easiest way to get a region popular is for them to perform well on the pitch but if they're doing that, his job is to improve it off the pitch and I hope that goes well for him in the future. Anything you two want to plug? Anything on Rugby life or on Sporting Wales? Probably should be, I'm trying to think. That's your actual livelihood don't you? I'm just waffling on Twitter. I don't think I've got anything for this week. I will be doing the obligatory end of season look back at the season and trying to come up with a team of the season combined and all those sort of things. The fun things that you stick out on Twitter and get everyone to debate and shout at you for. I'm looking forward to that. Many people I can annoy and then I'll have a look back at Cardiff season and try and assess it because I think it's going to be a difficult one. Probably the hardest of all the four regions to describe really in a way because stats aren't positive but everyone seems positive. It's quite a weird juxtaposition of two different thoughts and trying to convey that in writing when you're perhaps not trying to what's the word mollycoddle? No, I'm not. Sugarcoat. Pardon? Sugarcoat. Yeah, not trying to sugarcoat what has been statistically not the ideal or best season I think. That's a fair assessment. What about you Dan? Anything stats wise we've got to look forward to or anything else? I've started deep diving the new signings so whack a couple of threads up on them at some point. Some old Danny Southworth clips. Just plodding along just waiting for the end of the season. To be honest, this is the longest season running I'm ever going to ever remember. We've been on the running for six months already and there's still a month to go. Again, it's just too long. Things need to be moved around. It's the player match week off, play two matches week off. I'm sure the greatest team was actually competing in Europe but that's to be fair, that was never happening in the Hurricane Cup group we were in. Anyway, right, so it's now time to finally say thank you to my co-host Dan O'Carwyn. Thank you Dan. Thanks. Thank you all for listening. Good night. Thank you for listening to the Cardiff Central podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. 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