Details
Nothing to say, yet
Comment
Nothing to say, yet
Listen to Cardiff Central with Andrew Forde by WRRAP Pod MP3 song. Cardiff Central with Andrew Forde song from WRRAP Pod is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 01:29:14. This high-quality MP3 track has 519.616 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 4 Dec 2023. Stream and download Cardiff Central with Andrew Forde by WRRAP Pod for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
The hosts of the Cardiff Central Podcast are joined by guest Andrew Ford. They discuss the recent concussion case in rugby and the lack of information on its impact on the women's game. They also address the issue of abuse towards referees, with Ben Whitehouse being a recent target. The hosts emphasize the need to support and protect referees to ensure the quality of the game. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Cardiff Central Podcast. Once again, it's me, Harley. I'm joined as always by Colin. How are you doing? Yeah, not bad, mate. Not bad at all. Excellent. You thawed out for the weekend? Yeah, I was going to ask you that question, but I had four layers on. I was staying as warm as possible. I was quickly in and out of the media room, but I don't know about you on the terraces how that was. I'm sure I've left a few toes out there and I just haven't had a chance to count. But enough about me. I'd like to introduce our guest this week, a man I'm very excited to speak to, being an absolute fan of his videos. And as Progressive Rugby have stated, one of the few people who knows not only how to entertain fans, but crucially make the game appeal to new audiences. And that is Mr. Andrew Ford. Thank you for coming on, Andrew. How are you doing? I'm very good, thank you. That's a lot of high praise to start the podcast with. So thank you to Progressive Rugby for saying that. But yeah, I'm very good. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me on. Looking forward to a chat about all things Cardiff. Yeah, very exciting to have you on. Were you at the game on Saturday? I was indeed, unfortunately. I did manage to wrap up reasonably warm, so I wasn't too cold and managed to sneak a few pints in before. So I had a nice little, wasn't too chilly. I didn't have any gloves or anything, so I did have a pint on the terrace at one point and that wasn't ideal. But yeah, not the best game to have watched, I'm going to be honest. And the important question, North or South? I'll get a lot of stick for this, but North Terrace. So before we go into the game, because I frankly quite happily delay talking about it as long as possible. Any news that's come across your desk, Colin? Yeah, a few things, obviously. I think we'll start with the CTE news, the concussion case that's going on with several players suing different unions. Several of them have been named. You can find them on any outlet and obviously that's been a bit of a back and forth on social media. I think it's a difficult one for all those and obviously I think I speak for all three of us when I say I've thought to go out to those players and families that are affected by this, because it is a horrible condition that affects so many players, past and present, and probably, let's be honest, by the future, as distressing as that might be. But yeah, it's been a bit of a difficult week for all concerns. I think some players weren't aware that they were going to be disclosed to the media and that's been difficult for them as well, on top of this diagnosis. So that has been a really difficult time for them. But yeah, I suppose all we can say is that we support all of them and hope that they find a way of managing this condition. Yeah, absolutely. Anything you want to add to that one, Andrew? No, I just completely agree. It's just kind of so sad to see the amount of players who have been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable CT. It's just horrible to read, really. As they've already been in, they've already come out on the pod, progressive rugby have been doing an awful lot of this, sort of championing this. It's not all about just trying to get a fat paycheck. It's about changing the game to protect players and almost a truth-finding thing to find out what was known. There are numerous pods that I've gone over. One of the latest names to come out is Andrew Coombs. I think the most frightening thing about that is how young he is. We've had players in their 50s and 60s and even in their 40s. Be it late 30s, it's still getting very close to modern rugby. A lot of the claims about this being an issue with the older generations is not really there. It's starting to become a lot worse. I think something that came out earlier last week as well was the lack of information we have about what impact it could have in the women's game. There aren't a lot of studies to start off with, but the studies that have been made, there's evidence to say that women may have weaker neck muscles and different factors could contribute to increasing effects of concussion or anything else. It's definitely a concerning space for the future. Hopefully, more research can be done. When he mentions progressive rugby, anyone who needs to know anything about it, contact them. They know Chapter and Bird, John Fairclough, Paddy Spock. Both of them have done some study work in this area and can certainly help you out in that if you want any more information. I feel like we're going from bad to more bad now. What else have we got? I wasn't sure when we were going to talk about this because we were all there on Saturday and we saw Ben Whitehouse getting a bit of grief. Andrew, you said that he was getting more grief from the Scarlett side than the Cardiff side on the weekend. Yes. On the field, it happens and to some extent you can understand that, but when it's taken to private messages and in the case of Tom Foley, private messaging and death threats, that is just beyond the pale, frankly. I haven't got other words. It's despicable or whatever you want to call it. It's horrific. He's decided to step away from the game as a direct result of that. It's not the first case. Wayne Barnes has commented about it. Ben Whitehouse himself has commented about it. Owen Farrell has commented about it and taken a step away from international rugby. In short, watch what you say because these are people, first and foremost. They have families. They have people that care for them and people that they want to care for as well. Messaging them and messaging their families and stuff like that is just despicable. Just don't. There's just no other way about it really. On the terraces, I think Andrew said that when Scarlett's fans were saying that they were playing against 16 on the weekend or something like that. That's part and parcel of it, but when it gets to private messaging, it can get a bit... It's just vile, really. Yeah, I don't want to take all Scarlett's fans under that brush. It was just a couple next to me, but yeah, absolutely. I completely agree, especially there's a sense of irony in the fact that these people are messaging the referees with a load of abuse because they think the referees aren't of a good enough quality, but in the long run, by doing that, you're kind of taking away the good referees and discouraging people from getting into refereeing. So it's this whole circle now where referees are going to be put off getting into the game because of the amount of abuse they're getting and the quality is going to get worse because of the lack of amount of refs. I know there's a massive problem with that in a community game as well. Just not enough refs want to ref community rugby because they can't put up with the abuse. And so it just seems that something's going to have to change at some point to stop this, really, because it's worrying that both Wayne Barnes and Tom Foley were involved in the World Cup final. So that's half the refereeing team gone now, which is pretty shocking. It's only been just over a month. World Cup final, I wouldn't say there was that many incidents. It's not like it was... No. Okay, that's actually not true. It wasn't a lot of incidents, but there weren't any that I would say that I would say, oh, that was a horrendous decision or anything. It was just, yeah, you get two opposing fans wanting to rip into them for whatever happens and, yeah, sadly that's what happens. That needs to change. Absolutely. Especially as it's one of those things, I think, a lot of people who, particularly on X and Facebook and now on Blue Sky, talk about this. A lot of the people who I find really, really care, I'm not saying people who moan about referees don't care about rugby, but a lot of the accounts I follow who love rugby, they find the referee chat probably the most horrific, boring part of the whole thing, because people would much rather be talking about how a try was scored and how defence was going. Andrew's videos of seeing the top 15 best miss drop goals turning into tries. We want to see the stuff that is about the players, not necessarily about the referees. They always say a good referee shouldn't be noticed all game. We get these situations where two top-class referees, there's every chance that Wayne Barnes was going to call it a day at the end of the World Cup final anyway, because sometimes I feel like the World Cup final is almost a thing of saying, it's a bit like getting your own barbells going. It's a thank you for your service, go out on a high, and so on and so forth. But Tom Foley's still a fairly young guy. I think he's actually one of the best. I know when Wayne Barnes and Luke Pearce are getting all applauded, I find him an incredibly good referee. I find him very clear and precise. He might not be very pally, he might not be the one who sort of, might not be as jovial as others, but I find, I always understand where his decisions are. And for me, that's all I want from a referee. I want to understand, as long as I can understand what he wants from a breakdown scrum or whatever, that's great. But yeah, the abuse, I get a lot of the criticism Ben White has, particularly because I do feel like he's, I mean, he's an ex-scrum off, of course he's going to be quite showy and quite theatrical. But yeah, I find him actually a very competent referee. I think, well, he's certainly a lot better than when he first started out where he seemed very unsure of himself. I thought his time when he basically pretty much only did TMO work, you know, he's come back and he's starting in the middle a bit more. I find him a lot better. I like him to have rewarded jackal penalties a bit more. But I mean, that seems to be the way the game's going, where that's becoming, you know, it's definitely more leaning more towards the attacking team. And that in itself, I think is an interesting thing of how the focus, because every breakdown there's going to be a couple of penalties. You could probably take three out and find, you know, find an excuse for cards in all of them. I think any Ospreys fan watching the weekend would have said the same thing. I don't know if you've seen that last phase, but the amount of times they've got their hands on the ball and they'll get rewarded. I'm sure the EV will be commented on that. I said, yeah, I mean, it's just, I'll admit, I'm one of those people who will join in on the services and I will boo every decision against Cardiff. Because for me, I'm just booing, it's just making the atmosphere, it's bringing the theatre to try and put pressure on free. But then I don't go home from the game and think, do you know what I need to do? I need to threaten a man's wife and kids. Yeah. Like, I think if you, if that, if you, your reaction to what is intimately a game where not even the ball makes sense, to go and start threatening the lives of people, there are people out there who can help because, you know, your priorities will be slightly different. Yeah. You can't, I know I was utterly distraught by the end of that game, but at the same time, at the same time, I was still getting into the car and I was going to go see my suit and shawl. It's, you know, you know, prioritise those many more important things than rugby. Yeah. I say that as someone who is currently in a room surrounded by rugby jerseys and I've got some match programmes. I've got some, actually, I've got one good thing from the weekend. Zoya, Steve, who was on last week, handed me a copy of Bleddon. I've only had a quick look through. Absolutely fantastic. Yeah. I'd recommend anyone gets it. I got it as an early, sorry, I got it as an early Christmas present from my partner. So from my partner, I should stress, by the way, I didn't, I didn't force it on her. I can highly recommend it. It's a great read, really educated, really historical read, but also fun. And I think that's, that's part and parcel, isn't it? We're in the entertainment business and it's an entertaining comic talking about something that happened 70 years ago that is, is exciting to read. I want to, I want to limit, can you show us a bit of real page turner and all that jazz, but also has the historical references at the back end of it as well, with information on all the players and stats and facts and figures, whatever you want from it. It's got everything. It's perfect. I feel that's a sort of nice booster from some serious chat. So speaking of the stupid game, that doesn't make sense. The ball doesn't make sense. So on Saturday, we went down 23 to 29 against the dear rivals, the Scarletts. So that's the third game on the spin. They, they've beaten us at cap and third game overall. What are your, I've had a horrific rant on rap. Please listen to that. I've been told I'm not positive enough on this part, so I'm going to try and be positive later. What are your, what are your takes on it? I think I really like look back and think the fact that we went 14-0 up so early and then conceded that try almost immediately after was the kind of, basically set it up really. But to go 14-0 up that quickly and two, two lineouts where we went, we threw to the back, which considering how bad we are at the lineouts, usually that was bravery to go for that and both paid off and who knew we'd actually have a functioning more for that first try. But then, yeah, Willis to fall off the tackle of Johnny Williams' break was, I just, it almost just completely crushed the momentum I thought. And then from then on we were kind of playing catch up and then obviously the red card happened. I can't, I can't really have any complaints about the result in the long, looking at the big picture. I thought once again, it was a Yohan Lloyd show, which wasn't far off that in the reverse fixture, which is always a bit of a kick in the teeth when he's a Cardiff boy. Two planned powers on this pod this week, which is good to have. So yeah, big up G-Tab on, I cringe actually, I don't like saying that. But yeah, I think that 14-0 up is the important thing that the word that was used a couple of times in post-match interviews was complacency. And Josh Adams talked about it. He said, after 20 minutes, I thought we'd beat them by 50. I thought the game would be done by halftime. And now I'm not, I'm not saying this on Josh Adams solely, but he was talking about a culture in the team where they started doing things that were just, you know, the way they got into a 14-0 lead was kick to the corner, driving wall, try. Kick to the corner, fake a driving wall, pull out, and then score in the far corner with Cam Winner. They then go to some cross field kicks, which, okay, one of the Thomas Williams ones, if it comes off as beautiful, but in the end it lands in Johnny Williams' hands, fine. The other one, okay, he's off penalty advantage, you can kind of excuse that. But there's a lack of structure there. There's also the odd missed pass that possibly doesn't need to be a missed pass. That was something that Jockey called out. It was like, you know, we were sending floated out passes to the wings that didn't need to be. But in the end, it was a case of lack of concentration straight after scoring. Andrew mentioned it there. It's conceding a try, so wait, there's a penalty in the second half straight after the penalty, conceded a try with Steph Evans that, I don't know about you guys, but we in the media were just chatting like, oh, I can't get back in this, and then all of a sudden Steph Evans is running in in the corner. And you're like, how's that happened? Which was actually really difficult to write about. But that seemed to be the way that the game was going. Yeah, frustrating again, but I think there are a lot of positive thoughts to take from the game that I'm sure we'll talk about as we go on. Yeah, absolutely. Any other highlights or lowlights you want to bring up, Andrew? I thought it was nice to see how players like Kieran Hazard-Arpy, I thought, played really well. But at the same time, there's almost a bit of a frustration that I kind of saw the front row we had. And we did get the upper hand on the scrum, but didn't kind of make that count enough, I thought. You know, to think a few years ago, if someone told you Kieran Hazard-Arpy would be dominating Wynne-Jones in the scrum, you wouldn't believe that now. But it almost just seemed kind of inevitable with the way Kieran Hazard-Arpy's been playing recently, especially. And first game back for a while, I thought he played really well. So I had nice little positives. I thought Thomas played quite well as well. I thought one thing I kind of noticed was in the lead-up to the first starlet's try, well not even the lead-up, Tina Sabir goes for a tackle on Johnny Williams where he completely no-arms him. And I think if that wasn't a try, that's getting checked and he's getting yellow-carded. So it's kind of probably a penalty try as well. So he was very lucky with that. I don't really know what he was thinking because he committed very early on Johnny Williams as well by going for the no-arms tackle. So it was kind of an inevitable try there. But yeah, we've definitely got the building blocks there, I think. But with the way that scarlets played last week against the Ospreys, you just think we should be winning those games, especially at home. So there's a big, big element of disappointment from that really. Yeah, again, that's a spot-on assessment to be honest. I think with Harley, you were a bit more pragmatic before the game, but I said something like, scarlets by 15 points. So the way scarlets played the week before, I thought they were really poor. The front dominance, yeah. You know, talking a front row with two internationals that showed they were internationals, Indonesia and Asperatti. And Teddy, I thought, played well, okay. Had his moment where he's trying to do something clever but doesn't quite do it with the off-side penalty, which I won't bore too many people with that. But yeah, I think there were some daft penalties given away again. That's maybe another thing, the late hit from Sev, that was a bit of one that you're going to regret. But overall, you look at that front five were dominant up until, you know, I've still read cards where that changes the scrum dynamic. The back row I thought were pretty dominant as well. McKenzie, well, McKenzie Martin, what a run in the second half. You know, it was probably a couple of inches away from having a dream starting debut with a try as well. So, but then again, those are the tight margins, you know, you don't. But if he scored that try, I think Cardiff would win the game. I really do. I think that was one of those political coin moments that gives Cardiff the confidence to think, okay, we can still win this. If Cardiff scored that with 14 men coming from behind, I think they'd see it out. But he had a really good game apart from that. Yeah, I thought he was great on his first start. I thought Cam Winnett was imperious backfield again. So I went to the game. So you can see the vlog of it on the RAP YouTube channel, which, you know, we're at 74 subscribers now. So please subscribe, please like, subscribe and share with your friends so we can get some stuff. But, you know, so me and Hugh were there and Hugh was just like, has he got magnets in his hands or something? Because he just seemed to always, like, you know, he would be, he chased his own kick. And in the time it's taken for the scout to kick back, he somehow was back in the backfield ready to either field the kick or run it back, you know. One thing that I think people are saying is, yes, we only lost by six. But a large part of that is because you only miss six points from the team. And, you know, like, let's put it, you know, it's two tries to five, you know, and it did seem complacency that it seemed like we stopped playing that for the first 10 minutes. There was a bit in the second half to get us back in the lead where we, you know, we made it, you know, we tried to compensate for having one less player by just going in, by dragging the scouts into a kicking duel, which I know is not what people who go down to the hour's pot want to see Carlos doing. But Scarlet's are really bad at kicking and it's the way you beat them. And it looked like that, you know, it wasn't going to be pretty, but it was going to be the way to hold them back. And then we sort of got into the lead and they were like, oh, we're in the lead again. That's fine. And then again, we're letting in that quick try. And I think the thing that frustrates me so much is because of last week, the week before against the Stormers, we, you know, we were a lot more on it in defence, we were a lot more in the game. And even though I'd say maybe at times we looked worse in attack against the Stormers, the effort was there on the other side of the ball. And that seemed to be missing a bit for me. I know I'm going to get slated for being negative, but I think when you're talking about two regional sides, you can't use the excuse of, oh, we haven't got the money. You know, we haven't got the, you know, we haven't the feel the captain has. So have the Scouts. Yeah, right. They might have a couple of more internationals, but one of the internationals is Wynn Jones the Shadow himself. And most Scouts fans will admit that as well. It's, it's just frustrating. I mean, Jockey himself said, you know, he saw Saturday's game, Benetton and the Bulls as games we should have won. Not could have, should have. And we've missed out. I mean, my big complaint last year was that games where we could have, you know, we were in the fight and we could have won or maybe even should have won. We then tailed away in the minutes and, you know, we lose by eight or eight, nine, 10 points. Whereas now we're, you know, at least finishing within seven and picking up losing bonus points. And that's going to help us towards the end of the season when we're sort of weak from the chaff. But I do feel like we, you know, we keep talking about how our fixtures are running. You know, Scarlets at home should be a game we win. I know it's one we frequently don't. If you look at, look at the history of particularly the last 10 seasons, but it is one we should win. And it's, I said, it is one. I've been, I was that annoyed by the whole game. I just went, I'm not, I'm not doing social media. I'm not doing rugby on Sunday. I'm not catching up on any games. I'm just going to have a day with the kid and we're going to have, you know, just to spend time because I needed a calm down. And mostly defrost to be honest because it was bloody cold. It says something when I'm opting for a cup of tea over a pint. Yeah. I, I think, I think that is some, some way that I think Cardiff are like the opposite of Benetton at the moment. They went again by five. They don't win by more than seven, but they're just pragmatic, get the job over the line. And Cardiff are just not doing that at the moment. And that's, that's, that's where the frustration lies, but we want to talk about Ducalgate by the way, because you've sort of skirted around it. I don't think there's much to a gate icon in my opinion, but that's, I'll let you two boys discuss it first, maybe. Yeah, I'll just, I think at the time I felt a bit annoyed with it. As in, I tried to argue that it was a yellow card then actually watching it then back after it was a clear cut red card. The only thing I would say is that I thought Ben Whitehouse's description of it is that he just picks him up and then discards him is a bit harsh because I know that Dan Davis's jump isn't enough of a jump that it's like, he's, you know, being tipped over kind of, but it's very difficult for someone to have control of someone who's doing a bit of a hurdle like that. And I think it's, I kind of compared it to the Sam Kane red card in the final that Jesse Creel's clock that kind of Sam Kane's in an awkward position, runs at him and Sam Kane just doesn't have time to adjust. It's a clear cut red card. It's unfortunate, but it's a red card. And I think that's the case with Alice Jenkins. It's unfortunate he's found himself in that position. I think he just got up from making a tackle as well. So he's kind of in a position where he's coming so much lower than he probably usually would if he was stood upright. And so just completely loses control and kind of hits him the way that he does into the ground. I think, yeah, realistically in hindsight, Whitehouse had no choice but to give a red card. I'd agree, for my defense. It's a tackle that I got straight away when I saw it while I was on my feet. I was like, oh, he's in for it. Because it doesn't, it looks worse actually live. You know, some of these look worse. I think that one looked worse live because it is, it was such a, it was at such pace because it had just been offloaded. Bang, bang, bang. And Ellis is obviously jumping up, jumping here, there and everywhere, trying to commit, trying to tackle all six guys at the same time a bit later. But he just gets it wrong. The line has been shedded around as everywhere is. He's not that sort of player. I think we all know. I think he was his first red card in a certain senior rugby or senior professional rugby that we've come across. But he's got it wrong. He's not that sort of player, yes. But I can't, I can't really disagree with the interpretation. I see Jockey side of it a bit where he's talking about post-match that a number of those, if you don't land on your head, sorry, if the tackles player doesn't land on their head, it doesn't tend to be a red card. However, I actually feel in this case, the speed of it, how violently it ends up being, not saying it was a violent act, but how violently he falls. I think it is, I think it's a red card. And I agree with the interpretation, to be honest. I'd be a hypocrite if I said, as I've said on this pod and on the wrap, that with the whole, you know, I can't remember who the player was who tipped them. It was Prothrow, wasn't it? Yeah. Was he Prothrow or Luke Morgan? Luke Morgan. Luke Morgan. And I said, you know, like, if the only thing saving you is player self-preservation, then, you know, it should be a red. I don't think, I mean, they're not the same, I would say, because he does land on his shoulder first on his head. But I do feel like Ennis, I know he's not, you know, he's probably not in the control he'd like to be in that one, but it's still his responsibility to make sure Dan Davis gets down on the ground properly. I feel like shoulder with incidentals to the head isn't good enough. At the time, I thought it was, but I mean, you know, it's seen on the, you know, being in the South West Terrace and trying to look down at the screen, you know, in these terraces, you know, it's really hard to see where the point of contact is. I've seen it since. I said on the wrap, I could have seen this, I wouldn't necessarily be happy, but I could see why you'd give it a yellow, but I have no complaints it's a red. It's one of those where I can't argue it. Green. Normally I wouldn't, I wouldn't say it necessarily, I wouldn't say it directly changed the game in the way of the fact that we've lost one of our best turnover guys. In a game where we're struggling to get over, we need someone who can cleanly get the ball away. Losing Ash Jenkins, particularly without having an out-and-out seven on the bench, we struggled with that. But, you know, then there's the breaks. I do feel it's unfortunate, but it's still red. I think he'd have been lucky to get a yellow, that he was lucky to get a red, if that makes any sense. Yeah, I think that's fair. One area I do think it had a huge impact on the game is the amount of space it gave you and Lloyd. Because, well, I was trying to work out, Andrew, did you ever play with your aunt? Yeah, no, I did in school. He obviously was quite good, so he played a year of it. So I'll actually, I'll say a little anecdote. I remember one time he came on for us and the opposition fly half was quite a big bloke and Johan at that time was quite small. And they kind of chuckled when they saw him come on. So they sent their fly half straight down towards him and Johan just picks him up and dumps him. So that's a good anecdote. But yeah, I played with him probably a few occasions in school, but that's about it. Yeah, as soon as he knows running is best, that's big deal as well. Yeah, yeah. It's not a surprise he's a professional, just put it that way. And it's just such a shame that, like I said before, against Cardiff, a Cardiff boy, a Glantard boy, producing that sort of performance in Cardiff, because he played very well in the reverse fixture as well. But to come to Cardiff and play that well was, yeah, not easy to take. Yeah, he did play well. I thought Gareth Davis played well in a very different way as well. But yeah, it was, I think that's what we said, wasn't it, Arnie, the week before, wasn't it, that they had individuals that could break the game and we pretty much named them with Johan and Johnny McNichol and along with Johnny Williams, to be fair, who did that, a very good game. They did a job. Yep. I need to stop giving him stick because whenever I give him stick, he always ends up having a fantastic game the next week, even if I don't serve him with a bag of bones and ruts tonight. Yeah, I mean, Scarlets have some absolutely proper game-breaker players and all of them were on the song. And, you know, it's hard to stop them going forward when they're in moves like that, particularly when you're down a man and when you're not necessarily firing shots yourself. But I think there are some things, like the set-piece is better than it ever has. So, you know, that is a positive. I don't know if that's just because the Scarlets are strolling so much of the road and they weren't really focused on trying to do anything to us. I think Cam Winnet is just... Cam Winnet is an international-class player. He just is. Like, he just looks a cut above a lot of the rest out there. Yeah, I said I thought Weisserfiete was always possibly one of the best overseas signings out there. Yeah, so I just left the game being quite deflated. I said I don't know how I'm having to talk to Nick. Like, dealing with Hugh's not so bad, he's quite an energy, but then I had to chat with Lee for an hour and a half and then Simon Williams talking as well. So I had two Scarlets gloating about it just over an hour ago. So it was a bit of a hard Try listening with us. Yeah, I said that's the Weiss. Although I think that's more because she was a halfpenny fan more than the Scarlets fan. I said Les, do either of you have anything else you want to add on to Saturday's game? Not too much. I think everything's been said from my point of view. Not on Saturday's game as a whole, but maybe looking back on the block. Maybe do a block review in a bit, because I said that's part of the reason I wanted to get Andrew on, is to talk about his many, many wonderful videos. So I said I'll just kick off. I'm sure Karen will have a few questions as well. But what made you decide to start the channel and to make all these wonderful compilation videos? Well, thank you very much for the kind words. Essentially, I was, it was about 2017. So I was in stick form at this point. I was around when Alex Cuthbert was getting a lot of stick by Wales fans. And I think it wasn't too far before the 2017 Six Nations. And he got called up to the squad and he was getting all sorts of stick. And I've kind of dabbled with like making videos before. Like just if you actually go on my YouTube and look at the oldest videos, there are some quite cringe old videos of me when I was like 10 and various like side shows and highlights of essentially nonsense. But I started this with, I just made a video of Cuthbert's best bits and probably didn't take me too long to make, posted it. And then within a day, it got like a thousand views, which to me at the time was just absolutely incredible. And then the next day I was in, I was just in school and went into the bistro and someone went, oh, you're on Wales online. I was like, what are you on about? Like, oh, yeah, your video is made an article on Wales online. So kind of my mates were then just encouraging me to just carry on. And so back then I would literally just, I remember like on a Tuesday, I just wouldn't have a lesson until about 12 o'clock. So my goal would be to wake up, do a video and then get it posted. So I was only doing like one video a week and then it just kind of built from there. Somehow people enjoyed it, which was a surprise. And yeah, I just carried on doing it all through sixth form or for university and still doing it now. Yeah, I see. Wonderful. So I said that I still love your little series about you in there in France. Of course, we didn't get a chance to meet you. But for the air gaming, but yeah, yeah, I said, you know, I find them great, great background. I'll be over there going through some data and work and I'll just put on like, you know, quick tackles or this, you know, or fantastic tries or, you know, weird ways to score tries. When it comes to, you know, there's some obvious ones that, you know, people think of are best tries, big hits and stuff. But when it comes to picking like some of the more new ones, like 50-22s, which, you know, some people might not actually like. I think it's a great idea. What makes you decide when, what topic you're going to build the video around and to which clips particularly you're going to look into and to include? So essentially, some of the videos will be like prepared like a year in advance. So like at the moment, I'm doing the best of 20-23 of various moments in rugby. And like in January last year, I was like bookmarking and making notes of good tries. So that kind of in some ways, 12 months in the making. But some videos are, well, just literally realize I haven't got a video done for tomorrow. What could possibly be good? And sometimes it can be as simple as I'll be watching a game of rugby. I think one of the videos I did was like funny sideline moments. I was watching that Osprey sale game where Sam Cross had the green whistle and was pretending to act high. And I just thought, oh, that's funny. How do I get that into a video? And then it just kind of built from there. So it's very odd how it kind of works. But with like the 50-22 video, for example, to kind of find the exact type of 50-22s, I will literally just search on Twitter 50-22. I try and follow as many rugby accounts as I can. So I like put the setting on people I follow. And then there'll be videos from like people like Jared Wright's really good on Twitter. There's various others like AP, just general accounts like Super Rugby Six Nations as well. And then I'll kind of be able to make a note from there and just find basically every 50-22 I possibly can find. Probably there's some that aren't particularly fun to watch, but you can find the odd one from like the MLR that is brilliant. So you can check that in. Excellent. Soren, do you want to add something from this? Yes, it's an interesting one. There's a lot. Well, I'll leave the media question for a bit because I don't know if anyone's seen recent Squid Step will know that that's a bit of a topic. But how much of it with players then? You said that you did it because you were getting sick. Sometimes I think, am I right in saying sometimes players can reach out and say, don't you mind posting something for me or that sort of thing? Does that happen often? And do you have an example that you can say? I don't know if that's possible. Yeah, it happens to a decent extent. So I do now actually, I will do kind of freelance where I will charge players for certain videos and it depends on the type of video. So that can literally range from player agents messaging me. So I actually won, I think about a year ago for Peter O'Mahony's agent, which was quite surreal. But there's often quite a few Welsh regional players. So I've done one for Ben Fry, who's obviously I think off to MLR now, just of his highlights in the last few seasons for the Dragons. I did one for Sam Cross, funny enough, actually, about a year ago as well. And I also did one for Jake Pellegri, which was the first one I ever did. His partner reached out to me asking if I could do a video. And so that was the first one I ever did about, I think, like 2020, kind of in the middle of Covid. So, yeah, it's kind of surreal that players reach out to me asking for videos when I'm just a kid in Cardiff in his bedroom editing them or they're the ones actually doing the rugby and that they think that I have some sort of way of, you know, jazzing up their rugby. It's all quite surreal. But that is part of the thing, isn't it? You're trawling through to find bits and bobs that will showcase them in their best light. And you're good at it. Like, it's not, we've heard the words of progressive rugby early on, it's obviously said itself, but you are good at it. And that's why you get it. The immediate question is probably more than the rights issues. That is obviously a big question. And I think anyone who's followed Squish recently has seen the difficulty he had during the World Cup. Wayne Barnes's clip that was taken down, that was quite a surreal moment. But what have you encountered there and what's been the difficulties and how have you found, not ways around it, but how have you approached it? So, it is a grey area to an extent that I obviously don't own the footage. So, it isn't my footage necessarily to use, but I would argue that if I was posting a full match footage, then I'd argue that that would be taking the mick a bit. But I'm clipping these specific stuff together, some range from literally like, I did a Tri's video the other day that included footage from an under-20s game in Zimbabwe, the AIL in Ireland, that kind of thing. And you're clipping that with like international Tri's like the World Rugby Tri of the Year in the same compilation as a Glantav Tri I put in as well, because it was such a good Tri. So, it's kind of, I'd argue that. I did used to kind of encounter some problems. Back in the day, I had some videos taken down from Six Nations, Super Rugby, Sanzar, but I genuinely haven't encountered any problems in the last probably three years. So, I've been doing it for coming up to seven years, which is a bit mental to think. But I've also had dialogue with quite a lot of the kind of rights holders. So, not sure if I'm able to say, but like I've had communication with Six Nations about it and they're very much like crack on because it puts Six Nations in a good light. And likewise, I've had the URC communicate with me that they're happy for videos to be used. So, that's definitely helpful. Obviously, I can't say the same for like Super Rugby and stuff like that or World Rugby, but I'd like to think because I haven't encountered any problems in the last few years and hopefully there's some sort of positive relationship going on. And I would say I did actually get a direct message from World Rugby in the summer that quite a few others on Twitter got when they launched Rugby Pass TV. They were like, this will help with your work. So, they're clearly aware of what's going on, but it's a bit of a weird kind of contrast that presumably they've sent that message to someone like Squidge and then, yeah, at the same time, they're taking his videos down with such bad communication. So, yeah, essentially that's the gist of it, really. Yeah, it's an interesting one because I sometimes work a little bit behind the scenes on SLC's Twitter and stuff like that. And you see, like, I picked up something the other day which was Abba Albums coach Jason Hyatt crying physically in a post-match. I don't know if you've seen that, but you then see that video being quote tweeted, but also now on Twitter there's all sorts of different functions which you can just basically hold down a video and repost the video. And it does come up at the bottom saying from SLC, but no one's going to click on that. No one's going to follow the route back to that, really. So, it's a bit, in the modern world of Twitter, it's a bit more of a loose way of working, I think. But for you as well, a lot about advertising your stuff, because I really enjoy the way you do the really short versions on Twitter, the sort of short version of your video to sort of advertise what's going to happen and what is available. Is that a case of finding the best bits or are you taking, like, one good bit, one, I'll leave that really good nugget in the video for the diehard fans or for the people who have gone through? Yeah, it is kind of tactical, because, besides, I can't, well, I certainly couldn't post videos that were longer than two minutes 20 on Twitter. So, that was part of the reason of why I did it. And then initially, because I couldn't post videos that were longer than 60 seconds on Instagram, I would just make them about 59 seconds so that I didn't have to make two separate videos. But Instagram is a lot looser now as well. But essentially, yeah, if you ever, like, click on the actual full video, often the first clip will never be the first clip in the Twitter video, because often the first clip is kind of one of the best clips. So, like, today I did, like, the best drop goals in 2023. Jack Crowley started that because it was one of the more kind of significant drop goals in 2023. And it was probably about halfway through the Twitter video. So, it's just, and often a lot of people will, like, watch the Twitter videos and assume it's just the opening clip for some reason and comment on it without acknowledging that there's also other clips in this video. But yeah, that's kind of the way to do it. But I will then kind of, because obviously there's trouble with, like, World Rugby and stuff, that if I've got, like, footage from a Rugby World Cup game a few years ago, I won't include that on Twitter just in case they take it down. But again, I don't think I've had too many problems on Twitter or Instagram, really, which is quite, quite nice. My final one, a really basic one, because Harley mentioned our following, what it is, what is yours currently? Sorry? What's your following? Because Harley mentioned our following, our following of the Rams. Oh, right. What is yours by now? It's close. It's very close. I'll have to double check. After you. I'm a narcissist, isn't it? So, I said, just as a cheat, I've got some quick notes up. 130,000 subscribers. Oh, is it 130,000? Yeah. Right, I think that is. I'm guessing it's over because I think after a certain amount, YouTube just truncates it. It definitely was 29,000, I think, a few days ago. So, that's quite nice. I've got 25,000 when we're posting on there. I probably should get more on it, but it's just, it's a different. Did my Wi-Fi go a bit there? Yeah. Yeah, it did a little bit. I think, I think, I think we've got it. Shall I start again? Yeah, shall we go for it? Yeah, what was I talking about? YouTube? Yeah, so just on the YouTube, yeah. So, you said a couple of days ago it was 129,000. Yeah, yeah. So, it's a bit nice to see it's gone up. I've got a decent amount of followers on other socials. So, I think it's not much over 10,000 on Twitter. And I think on Instagram, it's near 20,000. But it's also quite cool, kind of seeing the people that follow various social medias as well. Like, weirdly enough, I've got Rob Carney on Twitter, Nemani Nandolo on Twitter. I've got FaftyClerk, somehow, on Instagram. Alex Kessler on Instagram, which is kind of nice because that's all full circle then. And, yeah, I think Damien D'Alende followed me on Twitter the other day. So, that was also quite cool. And obviously, there's a few Cardiff boys as well. So, that's always nice to see. I just kind of think that when I was younger, if I knew that those certain players would be following me, I'd probably be ecstatic. Yeah. I said, yeah. I said, there's us trying to get that 100. Yeah, I said, I said. It's just more of an intriguing question because I think you'll get where this is going. Roughly how long does it take you to, I'm guessing it must vary as well, to get a video? Because, obviously, Cardiff signed a player over the summer. And within minutes announcing it, there was a video on my feed that said, this is who Tina Stavira is, probably. So, did you have a bit of insider knowledge there? Yeah, it's not insider knowledge as such. It's obviously like you kind of see the media reports and stuff. So, you kind of, I'd say there's probably about 100 videos that I've kind of started that I've then scrapped and not bothered with. But that's more like Twitter kind of videos. And I do keep the Twitter videos quite short. And so, I think there was one time I had prepared a Dan Evans line break video because back in the day, he used to just break the line as if it was nothing. And then it was announced that he'd retired. And it was up to like about a minute and a half. And I was like, I'll just post it now as a happy retirement Dan Evans. And I think I had a few people message me, just DM me going, how the hell have you done that so quickly? But it's just, yeah, it's one of those that with videos, some of them will take a long time, like some of them will take kind of days at a time. But those are sort of videos I won't be doing like flat out days at a time. I'll be doing a little bit and then add a little bit more. Because I'm doing these end of year videos, I've literally got about 10 videos kind of in the making right now. But some of them are literally like 10 seconds long because I've just found one clip that fits that one perfectly. But I did a Justin Tifric video after he announced his retirement from Wales. And I did time that. And somehow it took me four hours, which was a bit mad because it was about 13 minutes long, I think. I'll just double check. Yeah, it was 13 minutes long. And it was just one of those things that certainly if I was doing what I was doing when I started, it would take me a lot longer. But kind of as the years have gone by and the amount of videos I've produced have gone by, I've kind of developed a bit of a autopilot mode with kind of knowing what to get, knowing what to look through and what clips to sort of search for. And you get quite a decent grasp of it from then on. So if I was doing it a few years ago, it would have taken a lot longer than four hours. But it's kind of definitely developed kind of a good way of doing them now. Are you running? How many more topics have you got left? I was just thinking that you're now scrabbling around for ideas in your head. Are you still do they just come up and you're like, oh, that's easy. I can pop that one on for today. Are you starting to think, oh, no, I've done that before, done that before. What have I got? Can I talk about? It kind of varies. So I have literally got like a document for the notes that I've got, like really kind of no effort attempts of potential videos. And one thing I often do is I do look at what the football channels on YouTube are posting and get an idea from that to kind of obviously not do the exact same, but kind of get an idea of what sort of thing they focus on and then I can do it from there. But actually, I've got on on a document right now, I've got currently written out all my schedule for December of the kind of the best of the best in 2023. And so that's already kind of not half of it is done yet, but I have an idea of what I'm going to do. And the order will naturally just change of what's easiest, what's more convenient. Like there's various try videos in there. I'm not going to do them one day after the other. So it's just tries for five days because if I spread it out, people will probably be more interested. But, yeah, I think there's definitely some days where I do wake up and think, I have no idea what I'm going to do for the next two weeks. But then there's sometimes where it just seems to kind of just come up. Like, like I said, the whole Soundcross thing, I'm sure something will come up in the next few weeks where I'll see some sort of piece of play and be like, right, that could be good for a video. No, I really enjoy them, I'm sure Harley does as well, because they are great to watch. I mentioned that Easy Watch and all like a bit more interesting. It reminds me, there used to be, Fox used to do something with Sean Maloney's like top fives like that. That used to be class. And this is this has been the thing that I've gone to since because it's just really nice to watch great sets of rugby. And I think that's the simple thing of it, isn't it? It's just that's what you are doing is polishing up great sets of rugby and great skill that other people are doing. But you are having your own great skill on top of it, basically. Thank you very much. Yeah, I'd say with the Sean Maloney as well, there's definitely an inspiration there, because I think one of the first early videos I did was the stupidest brain phase, which was one of the Sean Maloney top five brain phase that I kind of just went from there, but added a bit more. And now those videos tend to do really well. Yeah. What was his brain phase? Wasn't one of the dog seats one? Yeah, I think Burger Master at nine as well was one of them. One of the things I do like about the videos is you'll be watching and it'll just be and, you know, you'll see clips you expect to see and then there'll be one and you say, oh, you know, I forgot that happened. That was bizarre. You know, things like when Nigel Owens had to give it, had to just say, it's a yellow card. I forgot my cards. I'd forgotten it happened. And it's just one of those things that it's like. Or I think it was, I can't remember, I think it might have been versus Ireland where we missed a penalty and the ball bounced on the paps and Mellon caught it and just runs in and scores a try. And it was one of those ones, I thought I imagined that. Oh, I love this actual video evidence of it. I thought I was doing quite a bit of a light hearted thing. I thought I'd go through a list of questions. I haven't got too many. They're all there. They're all from Liam again. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Liam. It gives us actually gives us some things to talk about. So just just just just a few sort of quick questions. I'll open up to both of you. So first one up is the favourite away ground you've ever been to. So we all know Cap is the best, even though it is freezing. So I'll start with you, Andrew. What's the favourite away ground you've ever been to or just a favourite ground you've been to? Yeah, I haven't actually been to too many, but I went to, I think it was the start of last season. We went to Gloucester-Cardiff away, one of the pre-season friendlies. And we were stood in the shed and I really enjoyed that. I think that would be quite nice if there was like a European game against Gloucester. And that would be a really nice game because it's down the road, really. So I really enjoyed that. But yeah, I went to Ulster away a few years ago. And the fans in Ulster were lovely as well. And it's really good ground. So, yeah, I'd say those two are probably up there. Yeah, everyone talks about Gloucester and the shed. I haven't been to too many either, actually. And that's on my bucket list of things to do, basically. But I think top of that bucket list is wrestling at the moment. I can't. It doesn't look anywhere like it to watch rugby. So, yeah, that is top of the list to watch any time that I get the opportunity. I did try and swindle a trip to Castra this weekend. But strangely enough, BBC didn't want to provide the budget for that. Quite rightly so, I shouldn't have. But yeah, I did try and swindle a trip to Castra. But yeah, that didn't kind of happen. I'm a bit bored with this. In terms of going to see Cardiff play away, I've only actually been to Dave's Parade and Swansea.com. And Dave is better than Swansea.com. Just a show of ground, you know, more actually community level I've been to. So the Blackmoor, which is Sidmouth RFC home ground, I think that's a cracking little clubhouse. And they've got a nice little seating terrace there. And then we've also got Topsham again in sort of that extra area. I think as well as a lovely little pitch and things in the clubhouse. And, you know, the locals are all there, really passionate rugby people. I get a lot of... Shout out. Sorry, I was going to say you should give a shout out to Hayley Park as well. Go for it. Go for it. Why does it have to be pro games, eh? I'd say Xhosa is definitely on my bucket list. I quite like to do some of the Irish stadiums. I'm a Sadist, so I'd very much like to go to the sports ground in Norway. As great as the disco dome would be. Actually, I mean, I know it's normally a football stadium, but the place where we went to see where I saw Wales versus Australia and Lyon, I thought that was a cracking ground. Yeah, that was definitely... I managed to go to all the group games and the quarterfinal. And I'd say the Lyon one was the nicest. It was the nicest, but it was, unfortunately, the worst in terms of accessibility. It was so far from the city. And there's a nine o'clock kickoff. So that was a bit of a nightmare, but definitely the best stadium. Definitely help that we won in the way that we did. Yeah, I thought it was great. I thought the stadium announcers were almost as good as Tugas. Not quite. So next one. So I suppose we've sort of gone on this. We've mentioned that. So the next one follows on from what I see is the dream away trip. I think all of us would quite like to go to the disco dome. But anywhere else that would be quite nice. I think internationally, I'd love to go to Tbilisi, see Georgia play. Interesting. I mean, yeah, it's in terms of practicality that I think there's a few stadiums in South Africa I'd be keen to visit if there was a Wales South Africa game. But yeah, I think in terms of one kind of dream away, it is a bit of a shit stadium. But I'd love if Cardiff played Bath away at some point. That would be good. Because, again, it's just down the road. I think you get a good turnout for that game. And we seem to be playing them at home this year instead. But I think that would be I've only been to the rec once. I went to university in Bath. So it was on my doorstep there and only went once for some reason. But it's kind of a nice community of fans there. And when we played them at home a couple of years ago in a preseason friendly, the fans were great, great value. So I'd really like that sort of away trip for the kind of the camaraderie of all being together against Bath just down the road. Yeah, I like where Bath Stadium is. It's quite a nice location and all that right on the river. And it surprised me when I was there. But not the top of the list of great stages. But it would be a nice trip. I'd like to go to Stoop, I think. I think that that's one that I haven't seen. I haven't watched the Oscars down there. It looked quite a good atmosphere, to be fair, surprisingly. And it looked it just it's not. There's something about it not being Twickenham, but being the Stoop. There's something I don't know what it is. It's like the budget. But you're on a budget trip where you're going up to Stoop and it looks like it could be quite fun ground to be at. But yeah, Gloucester as well, as we've mentioned a couple of times. But yeah, anyone wants to hear about the great Gloucester sheds. Like Richard Hippo talks about it brilliantly about the ridiculousness of the sheds. But I think there were fans like two hours before kickoff that he's walking around. Why are you here? But they are they are bonkers up there. I've got a few friends who support Gloucester, but we've been trying to find a time when all of us can head up that way to go to the theatre. So, you know, obviously, all three of us are very much kind of supporters. You know, we're blue and black friends right the way through. But are there any other teams that either of you have a soft spot for? Whether that be for the Irc or one of the other leagues? I'd say because I went to university in Bath, I've got a kind of soft spot for Bath. At the same time, the game I went to see Bath play was against Wasps. And at the time, Darl Young was coach and Thomas Young was playing for them. So I was supporting Wasps. So I kind of contradict myself a bit there. But I've also got a bit of a soft spot now for Quinns with both Jared and Dylan having gone down there. There's something nice about it as well. It's almost Cardiff dominating now. They've got Billy Millard as director of rugby and Danny Wilson's one of the senior coaches there as well. But I kind of like the way Danny Kerr plays, the way Marcus Smith plays, the way Andre Asterhazen plays. Such a good kind of brand of rugby for Club Rugby. So definitely got a soft spot for them. What about you, Kieran? To be fair, all those clubs would probably be up there for England. But I'll go a bit further afield with Pempignon. No idea why, just really like them. I think the kit back in the day was just a bit different. It always felt like a proper European-type play against Pempignon because it was a completely different kit. The style of play was exciting, normally sunny weather conditions, beautiful conditions. They tried different things. But yeah, Pempignon for some reason is definitely up there for me. But yeah, you mentioned Bath and Bristol. When the Welsh ties were up there, there was a bit of a temptation there. But yeah, I was probably more Bath than Bristol in the end, even though I lived in Bristol for two years. So the English team for me is always Bristol. Bristol all the way. I just love the Mad Kits. I thought they were great. Which, you know, it surprises everyone down here in Devon. They get all, you've moved here from Wales, why didn't you pick an extra? It's like, I like Bristol. And they cross away. But speaking of kits, the whole reason I support the Dallas Jackals in the MLR is because I just thought the kits were really good. As I said last season, it was great because they went hoop and quarters. So I mean, that's always going to be a win for a Cardiff fan. But the hoop kit, look, it was just like a classic Argentinian, but with a pale green as opposed to blue. And it was just absolutely wonderful. Yeah, I mean, that's sort of insight into what I do if I have no actual link to a place. The kit's pretty. I can at least look at them when they're losing every week. That isn't my connection to my picking my NHL team, to be fair. I just went, I really like Roman history. Senators, Ottawa Senators. That was my reasoning. We all have our reasons. A bit of a controversy, because I do think we're trying to keep it positive, but I do feel like it's a good chance to niggle. So it's a final one from Leymers. Can you name a team that you, I'm going to go with dislike as opposed to hate. I hope you don't mind me changing the question early. A team that you dislike that isn't Leinster or Saracens. I mean, the obvious answer is the Ospreys, right? Yeah, I'd say the whole. You naturally dislike all the other Welsh regions because it's kind of in your DNA, isn't it? Then you do often have a soft spot for one of them. But yeah, I'd say you naturally dislike all the Welsh regions. I'd say if there was one team that I'd dislike, it is, weirdly enough, Munster. Because I find they're a team that whenever we play them, it's always such a close game. Obviously, there's the odd exception, but I just remember that Covid year, we played them three times and all three games went down to the wire. And there were games we should have won. And we'd get smashed by other teams in the league. And yet Munster just always seems to be a close game. And so I think they play such a good brand of rugby. But I dislike them from the point of view of it's always just such a horrible team to come up against. I'd say I've got a huge soft spot for Munster. I think that's the reason why Caelan from the Caelan Estroping podcast invited me onto his podcast. I was just a big Munster softie. I don't know why I've never liked Newcastle. I've always had a thing. I don't know what it was. There's no reason for me to dislike them. I just always have. So I love, like, it's nothing to do with the place. I quite like Newcastle. I like Geordie's. I hate the team. And there's no reason because, you know, you feel like, you know, it's a proper working class club. I really dislike them. There's, again, nothing grounded in it. So it thrilled me so much when we did the double over in the Challenge Cup last year. I would have agreed until they had that wing combination. It was at Gonever and Sinotti Sinotti. I just loved watching them play. They were so good value. Up until then, though, I don't agree. Like Toby Flood there and Wilkerton Reforged. I can't get behind them, even though they're obviously great players. But partly probably Welsh players. Leicester's the one for me. Never liked them. And that's going to sound sour grapes from Champions Cup gone by. But yeah, it is before that. It's just the whole the whole mentality there of forwards win games and all that. It may be true, but still the whole mentality that was going on there, the whole pack, the kneel back moment. There's so many reasons that I disliked them going back. So, yeah, yeah, Leicester. Although with Tommy Raphael there, you know, performing well as he did on the weekend to win a hat-trick. It does soften it a little bit for me. The other one would be Glasgow. Absolutely no reason why. That's that's another one where I've got no reason to for it. But that just no. Yeah, very happy whenever I can't beat Glasgow or any side beat Glasgow to be fair. See, you do have to really if you're if you're a fan to beat Glasgow. Yeah, yeah. To be fair, I'm also trying to also it's quite fun to annoy some of the Scottish rugby part to be fair. It's always a good option. If there's any bunch of any bunch of people who can take a wind up in those guys, to be fair. So shall we, as you said, we finish, URC's finished a massive block of seven games in a row. Do you want to have a quick, just quick 20, 30 seconds each just to sum up how we feel Carlos have done over the seven games? Yeah, sure. I'd say could be a lot worse, but could be a lot better. I think there's quite a few games, as we've already discussed, that we really should have won. And it's frustrating kind of looking back that how you think if we had certain players fit, how better we'd have fared in those games. But hopefully, I think we can learn from those games, the old cliche and just kind of learn the better, better kind of game management from there. And in future games, hopefully we'll come out with a win rather than a narrow loss, as has been the case so far in quite a few games. Yeah, I think one of the first things I said on the pods was I want to see growth from minute one to minute whatever it is at the end of the season. And it has been that clearly in the first seven games and both individual and team. Individuals, you talk about Mackenzie Martin, you talk about Alex Mann, Ellis Devon, come on, leaps and bounds, can win it as well. I didn't know he had the control to his game that he does. Also, there's been so many other positives, whether it be with his Halahala, Lilo playing in the centres together, something that I don't think any kind of fans will see again, which is great to see. But yeah, I think overall, there has been frustrations. But if you're looking for positives, there are so many and not just the youngsters as well. Ellis Jenkins was absolutely, I know he made a mistake this week, but last week, he was so good and seeing him back to his best is, well, I think I really enjoyed that. And it's pretty special seeing all the clips as well of him showing his leadership as well. It was phenomenal. So all in all, I'm more positive than I thought I'd be after seven games, actually, even though I'm frustrated that I'm coming away with six, maybe even seven wins. Yeah, if you told me just before pre-season, given all the issues we had and literally trying to find everyone and his mates to go and fill up the squad, just over a third of the season in, we'd be 1-2, draw 1, and 8-9, 12th on the table, and we picked up a point in every game. You know, when the four games we lost, we picked up the points. I'd have bitten your hand off, said that, that'd be great. So, I mean, it's a huge positive to me that they've exceeded the expectations I had at the start and all the woes, that I am disappointed with those, you know, we mentioned those three games where we let slip. But at the same time, I do feel like, you know, we could be 5 or 6 or 7 here and, you know, and then that means then that harder back end of the season, that actually makes, makes life a little bit easier because we've got that cushion now, we've got to really fight. But, yeah, I said, the performances, like Shane Lewis Hughes, you know, he's got sort of trying to be very fast-tracked into that Josh Turnbull, you know, chuck him anywhere in the back five and he'll do a job. I thought he did play quite well in the second row. You can tell you're losing a little bit of weight then when you've got like a proper second row in there. So, I thought Teddy, Teddy Williams, Teddy Williams, actually, Kieran Azraut and Corey Domenechowski, I feel like they've come back from that Wales camp and the World Cup and they look so much better than they did before. And I thought they were great at the end of last season. Yeah, it's great seeing Josh Adams back on the park. I think he looks assured. Cam Winnett looked amazing. But, you know, we're all looking, you know, we're all looking forward to having Cam Winnett and Jacob Beeson having a nice ding-dong battle. And actually, I think Jacob Beeson, unless Matt Ferret makes a position switch stick, I think actually, I think he went into 12 by the end, by the end of the game. Yeah, I think he's going to struggle to see game time because I wouldn't be dropping Winnett at the moment. Because I think he's been one of our standout players. Alex Mann, again, another young player who I thought was unbelievable. I think that's well over 20, 30 seconds. So, I think I'll leave it there. But I think, I'd say probably what, they could be plus performance, exceeding expectations, but definitely room for improvement. So, now we get to, now we get on to the big boy competition of the Champions Cup. So, they're not Heineken Cup now. I'm not using the actual title sponsor name. So, we've got a nice easy one, easy game map first up. So, reigning top 14 champions to lose away. So, obviously, I mean, it is in our favour because we have won the last two away. So, we won 28-0 a couple of years ago. And then in 2017, we won by a couple of points. Obviously, the first game I mentioned was the COVID cancellation, but it still counts. It's still in all the record books. So, how are we all feeling about to lose away? Not too confident, but that's never stopped us in the past, has it? I'm still worried about the, obviously, Alex Jenkins will likely be suspended, quite a few injuries in the back row. So, we're looking at probably Alex Mann at seven, which is a bit bonkers when you think of the amount of options we have at seven that we somehow don't have any now. So, I back Alex Mann to do well at seven, because he's been phenomenal, as you said, this season. But I just think it's going to be a tough ask, especially seeing the teams that Toulouse have put out recently. They've got all their big guns playing, like Dupont, Flamant, Bailly, pretty much more or less full strength, apart from, as I can see, no Marchand, no Jack Willis, and no one's Mac. So, I find as well that I remember last time we played them at home during the COVID, when we had all the academy kids, there was this big fuss about how they'd lost the week before, and they really hate to play. They're really angry when they're on the back of a loss, and obviously they just lost this weekend. So, that would be great, wouldn't it? Yeah, it's a bit like when you play the All Blacks on the back of a loss, and they say the All Blacks don't like losing twice in a row. I don't know about you, Cohen, but to me, I kind of feel like for this game, it's just go out and have fun, I think, more than anything. Like, almost don't worry about the result. I mean, as we say, we're always considered a joke team in Champions Cup, you know, because of how we qualified in it. But, I mean, it's a bit of a joke competition these days. You can get through to the last 16 basically on one win. We have been the past couple of seasons. So, do you think it's a case of Sherratt to sort of rest some of the top players? I mean, I don't know if we can actually afford to rest anyone. I don't think we've got the top nets at the moment. But, I think just have it as a hit out, and just go have fun. See if he scores some tries, because that's something we've struggled to do so far this season. Yeah, I think that's basically it, yeah. Matt Sherratt said that he can't really rotate the side. I think short of asking Dan Fish and Scott Andrews if they can lace their boots up, I think there aren't many extra options really in that squad that can be called upon. Maybe a bit of rotation, maybe see the likes of Beatham, you mentioned, you know, maybe see Max Clarke haven't played much considering he's on loan. Maybe someone like him might be an opportunity. Evan Lloyd, maybe give him a start in these sort of opportunities. But at the same time, it's going to do no one good to get drummed by 50 points. So, I think, I want to see Cardiff throw the ball around. I really do. And I think playing in a similar style that we saw two years ago, or whenever it was in that COVID game would be nice. But at the same time, we've been in and out of the game so far. So, it'd be really nice to be at some stage, say it's 50, 60 minutes, be within a score, be within 10 points and in the game to show that you can compete at that level. And also then to build on that performance for the week later or later on in the Champions Cup campaign because there are games to win in this Champions Cup. So, yeah, I don't think to throw away games as such quite. But, yeah, it's not going to be, it's not going to win. It's not going to go away with a win. But as Josh Adams said at the end of his press conference, he's got nothing to lose. Yeah, that joke down with us like a sack of potatoes, isn't it? That's genuinely how the response to the media room was as well. I definitely did not make a similar one on the crap. But as I said, we probably can't afford to do wholesale changes. But do you think there's room to freshen up the side a bit? Maybe rest some people who have had a lot of game time, you know, maybe moving them to the bench for putting some bench toys to start? Yeah, of course. It depends kind of. I think more so, you know, you have players like Harry Millard and Mepheti Toumani were concussed. So it'll be interesting to see if they are now available this weekend. Because I think more so Mepheti Toumani, I think if Ellis Jenkins is out as well, which he will be, then you've kind of got a leadership again against Toulouse. You've got a bloke there who's played in France himself. He'd be kind of so valuable in that team on this weekend. And I think as great as it was to see McKenzie Martin play on the weekend, it again would be a big task for him to start again this weekend at eight. Yeah, it's just, it's a case of you look at how much they benefited a couple of years ago when they, you know, you had the kids essentially playing Toulouse. And you've got to think, I know Winnett didn't play in that exact game, but obviously he played against Quinns the week after. You've got to think, would he be the player he is right now, if he hadn't experienced that? So I think to a degree, it'll be kind of so valuable for someone like Alex Mann as well, who's almost destined to start. So I think there's kind of, there needs to be kind of a halfway house. So you kind of have this euthanic, like we have, like we've, I think we've given six players this season their first team URC debut, which is huge. So if you continue to have someone like Evan Lloyd as well on the bench, I think he's been quite strong when he's come off the bench, but kind of maintain that experience. Like I wouldn't be against if some, like if one of Halahodo and Lilo isn't starting, kind of go down that route. Yeah. So is that, yeah. So that's the sort of thing I think of, you know, like, you know, do you start Haymer Webb and give Hal, you know, move Mason Ray back to 13 and put one Halahodo or Lilo on the bench? Or do we bring Ben Thomas back in, these six? Yeah, it's more that sort of refreshing, you know, like can jockeys try rotating the props around a bit as well? So that, you know, you haven't got one that's always doing 60 odd minutes. You know, it keeps it fresh. I think it actually works quite nicely. Off-base I thought they did to quite good effect last season. Yeah, I'm just kind of looking forward to this game. It's just sometimes it's nice after seven solid weeks of a competition just to have a break and see something different and see weird and wonderful matchups. It's, yeah, I mean, we can go into predictions now. I don't think it's going to necessarily be pretty, to be honest, but if it can at least be a decent enough showing, I feel it's one of those ones. It's a cliche, but if the performance is there. Then I'd be quite, I'd be quite happy. So there you go. Yeah, performance slash be in the game after 50, 60 minutes. I'd be happy. I think that's give a couple of players an opportunity that they haven't had this season maybe. But yeah, the main thing is, I think, focus on next week and weeks after. I think that's more of a priority looking ahead rather than this weekend. Obviously, it'd be amazing to win, but I think let's be realistic. The sights have to be set on different goals. You see what Ospreay did on the weekend going out to Benetton playing second team. That's, I don't think that's an opportunity that Cardiff have got with all of the injuries. Back row especially, but giving players opportunities, but also remaining competitive is always a challenge. But I think that's a balance that has to be struck this weekend, I think. Yeah, absolutely. So that game is on Saturday at quarter past three. So actually a time that most fans on my Twitter feed say is perfect. It's not typically French time. So I think that game will be live on TNT Sports and S4C. So take your pick, which one of those you'd rather watch it for. Me personally, I pay an awful lot of money for BT. So I will be making the most of TNT Sports. I think that's everything we need to say about that game. Unfortunately, no rags fixed to talk about because that game against Camargo and the Queens got called off for a frozen pitch. I don't know how the other two premiership teams did. Merthyr and Potiphar was also called off. Yeah, there you are. So yeah, then we were the only soup burgers. Can we just pretend that game was called off? This weekend is cup fixtures, quarter finals. So I think Edward are at home to Cardiff. I think Merthyr are at home to, I want to say, Queens. That rings a bell in my brain, but I'll have to go check that. But yeah, so that's something to look forward to this weekend. Hopefully the games go ahead depending on weather, obviously, but yeah, that's something to look forward to. It's looking a lot warmer this. Well, I say a lot warmer. It's single figures to maybe 10 degrees C, but at least they're all in above freezing, which should be quite nice after this weekend. Unless either of you two have anything else you want to bring up? Will you be giving a shout out to Glantan, Andrew? Yeah, we might as well. Cup final? Yeah, they're in the cup final at the Principality on Wednesday. So I don't know who they're playing in front of, to be honest. I've been messaging Josh Phillips this week and he's part of the coaching staff up there, I think now at Glantan. He did message me and tell me. Standard three, I think. It's a seven o'clock kickoff, I believe. So I think it's finals day as well, the whole day at the Principality. So I believe it's free entry. So I'll certainly be there for the Glantan Cup game. So yeah, definitely go down if you get a chance. Excellent. So I think that's the plug there. Just a reminder, if you want to send us a message or a review about the pod, you can find us on at Cardiff underscore Central or also on Facebook and Instagram at Cardiff Central Podcast. Andrew, if people want to find you, if they're not already one of the masses who follow you, where can they find you? On YouTube, I'm just Andrew Ford with an E at the end of Ford. On Twitter, I believe I'm Andrew F Rugby and then various other socials. I'll just be Andrew Ford Rugby. Thank you very much for coming on tonight, Andrew. Thank you for having me. Feel free to come and step in if you fancy chatting Cardiff and sensible people like all Cardiff fans are. Thank you, Carwin, my co-host for carrying on. And most importantly, thank you all for listening. Good night. Yeah. Cardiff Rugby is always the answer.
