Dragons Lair 301123

The Dragon's Lair podcast welcomes a guest who is a South African rugby YouTuber. He talks about his YouTube channel and how he aims to make rugby content entertaining. They also discuss the South African teams' performance in the URC and the challenges they face with key players leaving for international duty. The guest mentions the Lions' win against Zebre and highlights their ability to play at a high pace at Ellis Park. The podcast ends with a discussion about the sparse crowds at the stadium. Welcome to the Dragon's Lair. Hello and welcome to the Dragon's Lair podcast, your home of all things Dragons, RFC and rugby in the region. I'm Jamie and joining me as always is Gavin Thomas. How are we, Gavin? Slightly croaky, Jamie, and watched the Sharks game on a very depressing cold train journey. So, you know, I'm not really full of excitement, but I'm here and I'm ready to talk Dragons. I mean, it's not a good... that's a double whammy, isn't it? Watching the Dragons first, so then being on a cold train watching the Dragons. That must have been pretty grim. It was a good metaphor, I think. It was a good metaphor for what I was watching. Oh, happy birthday, by the way. Thank you, yes. I was 50 yesterday and I'm feeling every one of those days. Oh, well, happy birthday anyway. I hope you had a good weekend. I did, yes. It was less good today when I got a text from our coach saying, yeah, we've got another second rose, Gavin. You're definitely starting on Saturday. Oh, no. Oh dear, you don't want that, do you? You're a 50. Happy birthday, you're playing. Right. We have a guest with us tonight, Gav. We do indeed. We are going to do another Do From The Opposition podcast. So, we have with us a Lion supporter and he's also a South African rugby YouTuber. He's one of my favorite content creators out there at the moment. I really enjoy watching his videos. It's really good fun. So, welcome to the pod. We are low. How are we feeling? How's it? How's it, guys? It's very good to be here. A lot of fun to meet all kinds of people from across the UFC and just chat rugby. Very, very nice to be here. Sorry to hear about having to play for the Dragons. But, Gavin, happy birthday. Not quite the Dragons level, are we? I thought the Ox… I saw the Ox players have run out of locks. I thought maybe the Dragons are in the same boat. Second row is one of our areas of strength, I would say. Okay. Good to know. Good to know. Yes. One of the few areas of strength for the Dragons. So, yeah. Great to have you with us. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and sort of how you're going to start up your YouTube channel for those who may not be familiar with it. Well, I'm sure a lot of people got new hobbies a couple of years ago because we were all in lockdowns. You know, you're sitting at home. You don't know what to do with yourself. So, I was always thinking there's not really a lot of South Africans doing this YouTube thing, especially rugby YouTube. So, I thought, okay, let me just start it. And the first few videos, please don't go watching. They're terrible. They were filmed on my phone. I had no microphone or anything like that. But since then, it's grown a bit. I've been recognized a few times. And, yeah, it's just a bit of fun every week to update what's happening in the world of rugby. I've been watching a lot of rugby YouTubers over the years, and it's a lot of people sitting still looking at the camera talking, you know. So, I was like, no, a bit of pantomime, go crazy, make jokes, jump over the couch, and just make it as entertaining as possible. That's rule number one for me. And, yeah, just give people an idea of what's happening in South African rugby. And then when we joined the URC, it was even nicer to be able to speak to a whole new crowd of people to just help people understand not all South Africans are grumpy, angry people on Twitter, you know. Some of us… You sure? Some of us are optimistic and happy and don't talk about refs every weekend. And I'd like to be one of those guys who set that example, you know. So, in terms of joining the URC, was that a natural move, do you think, for the South African clubs? Because the Super Rugby, the distances were huge. I'm not suggesting Cardiff to South Africa is not huge either, but does it fit better for the South African clubs, do you think? For me, personally, it does. That's only because I've got two kids now. So, Saturday morning, 7.30, watching rugby, it's not on the cards anymore. Obviously, there was 25 years of Super Rugby, you know, that we built up. And that's a long history of games and players and teams that you remember. So, that history does not exist yet for the URC. But what I do enjoy about the URC is, obviously, the time zones. You don't have to, you know, play games at 5.30 in the morning. There's always a game on at a time when the briar fire is going. So, that's very nice. And then, it's also the fact that I can go and see Achilles Neyman play one of these weekends. If he's playing in Joburg or if he's playing in Pretoria, that's a very nice feeling. Steven Kitsoff, in the past, he would be lost to us now, you know. But now I know he's playing for Ulster. These days, he might be coming down to South Africa and I can see him play again. Tinnis De Beer, you know, Cardiff legend. I can now see him. I can now watch him play every now and again. So, that's very nice to know that players we have that go to Europe, we've made peace with the fact that we can't keep guys in South Africa. But it's nice to know that I'll be able to see some of those players still play in South Africa, even if it's for a team like Ulster or Munster. So, that's been very nice for us. Can I just add Brock Harris to our list of players? Dragons legend. We can see it at the Stormers. Who made his 400th appearance. Fair play to him. Brilliant. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. Absolutely. So, it was a good weekend for the South African teams in the URC. Rian, what did you make of it? It's that thing that is becoming a bit of a pattern now. The South Africans tour early on in the season and we go over there from our nice warm weather to freezing cold Europe and lose most of the games on tour. And then as soon as we get back home, we're like, OK, we'll show you what we can do. And then it turns into an absolute... It's been a bit of a thrashing this past weekend. I think it was two 60-pointers and a 50-pointer, which you don't always want to see. But it's nice to get back on the winning horse. We lost four games the weekend before that, which is always a bit embarrassing. So, it's a bit strange to see the Stormers drop so many games overseas. But I think they have maybe a bit bigger World Cup hangover than most teams because their front row was proper springboks. They had a few back rows, all that kind of stuff. So, with them coming back soon, I think we'll see them starting to pick up their wins as well. I think that's clear as well. The Sharks team that played Ospreys a few weeks ago in London compared to the Sharks team that played the Dragons in Durban were worlds apart. Absolute worlds apart. You're only bringing World Cup winning players off the bench. Yeah. Just the difference someone like... Even a backline player like Mpimpi, just to see... He looks so much calmer. You can tell the other guys look to him to look for guidance. All of that makes such a huge difference. But when you can bring on Etzabit into your team, I mean, that guy, he's one of the most valuable players in the world. It's just a different league. And even opposition look at you differently when they see those guys in front of them. So, it's made a huge difference. Unfortunately, the Lions can't call back a few bucks, but hopefully that'll change with this young crop of players we've got coming through now. Yeah, similar with us with the Dragons, Dav. We don't have a lot of Welsh internationals. And people seem to think, oh, the Dragons are less disrupted, so they'll be okay. But no, it still doesn't work out that way, Dav, does it? Well, we lose our key players, which is our biggest challenge, I imagine. We lose the spine of a team, lose an eight, lose a hooker. You're losing your spine then. But that's the issue. We're not heavily as affected as the other regions, but we just lose the key players because we don't have the depth. That's the problem. So, the Lions had a very good win on the weekend. It's Zebra, an improved Zebra, 61-19. What did you make of that game, then, Rhian? Did that surprise you, the manner of the defeat, considering Zebra are on the up? Or was that pretty much as expected for you? What did you make of it? I was expecting them to score, put on a big score. It is really tough to go to Joburg after being in cold weather up north. It was very, very hot this weekend. And it's dry right now, and the altitude is a thing. So, I knew the Lions, they do know, the Bulls as well, they do know how to kind of pace themselves through the match and just wait for those last 20 minutes. And that's when things open up. I was more surprised to see Zebra score so much. 19 points is actually more than I thought they would have managed. Their maul and their scrum is looking a lot stronger. But when the Lions get back to Ellis Park, even being a team that's not filled with superstars, they do love playing at home, even if it's empty most of these days. And when they get to running and they get to keeping the game high speed, that's one of the things that makes the Lions different from the other SA teams. They do not sit a prop on the floor just before a line-out to catch their breath. They want to go, go, go. Because they know Ellis Park is high in the sky, very hot, and they can run most teams off their feet. And you'll see that this coming weekend, by the 60th minute, they will just all of a sudden pick up the pace and try and run the Dragons off their feet. That is one of the main things. That's how we look forward to. So I watched a highlight of the game, Rian, and as you were saying, it seems quite sparse. I don't know how many Ellis Park holes, lofts, I imagine. 75,000. And what kind of crowds do you get for Lions games? Well, there's two issues with it. The first thing is the side of the stadium you see is the sunny side. The cameras are in the shade and it's 36 degrees. You do not want to go sit in that sun for 18 minutes. You will turn into a cherry red person. So everyone sits on the same side of the camera in the shade, which is the first issue. And if there's 5,000 people in that stadium, it still seems empty. So the crowds, they've been a bit light now because it's end of the year and most Joggers go to the coast on holiday. We are inland, very far from the coast, so December is kind of the holiday time in South Africa. So I'm expecting the crowds in Jo'burg to stay a bit empty until everyone's back from their holidays. So that's the first issue is the heat, and no one wants to sit on that side of the stadium. And the other side is we have been poor for the last few years. We have not managed to beat a South African side in Jo'burg for a very long time, and the fans are very fickle. We don't like supporting losing teams. I do because I'm used to them losing. No one wants to go to Ellis Park, which is in a bit of a rough area. It's not expensive. People say it's expensive, but you can get a ticket probably for 50 rand, which is like about a pound fifty per ticket, and you can go sit anywhere in the stadium. A beer is 35 rand, so that's a pound and 20 cents or 20p. It's very cheap, even for South Africans. It's just no one wants to go to Ellis Park, which is in a bad part of Jo'burg, in the heat, and usually watch us lose. So, yeah, that's just kind of the problem. In terms of the playing conditions as well, you were talking about 36-degree heat. I've not been to South Africa, unfortunately, so I don't know what it's like. But is that very dry heat, or is it humid? In Jo'burg, it's dry. Because we're high, it's not very wet here. So Jo'burg and Pretoria are both quite dry. We're in the high falls, the savannah. And in Durban, that is a tropical climate, so it's wet, humid. It still gets to 36, but it would be like 90% humidity. It all turns into a ball of soap there. And in Cape Town, it's the most mild, but they do get a bit of rain in winter. So Cape Town now will be nice and dry, but not boiling hot. They have the nicest climates, really. All the dragons are going to be facing 100-degree temperatures at a palpitative, essentially, on the weekend. I would, yes. You would have some very red faces by the end of that game. The sun will be killing them. I was just thinking about what you were saying about the stadium. I've heard Lions fans say it's not a nice part of the city. That's part of the problem. Is there any way else Lions could play their rugby? Because when you look at the Stormers, they play some games in Stellenbosch, don't they? Is there any way else the Lions could take some games, do you think? There's plenty of places in Johannesburg. There's a few universities around. There's a few athletic stadiums. The issue is the Lions own Ellis Park. So if they are not using it to make themselves money, it is a big white elephant that needs maintaining. So that's their biggest issue. If they are not using Ellis Park, they are losing money on it. And I think that's why they have never thought to take the game anywhere else. Because we also have two levels. The URC is our top club level. But below that is the Curry Cup. And then we have a level even below that as well. And sometimes some of those games are taken to smaller clubs and then they fill them. There's 5,000, 6,000 people there. A smaller venue with that many people feels a lot bigger, feels a lot busier. But I just think the Lions do not want to leave Ellis Park because they need to make money by keeping it open and having people. I don't know how they make money with 1,000 people there, but that seems to be the idea. And that's the problem, isn't it? In a big stadium, it's like you're in Newport. When Dragons play a Romney parade, I've been to games where there's been like 2,000 or 3,000. But they'll say it's like 4,000 or 5,000. No, it's not that many. But it doesn't look so bad because it's a small stadium. But when you've got 5,000 in a massive stadium, it just doesn't look good except for TV. But seeing now though, the Lions, they do make Ellis Park a fortress, don't they? They are strong at home, you know? So it doesn't hinder them not having, you know? Yeah, yeah. And like I said, the size of the cameras on the shaded side, there's easily sometimes 5,000, 6,000 people there and it gets noisy if you're there. I'm going to be there this coming weekend. Look out for me on the TV because I'll be... You'll be on the other side. People will see you. I'll just sit in the sun for a little bit. The only person on the other side of the field. But yeah, it does get noisy. The players do appreciate everyone that comes there. We are always allowed on the field after the game. You're allowed to go meet and greet the players afterwards as well. So that's always fun. And outside the stadium, they put up bouncy castles and there's a beer garden and all that kind of stuff. So they try and make it fun for the people who do go. It's just, yeah, the crowds are fickle. And we often lose our derbies, which is annoying. The Bulls, they don't mind traveling there and the Sharks and the Storms always seemingly win at Illis Park. You talk about derbies. As I say, our derbies against Cardiff. I don't know if you know this, we've lost to Cardiff like 18 times in a row. I don't know if you knew that. So yeah, we'd always like... I mean, we beat the Ospreys and we could beat the Scarlets, but for some reason, we cannot beat Cardiff for love, no money. And I'm convinced it's just psychological or someone's put a curse on us. So we cannot beat Cardiff. So I do kind of understand your pain when it comes to the derbies. Sorry, Gal, what was you going to say there, mate? Well, I would just say, when Rhian was saying about they tried to make it fun as opposed to Rodney Parade, which can feel quite depressing. There's no bouncy castles, just a tent of doom. Yeah. Because it's in the daytime. The thing about Joburg is we get thunderstorms almost every day at four or five o'clock. So proper lightning storms. So you can't really play rugby because there's lightning danger. So that's why oftentimes they have like two o'clock hiccups here just to make sure there's no rain. And then that means, yeah, invite the kids, bring the family, make it a day out. So that's the thing they do try and do. So is Johannesburg traditional rugby territory, Rhian, or is it a darker part of South Africa? The biggest... I think there isn't really a non-rugby territory in South Africa. There is a more rugby area, which is Stellenbosch, Cape Town there. That's where the oldest schools, the oldest clubs, all of that's over there. So they have a much livelier, especially club game. Schools everywhere in the country. If you have a high school, you often have a rugby ground. But the biggest rugby thing is the Western Cape, where the stormers are from. But Pretoria, which is just 50 k's up the road from Joburg, is a huge rugby town. Joburg has good rugby schools, good rugby clubs, but it's a very, very big city. So the west of Joburg might have very big clubs and stuff, and they never play the east of Joburg, because it's literally 80, 90 k's from one side of the city to the other side. So it is a bit more spread out, where the Cape has smaller towns with maybe a few or four clubs in it, so that creates a nice little rugby atmosphere. There isn't really a non-rugby area in South Africa, but Joburg is just so big that it is spread out. It feels a bit thinner. I've played rugby with lots of South Africans, but they all tend to be from the Cape. They're from Transvaal, and that tends to be where they're from. So the URC is in its third year now, isn't it? Is it the third year? Yeah, there's stormers, but yeah. How is the URC perceived now in South Africa? Because, I mean, obviously Super Rugby, that was a very popular format, wasn't it? And you had the Crusaders, you had all the big teams. And it's taken a little while, I guess, for fans to adapt and adjust to this new competition. But how do you think it's now being perceived as a competition in South Africa? I think everyone does believe it's as good quality as Super Rugby. At the start, I think a lot of people thought, oh, if you're letting us win the very first URC, how good could it be? We could never beat the Crusaders. We could never beat the Blues or whatever, but the first season we win the URC. What's helped is the Irish side. I'm sorry to say that. The fact that Ireland went to New Zealand and beat New Zealand three times there really woke up South Africans to like, oh, okay, if that's the type of team we're in a league with, this must be a pretty good league. And then for Manchester to come to Cape Town and win the URC there, I think it's given credibility to the teams that are in the URC now. A lot of people thought, no, it's never going to be like Super Rugby. If you don't have the New Zealand teams, there's no way it's as good. But seeing the quality, and now even the Scottish side, they've come up as well and they've beaten us a few times. So I think slowly people are realizing that the quality is as good as the Super Rugby quality was. There's just the weirdness of, we're used to cricket over December. Now I can still go to Ellis Park over December, which is very weird to us. Rugby is supposed to be around June, July, that kind of time of the year. So that's taking some time to build into people. And I think it all gets stronger. Every year it does better. Every year you see more people wearing rugby jerseys with an URC patch on it, not the Super Rugby patch, which means they've been buying new jerseys, they've been watching the games. And amongst my friends who were all rugby fans, they didn't stop watching, they just switched to the URC. And it's just the European Cup that's trying to get our head around. That is now an issue. But the URC, I think people have bought in. They know, okay, this is the new thing now and we are playing against very good teams. That's all we want. We just want good teams to be in the league we're playing in. And I think we do have that. Yeah, that's fair enough. Does part of you miss Super Rugby though? To be honest, yeah? Do you think it was the right idea to pull out of that competition and come into the IRC? Could you see why that happened? I think the last season of it was just before COVID hit. The Sharks were doing well, the Lions were doing poorly, the Spools and the Stormers were kind of middle of the pack. I think they had just tweaked it too many times. That was what happened. Every year there was talk of, okay, next year the format will change again and the format will change again. And that just kept happening and happening and happening. And we just didn't seem to be – the Lions nearly won it three times but then we just went down again and all our players left and we thought we'd never see them again. But deep down, I grew up watching it from 2000 or 1995 or something. We'd already been watching it. We were used to getting up on a Saturday morning, ah, there's two games of rugby on and then it's a couple of hours later, ah, there's another games in South Africa start. Then the games at night in South Africa. So there was a lot of built-in tradition and all that kind of stuff that we did miss. I mean, you're always going to miss – you remember seeing Dan Carter and Richie McCaw and all those kinds of guys live, which you won't see again. But it'll take time. You need time to build history. I'm glad to see that the URC, the guys in charge seem to be saying, okay, we're not going to change anything. Let it bed in. Try and build rivalries and don't tinker with it too much. And that's all most South African fans are asking for. Just keep something the same for more than two years, please. Because that's been, for the last 10 years, every year the thing is new, the thing is new, and you have to learn all kinds of new teams. You've got no fear of that with Welsh rugby. We've been doing the same stuff for about 80 years. What is happening in Wales? I can't understand it. We haven't got time to go into the future. It's a professional sport run by people who don't even qualify as amateurs, to be honest. I read your financial reports. I went out of my way. I had the Irish and the Welsh yearly financial reports next to each other. I'm like, these look identical. Why is it not the same? And then you just see spending on hotels or something is like 50 times higher in Wales. I'm like, what is going on here? We built a hotel. Well, not we. The WRU built a hotel, and that's where they pumped the money into. Yeah, yeah. It's coached both ways and that kind of stuff. And the problem is it's not just at the international level. It's not just a regional level. It's at the club level, the grassroots level, which is where my real passion lies. In the tier below the Welsh premiership, one of our best clubs has had to pull out of a game on Saturday because they can't field the front row. Pontypool, isn't it? The famous Pontypool, yeah. This is a team who provided the British Lions front row that went to South Africa in 1974 and tore up every team there. Yeah, yeah. And now can't put a front row up to play a team in North Wales. It's been run into the ground. Yeah. And the game is dying on its ass, for want of a better phrase. It sounds a lot like the Stormers. I don't know if you know, the Stormers were actually being run by South African Rugby Union for the last few years. They went into administration because the clubs were in charge. Amateur clubmen were getting the same amount of votes as the professional arm, and they were just running it into the ground. So sorry, we have to take over this thing because you guys have run it into the ground. That's why they lost guys like Peter Sleptitor and all that. They were eating McDonald's in the first season of the IRC on their tours just to be able to afford their food. That's not changed. They've got the club guys to stop running it, and it's become now a professional union. The problem is our union is run by amateur club guys. I'm an amateur club guy. I could not run a major world sport competition, but that's what happens in Wales. It's all blokes in blazers with club ties running, and it's insane. But they are changing the structure, aren't they? They voted for these changes. That's probably the big thing, new board members and all kinds of stuff happening. Yeah, but that's only because of the racism, misogyny, and I'm sure you've heard all about it. Yeah, there was some awful grim shit going on in the Welsh Football Union, really, really bad. Not just amateur, racist and sexist as well. So we had to come out, fix it, sweep all that stuff out, and sometimes you've got to go through painful before it gets better. And we've already spoken about this. I don't want to get caught up on it. But we aren't sweeping her out. The problem is there are people there, senior people, who were there, who knew what was being said, who knew the attitudes that were being held, and they're still there. I've had senior positions in organisations. If something's wrong in the organisation, it's your fault, whether or not you've done it, and that's the problem. Yeah, it's a big problem. I mean, the problem with Welsh rugby was... It's a big game in the game. They say blazers up, but whatever the game is, blazers out. The problem was, Robert Gatland, he achieved a lot of success with Wales, but I was papering over the crap in Welsh rugby, and we never addressed them, because as long as Wales were winning, everything was okay. And then when Wales started losing and underperforming, and then all of a sudden it became a big issue. Why are our regions not winning? But obviously I would be winning because we're underfunded. We don't spend the money in Wales in the same way the Irish do. The Irish invest a lot of money into their pro teams, and they don't do that in Wales. And that's the problem. Our teams are underfunded. We've got low budgets, and the budgets are coming down next year as well. So at the moment, it's 5.2. Next year, it's going to drop to 4.5. And you've got to consider, like, Glasgow, they've got budgets of, like, 7 million. I mean, Leinster's budget is, like, 10 million plus. More than that. More than that. It could even be more than that, yeah. I'd say closer to 15, Leinster's. It's not a level playing field. We've got small squads and low budgets. We are where we are, unfortunately. So did you... Yeah, hopefully. Well, fingers crossed. We're still waiting, but we'll see. Did you watch Sharks and Dragons by any chance? I did. I think I watched 60% of it. I had a child running around the house, but I did see most of it, yeah. I saw Rio Diaz looks just as good as ever. So that was nice to see. And what else did I notice? Now, I'm thinking about the guys playing for the Cardiff. Is it Mason Grady or something? I'm remembering him running... Right, this is a Dragons pod. We don't want Cardiff to chat on you. They're our rivals. I don't want to pressure the seaweeds on you. But, yes, he's a very talented young player. Yeah, yeah. Defensively, it'd be a Smason Grady, but... You're talking down here. This is a Dragons one. Yeah, I don't know. We do talk about other clubs occasionally. For me, Rio had a good game a couple of times when he dropped the ball, but I think he was trying to do absolutely everything. He was really our only outlet. Durban man, Bradley Roberts. He's been one of our better players this season, and I think he put himself around a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Other than that, I'm starting to run out of positives now, though. I felt sorry for Bradley Roberts because before the game on S4C, they had a feature of him. He was talking about growing up in Durban. He was like, I'm a Durban boy. He was saying, I'm really excited about this game. There's going to be all my family and friends there, and they've got absolutely destroyed by the Sharks, so I can't imagine how he was feeling after the game like this. I felt a little bit sorry for him. Some homecoming hours, isn't it? Getting 69 points on you like Durban. Poor guy, poor guy. So let's talk about Lions then. You've got some good contract news. I understand you've resigned a lot of your players. Yeah, that's good news. Yeah, the issue is we've always had – we've got good talent development, good talent spotting. We like to buy them young or bring them through young, and then as soon as they get slightly good, it's the Sharks or the Bulls or someone comes calling. So to have an announcement where some of our core players are all still ready and going for the next couple of years is very good. It almost seems this year like they are starting to click. We might not have won as many overseas as we did last year, but that first few minutes against Ulster was the best I've seen the Lions play for the last few years. They just looked unfussed. They weren't playing or overplaying. They were very well controlled. They just couldn't keep it up for the whole match, and it's nice to see we've got guys like Nkaba Kanye and everyone's friend Frankie Horn. These are all, like you said, guys on the spine, our tight end, he's signed up. Our ace man, he's signed up. Our blind side, guys who all look like they could step up to even higher honors have now signed for a longer time, and that's what you need. You need that cohesion to build, and especially with the game we play, we try and play a very attacking game, and that takes longer to build. So it's very good news to see those guys in. They have been looking better, and I'm hoping that we can start to build some momentum now that we're back home. I'd love to see these guys to start building and winning games in South Africa against the South African teams. It's something we've been struggling with for the last few years. So you'll see Sonene Nohamba, we got him from the Sharks, Edward van der Merwe, Juan Horn of fullback. They're all young guys, 24, 25 years old. They're starting to hit their stride now, and they've all signed up, so the future looks bright, at least. Who are your players to watch then, Ruan? Who are the guys we need to be keeping an eye out for? Yeah, well, our number three, Nkava Kanye, he's a gigantic proper old-school tight end prop. You won't believe he can play for 80 minutes, but he does. He's one of our anti in the scrum. We have a very good scrum. Then our back row, many people in the country are envious. It's Ruan Fenta, our 7. In South Africa, our blind side plays 7, so he'll be the big guy. Look out for him running over a few people. And then Frankie Horn, our 8, he has been playing incredibly well. A lot like, I don't know if you remember, if you ever saw Warren Whiteley play for the Lions in the old days. Basically, Warren Whiteley, reborn. Not your big bruiser, Jasper Wiese type of player. More a link man. You'll see him out in the White's channels. And then Sonele Nohamba at 10. He's actually a 9, playing at 10 now. He's been playing very well. And then our 15, Juan Horn, also brilliant. Young guy, very good under the high ball. And you'll see him running at the back a few times. He doesn't just always kick it back. So those guys, our 3, our 7, our 8, 10, and 15. Are any of these guys on the fringes of the Springboks team? Should we expect to see any of them in Springboks jersey soon? It's tough to break into that box right now. But I think we'll be looking probably at number 7, Ruan Fenta, the blind side. The box, I know that's a very attritional position because if the toy often gets hurt, because it's such a physically demanding position, he'll be probably looked at a lot. And then I think our outside center, Henco van Beek. He's got big reps on him as well. Very busy. Great at turning over the ball as well. Gets up off the ground and gets back into the game fast. And then I think probably Juan Horn of 15. He's very good under the high ball. Very solid defensively and always in the right spot. So I think those guys are probably for me the ones with the biggest chance. Unfortunately, Frankie Horn, he's a very good 8th man, but he's not the type of 8th man South Africa uses. We want a big ball carrier to run over people, and that's not what he does. Well, you've got the Dragons this weekend. Now, Dragons played Lions three times last season. It felt like we played you 10 times. I know. We actually drew one of those games in Johannesburg. Sam Davies. Do you remember, Gav? He missed that drop-goal. I think it was Jane and Henrik that missed that penalty. Yeah. And then we had that silly game at the Strammanach. Yeah, I felt like we were playing in a school. It's a training center. It's literally a training center. I couldn't go to that game, but that was quite funny. They have been close encounters, though, between these pairs. So Lions run 33-25 in the Urk last season, then 31 apiece in Europe, and then you beat us at Strammanach 25-30. Do you think it's going to be anything near as close this time around? Come on, let's get your prediction and be honest. How do you see this game going? I'm sorry to say, I don't want to make you guys feel bad, but I'm seeing it'll be better than Zebrae. I'll say that, at least. It won't be 60-40. That's okay, they'll take that. I'm not even convinced Afroian said they've got a strong scrum. And after watching our scrum get folded up into tiny little bits against Sharp. Yeah, no, the Lions scrum does match any of the South Africans. Even the bock-laden packs, we match them and beat them very easily. So, yeah, you'll be seeing a big scrum. The moment we talked about Esther Ball, I figured, oh no, it's going to happen again. I'll definitely be looking to exploit that. If there's any weakness there, they'll be going after that. I'd say if the Lions, they'll be trying to hit 50. In the current weather we have, knowing that it's hot, it's high altitude, our guys are fit, they've been playing together. If we can hit 50, and it does get loose when we play like that, so probably Dragons 20-25 points around there. You might get your tri-bonus points, I think. It will become a bit of a loose game. I'd be happy with that. If we come away with a bonus point of any kind, I'll be quite happy with that, because that's something, isn't it? What do you know about the Dragons? Are they on the spot? Are there any players who you're familiar with? I know Rio Dyer and Bradley Roberts, especially Dyer. I actually saw him before he became a Welsh international. I was like, oh, this kid looks pretty good. So I've always kept an eye on him. And Bradley Roberts, knowing because he's a staffer abroad. But other than that, Wainwright. I thought he would be more of a regular Welsh international by now, but he fell off the radar after that 20-19. It was the previous coach. Didn't think he was big enough. I mean, perfect. I didn't think Jack Morgan was big enough. Like the best turnover. Exactly. Payback for lots of things that no reasonable human being thinks. So those are the main three I know. I do rate Wainwright as well. I think he's a very good back rower. Very fast, very good ball player as well. So those are the main three ones I know. Obviously, now that I've been on here, I'll keep a closer eye on him as well. Excellent. I don't know if you know this, but the Dragons do have a very lengthy entry list. And we wasn't sure if we were going to have a 10 to play in this game. I heard you. You're a training guy. So, Kai Evans. Yeah, so Kai Evans was off, and then we'll read to him. Keep an eye on him if he is playing. He's a very young, talented 10. He will play for Wales at some stage. He may look a little bit out of his depth at times. He'll make mistakes, but he's very talented, and I guarantee he will get a Wales Cup. There was talk of us playing our backs coach for this game, but that's not going to happen now, because Dave Flanagan said he was concerned about the altitude, and he's a semi-pro player. So, yeah, he still plays rugby our backs coach. He played for the Welsh Premiership for Newport. But, yeah, it looks like we'll read he's going to pass his protocols and play what he does. You could just feel around, Joe, because there would be some players somewhere here that you could just be like, just come play for us for the weekend. But that's pretty much how my club operates. On a Thursday night, just ring around anyone to see if anyone's available. Brilliant. Okay, so, thank you very much for coming on, Brian. So, good luck for the season, not for this weekend. I'm not being funny. I like the Lions, I really do, but if you could just go easy on us, please, because I can't take another sharp demolition, quite frankly. This is becoming a tour of hell at the moment, of all the entries, and I really need the Lions to go easy on us. I'll shout from the stands to tell them, okay, guys, next try wins. Do like you do in junior rugby, when it gets a bit too much, I say, right, you can't score until the mid-ten passes. Please, send a prayer for us, really, that's all I'm saying. Just think of us, please. Don't go too hard. I hope you have a great day at the game. Thanks a lot. Before you go, can you just do one thing for me, please? Because I always love watching your videos, and I can't do it, because I can't roll the tongue. You know I get that before, don't you now? Rugby, I can't do it. Can you do it for us, please, before you go? Listen to this now. Rugby! Yes! Love it. Absolutely love it. I was hoping you'd do that. Brilliant. As soon as you reached, I got you on the pot, to be honest. And I'm only joking. You just said, I would have done it and left. I'm only joking. It's been brilliant to have you with us, and to get a South African perspective on things. I really appreciate that. So, for our listeners, listen to this. Where can they find you? On Twitter, YouTube, or where can they check out your work? It's just my name, Rian Lowe, is my YouTube channel name. I didn't go for some weird name or anything like that. And then on Twitter, I'm Ringo26. Ringo is an old high school nickname. Yeah, just at Ringo26 on Twitter. And I'm on ViewSky now as well, but there's no one there, so don't worry about it. I joined ViewSky this week. Yeah, I've just started following you, Rian, on Blue Sky. It's a nice, pretty little spot still. Yeah, yeah. It's just people I know largely at the minute, which is quite nice. Yeah, so yeah, that's my name on YouTube, and then add Ringo26 on Twitter. That'll be... Excellent. And I urge all our listeners to subscribe to your YouTube channel, because it's brilliant, it's informative, it's funny. I really enjoy it. So no problems. We'll keep up the good work. Brilliant. Thanks for joining us. Cheers, guys. Hope you enjoyed the game of card game. Thanks for inviting me. Hope to chat soon. Absolutely. Thank you, mate. Take care now. Bye now. Here we go. That was Rian Low. That was a fun chat, wasn't it? Yeah, and it's interesting. He isn't the typical South African rugby person. He's light-hearted and... He's likeable. Yeah. I don't know if I should say that. I'm sorry. I'm already joking. I'm joking. Yeah, a bit. But, you know, he clearly loves the game, but he doesn't take it too seriously. Nah, he's a good bloke. And like I said, he's worth following on social media and definitely subscribe to his YouTube videos. He's introduced me to his videos this week, and there's a lot of energy in those videos. That's great. It's good. I think he doesn't have that many followers compared to the likes of Squidge and others. He deserves more followers, I think, and more subscribers. It's really worth checking out his work. Thank you very much again for joining us on the pod. Right, Gavin, I'm not going to spend too long on this game, because I know you're full of the cold, and it was a horrible experience for us all. Sharks 69, Dragons 14. Look, before the game, we had 15 players unavailable. I don't know. People might think, well, that's an excuse, but you've got to look at the names that we didn't have. So we haven't got the likes of Leon Brown, we didn't have Ben Carter, we haven't got any of D, Jack Dixon, Darned Idiot, Martinez, who we've... Martinez, we're badly missing him up front. Angus O'Brien, of course. Tate Basham is suspended. Gonzalo Virtuenu still haven't come, you know, been available since the World Cup. And then you look at the Sharks, and they're bringing back the likes of Ibanez, Zubair, Flucano, Makosina, Pimp B, Jadon Hendricks, Ox Dish, and Brant Williams. This was always going to be... Dead Ox is here on the bench. Yeah. You've just had your heads kicked in for 15 minutes. Oh, here's the World Cup winning tight, then, to deal with. And it didn't help that we had Roy Faber to pull out like an hour before kick-off as well, so Micky Endel had to come on the bench. Who, I actually thought, gave a decent account of himself in a very difficult situation. He tried really hard, I thought, Luke. Yeah. Yeah. The first scrum of the seventh minute, I mean, I set the tone. I said on the wrap part this week, I watched a lot of rugby. I've never seen a scrum go backwards and get so utterly dismantled as I did in that game. It was just so painful to watch. And, you know, I don't like knocking players, and I know I support this pace, but we've all got our players who we rate and those we don't quite rate. I think every supporter does that, don't they? Have players who, you know, they don't quite rate. I've never been a big fan of Chris Colman. I'll put it out there now I haven't, because for me, he's not strong enough in the scrum, and he doesn't offer much in the loose. But you can't blame him for what happened in that game, because, oh, it was hard. He's a premiership player for me. Yeah. He'd be fighting for everything he's put to Ed Vale. He'd do a good job. But he wasn't playing for Newport or Ed Vale. He was playing for Dragons against World Cup winners, and they dismantled him. They dismantled the scrum, though. You can't blame the entire scrum. Oh, no, no, no. On a tight end, you know, it all fell apart. You know, you could just see it under pressure. Second rows of us come right up, so you lose your footing. You lose any drive forward. We just could not deal with the initial drive. Because, you know, if you can hold the initial drive, you'll be all right for long enough. You just lock it out, hold that initial drive, but we couldn't do it, and we just splintered. But you could sense the yellow card was coming, and you could sense Chris Coleman was going to get in, because he was turned inside out, unfortunately, at the scrum, and I did feel for him. I really did. I thought he was lucky not to get in earlier. Yeah. And Aki Selle was on the other side. Oh, God. Aki Selle was on the other side. I mean, listen, Aki Selle has never been the best scrummager, right? He was Glasgow's play of the year when he was up there. Believe it or not, he was voted by supporters as their play of the year. I've yet to see that at the Dragons, I'll be honest with you. I know he's good in the loose, but Aki's scrummaging is no good. Obviously, Bradley, we know his scrummaging is not his strength. The front row took an absolute pounding down. It's difficult to scrummage as a hooker as well. As somebody who's played the hooker terribly, it is really tough. You have limited impact, really. All you have to do is hold the others down, really, particularly when it's on the opposition ball, and Bradley doesn't do that. Bradley doesn't have the weight. But as I was saying to you before the pod recording, we were 15 kilograms heavier as a pack. So that's only two kilograms a player. I'm surprised at that. Really surprised at that. It's a heavier pack. Wow. I imagine most of us in Matthews greet his head. Well, look, in the first half as well, we were going backwards. The scrum was on roller skates, the set piece was not functioning at all. If you don't have a platform, you're really going to struggle. To top it off, we lost Olly Griffiths, Kelsi Pree, Will Reid, and Kai Evans in our first 40. That's going to dismantle any team that's losing three key players like that. I thought we did okay in the first half, even though we were really struggling in the set piece. At 27 down, we were still in the game. I thought we were okay. We had a scrum half at fullback, and a centre at 10. Yeah, we had no recognised play half, we had no recognised fullback. But in the second half, once even Etzeves scored their bonus points, the floodgates opened. After 60 minutes, it was 34-14 to the Sharks. And I was thinking, if they can hold this out now, that won't be too bad, because yeah, okay, we'll lose. But our scoreline, I thought, was respectable. And then we end up having 69 points put on us at the end. As you know, I didn't get to watch the game live, because I was preparing for my birthday, and I was rehearsing with the guys I was playing music with before my birthday party. And I saw that, and I thought, oh, that's all right. Put the thought away. Seven or eight beers later, looking forward, how the hell has that happened? And I just wanted the whistle to blow up. You know, the more they were scoring tries, and I think the Dragons felt the same. Look, it was always going to be tough, like I said. We just couldn't handle their physicality, we couldn't handle their power. You've got a world-class, world-winning scrim box. Parachuted into that team. And this is not the same Sharks that was losing the previous five games before. This was a different Sharks, this was a powerful Sharks. This was a hungry Sharks team, a team with a point to prove, because they were getting heavily written off in the South African press. There was a lot of criticism aimed towards John Plumtree. This was a game they had to win and make a statement, and they did that, didn't they? We lost every collision. We lost everything. Anything that required physicality, we lost. There were two moments in the entire game where we looked physically, and there was a tackle quite early on when Seal Tomkinson folds up one of their players beautifully. Yeah. Which is pretty much all he did the whole game. And then when Harry Keddy came on, start of the second half, he bumped off one of their second rows really nicely. But there was two occasions in the whole game where there was physicality. Yes. Sean Hawley said on Scrum 5 that the Dragons laid down. Do you agree with that statement? Because I don't. But honestly, what do you think? Do you think we laid down? No, I think they ran out of steam. I don't think they laid down, but the thing is they were trying to push it. They were trying to push it at the end. They were throwing the ball about. And the errors were coming in. And they were knackered. Yeah, they were blowing out of their arse, weren't they? In that final whistle. Like Rhian said, they were playing in tropical, you know, in a tropical environment. Yeah. I don't think we helped ourselves that game. I'm not going to fault the effort, you know, because I think the players did try, but they were just completely overwhelmed and overpowered by a much superior team. But there were things in our game that did annoy me. So, for example, you had players turning their backs in the build-up to even X of F, where they win a penalty, and they turned their backs. Braddy Roberts, I'm afraid, did that, and then he runs in for a try. You've got a 9-0 win, kicking the ball out dead in a promising position. You've got Rio de Janeiro, who, yes, did have a good game, but there was that moment where he just he dropped it through, and he just robs that pass, blinding field, you know, and then it goes to a sharps player, and then it builds up, and then it's for a try. He would never do that for Wales. No. So why would he do it for us? And I was a little bit annoyed by that. And he scored a great try, I know, but when you're just lobbing passes like that, no man's land, for the opposition to scoop up, that didn't help. And then you had Theo Tomkinson move through that intercept pass. I just felt the self-destruct button was pressed. You know, once we were under pressure, we were making really bad mistakes, and then we did switch off, and it did become pretty nasty. To play my greatest hit, so to say, as I always do, we seemed to lack leadership. We lacked leadership again. There was no... Who was... Kai Evans gives us a bit of leadership, but when he went off, and, you know, there was a move, as well, where he's ran, kind of, he's come into the line, and he's played a bit of interplay with Blacker, and Blacker's played him in. He's played Blacker back in, and he's kind of run across the line, and into space, and he created Blacker's try, but then we lost any kind of... Yeah, I like Will Reid, and I agree that he is going to be a Welsh international, but at the minute, you know, he's not getting to do a lot, because, well, you know, he's fighting a losing battle. It was just... It was men versus boys. It was men versus boys. I don't like using that phrase, but, you know, you could see the gulf. The gulf was visible. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think you're right. It was men against boys, unfortunately. The stats are pretty damning. I don't know if you've had time to look into the stats. I'm not going to reel them all off, though, because it can get a bit boring. I know some people list up or don't like all the whole stats thing, but Dragons missed 26 tackles. That's damning in itself. 14 penalties conceded, compared to just four, to the Sharks. A lot of those were scrum penalties, though, weren't they? About eight of those were scrum penalties of the four. Our scrum win percentage... I don't know if this is accurate, but this is from Rugby Pass. Our scrum win percentage was 67%, which seems high, considering what we saw on Saturday. I expected it to be much lower than that, you know, given the dominance of the scrums. Yeah. We did win some. You know, we managed to get the ball up. Every time we did get the ball up, there was a couple of times the balls come up and Harry Keddy suddenly has, you know, half of South Africa on him, and he's picking the ball up at the base. Yeah. We were winning scrum ball, and we wasn't the platform. There was that one moment in the game where Chris Coleman gets the yellow card. Luke Yendall comes on. The very first scrum, we actually sent them backwards a little bit, don't we? Do you remember that? And you're thinking, oh, hang on a minute. Maybe Luke Yendall, that was going to be our new hero up front. But I thought the scrum... It was a problem all game, but I did think, and credit to Yendall, it did improve ever so slightly when he was on the field as opposed to Chris Coleman, I thought, personally. Yeah. And the thing with the scrum is it's an organic thing made up of numerous parts. And I think we haven't got any continuity because how many games have we talked about now? Five, six games? And how many front rows have we talked about? Five or six different front rows, probably. Our second rows keep changing and our back row keeps changing. There's no cohesiveness. And then you look at the Lions, who've picked exactly the same 23 players, who absolutely shellacked Zebra on the weekend. Yeah, I think we badly missed Lloyd's save, but I'm not saying the scrums would have been, you know, much better, but I think they would have been a bit better than what we saw. Because Lloyd is scrummaging in tight end, you know? He is our best scrummer in tight end. Oh, yeah. We are missing our best two scrummaging forwards props in Martinez and in Barrell. And, you know, we're missing Ben Carter, who does give a bit of weight in the second row as well. Yeah. You know? I don't know how much money David Butcher puts in, but if you would like to fly to France with a big wheelbarrow full of money and just turn up at Will Rowland's house. Did you see Dave Flanagan's post-patch interview? I saw a truncated version of it. I didn't see the whole thing. I just saw the little snippets. I mean, he always comes across as positive in, you know, all his interviews and media work. He looked utterly crestfallen after that game and he was saying that he was asked by the South African media how Dragons stopped the power, how they contained it. And he was like, I don't know. He just came out and said, I don't know. He doesn't know what to do. It's so tough, isn't it, Gareth? I mean, how is he going to pick up his players now? How is he going to pick them up off the floor and get up for the Lions when you've suffered such a heavy defeat? That's going to shatter confidence, isn't it? But, you know, I'm thinking about what Rhian was saying as well. Lions are a team who like to play at an incredibly high pace at altitude in extreme heat. I know, when he said that I figured, oh Christ! We've got boys from Risker and Blaenavon, you know. The sun is a rave and, you know, a fragile thing for these guys. And, you know, they'll be all right with altitude. There'll be boys who are used to being out in 36 degree heat. There should be some consideration taken into that. That's all well and good, but they're all boys here from Blaenavon. They do not like the sun. No. Shall we open the mailbox to see what we've got inside? Because we've got one or two interesting comments and questions. Steve Davis, what do they need to do to fight back from this position? We've blown two potential home wins, leaving us in the doldrums yet again. How can we get out of this position? I mean, that's easier said than done, isn't it, Gav? But what do you say to that? We've got to... I've said this before and it'll sound defeatist and I don't really care. We have to target the winnable games. I play a lot of football manager. Occasionally, I'll have games where I know I'm not going to win, so I don't even put my best players anywhere near it. I'll put my friends' players up because I see very little point in competing in games you can't win and then I keep the players together for the games that are winnable. And this needs to be the same for Darius. We aren't going to beat Leinster in Leinster. We aren't going to beat Munster in Munster. And that might sound defeatist, but fine. But let's focus on beating Cardiff, beating Scarlet, beating Ospreys, beating Zebra, beating Benetton. Let's beat those sides and then... But it's got to be competitive, though, Gav. That's the only problem. I understand what you're saying, but if you take that position, you're just going to end up having not-so-good scores like you've seen. And, OK, we may not beat the likes of these teams, I know that, but we need to get something out of it. We need bonus points. I tried to explain this to somebody on Facebook. You sort of have the same position as him. Bonus points accumulate and they add up. Even if you're not winning, we need bonus points because they do make a difference at the end of the season, Gav. So we've got to fund it, we've got to be competitive. I do agree with you to a degree. It's just, at the minute, we are not throwing everything we can into those. Or maybe we are throwing everything we can into the winnable games and I'm talking crap. And we just aren't good enough. That is the other uncomfortable truth in all of this. Maybe it doesn't really matter what we do because we are not good enough. And we aren't good enough because we don't have the squad and I think that's apparent. You know, we have got a lot of injuries and there is no strength in depth. I will not criticise Dai because I think he's doing everything he can. But he needs some help and he needs some expertise around him. Yeah, I don't think the coaching set-up is... I've talked about it on previous boards. I've got myself spoke about the current coaching set-up. But they've just got to throw everything at the lions, haven't they? You know, they've got to try and put that result behind them. Winning breeds confidence. And I just think if Dragons won a couple of games, that would help them massively. But when you get these heavy defeats... It was reminiscent for me of the Chapman era a little bit. You know? When you lose to Munster in that manner, when you lose to the Sharks. Those away games, you get absolutely pumped. It was starting to become very reminiscent of the Burner-Chapman era. And we don't want to go back to those days. I want to see us competitive. I don't mind losing, but I want to see us be competitive. I want to see us get something out of it. I want losing bonus points or try bonus points. I can't just accept heavy defeats like that because it's embarrassing and it does nothing to enhance the Dragons' reputation. Quite frankly, you know? That's where I sit with it. Okay, let's move on then. Richard Idris-Jones says, Should the new ownership find the money for a defence coach? Yes. Attitude and desire. Yeah, that's an easy one to answer. He says, Attitude and desire often comes from defence. And that was lacking against the Sharks. I think Flanagan needs more support around him. The coaching team needs strengthening. You've been saying it, Gav. Oh, yeah. You know, you are singing to the choir there, Richard, because we are absolutely on board with that. There are lots of good defence coaches out there. Just go to any rugby league club and say, How do you organise your defence? Yeah. Because in fairness, when Simon Cross left to go to America, it did leave Dragons in the lurch a little bit. It didn't leave them a lot of time to find someone. So there is that to consider. How hard have they tried? And we've got to stop hiding behind the budget excuse all the time. I'm sorry, but if you've got investors there and the coaching team is not part of the playing budget, as we're told, then I'm sorry, but you've got to put your money where your mouth is now, Mr Buttress, Mr Wright and Ho Young-Dew, and start investing in some bloody good coaches. And the thing is, as well, we're not going to get Sean Edwards because he's not in our placements, but there are coaches and rugby league coaches turn into great defensive coaches. There are rugby league coaches who will be talented, will be good at organising defences and will not be earning lots of money. And we can go to those clubs in Super League and say, Well, who's your defence guy? Do you want to come and go? We can probably give you a pay rise and you won't have to live in Yorkshire. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it didn't help losing Kai, but we'll read to that. It really did not help us at all. Yeah. This is an interesting question, Gav. I don't quite understand the question, if I'm being completely honest, but I do appreciate Ricky sending it in. He says, becoming a complete nonsense. Why is it always a pen when you're simply not as powerful as the opposition? When the referee gave Coleman a yellow, he may as well have told him to spend the next 10 minutes getting bigger and stronger. Now, like I said, I don't quite understand the question or the angle that Ricky's coming from. Does he not want dominant scrums rewarded? I don't understand. What do you think of that question? I understand the point he's making. I'm not dense. I can understand the point he's making, but that is Coleman's job. And it's not just about being bigger and stronger. It is about being technically proficient because as my close dear friend, Nick, who passed away a couple of years ago, would always tell me, it's not about who's strongest. It's about who understands the technique the best in the front row. And he was a very good tight end at our level. And it's true. It's about technique. And you look at the best tight ends and they are technical players. They are not Danny Cipriani by any stretch of imagination. Being a tight end prop and where you place your arms and when you move your arms and when you move your feet is an incredibly complex technical skill set. And it's not Chris Coleman's fault because he's not being coached to that level either. He hasn't got somebody showing him how you become a really good scrummager. And it always makes me think of Australia when they got Ledesma in. And the Australian scrum went from being secondary to being really strong because the guy just said, put your arm there, put your feet there, keep your head down, do that. And we just don't have anyone doing that. And scrummages are a game and you have to hold your end up. And if you don't hold your end up, you get penalised. You are going to get penalised, aren't you? That's just rugby, you know. If you can't put your feet up front, then like you said, whether you're being overpowered or bristled, it's always going to be penalty to the other team. But again, and I'm talking about a very amateur level rugby, but you do the things that you can to limit it. You put the feet in a bit quicker. You move your bind slightly more. You try to do things just to alter it. You've got to feed quicker in, you're hooked quicker and you're getting it out quicker. So you're not really giving it time to... And that's one thing that does annoy me. There have been occasions where I've seen our scrum be on the back foot and we're too slow getting the ball out. Now I watched Cardiff Stormers on the weekend. Cardiff were on the back foot all game. Stormers mashed them up front. But what they did quite cleverly, Cardiff, they got the ball out quick but it was their scrum. And we don't do that enough. Sometimes I think we ask about too much. We just get the bloody ball out. You know, I think we're too slow in getting it out. I don't understand, lads, where you're like that. Why are you trying to hold it? You're not going to hold it. Your eight's just going to have to flicker out of the nine and then your nine's going to have to wellier up the field. It's not pretty, but it's more pretty than having your arse folded, you know. Ah, absolutely. OK, that's the Mailbox. Thank you for your questions and comments. Shall we move on to your Gwent Rugby Roundup, Gav? What have you got for us this week? Well, I'm going to start with the disappointing news. We spoke with Rhian that Pontypool have pulled out of this Saturday's game against RGC because they don't have any front row available. Now, I've not lived in the Valleys for a long time, but I am an Eastern Valleys boy. I am the son of a prop. We build props in the Eastern Valleys. You know, you go in Spoons and Ebb Vale, there's a couple of tight beds there ready to go any time. What is happening? What is happening to the game? That is not happening. That's not occurring. And, yeah, I appreciate going to Colwyn Bay is a long way from Pontypool, but come on, boys, you're semi-professional. You know, you're getting paid to do this. I trained with a rugby team in Chattanooga, Tennessee that travelled seven and a half hours for some of their away games. And these were guys who, you know, were paying to play. So Pontypool must be able to put together, because there must be clubs they can borrow players from. You know, there must be guys playing at that level before. There must be guys playing for Bedworth or Cross Keys or Newbridge who they can borrow. Because it wouldn't be ideal. And then, you know, Pontypool aren't going to be in this elite league. Well, that's not elite, is it? A couple of things to consider, yeah. First of all, Pontypool have got more resources and money behind them than any team in the league. So it's really bizarre that they can't find anyone to fill a front row. Secondly, I don't know if you remember, a couple of seasons ago, they put out a statement about Bel Air, didn't they? Oh, I remember it, yeah. And they wanted them expelled from the league. So there was a lot of shouting about that after that statement from Pontypool. Oh, yeah, I've seen it. Did you see the replies and the quote tweets they got? They actually switched off the comments, Pontypool. They had to switch off the comments. They got a lot of stick for that. And that's not a good look. As much as I like Pontypool, that's not a good look. But just think about it. You are the club that, you know... My dad played against that Pontypool front rower and said it was like trying to climb Mount Everest in flip-flops. Like, you just couldn't do anything against them. And... And all of a sudden, it's a disgrace, really. And it's letting them win, isn't it? I mean, so much for the Pontypool front rower and the modification. Because they were so good, though. No, because they'd only got Colwyn Bay on a cold Saturday. It'll be interesting to see what sanctions there'll be from this. Because I know RGC, they were very unhappy with it, weren't they? I've seen it. I follow RGC on Twitter and on Facebook. The Welsh language statement was even slightly less well-tempered than the English language one. Well, they've missed out on a home game. And it's revenue for the club, isn't it? You know, these grassroots clubs, they need the revenue. And they've missed out. So, I can understand where they're at, really. You know, RGC particularly, because there's really the culture up there in that stadium, the Stadium Zip World, is where, when I taught in Colwyn Bay, we used to take our kids for sports days. So, it always makes me laugh that it's now a semi-professional stadium. Brilliant. So, what else have you got there, Gavin? Well, Pontypool have not had a good week because they lost to Bridgend last week. They lost 27-23. Ebbervale have convinced them when they're against Swansea, 36-7. And then, top of the table clash, Flandrevery and Newport. Flandrevery convincing when they're there, 29-7. So, Newport have fallen off the pace a lot now. And Flandrevery have kind of made themselves kind of space now at the top. So, you know, there's Gwent teams in three of their four top places, except not top. But we'll be interested to see if there's a points removal for Pontypool. It'll make Cardiff a bit closer. In the Championship, some good results, some less good results for our clubs. Bedwast beat Aston Rondler, 46-19 at home. Up and down the season, Bedwast, but they are winning home games, which is kind of helping them get the league. The Morgan Wanderers and Crosskeys drew 24-0. Interesting. The Morgan Wanderers, home of my favourite rugby shirt when I was a child. I loved their shirt. And I got my dad to buy me one from the sports shop in Cardiff when I was a kid because I just loved those colours. Penalty lost quite heavily at home to Bezzai. They lost 14-16 at home. Struggling this season a little bit. I think it's a big step up for a club of that size to be playing some of the clubs they are playing. They're in with Newbridge and clubs of that level. And then in Division 1, Bedleynog beat Whisker, 36-27. Bryn Mawr were unbeaten, 40-12 winners against Abergavenny. Bryn Mawr are a bit further down the league just because there's been a lot of postponements. If you've ever been up to Bryn Mawr's field, it is one of the coldest, windiest places on God's green earth. Bless it. Nelson lost 21-25 to Monmouth. Monmouth haven't had a great start. It's a good win for them. Bryn Mawr haven't lost 13-5 away to St Gennis. And then in the derby of vague size on that Elliot, Allewine beat NSD, 27-26. That's a bit disappointing. The Elliot, no Elliot, the Tane Basham versus Hugh derby. Is that everything from the GWENT Rugby Roundup? Yeah, that's what I have at the minute. I'm going to have more from lower down the leagues next week. Brilliant. Okay, let's move on to rating the players' playlists. So this one is from... Sorry, for those who aren't aware, we've just listened to this for the first time. So the Dragons will be doing a feature where they're asking the players to contribute six songs to the matchday playlist. The music they play at Bondi Parade before the actual game starts when the players are warming up. And it's just a bit of fun, and we've been rated some of them. We've rated Elliot Dees, and we rated our god-awful Matthew Screech playlist, which I think you said, Gav, was a... Well, music for nine-year-olds, I think you said, didn't we? Yeah, music for people who didn't like music. Yeah. So this is what Roger Williams chose. Now, this was for the pre-season game against the Ospreys. This is a much, much improved playlist over Matthew Screech's. This is grown-up music, I'm pleased to say. Although it does fade away a little bit in the last two songs, which I'll tell you about now. So he kicks off. It's a strong choice, Gav. Don't look back in anger, Oasis. Well, I like Oasis. I think that's the most irritating song. Oh, Gav! Gav! It's a classic! And a friend of mine was convinced for years the lyrics were, stand up by the fireplace, take that woodpecker off your face. So in my head, that's the line I always hear. What's your favourite Oasis song, Gav? Favourite Oasis song is Columbia or Slide Away. Oh, Slide Away's a belter. That's off. They're off. They're definitely maybe off. Yeah, their first album, yeah. Columbia is great. That's proper kind of driving, jammy kind of Stones Roses-y stuff. And I love Slide Away. Yeah, it's a belter. I love that one as well. So that's a good choice. Anyway, well, for me it is. Anyway, I think that's a good start. No, no, it's better than David Guetta last week, isn't it? Oh, gosh, yes. This one I'm not so keen on because when it first came out, do you remember Real Radio? Yeah. That station, Real Radio. They played this song to absolute death. And I used to work shifts in a factory. I used to work days, afternoons and nights. And I'd hear it all the time, no matter what time of the day I was working. They would put this song on at least four or five times a day. I started to really hate it. He's chosen America by Razorlight. Yeah, it's... Yes, I think I haven't overheard it like you. I'm not a huge Razorlight fan, but that is a good song. So the guy who taught me guitar was in a band with Johnny Burrell of Razorlight. Oh, great. Yeah, before they became Razorlight. Oh, fair play. Okay, now the next two songs, I'm a big fan of this because I love the stereophonics. He's chosen two stereophonic songs. A Thousand Trees, that's a classic, you can't argue with that one. And Dakota, which is a very populist song and maybe an obvious choice, but that's what he's done. A Thousand Trees and Dakota. So what are your thoughts on that one? First phonics album is great. And I will happily wrestle anyone who says differently. And I think if you're Welsh, and particularly if you have any connection to the Valleys, that first album is a bit like the National Anthem, isn't it? It's songs about being from the Valleys, stuff like More Life Than A Transfer, A Thousand Trees, all of those songs. And I played music with friends of mine on the weekend for my birthday and the guy who played bass, Adrian, is one of my oldest friends we've been mates since, well, nearly 40 years now. And he's played in lots of covers bands in the Valleys and he plays loads of phonics songs. No, man, it's phonics songs. And he still says A Thousand Trees is still one of his favourite songs to play and he's probably played it live free 400 times. But on the Kelly thing, so his new band, what are they called? Far From Saints. Far From Saints. So they play Bexhill, which is the next town across from where I live. And my mate went to see them, I did them, but my mate went to see them, he caught his pick and I played my set with Kelly Jones's pick. Oh, brilliant. Oh, nice one. Going off the point a bit, yeah, so yeah, I played a set with Kelly Jones's pick slightly less than Kelly does. I'm not a lover of Dakota. I don't know about you, I don't know if you notice this, so we go on holiday to Benidorm quite a lot, right? And they have a lot of, you know, guitar singers playing in all the pubs and clubs in the day. Any time they'll say, anyone from Wales, play Seven Welsh. Nine times out of ten, they'll play Dakota Stereophonics. They always play that one. So, about, well, it was more or less four years ago now, I went to watch the Wales Barbarians game, it was Pete Wright's first game. And I met up with a mate of mine that played rugby much younger than me, he was a university student from Hastings who'd gone to uni in Cardiff, he lives in Cardiff now. And I took him to the silly, and I said, because he was all drinking the spoons, I said, I'm buying, so I'll take, you know, go to a proper pub. And there's a guy playing guitars, and he said, I'll be good. I said, I reckon he'll play a lot of phonics. And then the first thing, phonics songs. Yeah. And Dakota was one of those. Of course. It's the chorus, it's a bit whiny, isn't it? I liked the culture. I don't think it's a song I could ever get bored of. Honestly, I've heard it more times than I care to remember. It is probably the most popular song now. Oh, yeah. I've seen the phonics live lots of times, and I saw them live in the Prince Paddy Stadium just gone with Tom Jones for support now. When they played Dakota, oh, they're fantastic. I must have seen them like five, six times. When they played Dakota, when you hear the do-do-do-do-do, the crowd go nuts. Oh, yeah. This is their encore now, that's where they end the shows with. They love it. You know, it is a really good set closer. It is a good song. I guess I've heard it a million times. I got a lot of love for Dakota, even though it's, yeah, a well-worn classic, I would say. But yes, so that's Dakota and the Thousand Trees. We now move on to a really bland Irish pop band, The Script, with Hall of Fame. I don't like this song at all. Oh, God, that's the man who was on The Voice, wasn't it? The Voice. Danny O, is it Danny something? Yeah, I can't remember his name. Yeah. You like this one, Gav? No. Standing in the Hall of Fame, do-do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do. It's a shit Maroon 5. Just let that phrase sink in a bit. A shit Maroon 5. There aren't many bands I really hate, but I fucking hate Maroon 5. I absolutely detest them. Can't stand them. And I can't tell you what really good reasons why I just don't like their music. I do not like any song that they've ever put out. Well, I don't know what it is. Who's that for? Who is buying Maroon 5 records? Yeah. Moves Like Dragon is an absolute abomination. But Heart Radio, where I used to work in an office where, you know, I was the only male colleague there, and they all put on Heart Radio. Heart Radio, that was the choice in the office I worked in. And I must say I heard Moves Like Dragon fucking 10 times a day, and I used to hate it. Absolutely hate it. And I played Heart Radio for that, which is why I never listen to Heart anymore. No, I did. When I was in the covers band, we played a Maroon 5 song. Oh, which one was that? It was their first single. Oh, Harder to Breathe, I bet, sir. Is it Harder to Breathe? No, God, what was it called? Well, that was their first single. That was their first big hit, wasn't it? Harder to Breathe. Oh, God. Is it called Dislove? Dislove? Oh, yeah. In its toll on me, she said goodbye too many times before. Oh, God, yeah. This is exactly what people want on a rugby pod. Two middle-aged men singing their own Maroon 5 songs. Moving quickly on then, Eminem, Lose Yourself. Now, to be fair, whether you like Eminem or not, that's a good match day song. That gets players pumped up. Have you seen Nine Mile, the film? Yes, Eight Mile, yeah, yeah. Oh, Eight Mile, sorry. Oh, it's good hype music. Yeah. It is good hype music. That's a decent choice, isn't it? Yeah. Why the fuck did I say Nine Mile? Of course it's Eight Mile. Silly me. So, there we are then. So, we've got Don't Look Back at Anger by Oasis, America Raised the Light, A Thousand Trees and Dakota by the Stereophonics, and Hall of Fame by The Script, and then ending on Lose Yourself by Eminem. I'm giving this seven out of ten. I am going to have to mark it down because of the script. I'm going to give it seven as well, I think. But he's got some really good indie choices in there, hasn't he? I love the fact that he's got Oasis, Stereophonics, and that's not my favourite. I hate that song, America by Raised the Light, but Raised the Light were decent. Are they still going? No. Are they still going? They've disbanded, haven't they? No, yeah. Johnny Brill's doing something else. Oh, it's okay. So, you're giving it a seven, yeah? Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah, I'll give it a seven as well. Okay, brilliant. I still think Elliot's is the highest scoring one, isn't it? Yeah, it is, yeah. It is. I can't wait to see what the one or what player we're going to get with Oil Now, Wrong Music, because that'll be the next one, the Oil Now home game in Europe. So, we'll wait and see who the nominated player is and what songs he'll provide for us. But I'm enjoying these ratings, playing this, by the way. I mean, there's some brilliant choices, some choices are like, what? What is that? But no, it's all good fun, isn't it? Okay, so let's move on to this weekend then. And, well, it doesn't get any easier, Gav. They're still in South Africa and they've got to play the Lions who absolutely battered Zebra. They made the same team, no changes for the Lions, but why would you? So, the game kicks off on Saturday, five past three, UK time. The game is live on Fireplay and BBC Wales. So, this game is going to be shown on BBC Two Wales. Fireplay. Which is probably a little bit unfortunate for them because this kicks off, well, this three o'clock kickoff, the Cardiff and Scarlet derby. And I'm pretty sure BBC would much prefer to be showing that game than showing us. But what was he saying about Fireplay then? Fireplay are becoming Premier Sports, aren't they? Yes. Yeah, so for those who aren't aware, Premier Sports are now taking over from Fireplay. So it was Premier Sports to begin with. They sold it to Fireplay and now it's going back to Premier Sports. So, yeah, that's how it's working at the moment. So, yeah. It won't make any difference to our subscription, it'll just continue as normal. So we don't need to cancel and do any of that. According to Simon Thomas, it'll all change over, so it'll still be on the same channels as Sky and Virgin. But, yeah, we've basically gone back to the start. So, yeah. I mean, at least you get to see every game live. You know, I know it's a lot of criticism with Premier and Fireplay, but I always said, if another broadcaster picks it up, there's no guarantee you'll see every game live. So we've got to be thankful for that at least, haven't we? Yeah. So the referee is Italian, it's Andrea Piardi, is it? I don't know if I pronounced that right. This is his 13th out of this game. Yeah, we haven't beaten a South African opponent since winning 13-10 at home to the Cheetahs in February 2020. God bless. And we're coming off... God bless. Yeah, I like the Cheetahs. I like them, they're rubbish. They weren't that bad. We beat them, Jamie. We beat them. OK, fair enough, fair enough. Lyons' only previous defeat to a Welsh region was to the Scarlets against Leffley in October 2021. Our most recent away win in any competition. Can you remember it? What was our last away win in any competition? Last away win in any... We have had this conversation and I forgot. It was Europe, wasn't it? And it was against someone silly. It was against Poe away in the Challenge Cup. Yes, yes. I knew it was Europe and I knew it was a French team. Yeah, and as mentioned before, the two Souths have met on four previous occasions in all competitions, with Lyons winning three of them plus a 31-0 draw in Johannesburg in the Challenge Cup. Right, Gav. How do we feel about this game? Put all your thoughts into it. Do we have a chance? No, we don't. We don't, OK. Are they going to put 50 points on us? Maybe not. Maybe not. But are we going to win it? Probably not. Because if their scrum is as strong as Rhiann says, and to be fair, I saw their scrum against Benetton and they dismantled that. No, Benton, Zebra. Zebra, yeah. Yeah, they dismantled that Zebra scrum. Yeah. And yeah, the tight end he talked about, he looks quite a handful. He's huge. Have you seen him? I know the guy he was talking about. He's absolutely huge. I watched the Zebra highlight, and yeah, he's just massive. Are you moving in? You know, Rodri is going to have quite a bit of time on his hands there. I think it's fair to say we need Rodri Jones and Lloyd Fabre for this. Hopefully they will be our starting props. And hopefully it is, well, it's likely there will be, because we're recording this before the teams get announced, of course, but we know the Lions have announced their team as unchanged. But for us, it looks likely there will be, it's going to start these pastures protocols by all accounts. If not, then we're probably going to be looking at someone like Steffews. I don't think it'd be Jordan, because he'd be playing at fullback. I expect Jordan to be named fullback for this game. But, yeah, it's very difficult to see anything other than the Lions win. But what we don't want to see is another batter in Galway. No. So, right, I'm not going to talk about the school match. I'm going to talk about the strange idea I've had. What would you think about putting Rio at fullback? Has he played fullback before? For Dragons or Wales in the 20s or anything? He might have played it for Wales in the 20s. I can't remember him ever doing it for Dragons. I might be wrong. You know, I'm sure one of our listeners can tell us. But I was thinking about, you know, who would you select at fullback for Wales currently? And him and Josh Adams are both very good under a high goal. But, yeah, maybe Rio at fullback? Ashton and Jarrod on the wings? Or Ewan on the wing? Yeah, it'd have to be Ewan on the wing, because Jarrod's ruled out a concussion. Yeah. I mean, the only concern I would have is, is Rio's kicking game good enough for fullback? Yeah, you're probably right. Because he very rarely kicks, doesn't he? I don't see him kicking much, Rio. So, does he have that kicking game needed? In terms of Wales, I actually think he'll be doing pretty savage for Josh Adams at fullback. Or Kai Evans. Well, they just said Kai might be playing 10, but it's an interesting point. Yeah. Well, I'm hoping they'll play one of those, because I want them to bring that lad from Exeter into the squad. Oh, from... Yeah, I know the one. The Cardiff lad. His name, I think, was Gabriel or something. Yeah. Yeah, he looks quite the talent, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah, so, we're not feeling confident about this game, it's fair to say. By 28, that's what I want to say. Oh, right, OK, yeah. I mean, I was going to say, you know, we're playing it through the heat. We need to see a reaction, I think, now, from the Dragons, because I think win or lose. We will expect the Dragons to lose, but they've got to give us something to cheer about. Oh, yeah, there's got to be something to put our claws into. Absolutely, and if they come away with a bonus point but we concede 40, 50 points, I'll take it. I think that's fine. I would take a 28, 52, or something like that. God, this shows how low our expectations are, doesn't it? Yeah, I'd take a 50, but probably farther in. As long as he's got 28. Oh, I wish we ended up like this, honestly, God. I won't be watching this game live. I'll be at Rodney Parade on Saturday, watching Newport County versus Barnet, in the FA Cup, which might be a nice distraction, to be quite honest. And I will be playing in the first round of the Sussex Salve, against Lewis Second, 15. The glamour, the glamour of it, isn't it? Yeah, so I'll be recording this game, and I'll have to watch it back. I will be checking my phone for updates, but, yeah, it's hard to see anything other than a comprehensive defeat. The Lions are a good team, and I said before we started recording, I don't think they get the respect that they deserve. And, okay, yes, they are the weakest South African franchise, but that's like saying Connacht is the weakest Irish province, but they're still a bloody good team. It doesn't matter whether they're weakest or not, it's going to be incredibly difficult. My prediction was Lions by 35 on the rat pod, and I'm going to stick with that. But whatever happens, please give us some green shoots, Dragons, give us something to cheer, a bonus point would be terrific. But, yeah, it's going to be very difficult, isn't it? And can we compete up front? How much work has been put in this week on Scrum's set piece? I mean, they've been pumping a lot of iron. I don't know if you've been watching the Dragons' social media. Why do we pump out all these videos of them training all the time? Because compared to the other regions, they don't seem to do as much, but the social media team at the Trunks, they love putting out these videos of us in training, and you think, oh, they're working really hard, fair play. And then you see them on the field, and it's a different story. And it's a different story. It doesn't quite translate, does it? We played the uni team as well, didn't we, in the live training session? Yes, we played Cape Town University. We trained against them, yeah. Which I think is quite handy, actually, you know, rather than just training by ourselves. But why are we playing in Cape Town? Why aren't we playing about it? Why aren't we training about it? No, I don't really understand why they went. Because they went to Cape Town, didn't they, for, like, a few days, and then they headed down to Johannesburg. I don't know. I've got no idea. As we have said, you know, playing in Cape Town, playing in Johannesburg, two very different experiences. So, you know, the Western Cape and High Veldt are very different places. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, then, on that note, it hasn't been very positive, I know, but, I mean, after a defeat like that, it was always going to be a tricky part, a more downbeat part. I mean, I'd love to just be talking about more wins. We're not quite there yet, though, are we, Gav? You know, there's still a lot of work to be done, I'm afraid. A little. A little, yeah. Brilliant. Thank you for joining me, Gav. It's been a pleasure as always. And thanks, of course, to our guests. We had it was really good value. We shall speak next week, where, hopefully, we may have something to cheer about, or it won't be as bad as what we saw in Durban. But fingers crossed for a reaction this week. Yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you very much. We'll speak next week. Thank you for listening. Good night. Thank you for listening to the Dragon's Lair podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. 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