Scarlets Fever: Champions and transfers

Catboy is unable to use his memory due to a copyright strike from someone claiming it as their own. They discuss their weeks and Catboy's experience on Britain's Got Talent. They then talk about Community Rugby, specifically the Camodern Quinns' disappointing loss after a previous win, and the need for consistency in player selection. They also mention other Scarlet's players in various teams and discuss the results of Championship West, 1 West, One West Central, and Two West matches. Whitland's loss confirms their relegation to Division 2. Welcome to Scarlet's Fever, the home of Suspense Central and Westerer is Besterer. Hello and welcome to this week's edition of the Scarlet's Fever podcast. Joining me, Big M, is the wonderful, dynamic superstar that is Catboy. How are we doing, Bert? I'd like to tell you how I'm doing, Mark, but unfortunately he's had a copyright strike. Oh, no. No, what's happened, Bert? I can't tell you. I thought it was mine. I thought the memory was mine. But it turns out it was actually somebody else's. There was no way of me knowing that. There was no clues, but somebody else has written in and claimed that my memory is actually theirs and I'm not allowed to use it. Oh, that's terrible. I've never heard of anything like that. Instead of how are you, how's your week been? Can you tell us about your week? I can tell you about away weeks. Yeah, it's been good. For people who know, no. Who know, no. Yeah, it's been all right. Busy. Scarlet's didn't play this weekend, so nothing to be angry about. Nothing to be confused or upset about. You've got a little bit to be angry about. We'll come to it. But yeah, no, not bad, mate. How was your week? Well, as we all know, I was signing her up in Cornwall, not Devon. I do not know where Lee got Devon from. It was clearly put in the group, Cornwall. I mean, I passed through Devon and all, but no, not this time. No, I had quite an up and down week. Going with five kids is always pretty hectic. Do you watch Britain's Got Talent? No. No, neither do I. But they had an act on one, like a ventriloquist, Jules, I think her name was. She was on there a few years ago, apparently. Well, she was looking for, you know, an audience member to talk to, and guess who that was? It was me. So I ended up with a gorilla as a girlfriend, which might be interesting. So have you been on Britain's Got Talent? No, I should be. I should be. I think I have. So are you going to be on telly? No, no, no. Nothing like that. It was a holiday park, but a little show at the end. But no, I was taken up on the stage, and I was rightfully embarrassed, dressed up like a cowboy, stuck a hobby horse between my legs, and then one of them ventriloquist masks over my face. And I was re-dubbed Monkey Man. Monkey Man and Catboy, it still works. It still works. Yeah, so we'll see how that plans on. It's an odd duo. They don't inhabit the same places, apart from, I don't know, maybe Michael Jackson's house or something. I don't know. I think a monkey might, you know, do some naughty things to a cat, as in, you know, grab it by the tail, swing it around and stuff. It seems like a sort of thing a monkey would do. Yeah, I can't see them being friends. Nah. My cat doesn't like other cats, let alone monkeys. Your cat's a robot, no wonder it doesn't like anything. Nah, this will fan club you when Lee's not around, so happy days. Exactly. Okay, so straight in, Community Rugby. And if you listened last week, Lee did miss out some things. It's not a double-up week, so don't worry about that. The only thing I am going to point to from last week is, Llantafri. Llantafri had a debutant in Sam Potter, who played for the Scarlet Thunder 18s last year, and has been playing for Amundsford all season. So, you know, congratulations to him, young man. You know, full-back flyer, he's been doing really well. And another debutant for the Camodern Quinns, in their awesome victory over the Pontypridd, was Iori Badham, who, and I'm quite impressed by this, in the last ten weeks, he's made his debut for Scarlet Thunder 18s, he's made his debut for Tenby, and he's made his debut for Camodern Quinns. So it's been a bit of a whirlwind of a time for this young man. And, he impressed so much, he kept his spot for this week. So, let's touch on that now. So obviously, the Drovers were in the Cup Final, we'll get on to that in a minute. But in the Premiership, Camodern Quinns travelled to Cardiff. They had a lot of, well, a fair few Academy boys with them. Lewis Morgan, Yeston Wood, Lucas Ataro, Iori Badham, Gabriel Macdonald, then they had Alfie Evans, Seth Gee and Ellis Price, Ellis Price on debut, on the bench. And, well, I don't quite know how to say this. They beat Pontypridd 22-20 the week before, with Archie Hughes and Charlie Titcom in tow. And, they were just sent back to the Scarlets for some reason. We've got no inclination as to why they went back, because obviously, no game this week, no game next week. So, you know, surely you'd think they'd need the game time. And, it was a massive shit show. Oh my God, just seeing, I didn't look at the updates until it was about five past ten, past three, and it was already 42-0. And, you'd think that Peel had been selecting, you know, the squads with, you know, the way they're bouncing in and out. It just makes no sense whatsoever. Finished 77-7. So, you know, desperately disappointing for the Quinns, after, you know, a good win the week before. But, you know, no consistency in selection. And, you know, that's been a problem for us. It's no problem for the Quinns. It's, you know, the strategy of, you know, it's not obvious to outsiders, let's say. For people on the outside looking in, it's not immediately understandable why we release players to mainly Quinns when we are playing, and then call them back into the Scarlet Scamp when we're not playing. It's, you know, I can understand that maybe they want to have 15 on 15 matches in training or something, but you would think that now would be the time of who needs game time, get yourselves down to the prem. And, I think, you know, moving forward, if we're going to have the EDC, which we are, the strategy for when and who gets released to Drovers and Quinns, which, you know, the whole point of the EDC is it's going to be a development competition designed at building players for the regions. So, the primary purpose of Flandau-Brie and Quinns next season will be to supply players to the Scarlets. We need to be told this is the strategy for what players those two clubs get, and the players that they get will be primarily Quinns and Drovers players, and only called up to the Scarlets if we have an injury or they're playing particularly well. Yeah, that's what it should have been for years. This is what you would have thought it would have been since the inception of regional rugby, but it hasn't. And, you know, with the unfortunate demise of a club or two over the last few years, we are now down to two senior clubs in the EDC, so they're going to have to take on quite a lot of boys next year. It's going to be a tricky watch, I think, if you get on for those first two games. But, like I said, if there was some sort of thinking whether or not there was, like, four-on, two-offs, just anything, any sort of pattern that we could try and find to make sense out of this, but we just can't. So, other Scarlets boys that we had on show this week was Olly Clause for Armandford and Ellis Payne for Armandford, who was making his debut from 15. Ellis was playing for the Scarlets 18s a couple of months ago, so, you know, congratulations to him. He had a bit of a shove in the tunnel after the Armandford game, so I bet he enjoyed that. Let's get straight into our results, then. So, Championship West, Armandford put up a really, really good fight at home against Brecon, going down 32-17. Llangennic lost 33-24 at home to Bonnermine. A bit of a shock that was. You know, Llangennic really had stepped up this second half of the season, but they're already promoted, so, you know, I didn't have a look at their 20 or 22 or however many they put out, so I don't know if it was a weakened squad with some youth boys or whatnot. And Narbeth, after a couple of bad weeks, they went full tilt up in Newcastle Emlyn within 66-7. Oh, pictures for this week for the premiership, sorry. Carmarthen Quinns are at home to Ebbw Vale, Llandyfrio in Aberaban. Pictures for Championship West. Llangennic are travelling to Dunbint. Narbeth are travelling to Maesteg Quinns. Newcastle Emlyn host Brecon. It does not get any easier for them. And Crimech are away to Trebannos. Down into 1 West. The lovely Barryport Kidwelly derby. And Barryport lost out 21-31 at home. Declan Smith was outstanding for Kidwelly. Former Scarlet Scrimoff. So, it's just... It's one of those games where you know the area, you know how close these two teams are. They are literally, you know, pound to pound next to each other. I think there's only Pembrey, which is a part of Barryport, in between them. That's how close these two towns are. So, it is a massive, massive derby. And Kidwelly have got the bragging rights for you. Aberystwyth went down 16-8 away to Ghafeinan. Good result for them, considering the season they've had so far. Velenvaux lost 49-10 away to Gowertan. And the biggest result of the day was Whitland losing 24-22 at home to Pontyddylais. And with that loss, they are confirmed relegated to Division 2 for next season. So, games for this week. We've got Aberystwyth at home to Kidwelly. Velenvaux at home to Pencloud. Wesley Wondres, back in league action against Pontyddylais. And Henry Horsbury-Port. One West Central. Brennaman lost 12-8 away to Wiltswells. They're lying at the bottom of the table now, Brennaman. There are only a few games left. They really need to step up now if they want to survive and stay in this league for next season. On to two West, and Lampeter did Tenby an almighty favour, beating Lacha 33-15 at home. Tenby won 15-6 at home to Fishguard, which basically means they've got a nice clean run in now. There's no reason they shouldn't be promoted. I think they need five or six points for the last three games. To Croyce lost 17-18 at home to Carmarthen Athletic. Milford Haven against Ammonited was postponed. Ammon just have not been raising sides for the last few weeks. And it's really disappointing and difficult to see as this club really ran away with three West last season. To see them now not being able to raise a side. And in the best game in this league, St Clair's winning 36-15 at home to Mumbo. To be crowned Division 2 West champions. Hooray! So happy day St Clair's. Two years on the bounce going up. That's good work from all the team down there. Pictures for this week. Lacha at home to Carmarthen Athletic. Milford at home to Fishguard. To Croyce travelled to Mumbo's. Tenby travelled to Pontyberym. And in a very tasty, very big match to celebrate St Clair's championship. St Clair's are at home to Lampeter. So a nice top four game for them. Down into three Wednesday. Aberaeron won 80 points to nil against St David's. Now I know Aberaeron are in that top four. That pack at the top fighting for promotion and the championship. But St David's have had a really good season and did not see a result this bad come in for them. But you know, end of the season. So who knows what's going on. Lonn in Halford West won 32-26. So Lonn have really taken another step towards that top spot. They've got a lot of games in hand to be played. But they are prime right now with this result. Pembroke won 29-15 at home to Llanabada. Pictures for this week. Lonn are playing on Wednesday against Pembroke Dock Quins. Then on the weekend Aberaeron are at home to Cardigan. And Lonn go again at home to Llanabada. In three West B last week. On the Wednesday Llandybi lost 41-15 away to Llangadog. Then on the Saturday Bethos won 15-0 at Trimsaran. Kev Nathan 35-11 at home to Furness. Tumble went down 23-8 against Llangadog. Really, really hit their promotion opportunity there. Llandybi lost for the second time in a week scoring 15 points again. But going down 25-15 to New Dock Stars. Happy day to you. And in the final game for three West B. Binya won 26-24 against Tragaran. Pictures for this week. Kev Nathan at home to Trimsaran. Furness at home to Bethos. Llandylo at home to Tragaran. Tumble travelled to Llandybi. Binya travelled to Llangadog. Over in five West Central now. Pontiates winning 50-10 away to Pantyfannan. Games this week. We've got Pontiates at home to Cwmgrach. And Pen-y-Banc who will face their new reigning Division 5 Cup champions. Seven Sisters in Seven Sisters. So that's our league action. And we've got a lot of cup action to get through now. Because, like we said, Lee didn't want to do the Youth Cup finals last week. So we'll have to do them now. And we've got the tasty, tasty action from this past weekend down at the Principality. So we'll go with the Youth Cup finals from a couple of weeks ago. In the bowl, Cardiff Queens won 31-14 against Gowerton. In the plate, Carmarthen Athletic. Youth League champions winning 34-22 at home to Bargoed. And in the main event, in the biggest one of them all, in the main Cup final, Llandailo won 26-20 against Tonmawr. So congratulations to both Carmarthen Athletic and Llandailo. One thing I want to pick up here, because I'm going to talk a bit about the Wales under-18s who are at the festivals. These youth boys, they are the same as the under-18s, obviously. And Carmarthen Athletic and Llandailo, they've both won. This could be the biggest moment in a lot of these boys' lives, regardless of how far they go. And the schedule in the season meant that two of their players were actually out with Wales under-18s during this. So they've missed out on winning a major Cup with their friends. So I know it's Sam Williams for Carmarthen Athletic and Jack Pritchard for Llandailo. So I think the structure of the season needs to be looked at a little bit in terms of when these finals are played. Because, you know, even if you're going to go on and play for the Scarlets and Wales, winning a Cup final with your friends is absolutely nothing like it. And it's a shame these boys are to miss it. On to this past Saturday now, and the Division 5 Cup final is on first. We go from 5-4-3 up to 2. And like I just said, seven sisters were winners, winning 27-15 at home in the Principality. 27-15 against Dinas Powys. Newport Saracens came out top 24-23 over Tornau. That was a lovely game to watch, I will say. You know, over this whole weekend, including the European Champions Cup money. Cup money? Cup games. These Cup finals in the Principality have been outstanding. And these are just amateurs playing. Division 3 Cup final, went to Cardiff Queens, winning 24-21 against Blaenau. Llanaran walked away with the Division 2 Cup final, 44-3 against Cwthcaol. And that rounded up the action for the Saturday. On the Sunday then, we start again into the big time now. So, Division 1 Cup final, Llanelli Wanderers against Glyneiths. And, quite honestly, I haven't seen a game like that in a good while. It was fast-paced, high-intensity, physical as you can get, especially in the first half. And then into the second, the kicking battle that was on show. It's something I'd like to see us do, quite frankly. Because the standard of kicking was so much better than what we're used to watching the Scarlets. The Wanderers clinched it in the end, 22-19. What a tense final that was. It had everything you could possibly want for it. Championship Cup final then, Bargoed kind of walked it, 65-12 against Ostra Drondda. And now, the main game of the weekend. So, I know who watched this one. So, we'll get into it. Llandyfri against Merthyr for the Premiership Cup 2024. Before we get into it, we had two boys playing in this game. Cian Abraham starting, and Max Page on the bench. So, Llandyfri went really experienced to this game. Shall I go first? Go for it, lad. Firstly, the WRU could have watered the pitch. It still had the stencil of the Guinness logo on it from the Six Nations. And it looked like it hadn't had... It wasn't in great nick, was it? I know it's had a lot of games on it lately, but... To be fair, I don't understand why they order the games that they do. Supposedly, the best game, the highest standard, goes after, what was it, six games over the space of 24 hours? No. The Division 5 teams, they got to play on the best pitch. That's how this weekend was worked out. I got no problem with that, but it didn't do the teams justice. The type of game it ended up being and all. It was a scrappy old game. It felt like a very stopped start. It felt like it went on for about two hours. Drovers, far from their best performance this season, you'd have to say. I think... I don't know whether you can quickly check what the results have been in the league between these two. It certainly hasn't been this close. Yeah. Sandovary won, I think, 20-10 away. I did have it in my head, but it's disappeared now. That's blimmin' difficult. They won 38-12 at home. Smallest gap was ten points in, move that. To win this by one, they got the job done. You can celebrate them. One of our clubs has done the job and won the cup, so congratulations. I think it's just kind of we expected them to win with a bit of panache. So, you know, oh well. Job, part one, done. On to the double now. Well, technically, they are double champions as it stands because they're reigning league and cup champions, but obviously the same season does make it a bit better, doesn't it? Where does the Prem final get played? Is that at the stadium, or does it get played at one of the grounds? No, home grounds. Well, it was last season. It was down in Cardiff, West London. We decided to just put the rags in their place. They're going to get an opportunity to do it again as it stands, unless, you know, Merthyr. And it works out that Merthyr is the team that can mess up Cardiff's chances. I bet they're going to love that, especially with all the EDC malarkey that's gone on down in our region. Like, you told us not to bloody play for it, and now you're going yourself. They're going to smash you out of the play-offs for that. That'll be a bit interesting. I think that might be coming this week. So that's going to be tasty. So, for all of you that don't know, there's been an under-18 Six Nations festival going on out in Italy for the male players. How many teams in it, Mars? In the Six Nations, there's eight teams. Eight? Yes. Yes, there's eight teams in the Six Nations in Italy. But if you come back to Colwyn Bay with the female players, there were six teams in the Six Nations. Fantastic. Two Six Nations, one Six Nations. Should we just have seven and be done? So, to be clear, there's two Six Nations, there's 14 teams in total, and one of them's got eight. Yes, that's about right. Yes, that's cleared up for everybody. But that's not as tricky as it's going to mean. So we'll start with the female players, just because I haven't had a chance to watch these games, so I'll get through it quickly. I'm really sorry. I wish I had. So, on Match Day 1 and Match Day 2, everyone played two games, and they were 35-minute games each. So, you know, basically a half a rugby against each team for the first two match days. This is why it's been so confusing on Twitter, people talking about that Wales are about to kick off and could have sworn they just had full time. And then on the final day, they played a full match, which doesn't make sense to me. So, on Match Day 1, we played France and Scotland. We lost 34-0. Sorry, that's the wrong result. I'm reading it from the wrong place. What am I doing? We lost 31-12 against France. For us, Scarlats, on the bench, we had Stella Oren and Fion Davis. Then we went on to play Scotland, and then we won 12-0, which, as great as the result is winning, if you see the results of the Scotland team, it's not that impressive. But for this game, all four of our players were in the starting 15. So, Stella Oren, Milly Gearan, Rhiannon Griffin and Fion Davis. On Match Day 2, we played Ireland first and lost 14-5. We had Stella Oren, Milly Gearan and Rhiannon Griffin in the starting 15 for that one. Then we went down 26-14 against England, with Fion Davis in the starting 15 and Stella Oren and Rhiannon Griffin on the bench. On to the final day, the 70-minute match. We played Italy and we won our second game. 41-22. So, a nice victory. But why play all the other games 35 and then laugh on 70? I don't understand it. Just play them all 35 so you can have a nice rounded-off table or whatever. And for that game, we had Fion Davis starting and Stella Oren and Rhiannon Griffin on the bench. Now, I do plan on watching these games at some point. And if I do, it will be in the next week or so. I'll tell you how they went. But on to the male players now. So, the Six Nations competition with eight teams. This is the one with the eight. How many games does each team play? They play three games over three rounds. So, they are under 18. So, their games are 70 minutes long. That's acceptable. 35 is a bit of a stretch. So, we'll start on our first game where it was England against Wales. A nice, tasty fixture to start it all off. Well, everyone essentially played in these games. It was a 26-man squad and you were allowed to name 26 players in your matchday. So, we had Jack Pritchard, Will Evans, Dom Costa, De'Anne Gwynn and Carowyn Jones in the starting 15 with Sam Williams, Keanu Evans and Stefan Jack Jones on the bench. Keanu Evans, strong name. Very strong. And this game, it bounced back and forth. It was really, really windy on that pitch. I mean, the huckers struggled. The kicking was absolutely everywhere. But what surprised me during this game is our most joy came from the pack. Our first try was a pushover. Our second try was a penalty try from England bringing a mole down. Our third try was a set play off a mole five metres out. Our fourth try again was a line-out mole, a couple of pick-and-goes and then a pop-out to go over. We scored five tries in this. It was a nice little move, actually. Another line-out close to the line, molled it on 9-10. It was a nice dummy runner coming through and Carowyn Jones just popped it off nicely to the winger and he just went straight through. It was really nice, well-worked tries to be fair. But the scoreline went something like... England went 14-0 up. We fought back, got to 14-0, went in half-time 21-19 up, so pretty good. We stretched our lead 28-19, happy days. England crawled back 29-28. We got into the lead again, 35-29. Clock's in the red. Well, not quite in the red. It's probably about 15-20 seconds left. We've got the ball more or less on our own line and we try to play it out and we throw a pass into touch. And what do you think happens from that resulting line-out? England bowl over score and a hell of a set of stones on the kicker because he slaughtered that and that was not easy. So England walked away 36-35. But it was some really impressive performances in there from our boys. I'm always going to name Jack Richard because every game I saw him... Well, he played more or less every minute for most of these games and he was outstanding in all of them. And he was constantly in the refs' ear about the scrums. It was lovely to see from such a young prop going, oh, we're doing this, we're doing this. I think it was a line-out for one. Scrum just popped his head up. He was so happy when he said it. It was brilliant. But our best player on the day was Carwyn Jones, the young ten. He made a few mistakes. You can't get away from it. A few restarts into touch. A few penalty kicks that didn't quite make it to the touchline, that is. But it didn't matter to him. He just played his heart out. This lad has got a pretty high ceiling. This is the time that you want to be basically pushing everything that you can. Because this is why he's missing these kicks. Because he's going for absolute 99th percentile style kicks. And that's why they're not coming off. But his range of passing and his range of kicking in the game, the chip kicks, the cross-field kicks, the little dinks, he was showing everything. So I think we've got a good one for the future if he can keep this up. And not to mention, the other ten on the bench is also ours. And he's not too shabby either. So we go on to day two. We play Portugal. Portugal under 18s. Are they going to be good? Are they going to be like the national team? Because they're coming on. But they've earned their place in this competition. We won this one quite comfortably, 35-10. So we had Dom Costa, Keanu Evans, Captain Keanu. Captain Keanu, I like that. And Sepp and Jack Jones start with the rest of our boys on the bench. We had a call-up. So another one of our boys ended up. Kyle James, a Newcastle Emlyn product. He plays for Gloucester. He got injured in that first game and unfortunately didn't feature for the rest of the tournament. But instead, Buddy Port Product, Alex Ridgway, came up. By God, that boy took his chance. Honest to God. I think being named as a reserve for this tournament must have really riled him up. Because the moment he came on that pitch, he was unstoppable. Honest to God. The runs he was making, the metres he was gaining. And something we haven't always been able to say about players down west, they are bloody huge. And I mean, all these back rowers that we've got. There's Costa, there's Gwyn, there's Evans, there's Ridgway. They all look like they're at least 6'4". And we've got a couple of locks in there as well. We've got Sam Williams. Young men are getting taller. 6'3 is going to be pretty normal for men soon. My son's not got that much chance. I'm barely 5'8 and my wife's 5'4". He's kind of screwed. I've got my fingers crossed he'll get 5'9". I'll be happy with that. He just needs to start eating his food a bit more. He's a boy. But no, this game started nice and fast. Portugal probably should have had a penalty try in the first few minutes that the ref said that he was going. Portugal player died for the line. Welsh player came on and basically took his head off. But as there's no TMO and as he was diving, the ref and I was like, he was going down. We didn't quite see it. So it was unlucky they didn't get their first points today. But we took a 14-10 lead into halftime and then we scored another three unanswered tries in the second half. So overall it was a good victory. Ridgway was my standout in this because he just contributed everything that he could. He was involved in two of the tries when he came on. Making breaks and just pushing people aside. So this boy might be something else. I think he was our under-16s East captain last season. So first year under-18s now. I think this name might go quite a bit. On to our final match day. Where we played France. And for all we know, France are pretty much top dogs at under-18s level. They have been for a few years. Same as the under-20s really. They've really invested a lot into the youth. We all know over the last five, six years it's come through massively. But we put up a good show of it. We did score in the red in the end of the second half to make it a bit more respectful. In the 33 we went down. Same again. We had loads of every single one of our boys was playing. Alex Ridgeway again, a start for that awesome performance off the bench. Our forwards have gone through a lot of work. It's not often you get to say that as a Scarlet star or as a Welsh fan in general. If you're an off-spring, you're an anomaly. I don't know where that's coming from. That's how I would describe them as well. Quite literally, yeah. It's continuing a bit of a trend really that under-18s level, Wales are much closer to other nations than they are under-20s. Yeah, we are. We seem to be really, really good. Not just in the fact of close games, as in the style of play. We're actually playing a bit of rugby. Richard Tew is the head coach for these under-18s. He's got some pedigree behind him. We know his professional playing days. Sevens world champion. I can remember watching that game when I was in school. It was pretty awesome. Teachers didn't like me on the laptops. He's done something. I think Scott Sneddon deserves a bit of credit for this work as well. Because obviously, nine boys in a 26-man squad. A lot of them are forwards. We've only got two, so seven of them are forwards. They are featuring heavily in these games. We are a forward-orientated team. Some of the tries we scored, it was a five-metre tap-and-go, a couple of phases, boom. Will Evans, one of our boys, went over. This one was really nice because it was Stefan Emanuel, the boy who was coming back to Cardiff. He was literally on the 10-metre line. He just made a lovely break. One-two was our fallback to beat the last man, and he just walked in. It was a nice move to watch. He set it up. Another one was a line-out. He got a couple of pick-and-goes, and then, boom, Dianne Gwynne scored. That's another one of ours. Fourth try, this was probably the pick of them. Even though I like that Stefan Emanuel try, this was the pick of them. France's throw on the halfway. They overthrow. Kossuth catches the overthrow, and he just darts up the field. He makes it 25 metres up there. Everyone is with him. Quick ruck ball. All hands out as far as you go, and the winger just trots it in for 20 metres out. It's lovely to see. This highlights the third game against France. I highly advise you to watch it. The last one was Alex Ridgway. Five-metre tab and go. There were no phases required for this. This boy just smashed his way through the line on the first attempt. I think we need to remember. I know I've said it already, but from these couple of performances I've seen, all these boys got a good chance of making it, but Alex Ridgway is a name you don't want to forget anytime soon. That basically rounds up everything I've got on community and age-grade rugby. I think we should probably start talking about the Scarlets now. Let's do it. Where did we say we'd start? We were going to start with the accessibility thing, weren't we? The accessibility and inclusion update, which didn't come from the Scarlets themselves. It came through the Scarlets official supporters group, which has never happened before. We don't know why. I know how it's happened, but we don't know why it's quite happened like this. That's a conversation for another time. I'm pretty proud to say that as a board member of Crease, the majority of these implementations came from another board member, Sarah. She is our disability and inclusion officer. She met with the Scarlets quite a few weeks ago now. She gave them a load of stuff on how to improve things. This list basically runs off most of them. The ambassador was done a little bit while ago. I think the guy's name is Lloyd. Disability and inclusion ambassador to be specific. The music volume being turned down, this is something that everyone in the South has been mourning for years. I can go back before COVID. We were mourning about the sound of the PA system. A couple of things the club have been doing regularly on their own anyway. Things like the odd sock day for World Down Syndrome Day. The stuff the hub officers have always been doing. Your inclusive community clubs, your wheelchair rugby, your walking rugby. They started doing disability festivals and mixed ability festivals as well, which is nice to see. It gives absolutely everyone an opportunity. Does that include people who are absolutely rubbish? Yeah, anyone. You'd have to travel a bit. A little bit of a trek. The other one was the Sporting Memories group that was set up a while back. On to the things that have actually changed, that have been brought about from these events. The rest of the stuff I just talked about has been in the works for months or years. Players visiting the wheelchair gallery pre-match, obviously. You're in a wheelchair, you can't get into the shop. The barn is a nightmare to get into because of the floor and everything. The players coming up to the gallery before the match is a nice touch. It gives everyone an opportunity to meet the boys. Pre-match stewards briefing is more focused on now is to remember. The Sunflower lanyard for hidden disabilities, it's just a bit of an extra emphasis of look out for it. Remember what it is. You don't know what's going on with people. Keep not an open mind, but be careful. You don't know how people are going to react to you. Like, my boy is autistic. And, you know, apart from his breakdowns, which quite frankly, they only happen probably every week or so, which is pretty good. You wouldn't know there's anything, but there are others who are completely on the other end of the spectrum, which is why it is a spectrum. They react totally different. There's so many disabilities. My youngest has got something called triple X syndrome, which is a genetic condition where she's got three X chromosomes instead of two. It's called a normal syndrome because physically, you won't see nothing wrong with them, but behavioural issues are a massive issue there. So, you don't know what's going on with a lot of people, so keep an eye out for the Sunflower lanyard. If you see it, be mindful. Red code safety cards in disabled toilets. I thought that was standard practice. Apparently not, but it's good to see it's done. Parker Scholars is now listed on Ewan's Guide, which I believe is a disability website, so of all arenas, sporting grounds for people to have a look beforehand. Simple accessibility guide. So, you know, photos of the facility is the wheelchair gallery. What to expect before you come, so that's always something nice. So, you don't have to turn up with a mask and go, ah, I've got to get up two steps before I can use my wheelchair, which I know in some places is a bit of an issue. Another one is they're trialling image descriptors on social media for us, so people who are blind or what was it? Vision impaired. You know, they obviously can't physically see everything on the screen or at all, so if someone clicks on it, it will read out the text for them. I think you need an extra bit of technology, but if you are someone who's... You need a bit of software, yeah. But if you are someone who's blind or visibly impaired, you should have that kind of guessed. All those ones I've just rung off are all thanks to Sarah Priest. They were all her recommendations. There was another one put in there. It was to follow the British Dyslexia Association's guidelines on how you put out statements and it seems that was completely ignored because one of the major ones on there is don't put things on a red background. And as you saw the moment you saw it, you know, literally an hour ago, you're like, Jesus, I can't even read this and you're not dyslexic or nothing like that. I'm not as far as I'm aware. I'm not the world's strongest reader, but I don't think I'm dyslexic. It's not a brilliant format. I know without this turning into the Hugh Kudik's Scarlet's Formats podcast, it's not the best format. It's not the easiest to read. It's just very small, thin text on a small, thin text on a bright red background. Yeah. So the other part of the Scarlet's we get to talk about, well, it was actually requested and I'm quite surprised by that. We don't normally get requests for something like this. It's to look at the account. Yeah. Someone wrote in. Now, we're not accountants. We should just quickly say, I did do a module in my Masters about finance and it didn't go very well. So I think I got 40 and the best mark was 40. Well, at 18, I was prepared to train as an accountant. I got on to my university course. I turned up in the September and by the November I was like, this bores the shit out of me. I'm gone. Bit of naivety, bit of stupid stuff there. I know you guys. I was made to the university, did accountancy courses and dropped out. Must be a thing. It's so boring because the first year is basically just how to fill in, how to do double entry. You can do that in your sleep. If you've got half a brain, you can do double entry. It's not hard. I'm probably saying that now and people probably struggle like hell with me. Sorry. If you're going on to a course like that, you're obviously pretty switched on with maths. Unless it stimulates you, which this course definitely did not. You're just so bored. You don't know what to do. You're flying through the bloody little assessment tests on the computer. You give me 30 minutes to do it, 5 minutes later you're done. You've got your 97% pass mark or whatever it is and you're like, what do I do now? Oh yeah, you're done. You don't have to come back for another three weeks. Okay, enough of that. I can't read an end of season account like a professional like we just alluded to. Neither can you. But what we can do is look at the numbers and try and make some sort of sense. Colin Stroud, who was the former financial officer of the Scarlets, was asked to do a review of all the region's accounts. When we spoke to him through email, he kind of picked up on the number of employees that we have and compared it back to when he was working for the Scarlets. In the last two years, we've gone from 140 staff to 201 staff and then back down to 193. So this is as of the end of last season. That's not today. That's the end of last season. No, that's the 22-23 accounts. Just to make it clear for everyone because it can get quite confusing when I wrote my little notes and I'm trying to still make headway. That's interesting in the fact that they don't separate rugby staff to non-rugby staff. Which the other regions do. I know one of them did. I'm not sure what all of them did, but I don't see why we don't do it. It's just a little bit extra on clarity, on transparency, so we know what's going on. Employment is something that I know Simon has spoken a lot about when he's done interviews with other people and he's made a big point out of how important the regions are for providing employment. So I think this is probably something that the scholars will be quite proud of if you were to ask them of we're proud to employ this many people. So it's not a bad thing to have lots of employees, I don't think. It's just a question of, like you say, if it's not divided into rugby and non-rugby personnel, just from the outside you just don't know what that is. If it was 50 strength and conditioning coaches, on the one hand I'd be quite pleased with that, on the other hand I'd be like, we're not getting money's worth from that are we? Another reason why that sticks out is when you look at the overall wage cost and for the 2022-23 season we spent £11.6 million on wages and from what I can gather from that season only £7 million of that was for player wages. Now that might not be 100% accurate, that's just what I've seen and what I'm going by. So that means that we've got £4.5 million spent on non-rugby staff. So again, without that split we're kind of sitting here going well, is that right? When you've done it you worked up the numbers yourself, it was like £55,000 per person on an average and this is including the people who work in six hours on a match day in Parkhurst Carlisle. We think it really boggles us, we can't make heads or tails of it. So I know £11.6 seems really extravagant considering we are just a rugby club essentially, I know we've got regional responsibilities but £11 million is a lot. Yeah, it's again, people who aren't experts in these things but it is slightly when you do see some of the numbers you are like, oh, that's a lot. So we'd have to compare it to other regions and things. Again, it would be nice to have the split in there of playing staff. Did you find the bit that suggested how much was on place? All I've been able to find is the amount of money that the WIU sent to us which I think was generally accepted as how much we are to spend on players which is £6.7 million. So that is what we spent on players. So that means the rest of it went to... There was some good news in there as well though, so wasn't the sponsorship money was up? There are some positives, obviously anyone who has seen it will know we lost nearly £3 million which is up over a million from last season. But positive news, our member subscriptions were up by £88 grand, so that's nice. Sponsors was up by £91 grand. Tickets and match day sales they were up by over £400k but we did have those extra knockout games so is that going to come down next season? Again, we can't really make a decision. But on the face of it, it does look to be some positive news in here. There's just some really negative ones in there as well, especially knowing the WIU money is going down. The competition money seems to be going down which I don't understand. But... It's because the South Africans are currently paying to be in the URC and I think that stops pretty soon. So that's going to take a bit of a hit then. Yay, less money coming in. What are we going to do? Something that Colin pointed out is that four directors received payments from this season. Now when you look at these accounts you'll see that we have 16 directors. Again, without comparing to other regions, that seems like an excessive amount. Some of these directors do double up as in Simon Mudarach, Phil Morgan, Nigel Short, John Daniels. They do double up as employees or former employees in some cases. So it's... Again, transparency. It's out there into the world because it's basically Scottish. They're filing their accounts at the end of the year. They've got to do it. It's just... If a fan clicks on it, it's hard to take. And when you see 16 directors, okay, but then it goes quite far down then. You've got four directors have taken over 350k out of the club, as in we paid them. What does that mean? Are those four directors the ones that are employed by us? Is that their wages? Or what exactly are these numbers? Because there's no specificity to it. And obviously they don't have to put that in their accounts to the HMRC. But when you've got fans who are going to look at this and be like, what's going on in this club? It looks like you're kind of running us into the ground by here. I mean, our turnover's down, our losses are up. What's going on? That's not us saying that, but that is what other fans have said to us after looking at these accounts. That's what we're saying. Again, accounts are very complicated and people don't know about them, but these accounts have been put out into the world. Scarlet's fans are looking at them, and these are the things that fans are saying to us, like, what's that about? So the 16 directors one, I think, is the one that makes you go, that's a lot. Now, I'm sure probably a lot of directors are, like, they are classed as directors, but are they sat in the boardroom, Monday to Friday, making the big decisions? Probably not. But no, it's just tricky to get your head around and what's come out today, literally, in the last couple of hours is, I don't know if you took part in it, but Creed16 did a member survey. Can I see it? No? But basically, it's compiled everyone's feelings on the club, you know, how often you attend, are you a season ticket holder, blah, blah, blah. And it all comes back with more or less the same things that we said. I think it was, like, 50% of season ticket holders have either said no or they're undecided on if they're renewing. That is massive. You know, when we're talking almost 4,000 season ticket holders, you know, we're potentially losing 2,000 of them, and most of them point to the on-field performances and the running of the club in the back room. And if you're a member of Creed16, you would have received these via email in the last, well, Monday, somewhere between six and eight, I believe. Might be a bit earlier, might be later, I'm not 100% sure on the exact time yet. But it's a really good survey because it's basically, it's ranking everything, ranking the merchandise which we know, we all hate because the shop has got nothing in it and it's about three times bloody more expensive than it needs to be. Just the things about the match day experience, you know, I don't think, other than ticket prices, as in the season ticket prices, I don't think anything came out with above average or positive, which is very indicative of where we are as a club at the minute. So, if any of you are Creed16 members or you're not already a Creed16 member, please sign up, drop an email to info at Creed16.wales and we will send those results to you. And you can read for yourself because going into tomorrow's night, or well, it will be today when this goes out, the supporters update, it makes it even more important that we get some answers for what's going on. Okay, I think that's enough of the dubbing us. Yeah, let's do something fun. Let's do something fun. Let's do transfers. Ooh, transfers. So, no games this weekend, so, a bit of a subject needed for a bit of discussion and we decided on transfers. So, there's lots of rumors going around. A lot of rumors. So, Justin, I've had people sending me stuff all day. The rumors that I've got noted down are second row Jack Dunn from Exeter, loosehead prop Alec Hepburn, Scotland International, also from Exeter, Max Douglas, second row Australian currently playing in Japan, and then potentially multiple props from the Emirates Lions in South Africa. So, let's do the Lions ones first then. What was your reaction to the one, the talk of us getting props from the Lions? No! Please not, because they've named the three that have apparently been offered to us and alright, they're tidy, but they're all like 33 plus and the fact is, the reason they're going is because the South African, the big four and the curry cup teams are no longer clashing, so they don't need as many players. They don't need half as many players anymore. So, these have basically been told, you're not good enough for the Lions, you're not good enough for one of the curry cup teams, I know, Scots! That's where my mind automatically goes unless it was someone who was currently a South African international of 33 years old, no. I'm not interested. If they were like, like, I know Alec Hepburn is 31 I think. Oh, I didn't know that. Wow. Yeah, he's probably on the older side for me in this terms, like, if we're bringing in a foreign prop, I'd like them to be, you know, 29. 29 is probably my cut-off age, because you want them to be around for a couple of years and also to be able to build the younger players. That's the thing about Alec Hepburn, if we're moving on to him, because, you know, it's been written about like it's a major coup and he's a current international player and he probably is a great player. My issue is not that he's bad. I haven't watched much of Exeter, I'll be honest. It's that if you're going to sign a non-Welsh qualified player, why sign a Scotland international? Like, I know, look, we've had really good success with Scots playing at the Scarlets. You know, obviously, Alex Craig has been probably our player of the season this season, John Barkley in the past captained us in Fantastic as well, but John Barkley wasn't playing for Scotland at the time that he signed for us. So, in terms of availability, it's kind of that having a Scotland international and having a Wales international is pretty much the same from the Scarlets' point of view. Yes, it's going to be, because we're going to miss them all during the autumn. Even though we haven't got games, we normally have that game week where Wales play their fourth international. I suppose we would still have access to him for that one. We'll probably be playing Cardiff, let's be honest. That's how it generally tends to work at the minute. So there's that one game that we'd have him, and then the follow weeks of the Six Nations, we'd get them back. But I'm not a big fan of that, like Alex Craig, obviously. He only went up for a training session for Week 3. So he was with us for the first game, trained for a couple of days in Week 3, and then came back down to us. So he was literally only missing for three days. I don't mind that. He was still within our system for a long time. Picking up a current international, a current European, a Six Nations international, doesn't seem like a lot of sense, does it? Because especially if it's someone in a position like Alec Edwin, a prop, a back row, a hooker, these are attritional positions. Players get injured a lot. And you've got to manage them, especially when you get to 30+. Yeah, and just talking about loose heads generally, so in last summer we lost Alex Jeffries Price, and recently it has been announced that Seth Thomas has gone to the Ospreys. Can't believe that. That's something I want to ignore totally. You're never freaking out about it. Travesty. So that leaves our current loose head options, senior loose head options, as Wynne-Jones encounters Dias, with Sam O'Connor also weighing in the wings. But it's rumoured that Wynne-Jones is off either to Gloucester or Bath, are the two places that I've heard. Yeah, I'm hearing lots of things regarding Wynne-Jones, and it's not positive. So I don't want to shine a dark light any more. Apparently Wynne-Jones is leaving, not by choice. So we definitely need to sign a loose head. Yes. 100% need a loose head. If Hepburn is the man, then so be it. I don't think it's going to work in the long term. Just because, you know, his age and the fact he's in Scotland, we're going to lose both Matthias and Hepburn, which will leave us with Sam O'Connor as our senior tight head, and then Josh Morse behind him. While Josh is a brilliant prospect, he's done really well for the under-20s, and for the couple of games he's played with Llanddowri since returning from injury, he's not ready for this step up. I mean, season after next, maybe, but you know, he's still 19 years old. You don't want a 19-year-old prop coming into play against pretty proven, pretty professional players, and potentially former internationals, because that's what you get with Irish provinces and Scottish provinces. You're either an international, or you're a former international. There's generally not that much gap in between. Yeah, so definitely loose heads needed. Now, I did a poll on Twitter, on the Scarlett's Fever Twitter account, asking which area did we need to make signings in, and front row was the most voted for area, with 58% of the votes said we needed to sign from rowers. So if a guy wants a tight head, you can understand why Wyn Jones has been covering tight head this season, because Sam Wainwright and Harry O'Connor, who's just signed a contract extension, are the only people in there. I mean, we've got Joe Jones has come in. From sale. A tight head from sale. Come on. Was he just signed for this season? Yeah, as far as I'm aware, he's just come in for basically the rest of this season. He was essentially Samson Lee's emergency replacement. So, in terms of tight heads that we lost last year, was Jevon Sebastian, John and Samson Lee as well. Yeah. So they're gone. So we are looking thin in the propping department. Okay, we're not really looking thin. You know, assuming that Ken is off. We've got Swartz to the end of this season. We've obviously got Ryan Elias, Sean Evans. We've got Isaac Young and Lewis Morgan coming through. And we've got Van Der Merwe is signed. You've forgotten him. You've forgotten my boy, Harry Thomas. Harry Thomas. Oh, sorry. Yes, Harry Thomas. So we're actually good for hookers. Yeah, I mean, Harry Thomas, Young and Lewis Morgan, they are 18, 19, 20, respectively. I say respectively. I don't know what order I just said them in. But yeah, they're still young. They're probably looking at their breakout season in the next couple of years. So Ryan Elias, Van Der Merwe and Sean Evans. That's decent. You've got your three main and then you've got three academy players in hookers. So, you know, you don't always get three players in the same position in the academy, which is quite nice to have. Yeah. Okay. So I think hookers we're happy with. Now, lock. Now, second row is an interesting one. I'll tell you why. So when people say Scarlett signings or where do we need to strengthen? First thing everybody says is we need more bulk in the second row. We need powerful second rows. But I would argue that second row is one of our strongest areas at the moment in the current team. Yeah. I think it's just we don't have that proper enforcer that some player who was like Jake Ball. People have been crying out for that type of player. And whilst we have got big bulk areas now in Alex Craig, Morgan Jones and Jack Price are both developing nicely. Obviously we've still got Sam Lousey. Will he be here? Will he not? We're hearing rumours both ways. We're hearing rumours out of our arseholes, honestly. That is something just to jump in and say about transfer rumours, is that every single piece of news that we ever hear about the Scarletts, we hear about not from the Scarletts first. The Scarletts are not good at keeping secrets. No. This is an issue that, being part of 316, that we have been trying to talk about and the fact that all your communication doesn't come through your official channel. It comes from someone else. I understand letting the media hype someone up a little bit or get people excited with a major signing, but absolutely everything. And then you've got people who apparently work for the club posting on forums saying things and then it comes through and you're like, oh my god. You know, shit. We can actually listen to this guy and then they say more stuff and it just carries on until a donkey comes on, man. It's a serious issue. But in terms of locks, should Lousey stay? I mean, unless we're bringing a hybrid, a lock 8? Not a lock 6. Well, that's it. I was saying this on wrap. If you look at who we've got, our two starting locks at the moment are Alex Craig and Sam Lousey, obviously non-Welsh qualified. We've apparently already signed Max Douglas, who's Australian, and we've also apparently already signed Jack Dunn from Exeter, who is... I can't remember where he's from. He might be Australian as well. I can't remember. But he's not Welsh. So, currently, as far as we know, we've got four non-Welsh qualified locks. And you've also got Plumtree and Fafita there as well. Now, Plumtree obviously is a Welsh international. He's not homegrown, but we love him. And you've got Fafita, who can play a lock. Yeah, well, I'm glad you touched on Plumtree because he's effectively going to be a brand new signer next season, based on how many games he played. No, I haven't heard that Dunn has signed Dunn and Dusted. I've heard lots of rumours about them for quite a few months. But I haven't had anyone... I haven't heard anyone come and say, yes, a Dunn deal, bang, it's done. Whereas we have, where there's been a tight head I've heard that we've signed a nobody from Australia. And when I say nobody, I mean as in I don't think he's even played Super Rugby. I can't even remember the guy's name. That's how big he is. So, it's an intriguing one, because if both of them are to come, I would assume that they both come in as time-servers, as in they will eventually be qualified for Wales, because I don't believe either of them are capped internationally. Don't forget, by the way, we've got a guy called Ed Scrag on the books currently, who I don't know what Rugby he has played at all. Either the Quins or Drovas, I think he's played about four games. But that goes back to what we were saying at the beginning of the part, we don't understand the player release and the usage. But yeah, again, we had another one last season, he signed with Ewan Shenton. Another lock, I can't remember his name now. Oh, that's going to bug me, right. I think he went to Amstel or something. But no, we... Last season we lost Tom Price, we lost Josh Helps, and we lost... Is it George or Gareth Evans? What? I've just got G Evans as a lock that we lost, it's in my notes. G Evans, that might be the one I'm on about, but I can't remember his first name. I don't think it was George or... Could it be Gareth? I'm really not sure. Dig out the Scarlett's Leavers thing, this is my spreadsheet from the beginning of the season. So, locks, we have locks. We have players who can play locks. Having so many non-Wells qualified, I mean, we're on the verge of having a full non-Wells qualified Type 5. Yeah. We will, by all accounts, because, you know, Stefan Thomas, as much as, you know, I don't like some of the things that people in Wales Online write. I don't know if he's one of the better ones or what not, but generally when he talks about sign-ins, he's generally right. So, we have Hepburn, Van der Merwe, this supported Australian one, and then we've already got Craig, and Lowsy, should he stay, and then Douglas, and then Dunn. So, we will have a non-Welsh Front 5. And if it works, it works. So, yeah. Onto the flankers, then. So, there's obviously Fafita, Dan Davies, Josh McLeod. Fafita is not a flanker. He plays eight. Okay. We're talking flankers, not back row. So, Dan Davies, Josh McLeod, Ewan Shenson, Ben Williams, and then we signed last season, St. Paul, I'm sure you said, and we signed Jared Taylor as well. Don't forget about him. Fafita is another one where there's some rumours saying he's staying, some rumours saying he's already off. We lost Aaron Shingler, Rhys, don't remember him, Blade Thompson, and Thomas Lizana, and of course the rumours about Tame Basham are still ongoing, although it's now starting to sound more like he's staying at the Dragons. Yeah. Strictly flanker, we are well stocked. We know Jared Taylor's here next season, Ben Williams has signed a new contract, Dan Davies has signed a new contract, Plumfield, he signed last season, I'm assuming he signed a pretty lengthy year. He's not going anywhere. Six and seven, and my only issue with seven would probably be, did Teddy Leatherbarrow sign a one-year deal as an academy player? I hope not. We can tie him down a bit longer. There's only one player in amongst that, and that's Josh McLeod. I've got a heavy heart when I think of Josh McLeod, because he is an excellent player, but he's barely fit. This is something I'm in and out of when we signed Dan Davies. We know he's probably the most injury-prone position to play in, but some players... Aaron Chingler did eventually go that way, but he was in his 30s when that happened. There was more than one reason, during his 20s he was fighting fit for the whole lot. We've got young boys, mid-20s, who are injured a lot, and I don't think it matters how good of a player you are when you're tuning up twice a season. No, the best ability is availability. That's all of the rumours. Well, that's most of the rumours. I think in the forwards, there's loads of players you've been linked with. For me, it's difficult to say if a signing's any good or not until we know who's leaving. I can't say... If we're keeping Flausi and Fafita, I can't say that Dunne and Douglas are good signings. That, to me, is adding depth in a place where we don't need depth. Same as Wyn Jones going, but Alec Hepburn coming in. Yes, we've replaced an international with an international, but Wyn Jones was a level above. He was a liar. He was that standard with Hepburn. He might potentially get there one day, but if Rob Baxter thought he had a potential, I probably wouldn't believe him. That's true. All these could be great signings. To be fair, we put the question out on our Facebook group, which is a lot of hard-core Scarlett fans, and said, who would you sign? Pretty much the unanimous answer was the problem isn't the players. Maybe they don't put the effort in, but the quality isn't... The problem isn't that we don't have quality players. We've got quality players. It's that they're not playing very well. They're not getting selected regularly. We don't understand the selection. We don't understand why some players are playing. Why you're giving opportunities to young stars. They play awesome, then you drop them. Moving on back then, the only out-and-out No. 8 that we have is Karwin Tupelosu, but there are other players who can play No. 8. Plumtree, Taylor, Bafita, obviously. Ben Williams can play there as well. A lot of people are still pining for Calamifoni. We wouldn't turn down one of them if the one came along, but for me, it's not... A lot of people disagree with it. A lot of people say we need a Calamifoni proper out-and-out replacement for him. I don't think it's... I think we can come up with a way of playing that doesn't rely on that, because the Calamifoni thing did backfire in a few games because it was so predictable. Because teams just knew, oh yeah, Calamifoni's going to carry it. What's your take on that? I like a big ball-carrying 8. I think someone more in the mold of Kassim would be better off for us. Someone who can truck it up, but has got a bit of a bit of hands, a wider repertoire of skills. I think we're probably one of the best 8s we've had in recent years. I hate saying this, because I think he's a fucking traitor. It's Ben Morgan. He had everything, and we give him everything. We signed him as a nobody. He had David Lyons. What do you have, like 60, 70 caps for Australia? We had him, touted him for years, and then when he finally comes good, he buggers off. The skill set that Ben Morgan had, and the skill set that Kassim had, I think that fits in with our style of play better. They're capable of being that truck. Do you think Jared Taylor could turn out to be that player? We haven't seen much of him. No, we've only seen 40 minutes of him, which again, no sign-in, 40 minutes, injured. Is this a Scarlett thing? I don't know. I think we do need to sign another 8, because as great a potential, physical potential, as Carwyn Tuaglau has, he's not showing any signs of even coming close to making it up. He had a couple decent games last season. I was like, yeah, that was really good. If you break like that, you keep on doing that, happy days. He just hasn't, and again, he's started to get injured a fair bit. He's still a young player, so he's starting to get into that category of being injured more than he's fit. I think he's a player that's up for renewal as well. If we were to sign another 8, I wouldn't be too surprised to see him leave. Moving on into the backs then. We know that Kieran Hardy is off. It's not confirmed. Might as well be. We signed Evan Jones in the summer. Obviously, Dane Blackett also left. What? Evan. I have said Evan, and you corrected me. No. Dane Blackett left last season. Kieran Hardy's already gone. Evan Jones is in. We're pretty well stocked at Scrum House. I'm not worried about Scrum House, to be honest. Well, with one, you've got three. Archie has got tremendous potential. How about Harry Williams as well? He's still on the books for us, isn't he? Nope. He left last year. He's off to one of those championship sides. That's something I was about to say now. I'd hope to think that we've still got contact with Harry Williams and he might pop back over. But, no, we've only got assuming Hardy is leaving, which I believe everybody is, including him and his missus. We've only got Cowder who this will more than likely be his last season, 24-25. And then it's on Archie and Evan. As solid as Evan is as a player, I don't think he can be better than third choice for us. I think we need a standard above. OK, then. Maybe we need a Scrum half in. I can tell you that only 1% of people in our poll voted that we needed to improve the halfbacks. Which is interesting. 84 votes on that now. 84% of people say we need to sign second rows. Going into outside half, it's how you assign these players. I think you were settled on this as well as I am. Joe and Lloyd is not a pen. So, that's one ten down. Again, I'm hearing lots of rumours surrounding Dinky where there's a contract on the table that's been taken away or whatever. Again, we don't know the length of the contract that Charlie Tidcombe signed. So, assuming that Lloyd reverts to 15, where he should, we could effectively be left with just Costello. I know I literally just raved on about a couple of tens in the under 18s. I'm not ready yet. If we skip to fullback then, I didn't realise just how dire straits we were in at fullback. Oh yeah, with Johnny and Matt going. We don't have any out-and-out fullbacks. Our fullback options are Tom Rogers, who for some reason doesn't get picked there. Joe and Lloyd, who I think is a fullback but doesn't get picked there. And Joe and Nicholas, who is getting picked there but I don't think it's his best position. Yeah, we've also got Tommy Lewis, who played there a lot for Jersey before coming back. So, we've got wingers who can play fullback and we've got a 13 who can play fullback. That's really all it. And I think something that the Scarlets may have been counting on for next season is for the 15 that played in the Exeter Friendly, Jack Davis. He played well, didn't he? He played outstanding. Apparently, he's the reason for the majority of our points, the breaks that he was making. But during that game for Llanddowri against Newport, I still haven't had confirmation. I haven't seen anyone confirm it anyway, but it was feared as though he had a broken leg. So, that's going to be a tough recovery. So, we really are in supreme dire straits at fullback. You've kind of snuck up on us that one, because we weren't really aware. Tom Rogers is basically the only fullback that we've got on the books at the moment and he's been playing on the wing. In terms of wingers, we've got Ryan Combier and we've still got Steph Evans. Yeah, but again, we don't know the contract status. So, I know both of them, Combier and Steph Evans, they signed ahead of the 2022-23 season. So, if they signed a two-year contract, both of them are up. You know, Tommy Lewis, obviously, we know he would have signed more than a year and 100% he would have signed more than a year deal. And then we go into our academy players. So, you know, Colin Williams, I have no idea what's going on with this kid. He doesn't play for the Drovers, he doesn't play for the Quinns, he doesn't play for anybody. He doesn't play for the Scarlets. He's never been a part of a Scarlets squad in my memory. But he's always around the barn as one of the players to come and meet. I know he had a nasty injury a couple of years back. I think it might have been an ACL. But, you know, I think I'm going back for two years now. But I haven't seen him play. I haven't seen him come close to the first team. Max Page might be another one as well. He's playing for the Twenties. He's part of our set-up. Yeah, I think they're going to push him as a 13 because I think that's where he wants to play. I don't necessarily think that's his best position. But, you know, that's what we hear. And another winger that we do have which played yesterday in the Llanddowri final is Kian Abraham. And he looks a big lad. He trucks it up pretty fast too. So, I'd say he's very much a similar style of player to Tommy Lewis. Though, I mean, I wouldn't be too bothered if we had two players like Tommy Lewis on either wing for the season. But, again, it's about covering your bases. It's just making sure you've got cover. And I don't think we do have any cover at the minute until we get some signing news and leavers news. Well, may I say it? So, if we go on to the censors, I mean, Jesus. So, the rumour is that Johnny Williams is going to Gloucester, which is a bit of an odd one. Like, Gloucester are trying to build a full Welsh 15, I think. I think Max Florentino will be back at Cardiff at some point, probably sooner rather than later. But, yeah. So, the rumour is that Johnny Williams is going to Gloucester. I've heard of him going to Bath as well, which I don't know where I heard that from, but I think I've heard of him going to all three West Country teams, you know, Bristol as well. But I think that might just be someone saying, oh, he's from Somerset. He's going to sign for one of them teams, you know. You hear rumours of, you know. But he was at Newcastle before us. Yeah, I know. That doesn't make sense. He's from the South West and he goes to play up in the South East. So far, he's almost Scottish. North East. So, if I just read down the centre options, John Fox and Scott Williams. Would expect them not to be around next season. So, that's the first three names in my centre category gone. So, that leaves us with Joe Roberts, Eddie James and Yohan Nicholas as our centre options. I mean, if we're only playing six games, yeah. Why not? I can deal with that. But if we're not playing six games, we're playing at least 22. We need more centres desperately. We desperately need to sign centres. And like, even talking Max Tage, he's first year Senior Rugby. Same as another centre that was involved in the under-20s. Gabriel Macdonald. He's a 12 from all the selections I've seen. He's first year Senior Rugby. So, we've got a lot of boys who are first year Senior Rugby. Or, you know, last year Youth Rugby. There are good Welsh centres knocking about. The likes of Bryn Bradley and what's his name? The outside centre I was naming. Hennessy. Louis Hennessy, yes. They're not getting much rugby in England, but you suspect that there are plans in place for them, because they're both such good players. To me, this is where I'd be looking to get a non-Welsh qualified player in. To get the next Hadley Parkes. Not even a Hadley Parkes. Get a Paul Asquith. Yes, that'd be a nice sign then. Someone who can play comfortably at 12 and 13, I think, is all we need. You don't see many of them. Andy Williams started looking like that type of player. And obviously, now we're hearing rumours of him going. I know I said this earlier this season on the pod. If he goes back to England and he doesn't bother playing rugby for three years, he's fresh in line to play for England in the next World Cup. Whether that would happen, ideally unlikely. But, you know, it's an option for him which you can't rule out. It's not exactly been a great time down playing for the Scarlets. What other Welsh region is going to sign him? No, like I say, I think there's loads of centres going around in Wales at the moment. I think we're pretty much the only region scratching our heads going, where's our next centre coming from, to be honest. Dragons might potentially be looking to do. Jack Dixon has retired today. Yeah, but he wasn't playing for them anyway. But they're really excited about their youngsters like Iain Owen and Woodman as well. I like Owen, but he's not quite a youngster anymore. I think he's been around for a good few years now. Anyway, so, centres, we definitely need to sign players in. So that's the whole team. It's odd that all of our signings for incomings have been in the forwards and there's no rumours. I don't know if you've heard any different. I haven't heard any rumours about bringing in backs, but backs to me is the area where we urgently need to make signings. Yeah, I mean... We need to announce the renewals first for a bit of clarity for fans that he minds. You know, it's just been Easter. We've got two weeks of no rugby. Keep us alive with news. Just flam out the contract signings. I mean, he was supposedly done, you know... I mean, how long ago did Woody interview John Daniels when he said that in the next few weeks it'd be coming out? Oh, I know. That was like two months ago now. Mind you, the Scarlets did tweet, yes, there's news coming up at the end of the week the other day, and then it kelps to Sunday and we're like, where's this news then? Oh, no, it's not happening. Oh, right. Great. There's so many players that we don't know the contract status of, so it's hard to tell. You know, I mean, just looking off my little sheet by ear, I've got it colour-coded. I've got red for staying, green for going, yellow I haven't got a fucking clue. And there's more yellow than anything. So, looking outside backs, I've got five players that are definitely staying. You can't run a team with five outside backs. It's just not going to work. We were supposed to have gone through the pain already. So, since the end of last season, we've lost 22 players. That includes, I'm including Steph Thomas, Joey McNichol in that. We have signed 13. 13? So, Swart, Van Der Merwe, Joe Jones, Ed Scragg, Alex Craig, Tayton Plumtree, Teddy Leatherbarrow. Are you still there, mate? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Tayton Plumtree, Teddy Leatherbarrow, Jerry Taylor, Evan Jones. Sorry, I've got Harry Williams in the wrong bit. So, yeah, only 12 signings. Evan Jones, Johan Lloyd, Charlie Tickham, Tommy Lewis. And we're rumoured to be signing five or six more. More locks. Yeah, more locks. So, that's more than a full team will be new through the door in the space of a year. And we've lost nearly a matchday, 23. If it was a case of we had a new head coach at the start of the season, then I'd be like, all right, he's building his own team. But that's not the case. I mean, we can go on about Peel and Olaf until the cows come home. We're hemorrhaging players is the end result of this. We know the new salary cap, as such, is having an effect. But, you know, we've got some very handsomely paid players coming to the end of the contracts. You know, the old NDC contracts, which for some reason, they were given stupidly long lengths. And, you know, we've just been left to pay for them when the RRU decided we're not paying for them anymore. So... Yeah. I believe there's a good million, million pounds of wages that are disappearing at the end of the season. You know, from just a few big names. And, you know, if we're talking 5.2 mil, that takes us down to 4.2. You know, and that's without the regular players to go. I mean, my main issue is we don't have any clarity on anything. I'm not asking to know how many pennies to the dot each player earns. But, you know, the salary bandings were put in by the RRU, which were so far-fetched, you know, it fathoms belief. But, you know, we need a wage system, a structure, a progressive ladder for players to climb up on and not end up, you know, oh, I've had my first cap now. You know, when you're just thrown in a squad, doing warm-ups or doing an alliance tour. Yeah, you're in there for 70 grand on your contract. Things like that. We can't do things like that anymore. It just doesn't work. Yeah. I think the thing going through that for me is confirmed that we need centres. We need a fallback. I tweeted during the weekend that if I could sign any player in the world right now, it'd be really LaRue. Because not only is he a great player, but he takes so much pressure. 7-1? Sorry? 7-1? 7-1, yeah. He takes so much pressure off the rest of his team, and he'd be a leader and things like that. So, I can also tell you that I tweeted two hours ago, would you take Jake Ball back at the Scarlets to the masses? And 91% of people said yes. That's 127 votes. Yeah. I'll take him back. I'll take him back right now. We wouldn't need to sign any of these other time-serving, Australian, Irish, English... Is he Irish? I don't know. I think he came from Leicester. We wouldn't need to sign any players. We'd have a nice set of locks and a proper fall class. Sorry, I was just going to say that to wrap up Transfer Talk, it's very difficult to rate any transfer rumours at the moment until we know what's going with the squad. This season, the last thing I'll say is, this season was supposed to be about building the new generation of Scarlets. If you look at our spine, if you subscribe to the old 2-8-9-10-15 spine, Ryan Elias has been away with Wales, isn't young, so Sean Evans is probably like our main two at the moment. Number 8 is for Fita, who could be off. Clyde Cowern, 2-0 is the young 8, has not been getting the opportunities. 9, Gareth Davies and Kieran Hardy have been off. Gareth Davies has something going on there, we don't know what. Archie Hughes has not been getting any game time. Fly half, we've got Yohan Lloyd who's been playing there. He's not a 10. Carsello is the past, present and future for us. He's been injured the whole season. And then 15, just a complete car crash. We need a new squad, basically. This is what I'm saying, we were supposed to have had the new squad. It was supposed to have happened already. They have been positive this season. We can't argue. Alex Craig has been immense. Teddy Leatherbarrow has been awesome. Ben Williams, even though not a signing. Again, he's another young player that's been outstanding. We've got good players. It's just getting them, it's a structure and a game plan that they can actually play in. Anyway, we'll wrap it up there, I think. Yeah, we've spent long enough now to chat. It's probably hard listening to a lot of people. So we apologise for that. But thank you very much for listening and we'll see you again next week. Thank you for listening to the Scarlet's Fever podcast. We hope you enjoyed the show. Please subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to us as it really helps us spread the word. You can find us on all the usual social media channels or email us on welshregionalrugbypod at gmail.com and remember, whatever the question, rugby is always the answer. Thank you.