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The hosts of Scarlet's Fever discuss various topics, including dressing up for fancy dress events, visiting museums, and one of the hosts sharing their experience with cancer. They also discuss the popularity of their TikTok videos and the success of their community rundown segment. The hosts express their appreciation for museums in the UK and encourage those fighting cancer to keep going and seek help if needed. Welcome to Scarlet's Fever, the home of Suspense Central and Westerer is Besterer. Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Scarlet's Fever with me, Lee G, joining me as always is Big M and Catboy, good evening gentlemen. Good evening, it's so tempting to go meow then. Have you officially changed your name by default? Not by default no, I think no because it's my alter ego isn't it? Middle name. Yeah I think they're gonna have to stop paying you for like personal feats if you appear somewhere, you could be Hugh but then Catboy has appeared, you know you could have a big appearance. You've never seen us in the same room? The upper deck is a closet for his fan deck so no one's seen us here with him. And a little tail coming out the back. There was a time a few years ago when the kids were in primary school where they did a fancy dress for, there was a fancy dress day for Halloween and all the teachers were in fancy dress and there was a young teacher who, as it happened, I was friends with outside of school, kind of friends outside of school, but in an all-in-one skin-tight leotard with a cat's tail and cat ears like that so she was letting out, like when they're that small the teacher comes and lets them out. So she's standing at the door and then there's a set of steps down into the playground and she's standing at the top of the door kind of swinging this tail going, go on kids. And it was like about 40 dads going like, oh this is where I've got to pick the kids up more often. I didn't realise this is what teachers did. I don't think she was allowed to dress like that after that. I think it was just for the coat on. Yeah, you're distracting the bus driver. Anyway, how has your week been this week, Jens? Anything exciting or interesting to report? Ah well, not exactly the most exciting in the world, but it wasn't this week, it was actually today. And the random Monday in January, the kids had an insect day. So as you do, we might just take that against. And I always love going down there, I love going on the galleries and stuff. But you forget about the history of your own country. And I don't know, I would expect you probably get a couple of times a year. I don't know if you are the year you're living, you know, the wrong side of the bridge and all that. But you know, doing some of the, some of the stuff they got, they've got the tips, the drawers from Aberfan, from the school, you know, they've got all the details on Camp O'Cailin, the blue box with the Welsh knot. It just drives everything in you. It's just amazing. Have they still got the really camp school teacher? He's really funny. He's really, really funny because he tells people off. They've got like a school building and they used to do this bit where you could put your kids in there and it would be like Victorian school and stuff. But he used to do it in this like really, really camp way and you'd have like his little whippy stick and his cane and all of that kind of stuff. And he's going, oh, carry on, I'm going to beat myself silly. And all the mums and dads are going, you can't do that to us now when you're a lot older. No, I don't think they do that anymore. If they did, we didn't see it today. We didn't, we didn't get everybody's school buildings closed. But we did, the blacksmith was in operation today. So we watched him make a candlestick holder. That was really cool to watch. Cool. That's interesting. Right. So I'm very, we do it best when it comes to things that Britain does compared to other countries. I don't, I hate that kind of thing. But the one thing that will die on the hill of is the UK generally does museums better than anywhere else in the world. Because if you go to like a museum, like if you ever go to Pompeii, they're like, there's Pompeii over there. And it's like, okay, what is it? There's not, there's no plaques, there's no displays, there's no people dressed as Romans telling you about it. It's like, it's over there. It's home. Try not to get sunstroke. Whereas if it was Britain, there would be people be dressed up, there'd be little walking guys, there'd be things like that. So yeah. I went to the National History Museum. Oh, you did with the dinosaurs? Yeah. Yeah. And it is, even as a nearly 50 year old person. Nearly 50, come on. 48 I am. 51 is nearly 50. Fuck off, the pair of you. I'm 48. But you still find stuff interesting. You still find out, like find new stuff and all of that kind of market. And you're there and there's like a little seven year old kid next to you would go, well, this is really cool. I know it is. You don't get that anywhere else. I appreciate it more now as a grown up. When I was a kid, I would just like, I felt like I, I was just, I was taken there. Whereas now I'm choosing to go on my own volition. Very interesting stuff. Well, okay. So we do museums as well. So I've got some, I've got some good news from, from this week again, from today. So today I had my six month checkup after my cancer scare. So I have a three month checkup every three months. And then every six months after I have another different type of checkup for six month checkup. So this is my first six month checkup, which was the camera. So we had to stick the camera in places where cameras don't belong to check everything, but everything is clear. Everything is good and everything is happy and clear and all of that. And you kind of forget, you do kind of forget. I went to watch Rod Gilbert on his warmup tour for his, the great grapefruit thing. And he talks a lot about his cancer there and surviving cancer. And he says, you know, this is in a small hall with maybe 400 people max. I don't even think it was, I think it was probably less than 400 people. And he says, you know, has anybody, you know, got cancer, survived cancer, going through cancer and the amount of hands that go up, you know, and I was sitting there, I was going, I'm not, I'm not putting my hand up. And then you look around the hall and you go, ****, you know, this is, there's a lot of us there. And so, yeah, so my message kind of is a positive one of positivity for, if anyone's going through it and if anyone or has been through or if anybody's fighting that fight right now, then keep going because, you know, there are so many people around you that have done it as well. And you can't say, just go and ask for help because it's not the sort of thing you go and ask for help for, but help is there if you want it and if you need it and if you're willing to reach out, people will absolutely be there for you. And, you know, and I include myself in that because, you know, my fight with cancer was very different to everybody else's and very short lived and what have you, thankfully and gratefully and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, there are so many people out there that are fighting a long, hard fight and I just wanted to give them a big shout out and say, well done, because, you know, it's hard. It really is hard, but it's so much worth it when you get through to the other side and you look at life with very bright spectacles once again. So, yeah, so I just want to say, yeah, I'm clear again, I'm cancer clear, six months, lovely job, Leigh, and full respect to everybody else that is fighting the fight at the moment. So, yeah, I'm going to leave that one there. I just wanted to get out there because you do, you get through it and you go like, you come out the doors and you want to like, come on, that's six months, come on. And there's all these old fogeys walking under Zimma frames. Well, we aren't. Yeah, and we've been pulling people out of the back and rushing them into A&E and you're like, OK, maybe I won't shout and cheer quite so much at the minute, you know, but yeah. So anyway, let's move on with some rugby stuff. Let's start with some magic numbers from the weekend, if you can bring yourself to that, Hugh, what have you got from the weekend? So if people weren't aware, the Wrapped family is on TikTok and we have started putting a bit more effort towards that now. And everyone from there was at least one person from each podcast, each of the four regional podcasts who uploaded something onto TikTok. Well, I say they uploaded it. I uploaded all of them, but they recorded them. And I couldn't help but put together a little league table because we've got to win something. So it turns out Dragons fans aren't on TikTok. Yeah, I saw that. I think it was just because it was Sunday. I don't know. It had all the same hashtags as everything else. Yeah, and just fell flat, didn't it? It's all right on YouTube. I know. Well, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so. So, yeah. So, Gav, unlucky mate. Don't know what it is. They don't have TikTok in Newport. Right. So, hang on. One, two, three, four, five, six. OK. In at number six was James of the Ospreys Pods. He got 228 views for his reaction to their game. In at number five was Karwin from Card Essential with 359. And then there's a bit of a jump to his co-podcaster Harley with 653 in fourth place. Then into the podium positions, we have Leeji himself on 677 for his Scarlet's reaction. And then yours truly up on 737 in second place for my Scarlet's reaction. But out in front, what? A country mile. By a mile for his community rundown. The thing that people skip, the thing that people say is the Welsh Rugby Shipping Forecast. The most watched man on TikTok from the Rat family, Big M with 826. People love the community. Those only four games as well. Imagine if they'd done more. That's eight clubs, eight clubs, eight hundred views. Awesome. Oh, my Lord. The bit that scares me there is imagine if I did more. But it's true. Some people don't like that bit. I'm sorry. It's the moneymaker. And yeah, Andy's obviously his podcaster with Newcastle Eminence has done incredibly well as well. I think that's blown all of our expectations. Yeah. Normally when we do the community pods, it's quite a small thing. It's nice to talk to them and it's nice to try and promote the club and all that kind of stuff. I think Newcastle Eminence did a little bit of promotion with it themselves. They kind of tagged in a lot of people that were involved in the club and the people who were tagged in kind of shared it to other people as well. A couple of people shared it again today. You know, so it's still going strong and it shows what a community club can do. You know, a community club can really be a part of that community. And yeah, I loved it, Mark. I loved it. I love the way, I love the fact that you're, of all the people that do stuff on YouTube, you're top of YouTube and you're top of our TikTok chat. It's the community. What do people want more? When I was speaking with Guyon for Newcastle Eminence, that club seems to have everything. It really is the centre of the whole village. And, you know, they've got the girls' club. Well, that's another one. We've got the girls' club and we will be getting a little interview with them, but we'll do that in a couple of months when the Women's Six Nations kicks off. Just so that's in the pipeline. You know, everything about Newcastle Eminence is brilliant. And, you know, the fact is they've just come back into the Championship, the Championship West, but they're targeting the Premiership this season already. And, you know, they're locking the field. They don't barn up there. Now, how many clubs, you know, they're still in the early planning stages. How many clubs will come and say, yes, we want to barn and we want to do all the scenarios? Now, how many clubs are going to be willing to put that up there? When you say it's in the centre of the village, it's not. It's bloody miles away. And if you don't know where you're going, you get lost. Thank you very much. I nearly missed kickoff. I had to stop somebody in the street because I figured, you know, I did have the directions written down. I didn't have it on sat nav. I didn't have the postcode. And I was in Newcastle and I was saying to people, do you know where the rugby club is? And they're kind of, there's a stranger in town. It's miles away, isn't it? I've looked on Google Maps. You've got to go back over the bridge and then take a right. And then there's this little bit that goes down. Hence the big debate of is Newcastle in East or West West Wales? I think the pitch is in bloody Powys, it's bloody miles away. It's an absolute nightmare to get to. Yeah. Yeah. So Newcastle kindly offered us some tickets and some burgers. But because we can't go, Martin kindly agreed to eat mine and Leigh's burgers for us. I'm keeping that a secret, man. Cool. Cool. Okay. So, well, while we're discussing the community game, then, Matt, why don't you give us a rundown of last week's community fixtures? Quite a few of them got called off, didn't they? Yeah. Well, like you were just talking, you know, yeah, on TikTok, on YouTube, there's a little bit more detail on some of these games. We're starting the premiership, and it was the big one. First against second, Van Der Vrij has gone to Eibhuwil. You know, first time around down in Eibhuwil, you know, 25-17, I think the score was to Eibhuwil. So this is the only loss Van Der Vrij had all season. And I'll be honest, he must be driving them nuts. But 51st minute, Eibhuwil scored a try, scored the scores to 17-15 to Van Der Vrij. Not a single score for the rest of the game. 30 minutes of a two-point deadlock. Now, that must have been intense to watch, but, you know, well done to all of us. You know, they really have taken the championship-winning team from last season and said, you know, we can do one better. And fair play to the boys they have. Our starless boys they had with them, they had, who do they have? They had Jack, Jack Davies, I think it was. Yeah, Jack Davies, who started, and now Key and Abraham on the bench. And no game for Quinn, sadly, if, you know, Samson or Finesse. No one wants to play him because they're too good. Well, it's seen as though Titcom is now automatically a starless starter. I think they'll be all right. But no game for Quinn's courtesy of an odd number of teams in the league. This week, Quinn's are back in Aston, but they travel to Newport, so that's going to be a really tough game for them. And Sandravery head up north to RGC. Championship Cup now, and it's a bit of a weird one, because the quarter-final stages of any Cup, and now the three of them wanted to walk over because Dunvan couldn't field the team. Now, obviously massively disappointing for everyone involved, but Dunvan played last weekend, perfectly fine, and they've got a game this weekend on the 27th. So they don't follow to this one, and I think some serious questions need to be asked. I mean, they might not have won the game, but you just don't do that sort of thing, you know what I mean? They said it was down to injuries. Front row injuries, I believe it was. It's normally front rows that cause these things, isn't it? Yeah, but we're the best one in the world in agreeing with what Martin is saying. It's not just the fact that you play the game, it's the income in the clubhouse, it's the sponsors, it's all of that stuff. But sometimes it happens where you can't field the team, but if you're just shitting out, then yeah, that's not good. We'll accept that they were genuine and that they had genuine injuries that have now recovered ready for next week. Now, you've got to think, St Angernich are now the biggest club in Lefsey and the surrounding areas. So they've got a lot more sponsors coming in for them than they had previously. Obviously, financially, it's not a great deal, but having the extra numbers there, you know, it's disappointing to let anyone down. The other game was Cawdor, St Angernich, on the road to Bargoy, so that's being rearranged this weekend. We go into Championship West now... No, no, no, no, no, no, you didn't do Newcastle in Lincrimach. Championship West now, that was Championship Cast. Oh, sorry, I'm reading your spreadsheet, man, I'm reading your spreadsheet, you've got them all in one place. Yeah, I've got my book. I've started rewriting my book now. The spreadsheet is yesterday's newsletter, it's in the book now. Keep up, it's in the book. Sorry. No, since I've been sabotaged a couple of times, I thought it's best to go back to the heart. It's not our fault that you can't work a bloody computer, Bob. Anyway, carry on. Newcastle, Emlyn and Crimmach. First up, Amundsrud were at home to Bournemouth. I should really say Bournemeen, because if anyone's seen a photo of Amundsrud put up of the scoreboard before the game, you know, brilliant to look at. So, Newcastle-Emlyn pod in the week, building this game after, you know, biggest game this season, a massive derby, Harry Fuller for Newcastle-Emlyn from the Starlads, Alfie Evans-Ferchie and Easton Wood, four tries at East, Newcastle-Emlyn 27, Crimmach 24, and I'm speechless. He was just following the updates throughout the game and just watching how tight they were, they kept coming back. He just did not know how he was going to finish. And then he was a little bit of a lull where you thought, okay, 18 minutes is up, but they haven't posted what's going on. So, it was really suspenseful. So, you know, massive, massive congrats to Newcastle-Emlyn on picking that one up. That's really going to help their push for top five. Scorers for Crimmach, you know, Evans-Ferchie and Easton Wood both got up for tries. So, you know, good for these Starlads boys to score as well as playing. Fixtures for this week, I've already mentioned, Bargaird and Llangennit in the cup. Crimmach are at home to Amundsburg, no game for Newcastle-Emlyn because Llangennit's in the cup. And then there's a big one we've been waiting since we knew this league was being bonded towards in it. We were waiting for Narbeth and Brecon to finally clash. And this is the one. I'm just hoping Brecon haven't gone to the wedding. You know, this is the big one. Brecon is home against Narbeth, it's cold off for the weather. But, you know, this league, we thought it was going to be a two-way tie, so Llangennit might have pushed in. They definitely pushed in now. This is a proper three-way tie and this game is going to decide how the rest of the league is going to go. Narbeth picked itself, they're going all the way. Brecon squeaked it out and it's wide open. Cannot emphasise how important this game is in the sense of the league. And if anyone from Narbeth is listening, then I've been messaging Narbeth quite a bit this season. Can we have an interview? Can we have an interview? This is the week to pop up and have an interview because this is the same as last week where Newcastle and Cromer, this is the big one this week. And I would love to talk to somebody from Narbeth this week about this game and the prep and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah. Normally, I would take on the community stuff. You know, our league's not that far away. You were popped on a Thursday night training, just to tap you for 10 minutes. If that's what it takes, we'll do it when we leave. Yeah, actually, I've got parents evening on Thursday. But yeah, other than that. All right, then. Let's roll the letters down. Okay, we go into division one now and we will start in the cap. The only team we had left, Seneffley Wanderers against San Digno, quarter-final of division one cap. Wanderers, 34-15 winners. Upper one, straight through to the next round. I've got a feeling they could go all the way here. I really do. They've had such a strong season. And I'm a bit biased because I was involved in the club a little while ago. My boy was at the sermons. I was coaching for a while. But you know, you've got to love a little fairy tale story. I mean, they were nowhere near it last season. And just to come out to the woodwork and basically dominate this division and hopefully the cap now. In the actual one Westleague, Burry Port went down 20-25 at home to Gysaenan. Velimbol and Wickland went for a tough game. 16-0 to finish. So the bottom two sides couldn't be separated. Kid Welly probably. The idea was the most shit. They both lost. I should have asked them, but I failed to do that, boys. I'm sorry. We needed a winner. I should have got one. Well, no, it could have been like two to Wickland, one to Velimbol, couldn't it? You never know. So Kid Welly were on the road to Gowertan and they went down 47-19. Aberystwyth made a nice long journey to Pontyddylais and they came out winners 21-15. Hendy were meant to host when I led, but the game was postponed unfortunately. On to this week now and Aberystwyth are at home to Burry Port, Kid Welly hosting Velimbol, Wanderers hosting Pontyddylais and Wickland are hosting Hendy. We go into Division 2 West now. As I said, probably a month or so ago now. We've got no teams in the Division 2 Cup, so just league action. Amunite did was postponed at home to Loughborough. Carmarthen Athletic, 11, Mumbles 23. That team's been doing pretty well. This is probably a big shock result for you. Fishguard 10-10 B5. Yeah, I mean that is huge for Fishguard. Fishguard started the season really, really well and then they kind of slumped. 10-5 sounds like an absolute slugfest, doesn't it? It wasn't nice. It's terrible, isn't it? I said to you before about the way Fishguard pitch is. If anyone's been on the ferry out of Fishguard, you get to the roundabout and you turn right and you go into the ferry there. Well, if you turn left, you're literally at the back of the pitch and the pitch runs at right angles to the sea. All the wind comes in and you can get some right howlers down there. But then you turn around at halftime and everybody plays with the wind, sort of a thing. But it just sounds like an absolute hammer and tongs sort of a game because there's a lot of, not bad feeling, but there's a lot of competition between those two clubs where players do move in between them and what have you. It's good to see Fishguard coming out on top. As much as I like 10-B and my connections with 10-B and all of that kind of stuff, it's good to see Fishguard coming out on top because they are good clubs. This is really big for 10-B. I mean, we go back a month ago and I think they were still undefeated and they picked up two losses in the league and a loss in the cup, which let's be honest, none of us expected. So we thought 10-B wouldn't run away with it and it's opening up the league a lot now. So all the more for competition, I say. Next game, we had Lampeter edging out 19-16 at Ponte de Croix. Now Lampeter are no scrouchers either. I think they're second in the table. So Ponte de Croix, they come out battling like that. Massive effort from them. Another win for Milford, 27-12 at Ponte de Beren. Milford, another side who have been managing to pick up some big scalps. They get inconsistency and quite frankly, they could be up there. I have no doubt of that in my mind. But Milford have gone from scraping the win and winning on the last kick and then winning by three points and then winning by five points to actually starting to put some decent scores together. So yeah, fair play. Loving where they are. So just to give you a quick idea, 10-B are now fourth in the table. Milford are sixth in the table. Fishkill are seventh in the table. Top of the table is Sixth Place. Yeah, and that's who we come on to next. They travelled to Nant Garedig and they picked up an 18-12 win. On to game for this week and it's a big one to start off. Second place Lampeter travel to third place Blucher and as we all know, no one likes Blucher. No one likes Blucher. Even if we go on the off-brace pod or whatever and pretend to like them for five minutes or whatever, as we slowly stab ourselves to death as we're doing it, no one likes Blucher. Anyway, next game up, we've got Nant Garedig on the road to Mumbles. Fond o Beryn hosts Arm and United. Fond o Beryn had a really good season. Arm and United just haven't turned up for whatever reason. So I'm expecting Fond o Beryn to notch another win on their belt and just keep progressing. Staying clear to Milford, I'm going to say keep an eye out for this one because like we just said, Milford have picked up a few scouts and their wins are, the margin of their wins are slowly increasing. So who really knows what can happen in this game. Tenby get a chance to bounce back at home to Carmarthen Athletic and Tee Croyce are at home to Fishguard. Can Fishguard back up their win over Tenby? It's a big one. Down in Division 3 and we'll start with the Cup again. Who is going to bounce? Lorne have won in the Cup, 42-17. Big win over Baglan and they are now into the quarterfinals. A lot more teams in Division 3 so they have an extra run to play. Into 3 West now. Halfwood West winning 11-6 against Cardigan. Pembroke going down 5-34 at home to Aberaeron and St David's picking up a good 20-7 win at Houghton-le-Land. So some good performances and a tidy result to St David's today. They're really kicking on this season. But again, the weird thing in this league, so Aberaeron are top, so played 13 games, lost 2. Lorne are 4th, who have lost 1 game, but played 7. I mean... I'm going to have to watch back now. We're going to have to see what other effects we can get. I think that my latest celebration will be in proper TikTok and YouTube and everything else. Yeah, we've got to work out what makes it. Anyway, carry on. Okay, this week in 3 West, Aberaeron have come to Santa Beda, Cardigan have come to Larne, Halfwood West have travelled to Langham, Pembroke on their way to Newland, and at Pembroke Dock, Quimbs are hosting St David's. We go on to 3 West now, a couple of possible man, Kev Nathan at home to Binya and Furness at home to Llandybi. The two results we did have, Betos 29, New Dock 5. Sorry Huw, I think you really... I don't think you're a good luck charm anymore, you know. You jinxed them, man. Since you've been Catboy, they've been on a real nose dive. I know, I don't think they've picked up a win since you've been Catboy. It's been terrible. Let's find a new name for him. We've got Llandailo winning 14-7 at home to Trimsaran, and Tumble continuing the fight, 24-21 away to Llangadog. Pictures for this week, we've got Binya at home to Furness, Llandybi hosting Llandailo, New Dock are at home to Tragaran. If they lose this one, Catboy must go. There is no way New Dock should be losing at home to Tragaran. New Dock's fans are going to be in the stands with hashtag Catboy out. Catboy out. Or kill Catboy, one of the two. Next game up, we've got Trimsaran at home to Llangadog, and the big one in this league, first take on second, Tumble at home to Betos. Now, like we said, all these leagues, we're coming into the real crunch end of it, and all games are spaced out, all the rearranged pictures are going to be coming through the six nations, so in six, seven weeks' time, these leagues will be more or less sorted, and right now, every game matters so much. So, over into Division 5 Cup, Pentebank were our last team in Division 5 Cup. Admittedly, we only had three to start, but they are now out, going down 28-9 away to Compteux. The only game we had in Fife West Central was Ponteaith travelling to Banwen, and that was postponed. Pictures for this week, we've got Ponteaith at home to Hull Bay. I have got Pentebank at home to Seven Sisters, but I'm thinking Seven Sisters may have a game to play, because I think they were postponed. So, Pentebank fans, if you're listening, double check with that one, it's not 100%. And that brings the end of the community game for this week. Cool. Fantastic. I'm celebrating how good the community bit was. Just do that and see what happens, because it's really weird, because you two both got iPhones, haven't you? No, I'm on my laptop now. Oh, you're on your laptop, so that's why it's not so good. So, do that, Mark, and see. No, no, it's not. Oh, there it is, there it is. Oh, stop. OK, yes, we can get a phone. What the hell is that, Mark? It works. How on earth did you do that? This is more exciting than I thought, to be honest. Mark, your phone is an absolute revelation, mate. How did he do that? I've no idea, but I'm a little bit jealous, I'll be honest. He's done it again. That is awesome. I'm looking at it now. I'm doing that every week. Do that or something. Just see what happens when you do that. No, you just hit the knob. Yeah, OK. Anyway. Shall we talk about the under-18s of last week as well? Yeah, can I watch this? Because this was on S4C. We didn't say if we're talking under-18s boys or girls, Chris, come on. OK, we're going to do under-18s boys that were on telly. I didn't realise how much I spoke about it, but even when I just said on the RAC pod, and somebody said, you know, did you see the game last week on... Tea and Sparrow. And someone said, Lee's going to mention Tea and Sparrow any minute now. And he was man of the match, I thought he was outstanding, again. I thought the Scottish 13 was very good. He made a few very good breaks. But the speed of rock ball, I mean... It was a very silly game. No, I thought it was good. I thought it was enjoyable. What did he finish in the end? 46, 47, something like that? 44, 48. And that 13 that you were so proud of is Griff Watkins. He's up with Flanders Recovery. That is a centre's name, but he was born to be a centre. He's from over the border, like Hatfield. Heathfield on Walsall and RSC is where he's from. Ah, that's the one I was thinking of. You gave it a go last week. Yeah. But it was a really, really good game to watch in terms of... Nasty injury. Who was it that went off injured? Got stretched off. He was placed in tiehead, I think he was. Yes. Yes, Tim Cox. It was. Yeah, he played in the 18s last year as well, so a few of you might remember him. But no, he didn't get much chance to showcase what he's about. So, speedy recovery. Hopefully it's just a little knock in a game and he's back on his feet already. I'll tell you what it was. When the boy was playing in the Welsh squad against the Scottish squad for under-18s last year or the year before, whenever it was. So, Scotland come down, Phil Hicke down and they're prop literally off the kick-off. First black off the kick-off, somebody goes over on his ankle and he's off to hospital. I just think, coming all that way, and his parents are there, because everyone's parents are there, because you're playing in your country shirt and stuff. Literally, he lasted three minutes and then he was in hospital. And you're like, oh, you've really got to feel for the guy. But, yeah. I mean, mine's not that bad. My final year of youth, we went on two out to Holland, and about 25 minutes in, I peeled off the back of them all, brushed a bit of this back there off, but he was still holding my ankle. Second one came over and snapped my ankle. So, and I didn't have my European health card, being a stupid 18-year-old. So, I was walking around with a broken ankle for two days. I bet you were popular. Elephant foot, they called me. I think if you hurt, they will treat you. They won't turn you away. No, you've just got to pay for it, haven't you? Yeah. You've got to pay for it, but then you can. Yeah. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, when we were on a school trip in Germany once, one of the earbuds from his earphones went too deep inside his ear. He had to go to hospital and they had to fish it out. So, the embarrassing thing was, like, they tried to get it out, like, in the dorms or whatever, couldn't get it out. Went to hospital, they had a special thing, and they got it out in, like, 10 seconds. But, hang on, surely you was wired headphones? Surely you were possibly an inventor at that point? No, he's that young. No, they were the ones with the little rubber thing on the end, and the rubber thing comes off. Oh, I got you. Got right in there. Anyway. When we went on tour to Amsterdam, we were all over 18, but we were drinking in the bar of the place that we were staying, and one of the boys was there far too much. I think he'd been smoking some of the stuff that we poured in the day. We literally drank the place dry. There was 30 of us there, plus a couple of teachers and stuff. We drank the place dry, and we were, all right, we're off into town. And he was asleep. So, we'd rested him on a beer can on the table, and he was asleep like that. So, we left a note for him, and we said, we're going to this bar in town, and we buggered off. And we came back about one o'clock in the morning, and they'd literally cleaned around him, and he was still there. He was still asleep on this bloody empty beer can, and all the chairs were up on the table, and all the lights were off by the one spotlight that was lighting him and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that was a good one, that was. That's the brilliance of club tours. Memories you will never forget. Most of them, you can't talk about on a podcast, do you? A little bit. So, A3 P18's good, then? Yeah, yeah, we'll get back to P18's. There was a lot of tries, you know, 44-14. Try scorers, we had Sean Jones, Gabriel Pathy, captain of Netherlands under-18s, just coincidentally, while we're talking. Dom Costa, Tim Sparrow, John Webbans, and a penalty try. Two games this week. This Wednesday, I think it's on rugby club S4F again. Parker Scarletts, we're playing the Dragons, half past seven kick-off, and on Sunday, we're hosting RGC. Same again, Parker Scarletts, half past two kick-off, and now we talk about... Is it girls' day themes, or is it women's day? No, Sunday's game is on the training pitch. On the training pitch? Yeah, Wednesday's game is on the main pitch. Sunday's game is on the training pitch. But RGC, they're not like RGC that much. They've done it a couple of times, but yeah, the RGC game is on the training pitch on Sunday, so. Ah, fair enough. So, like I was just saying, is it girls' day themes, or is it women's day themes? Do you call under-18s boys or men's? Boys. I would say logic extends that it should be girls. Although, three votes on this pod, if someone wants to tell us we're wrong, feel free. Yeah, if we're wrong, tell us. So, the girls' day themes picked up their first win of the campaign so far, 65-0 against RGC. It was Dominic Harper, Fionn Stark, 10 tries, and just to blow them away, this is the biggest loss that RGC have had so far. Our girls' day themes, there's two losses, but it was encouraging performances, and the come-out in this one looks like they've hit their stride proper. So, 10 tries all in. Tiara Taylor with a hat-trick, Kellyn Morgan and Fionn Davis, both got doubles. Priya Lillian, Martha Hallam, and Lona Harding-Jones all got on the scoreboard. Their game is on Sunday. Unfortunately, it clashes with the boys. They are playing Cardiff, 12 o'clock kick-off, but it's at Astor Cwm Brumbyll, which is in Port Talbot. So, this is the Osprey-designated game, and it's in a school that I am not familiar with. It's right on the side of the M4. It's in a housing estate. It's a 4G pitch, but it's in the middle of this housing estate, and you get to the back of this housing estate, and then there's a massive school there that's quite new, and then literally at the far end, there's a bank, and then there's the M4. Yeah, it's nice enough. It's nice, if that's the one that I'm thinking of, but yeah, let me say, it was a good win for the girls. Just to get that kind of win under your belt gives you a lot of confidence, a lot of confidence. So, yeah, fair play. Well, I'm looking at it now, and I'm thinking, they had 10 tries, so with conversions, they could have had 17, and they picked up 65. So, they've taken a penalty somewhere in that score. I'm hoping it's in first. I think maybe the scorer was like, yeah, we've got the GSDs of one. So, no, that wraps it up for all the rad. Obviously, we had the Wales squad announcement last week. Our boys are in, happy days. The under-20s have come out this week, and we've got seven boys in with them. We've got our Lucid prop, Josh Morse, Harry Thomas, keep an eye out for him, he's a big talent. Boys we've already seen in Scarlet Colours, Cleffy Wanderer's very own back-rower, Luca Giannini. Another back-rower in Will Ferceat, Scrum Art, Luca Sitaro, and two centres in Max Page and Gabriel McDonald. And well done to all them boys. I'm expecting to see quite a bit of Thomas and Giannini, especially. I'm not 100% sure if we're going to see much of Page and McDonald. They're both first-year under-20s, and they've got Ackerman and, what's the other name, Hennessy in the squad as well. So, Hennessy's close. Hennessy's in the squad. He's in. Is he? In the squad, yeah. From Bath? Yeah. Yes. They think we're from January 1st, don't they, instead of September 4th? Yeah, so it must be a young one. Bloody hell. Yeah, if Hennessy's in, I mean, he's played a couple of first-team games. Yeah, he scored a try for Bath, and I think it must have been a Prem game. Yeah, it was. And he's a big lump of a lad anyway, so. Yeah, no, he played well in the championship he's got. Of course, Morgan Morse is still in. Yeah, he's come in as well. Cool. Okay. Righty-ho. Well, let us progress on, because I had complaints last week. I genuinely had complaints, because people wanted to hear my grump. So, you two have both gone, oh, we didn't hear your grump last week. And then I've had complaints from other friends of mine that listen to the pod saying, why didn't we hear your grump? And I'm like, it's not that big a deal. Do you know what I mean? I think we're building this up to be something bigger than it actually is, yeah? So, what are you trying to do now? Show off my book. No-one wants to hear you talk. They can watch my book. Leatherback. Nice leatherback. Lovely spine. So, my grump this week is when my fellow podcast presenters try to steal my thunder when I'm saying something, and they show off their book. And you'll be doing your next video, you'll try to set off his fireworks. He'll be going, hey, look at me, look at my fireworks. I think that kind of leads in nicely, actually, to my grump. Because my grump this week is around the level of negativity that Welsh rugby thrives in. But it doesn't thrive. It rolls around in this mud pit of negativity. And the minute you try and counteract that with something positive, or let's have a look at, in fact, don't worry about that. Let's focus on some of the good stuff. The minute you try and do that, people are really, really happy to shoot you down. And I'm just going to say to those people that have got no life, and sit there and just moan and complain at people. It's usually on social media, and it's usually on Twitter. But to you people that sit there and just moan and complain, fuck off and get a life. Because honest to God, some people are there and, you know, yeah, okay, just because they want to, you know, they're always going to support the starlets, you know. And you hear people going, don't worry about the result, boys. You know, it was, I'm proud of you and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah. And I get that, okay, that might not be your thing. Don't go slagging those people off. Don't go having a go at those people and telling them that they're wrong to be positive about, you know, the future. Don't tell them they're wrong to try and, you know, help some of the players with dealing with loss and all that kind of stuff. At worst, just sit there and say, fuck off. Go and disappear. Go and watch paint dry. But you'd be better off doing that than sitting there and moaning at people who are trying to do something positive, you know. So my moan this week is about people that moan in an ironic way. But I'm just saying, you know, if somebody is trying to be positive about the game, let them be positive. It doesn't make a difference to your life if somebody else thinks different to you. But the minute you start having a go at people who are positive, trying to do something helpful, you look a cock. It's as simple as that. You make yourself look a cock. And I've seen people do it who, you know, people I know, people and I've seen comments and then I'll kind of put a little question mark under it and then the next day it's gone. So, you know, I know that bit after the game is really raw and really, you know, it really gets to you. And I get, you know, the next morning is probably the time to ask for your reactions and all of this kind of stuff. But just have a word with yourself and have a word over their head because, you know, nobody should be trying to make other people feel bad because they want to feel positive about stuff. So that's my grump this week. Stop being miserable bastards. Leave it to me. I'll be miserable for the lot of you. Just leave it to me. I'll do that. You've cut me off. Stop being mean. Right. I hope everybody's happy that I've started doing my grump now. I know that some people have been eagerly awaiting my grump. So there we go. We've done a grump. So before we move on to listeners questions and then we'll have a chat about the game and all that kind of stuff. We forgot to have a chat about the Thunder last week. So Hugh, take us through the Thunder, how the season's gone so far and last week's results. OK, so it's a week ago now, so I'm testing my memory. But Thunder played their first home game against Edinburgh. And as Big M will attest, Edinburgh are very good. They didn't win this one. It was by far the best performance they put in. I thought you can see like you watch a Thunder game and you think, oh, they weren't that good at that. And then next week they play and that's fixed. But then there's something else. And then that was fixed. So this was by far our best attacking game, particularly the centres. Absolutely. We're running through them at times. Like I say, Edinburgh, one of the better teams in it. And it was very impressive. We're leading for large parts of the game. Edinburgh got a try in the corner towards the end of the match. And that was kind of it. In the second half, I don't know whether it's, you know, maybe replacements. Our bench was a little bit weaker or run out of gas a little bit. We started getting pinged off the park and then Edinburgh made that count. But definitely for a good 40, 50 minutes of that game, definitely Thunder were the best side. Like I said, best performance they've put in yet. And it was great to see a fair number of people down at the park watching as well. I think it was 700 people turned up to watch it, which is brilliant. I think that's probably more people than turned up for any of their home Welsh games so far. So, yeah, I'm enjoying watching the Thunder. I'm emotionally invested. So thanks, Thunder. Another thing to be stressed out about over the weekend. But yeah, and I can't wait to see some of these players in the Six Nations coming up. And, you know, OK, the results aren't there, but this tournament isn't necessarily about results. It's a development tournament. And so it's just kind of about watching the team and enjoying them playing and getting to know the players. Thunder, if anybody from Thunder is listening, we'd love to have someone on and talk to you. You know, so drop us a message, drop us a tweet and we'll have you on in an instant. So, yeah, sorry that we didn't mention you last week, but we're still right behind you and we're enjoying watching you play. Yeah. So when is the next game? Is it this weekend? Yeah, it is this weekend. All the games are on Saturday this weekend. So there's a half one kickoff, a two o'clock kickoff, and Britain are on the top of seven. They're out in Ireland against the undefeated league leaders, Wolfhounds. So obviously, like you said, it's a development tournament. We've seen this team get better game on game. The centre, as you mentioned, one of them, Ellie Foleman's Newcastle Emlyn girl. Gwion was happy to point out on the Newcastle Emlyn pod, another plug for that. Just wanted to mention that. But no, and the last game, well, the last regular season game before we go into some form of playoff that makes no sense to anyone. We are away to Glasgow and we currently occupy the bottom two spots. So I get one home game. Yeah. The home game, the other home game was at the Dragons. Which is a rule. Yeah, that's that's where our home games are. But I thought we were supposed to play games in RGC. There is one up there. That's the Glasgow game. Okay, let's just be grateful that they've started. They're up and running and it can only improve. You know, it can only get better. The shirts will do. The shirt design needs to improve because I want something that you know. I want to buy that shit. Do you know what I mean? I want to buy it. Yeah, but do I want a proper, proper thing that we can buy? Like, obviously, I can comment on it. Lee, I don't think as much. I don't think you were taught that as into rugby at all. But I've got two young daughters, seven, six. They love rugby more than my boy. My boy is ten. He's played since he was six years old. He's been in training since he was four. But he's a stiff crib. He's not the best. He's, you had a choice. You've got to pick a team sport, rugby or football. You don't stick rugby. You don't have to do that. But my two girls, they love it to pieces. And you know, there's some of the girls that are playing, they're from their hub. They know, because obviously a lot of these girls are still 18, just turning 19. And if you go to any of these hubs, under six, all the way to under 18, all the girls know each other. So when you tell them so and so is actually going to be on TV and get the water, they're asking, oh, can we go? And then when they see that, like, oh, can I get that shirt? They want it. And that's something that is obviously a massive positive for this league and to go forward. And they've got to get this stuff on general sale, because honestly, what it does to the young girls, especially in Wales, obviously, I can't comment on what it's like in Ireland and Scotland, but for the young girls in Wales, seeing girls that they admire from their own club on the TV is absolutely massive. OK, so what you can do for that, Mark, is give it one of them. Go on, give it one of them. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it worked! And now do that. I've got to get what? Yeah, in there. Oh, this is brilliant. I just go on it. Oh, right. We're going to have some fun with this in future. Audio listeners, you're going to have to check out the YouTube. It's a visual show. Yeah, we're evolving into how many stupid things can we get Martin's phone to do? Because if you do that, so you must be able to do that as well. Does that come up with a? Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. So what happens when you do two? So one of them gives it to two of them. Oh, it's raining. I mean, if you're listening to this in the car, this is crap, but watching this on YouTube, I'm hoping those videos come through this video. If I can guarantee anyone on an iPhone now is going to go, does mine do that? What else can I do? Right. OK. Let's move on to the listeners question. So we had one listeners question this week, which there was actually four or five bits to it. But who's staying? Who's going? Who needs to go? You're stealing our future episode ideas. And who's this Australian second row? So I haven't heard about that. I haven't heard that. I haven't. I've heard lots of second rows. I've heard David Jenkins. I've heard Johnny Green. I've heard Johnny Green for a couple of years now. I haven't heard an Australian. Jake Ball's coming back. Yeah, well, he played for anyone that did our Christmas quiz will know that he played for Australia on the 19th. So before we came over. So, yeah, we're never getting Duff Jenkins, by the way. Just a load of rubbish that is. Well, I don't know. We are going to you know, we will do a pod on who we think is going to go. And then some of those boys that we think are going to go on big, big money that will free up space, you know. So what was the rest of the question? So who's staying? We're going to do. Yeah, who's going? Who's staying? Who needs to go? And who's this Aussie second row? I don't know who the Aussie second row is. Who needs to go? The ones who are big money but aren't playing. Yeah, I mean, Foxy played last weekend. So I don't want to talk about it. It makes me sad. We need to ask the question, why was he playing? Because we didn't have Johnny Williams for a ban and we didn't have a 21. I want to double check he did. And we didn't have a 21 year old. Because he would have been selected in front of him. That's the state of affairs. So if you get rid of Jonathan Davis and who you and, you know. Well, we'll need to. We'll need to. Again, we'll do a part on this, but we need, I reckon. Two, we need to sign two specialist centres and a third who can play centre. But that's in Dreamworld, I think, at the minute. And it depends on Johnny Williams. Is he staying? Is he going? I'm kind of it. Yeah. I suspect he might be going, but I don't know. That's just he reckons. That's not based on anything. Well, I was really interested when I, when someone mentioned that Johnny Williams his contract was up and his last game was, I think, in the warm-ups before the World Cup. We played against Portugal. Oh, played against Portugal. So I think whenever it was, it would mean that in three years time, because he was born in England, if he doesn't play another game for Wales, he would have a full year to play for England before the next Rugby World Cup. So even if he left and he'd be trapped by this 25 cap rule, he's still not excluded from international rugby because he could go on to play for England. I don't know. I think he needs to find a team that will play to his strengths. And I think the Scarlets are moving away from his style of play. Do you know what I mean? I just, we're more in the Scott William at his prime kind of style of play. We're more in the Dan Carter in his pomp and more in the kind of Jonah Lomu, you know, when he was at his best kind of style of play, you know. But then, you know, Eddie James is a fairly big, strong runner, isn't he? You know, so if, if Eddie James is, I think Eddie fits into the format a bit better, the attacking format. I don't know why, because he's a similar type of player. Yeah, there's literally one inch between them. Obviously the builds are quite different. Eddie is more slender, where Johnny is quite broad. But other than that, they start to match up more or less perfectly. Well, to oversimplify it massively, I feel like, and we've barely seen Eddie, but I feel like Eddie is more of a, I will do this so the team can do this player. Whereas Johnny is more of a, the team can do this so I can do this player. He is like an individual X factor over team system thing. That's my own personal opinion. Okay. So, yeah, to answer your question, we don't know. Ultimately, you know, it's all up in the air. There's so much stuff going on behind, in the background that we don't know about, we're never going to know about. And yeah, it's fun to speculate, but let's not forget that while we're speculating, you know, there are players that are going through it, that, you know, there'll be some players that want to stay at the club and might not have a contract. And there'll be players that, you know, don't want to be here, that kind of maybe looking to move on and all of that kind of stuff. And so, yeah, there's so much stuff that goes on behind the background that we just don't know about, but hey, there we go. That is the way professional sport is. So, yeah. So I've worked out how to do balloons as well. So do that for me, Matt. And you should have balloons. Now do two. Now do two. And we got confetti. Yeah. iPhone lessons with Lee. What? No, I don't think that's going to do anything for you. Again, yeah, another one. I'd be shocked if that turned up with anything. Again, another YouTube moment for our list. You can tilt your head back and pretend the post-office is on your phone. Let's move on, shall we? Let's go and talk about the game on Friday night. That's Let's go and talk about the game on Friday night. Let's talk about the Edinburgh game, because, you know, for all the grump and misery and we didn't score any points. We were the first Welsh team to never score any points in Europe and blah, blah, blah, blah. I still thought they were green shoots. You know, if you want to look at it when you're watering your garden, you know, if you plant something and it's starting to grow, you look after it, you nurture it, you feed it, you don't stamp on it to see if it's strong enough when it's a little baby. I think what people have got to bear in mind is you can't relate the last three or four games to what came before it because they have gone back to the drawing boards and it is a different strategy, a different approach. Changing style of play halfway through a season is always going to be even harder than it would have been starting at the beginning of the season. We talked last week about how it's a big shame that the first half of the season was essentially wasted and there's that many games in that amount of time out the window. But that's where we are now. And exactly like Lee said, I mean, you can look at the scoreboard and things. We've been saying on this pod all season, it's about performances before results for us because we've got a brand new team, brand new coaching set up, the average age of the squad has dropped, et cetera, et cetera. So look at the game, look at what actually happens. So Edinburgh scored like Edinburgh's first three tries that they scored against us. One was we messed up our own throw on our own five metre, they caught it, they drove over and scored. Second one, we got pinged three line outs in a row while we were doing another line out the referee didn't like. And they got down to a five metre and again drove over and scored. And then the third one, Befele, well, Ben Healey, Scottish international fly half puts a bomb up in the air from free kick. I don't want to call it a hit and hope because that doesn't do it the same justice because it was like they've identified something there, but they stuck it up in the air. Befele, international world class full half, fullback, sorry, gets up in the air above Steph Evans and offloads it to Duane Van Der Merwe, international world class winger, and he walks over. And that was their first three tries. And then I think the fourth try was again, close range from a line after penalties as well. So those three or four tries, they're as close as you can come in rugby to own tries, essentially. Now, that's obviously not good, but it tells you it's fixable. I mean, that for you is all that talent that I've just reeled off that Edinburgh got on their team, fifth in the URC, two line breaks against us. We had more line breaks than them. Like they didn't create anything. Can we just say Tommy Lewis had the same amount of line breaks as the entire Edinburgh squad and we'll talk more about them in a little bit. Yeah, so we'll come to Tommy Lewis in a bit. I want to talk about the tries, the kick and why that annoys me more than the other stuff. Because the other stuff is technicality and technique. Like some of those line outs, like those penalties from a line out, we gave away three penalties in a row. One of them, we sacked the line and the referee went, no penalty, you were too slow. No, because it was static. It was one of the lifts that got sacked as well, which was the problem. That's what that penalty was, because I couldn't figure it out in my head what was the problem. Yeah, from what she said, that we didn't sack the line in time. Well, we sacked the line before it started moving, so that's perfectly legal. So, you know, anyway, there are bits in there that, in all honesty, our line out has improved, our scrummaging has improved. I think I said this last week and a couple of times before, I don't know why, but our close in tight defence, our defence around rocks and our line out defence is our Achilles heel at the minute. I'm willing to bet if you look at how many tries we've conceded around line outs and, you know, driving around rocks, I'm willing to bet that that's where the majority of our tries are conceded. So, we can sort that, and that's why the kick one annoys me, because there's no way on God's earth that should have been a try. No way. You've got three boys in your back line, if one of you is going up to take a kick, the other one drops back. We had Steph Evans and Ewan Nicholas both competing for that ball, both missed that ball, so when somebody runs through, there's nobody there. At least one of them should have been in the backfield, and you have six forwards standing there going, oh look, he's kicked the ball, round of applause, round of applause for the opposition for kicking the ball so high. And do you know what I mean? Nobody was switched on, nobody was shouting, nobody was, you know, back two lines, who's up front, who's behind, you know, nobody was stopping the runner, nobody was running a block line to stop that runner from getting to the bloody ball, and this is basic stuff that you teach a bloody youth team. That was, yeah, straight after we scored as well. Yeah. And it just killed it. And by the way, our first try was great. I thought most of our tries were good. Yeah, they were multi-phase from far out, working our way to their line. We milked a yellow card out of them for the first one, and then we finished off, okay, maybe we made a bit more of a meal out of it than we needed to, but we still got there. We should have scored four or five tries in this game. You look at our ball retention to that first try, yeah, now, three or four games ago, we would have lost that ball. We would have panicked after the second or third ruck, and I think we went seven or eight rucks right on their line, you know, and they weren't driving close. They were one pass, you know, one pass, ruck, one pass, ruck, one pass, ruck. We went right from inside their 15 to under the posts, and then the ball got moved out because then there was space. And I thought that was really, you know, what we'd been missing, that composure, that calmness of going, right, okay, we're going to do this, then we're going to do this. And instead of this constant panic ball of, you know, pick and drive, pick and drive, pick and drive, pick and knock on, pick and get turned over, you know. And we did that quite a bit. You know, I know we didn't necessarily capitalise on what we did up until the last 20, but we were looking to play the ball off the centres, we were looking to move the ball through the back three. There was deception in the back line, for which we didn't have for the first half of the season, we've now got deception in the back line. And there's some really nice stuff. And to be fair to Jonathan Davis, he was doing some nice passing as well, some pop passing and bringing big carries in and, you know, not himself getting over the game line, but getting others over the game. When we talk about our back line, I think we could all see what we were doing. And this will come back to early in the season when we talk about Johan Lloyd and his lack of a kicking game. You can see we've set up forwards in pods of three, and we've got a man in behind. And because Johan Lloyd doesn't kick, when we were going in behind, Edinburgh were peeling around the side and he was cutting us dead. And you know, that was a big problem for the majority of the game. As soon as we brought Tipscomb on, and he put up that bomb, every time the ball went in behind, that Edinburgh defender wasn't quite as far forward as he was in the first half. And that's what started to create the space. So, you know, if honestly, if we had Tipscomb on from the start, or Johan Lloyd was willing to put a few bombs in, a few little tips over Gary Owens across your defence, we've had a lot more games from running with the ball in the first half. Yeah, so exactly that. So, you know, it's not new us talking about Scarlets kicking on this pod. So the top Scarlets kicker in this game was Johan Lloyd with three, three kicks. Gareth Davies and Kieran Hardy had two each, and Tipscomb had two when he came on. So we're still, so what we say about ball retention, yes, we are very good at ball retention, but I'll give you some couple of these stats. So in the URC, the most efficient, if you like, team with their carrying is the Bulls. So they have 21 carries per try. It's way less than everybody else. It's remarkable. And then you've got a gaggle of teams on 30, between 30 and 40 carries per try. Scarlets at the moment, 51 carries per try. We're making ourselves work too hard for our scores by not kicking enough. But then go back to what we were saying about performance. Yeah. And we're building towards something. We are. So that's the bit that I think we need to keep in mind, that yes, that's a good stat to compare where we are. Yeah. If you look at where I'm willing to bet when we get to the end of the season, you do a comparison and you use the Ospreys game, you know, as the cutoff, you know, that's the first half of the season, that's the second half of the season. The difference between the two, how many, you know, how many carries per try in the second half of the season will be significantly lower. You can see exactly to that point, Lee, you can see that we were really in this game, really focused on the shape and making the shape work. And there were other bits of the game that weren't added yet, which is what happens when you come up with a new game plan halfway through a season with a new team. So, yeah, so there was that. I do think part of the reason that we are maybe so good at ball retention is because teams are happy to let us have the ball, because we have the second worst game line success in the URC. Connachs weirdly have the worst, but yeah, so we're not good at getting over the game line. And I just, you know, this is a point about ball carriers. Everyone says ball carriers, you just mean someone big. It's not that simple. You know, you've said it before, Mark, agility before contact is something that we need to work on. You know, and by the way, we're not particularly small. People like to think about the Scarlets, that we're small. We're not. We're not particularly small. Comparative. So, kick-come-we've-agreed was pretty much outstanding when he came on. You know, I thought he was outstanding. Ben Williams had a superb game. Some of his defence was above where I'd expect. There were a couple of bits where, yeah. He smoked someone. Yeah, he absolutely destroyed it. The referee told him to put him down. I didn't make a note of who it was against. I can tell you it was on the 66 minutes, but I can't tell you who it was. So, you know, like I said, Scrum has improved. You don't feel like we're going to lose the Scrum anymore. I feel like line-ups have improved. And then we get to Martin. This is the bit where Martin starts smiling, really. Just say it. Say the name, really. Tommy. And what's the smile? See, this is the smile, Seymour. How long? How many months have I said, I want to see this boy in the team? I saw a fair bit of what he'd done with Jersey last year. And Christ in hell, he's needed a proper go. This wasn't even a proper go, but he bloody managed something. He is the pace that we've not had on the wing. I didn't realise how quick he was. He's lightning, like proper. I can't compare him to us, but if we were going to say we had a big Sammy Southfeaster in our squad, that is him. And he's not a small boy either. Who did he smash as well? Someone tried to tackle him and he just... Full-back. Full-back came into him, because we had a random winger. Full-back came into him. He left you random over for dead, and then he melted someone. Yeah. It was a full-back. But he did it a couple of times, and you're not surprised by it, are you, Martin? Not at all. Not from what I saw of him last season. And it was three moments, so there was some debate on this between us, but I've gone back. He came on the field at 49 minutes and 30 seconds. He did. Rugby Pass let me down, I apologise, on behalf of Rugby Pass. I'll be honest, all the stats are bloody everywhere, because I've counted at least, from these three big runs by you, in that 30 minutes, that first one he went... Was it Duane he went round first time and then bounced the full-back? I think so. He definitely went past Duane at least once. Yeah, so he's done one of Edinburgh wingers and he bounced the full-back to go in. The next one is him one-on-one against Duane, and he turns him inside out and he pops Combio the ball to walk in as right. I mean, we all know this is a test lion in Duane van der Merwe, and Tommy Lewis made him look like a bloody fool. I mean, you don't often do that. This is the stuff we saw Foxy doing in his younger years. He would turn people inside out for fun, and it's brilliant to watch. And then, again, the very last and real run of the game, where we said the ball in behind the pod, and because Titcombe was on, that Edinburgh defender wasn't quite as far around to block it off. He had the space, he blitzed around... Yeah, it was beautiful. ...stepped inside like a treat, popped the ball off to Gareth Davis. I mean, I think we were really lucky to get a penalty try for this, because I think Gareth... I didn't necessarily see the knock-on. I think Gareth has just lost it, but... As I was like, I thought, I probably thought he'd been watching a little bit too much of Thomas Williams over the last few weeks, popping the ball up the back, saying, you know, I'm going to try that. And it ended up in the penalty try, I'm not necessarily saying it was, it was, and I'm happy to take it. But, you know, this is all great on Tommy Lewis, and that wasn't it either. Didn't he get held up over the line? He did. It was a nice chicken wing from Foxy, got him over. I was a bit pissed off at the time, because I was like, how have we not scored that, lads? But at the end of the day, we got over the try line. Yeah, but it was a fraction of a second where the ball ultimately comes in just behind him instead of just in front of him. So either he's overrunning, or the pass is slow, or if he'd have been a bit further out, I reckon Foxy could have scored that himself. I reckon Foxy's gone, and gone, you know, the kid's having a stormer. Let him have the ball. So, well, it was that one that we probably should have scored. Steph Evans's kick in the first half, that instead of going three foot in front of Hardy, or a centre pick up. He had Dan Davies on his outside. Yeah, but we, even if he was going to kick, if he's going to kick, then put it in a place where Hardy can run on to it, and not change and go, I like that one. I've said my piece on Steph Evans plenty of times, like, I know you're Steph's biggest fan. No, no, we've moved our position on Steph, just because he keeps doing the same thing with his, I think it's because he's lost an edge of pace, and that step that he used to have, it's not quite as zippy, so he's not created a space. In this game, he got flung into touch. He tried to take someone on on the outside, and he's just been ragdolled. I've got a theory on Steph. You go first, and I'll tell you my theory. Well, no, I was going to say, you know, because he's lost that edge of pace, it gets to that point, and he goes, my only option here now is to kick. I don't entirely think that's right, because last season we saw him play at 13, and he can pass. We know he can pass, and he's done it in this game as well. He has the capability to pass, so when he's in those positions, all right, if he's on his own, and he's more likely going into touch, okay, maybe yeah, I get him kicked in. But in that situation, like you said, you had Dan Davis to his left, you had Hardy to his right. He could have passed either way. All right, he might not have ended up in a try, but he would have ended up in a lot better position. We would have retained the ball, and we'd have been retaining the ball five metres from their line. And they would have had less chance to reform the defence as well. So my theory on Steph is this. So we know, I've talked about Steph kicking plenty of times. Steph kicks more than any other winger in the URC, and a lot more. If you look at his kicks per game, and his kick metres per game, it's not close. He kicks way more than any other winger. And my theory as to why is I think it's a knock-on of playing Yohan Lloyd at 10, because Yohan Lloyd goes on his run, and he finds himself at the bottom of the ruck, and we need a playmaker. Who's going to be that playmaker in the back line? We haven't got a playmaking 12. Well, Johnny Williams has been a little bit, but he's not like a 10 playing at 12. For whatever reason, Johnny McNichol wasn't really able to be that player, and he's been there injured for ages. So I think Steph Evans has been asked to be the playmaker, and that's why he's kicking more and he's distributing more in these things. But it's just not working. He's not able to do it, and this is why, like we said, it's time that Tickham was given the 10 jersey and Yohan Lloyd was given the 12. Yeah, I completely agree. After that game on Friday, I think Tommy Lewis just ended Steph Evans' career. I cannot see any reason now why you would choose Steph Evans over Tommy. It depends what happens with George North, because if George North is injured, then Joe Roberts would play, and obviously for Wales, presuming Gatland doesn't pick Watkin, which I don't think he will. Or Grady, because he's picked him as a win. Yeah, he's going to put him on the wing. He likes it that way. Yeah, he will. But we might get Joe back for the fallow week game against Munster. By the way, we haven't mentioned it, Joe Roberts was excellent again in this game. Yes, he was. This new game plan is getting the best out of him. He got two line breaks, he got a try. He's a hell of a player. He's one of my favourite players. That's a natural. He's a natural. But I think as well, we've got to give credit where credit's due. All right, it's not working now, but it's developing and the coaching team is starting to show what it can do. They've come in for so much flak and all sorts of accusations and all this kind of stuff. So, it's Peel's third year, isn't it? This will be the end of his third season. And he's worked with essentially three different coaching teams. Two different defence coaches, because he had that skills coach from Leinster come in as a defence coach in the first year. That's what I mean. Sometimes, you look at the best teams and they've got a really stable coaching team behind them. As a coach, you can then walk onto the park and go, right, okay, we've got 80 per cent of what we want to do sorted. We're probably starting at we've got 40 per cent of where we needed to be. That's where they probably were at the start of the season. Then they probably went backwards to about 30 per cent as they started to change stuff. I'd say now we're up to about 50 per cent or 60 per cent. Those steps forward are making a difference. I'm not convinced overly by Williams as a defence coach, I'll be honest, because I haven't seen us defend consistently the same way, game after game after game. It feels like every game has got its own individual defence plan. I'm not necessarily convinced that that's the way. In Claremont, we were plenty physical enough, but they tore us apart on the halfway line. In this game, we didn't give them a sniff, but then once they got into our five metre, they were over. One thing I'll say about Barnes is he has shown, even with us in the back end of last season, he can put a defence together. He just doesn't know what he's trying this year. We picked our defence up at the back end of last season. The effort in the boys, just the effort to get off the floor and back in the line, he was superb. That's something that Edinburgh really punished us with. I think Sarah Cox is a really good referee, but she bought everything Edinburgh was selling her this game. I think that's probably the more experience that Edinburgh had in the back, because they were constantly holding us in, placing the ball in 12 players, and she was giving it everything. I watched the game back and there was one in particular I was like... It was against Craig, I think, the first one, and it was a four-plater, and even with the scrums, you could see Edinburgh wheeling, and she was giving the penalty to them. We've got to be honest with ourselves. We go, yeah, it was great, but we're getting there. You won the second half. We certainly did. We're saying that a lot at the moment, aren't we? Yeah. Well, we won a couple of quick-on games, and we won the entire second half of this one, so progress. So I think that the issue is now that the club needs to come out and start talking to fans, and it needs to make an effort to get fans back on side and say, you know, this is what we're doing. Essentially, the second half of the season, we're looking to put the format in place for the following season, or whatever, and they need to come out. They know by now who is staying at the end of the season, or they should do. They should come out and go, right, we're not playing him and him and him as a starter, because they won't be here next year. So we're developing some of the younger players through who will be here next year. Do you know what I mean? So when we go, well, why have we got Lousey on the bench when we're playing Ben Williams at six? You go, actually, because Lousey is highly likely, you know, let's be honest, Lousey is highly likely to leave next season, whereas Ben Williams will be here and is actually showing a lot of promise. You know, so we need somebody to come out and have that conversation with supporters on our podcast if you want to, but, you know, have that conversation and have an honest conversation about this is how we're going to play the game for the rest of this season. Because all's not lost, there's 10 games left, yeah? If we go on a run like we did last year, and we win the next five or six, then all of a sudden people start looking at us a bit different. And people only remember your last game as well. If we win five of the last nine games of the season, pick a random number, people will forget about the first half of the season. That's just the way it goes. It did last year. Yeah. I just, on the young players and things, so to be completely fair and balanced, there was a, you know, obviously we were giving it the big one on the last pod and things. And when we saw the team sheet for this one, that kind of changed a little bit. So we knew we had to make four or five changes in this game because of the injuries and suspensions and things we had in the Claremont game. We made nine changes. And for me, I felt that was a bit too many. Now, Peel in the press conference beforehand was going, well, we've got a break after this and some of the boys need a break. And I'm like, well, come on, mate, we don't want to hear about the break before the game. I'd rather hear you going, this is our last chance to make a statement. We really need to target it and things. And guys like Sam Wainwright, he can keep playing. The other regions are playing the same team week after week after week. We're rotating a lot more than some of the others. And I worry a little bit at the moment that players who play well aren't being rewarded by keeping their place in the team. Archie Hughes being a great example of that. I don't know whether they had a tap from the Wales camp and were like, hey, make sure that Gareth and Kieran have a run. Yeah. Or make sure that don't injure Mathias. Yeah. Or something like that. I don't know. But we've seen it before with Ben Williams, with Teddy Leatherbarrow, with Carowinds, to an extent. And Charlie Sitcombe, when he played really well against Leinster. They play well and we all go, great, these boys are for the future. And then they're out of the team next game. I would like to see them rewarded with more game time if they play well. So we're rapidly running out of time, gents. So we've got no game next two weeks. I thought it was one week, but the boys on RAP were saying it's two. I think it's February. It's not until the middle of February that we've got a game now. No, we've got an ecstasy game. Oh, the ecstasy game. Yeah. I want to take a step, but I don't know where I am in my week. So next week, then we'll do a little bit of a rundown of tables, where the community tables are. We'll do a little bit more focus on that. And we'll talk about what we hope for and expect from the rest of the season for the Scarlets and how we want to see that working. So if we're done with that, I'm just going to leave with Martin just doing that. Go on, do that. And then I'll stop the recording just when it's gone. Go on, give it one of them. Give it one of them. Give it. Yeah. We love you all. Good night. Good night, everyone. Thank you for listening to the Scarlets 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.
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