Scarlets Fever - how to avoid talking about rugby (and failing)

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. As always, I'm joined by Big M. How are we, gentlemen? It's quite interesting to do this on YouTube, knowing that Martin could disappear at any minute and his phone could fall over at any minute. It's an added level of jeopardy in there that just adds to the moment is what it's doing. I'm the light-hearted factor, I'm the entertainment, aren't I? There are people running a sweep on how long you're going to stay on the pod before your signal disappears and all sorts of stuff at the minute. Can I get in on that? I was going to say, I've got three minutes. I've got three minutes to three minutes thirty. You'll get done in the same way that Rob Howley got done if you get in with it, mate. Yeah. So, anything interesting to report this week, gents? Any lively events that you'd like to share with the group? Anything, Hugh? Well, Martin has a thing. I really enjoyed Doctor Who again this week. Was good. Was good. I can't stay awake during Doctor Who. It takes me, I've got to watch it like two or three times. I know. I don't know why. I really like it. I really enjoy it. But I sit down at that time on a Saturday night and 10, 15 minutes in, I'm completely out. Every single time. It was really, like, it was really good this time. I really liked it. I kind of, spoilers to people who haven't watched it yet, I kind of feel like the ending was a bit of a way of them going, just in case it all goes to shit again, we'll just keep David Tennant just there in case we need him. Yeah. And then if the ratings start going like that, they're like, OK, we'll get him back again. We'll bring him back in. Yeah. Yeah. It was a weird ending to it. But yeah. Yeah. So, Mark, have you have you remembered anything of interest from last week? Nah. Boring me. OK, well, I'll share mine. Yeah. I shared mine that I turned 48, 48, 78. Yeah, 48. Yeah. On the last Thursday. And I had a bit of a party on Saturday. Both my boys came home and we started drinking shots of various sorts. And I'm still going toe to toe with them at one o'clock in the morning. And no one was more shocked than me. And I'm going, I'm going to pay for this tomorrow because I was expecting to be, you know, quite rough. I was expecting at least one of them to throw up and nobody threw up. I was still going and I just said, all right, OK, I'm tired now. I've got to go to bed. And Sunday I was fine. That's because we had the sharpest water. Yeah, probably. No, we had this stuff that was in like a little bottle and some of it was green and some of it was blue and some of it was yellow and some of it was red. So my next door neighbor, who used to be an Osprey and then obviously the Ospreys went shit. So now he kind of supports the Scarlets because he has to. So he kept coming up to me going, leave, leave. Red for Scarlets! Red for Scarlets! And he'd go, right, OK, I'll neck that one and then it'd be another five minutes. Well, red for Scarlets, neck it. And that's pretty much how I last two hours on Saturday night. But I survived. Yeah. Interesting. Right. Let's talk rugby. Mark, give us a rundown of the community game while you've still got signal. It's frozen. It's frozen. Yeah, well, what we're going to do, of course, the only reason anyone has to look at the community game, you all know that. Premiership, Cup weekend this week. There's a couple of Scarlets boys on show. For the Quins, we had Jesse, William and Lewis Morgan. Quins were away to Merthyr and they actually led 17-12 at half-time, so up in the second half and they went up 39-24. So it was, you know, they were really kicking themselves in the teeth, you know, knowing they've only had the one win this season and they really had a good opportunity there. Into the drovers, Jack Davis, Keithy Starkard and we had Harry Thomas and Max Page on the bench. Max did pick up a try, but I don't know what to say for this. You know, last, well, not this weekend, the weekend before Aberavon, done over, Edward Bale second in the table and the drovers won 58 points to 3. I haven't looked at the Aberavon squad, but they must have been a lot of rotation. How can you argue that for, essentially, a premiership only cup competition? They should never get to that level. I mean, well done for the drovers for sticking out there, but one interesting point, Aberavon did lead 3-0, so good on them. Into the actual good stuff now. Phil's performance this week, so it's a little bit disappointing. Premiership for next weekend is a weekly stand-up rehab for Aberavon again. Hopefully we'll see a closer contest and the Quinns are away at Edward Bale. Down into Championship West, you know, 80-point game, Dunblane 43, Ammanford 37. You know, Ammanford, again, they really should have picked this game up. They had the opportunity there, they just couldn't put it to bed. Slangenic with 77-5 against Primrose. I mean, where's the Loch Lomond lead? There it is. I mean, we're waiting for that. That's just one hell of a scoreline. I mean, I think they're like second and fourth in the table, and that's the scoreline you pick up. If it was first against Botdam, you'd understand, but Jesus. You know, Slangenic, they had that little wobble and now they're back on top, third place once. Narbeth won 36-13 away to Trebanos, and as we all know, Newcastle Emly didn't play because Brecon had a way again. This week, Championship West, we've got Ammanford at home to Newcastle Emly, Slangenic now to Brecon, game of the week to Tender. That's going to be it. Primrose are at home to Salvera, and Narbeth are at home to Tardar Steel. Down into one West with three post formants here, Barry Porter away to Gowater and Kidwelly at home to Aberystwyth, and Whitham's home to Sheffield Wanderers. The two games that did go ahead, Velenborn lost 10-24 home to Pontarddice, and Tendy picked up a pretty big 44-0 win against Pencloud. Fixtures for this week, we've got Aberystwyth at home to Gassinan, Barry Porter against Velenborn, Sheffield Wanderers at home to Kidwelly, Whitham travelled to Pencloud, and Tendy are on the road to Pontarddice in a repeat of the Arranch and Gladarby from the beginning of the season. Division 1 West Central, Bryn Amann lost 36-16 on the road to Nantyfella, and this week, they're at home to Bridgend Athletics. So, in this class, they can get another win. They've been going pretty good this year, considering they only had one win over last season. Division 2 West now, and Lambeth are 137-15 away to Swammon United. Carmarthen Athletics beat Nantyfella, 24-11 away. Pontabairdham picked up another win, 16-5 at home to the Crois, and, you know, a result I didn't see come in, maybe Lee saw this come in, I'm not sure, but St Croix 26, Tenby 10. I didn't expect Tenby to lose a game in the league this season, so that's opened it right up. I mean, I know Tenby have only had a handful of games, loads of post-formants, but, you know, they were undefeated until this point, so this league has just been blown wide open. And yet again, Milford at home to Fishguard was post-formed. On to this week now, we've got Carmarthen Athletics at home to Milford Haven, Fishguard at home to Swammon United, Lambeth at home to Pontabairdham, Nantyfella did travel to Loughborough, Tenby host Mumbles, and St Croix hosts St Clair's. Now, I'm going to do the Division 3 cap first, just to get it the right way round. So, Larne's game away to Abercrissie, and Shandiby's game away to Birmingham, who was post-formed. All of these games are away for Pembroke, Cardiff win 38-29, winners were bettors. So, the only teams we've got left in Division 3 are the teams that were post-formed. So, this is, again, kind of depressing. I'll lower it down. Carlip wins. St David won 60 points to 14 at the Langan. Fishguard didn't win three Westies this week. We've got Cardigan at home to Naylor, and St David's travelled to Alford West. Larne's at home to Llanabarder, Langan, Horsfield, Aberaeron, and the Pembroke derby. Pembroke dot Carlip wins at home to Pembroke. Three Westies now. Biniel lost 25-38 to Who's Favourite Team? New dot star. And Furness lost 22-33 at home to Llangadog. Pictures for this week. We've got Llangadog at home to Llandiwne Furness, away to Tragaran. Kev Nathan travelled to Trimstaran, and Tumble are hosting Biniel. We've got the Division 5 Cup now. Two games. Pennebank won away 20 points to 15 against Cardiff Southlands, and Panther Burnham and Forbes did their away game to Ruth in second, so I think it's just the one team left now in the Division 5 Cup for us. Into the age grades now, and the Dewish Loot final was this past Wednesday. Manager Maura Denebu came so close, losing 19-18 away at the Millennium to Drogenne. So, really gutting for these boys, let's hope. We'll see a lot of them in the Scarlets under-16s now, and the under-18s in the years coming, so good luck to all these boys. Into the youths' cup now, and Llandaulod beat Camp Bryant 55-67. Now, I wanted to take a minute to really stress how strong the youths' cup of the Cardiff Rugby League is under Llandaulod. Another team in the Cardiff Cup is Nubaina, who lost at home to Tumble a few rounds ago, so West Wales youth rugby is really strong at the minute. Pembroke, unfortunately, went down 27-19 away to Merthyr. Into the plate, Carmarthen Athletic, the St Albans, was postponed. Carmarthen Queens won 52-0 at home to Pentruch. Llandaulod lost 20-15 away in Llandaff. Into the bowl, and both games were postponed as far as I'm aware. Abercanon were hosted in Narberth, and Cardiff Queens were hosted in St Clares. Still waiting to see when these games are being replayed. More than likely going to be this week. But as of now, that's it for your community section for the week. So, did you have four patch-outs there, Huw? In the grand sweep stage? I think I was down for five, so I think you beat me there. Ah, it was close, though. It was close. And the thing is now, I can never tell if Martin's giving me a death stare, or if he's just frozen again. Come on, Mark. He's frozen our entire thing to me, so it's got to be problems on your end, obviously. Yeah, obviously, on our end. Problems in Pembroke, and there's problems in Leamington Spa. Yeah, and they're all connected. Cool, thank you for that, Mark. Seems to be next door to each other, isn't it? Well, it depends. By your geography, probably, yeah. So, yes, just on the Queen's Pembroke game this weekend, it's been—I think I might have actually played in the last time there was a Christmas derby between the two in the league. Genuinely, that's how long it's been. And I should have scored as well. If Jason Griffith had actually passed me the ball instead of just throwing the fucking thing up in the air and hoping I'd catch it, then I'd have been in for a try. Anyway, I'm not bitter. But, yeah, the Pembroke and Queen's fixture is a huge one, absolutely massive. So, yeah, good luck to both teams. It's going to be absolutely bouncing down Beardspool on Saturday. So, yeah, enjoy it. Try not to fight too much, please, because, you know, we know how these things end up. Anyway, let's do some magic numbers. Hugh, what have you got in terms of magic numbers for us this week? So, I was partaking in a debate with one of my very good friends on Twitter, and an actual, like, friendly debate, not one of the— Not the ones you're ashamed of? Not one of the others. No, no, no. An actual friendly discussion as to, is the Champions Cup actually that much harder than the Challenge Cup? And in order to answer this question, I took the league rankings of all of the teams in each pool this season, and I corrected for there being more teams in some leagues than others. And if you do that, and you—oh, Martin's gone. That's what he thinks of your magic numbers, mate. Fuck you. I'm gone. I've done my bit. I'm off. We should just call this show Martin's Gone. I'm going to do a super—when I'm bored over Christmas, I'm going to do a supercut of all the times Martin's chopped off. It's like, where's Wally for YouTube? Anyway, great. So, if you take all of the league positions that everyone is in as of today, and you correct for the number of teams in each of the leagues, then it works out that Outworld Pool in the Challenge Cup is harder than Pool A in the Champions Cup. How can that be? Well, in Pool A in the Champions Cup, you've got Lyon, who are very close to the bottom of the top 14. Then you've got Bristol, who are loads down in the Premiership. And then you've got people like the Bulls, who are very high up in the URC. Saracens are fourth currently in the Premiership. Bordeaux are sort of middling in the top 14. And then you've got Connaughton there, who are the most middling of all the middles. Whereas in our pool in the Challenge Cup, you've got Castro, who are third in the top 14. You've got Clermont, who are sort of lower middle. You've got Gloucester, who are rubbish. You've got Black Lion, who are top of Rugby Super Cup. You've got Edinburgh, who are doing okay in the URC. So it works out that there's actually harder teams in our pool. Do you want to know the easiest pool in the whole two competitions put together? Is it the Ospreys pool? Yes, it is. Even if it wasn't, we just have to make sure that we said that it was. So they've got the easiest pool. It is. It is. So the Ospreys pool has got Montpellier, who are bottom of the top 14. They've also got Perpignan, who are second bottom of the top 14. They've got Newcastle Falcons, who are bottom of the Premiership. They've got the Lions, who are all right. They're the second bottom South African team in the URC. And they've got Bennison, who they just beat. Yeah, Bennison are the high flyers in that pool, aren't they? Yeah. We'll do some Ospreys bashing later. When we need to cheer ourselves up after talking about the Scouts, we'll bash some Ospreys. Yeah. Well, let's dig into that now then, because I was otherwise occupied for all of Saturday, luckily, and Sunday. So I haven't even seen the highlights or anything yet. So give us a rundown on what you thought that game was like on Saturday. So, yeah, like you said, I did get to see it. I watched it. I get to see it makes it sound like it was a treat. It was essentially, in terms of differential in performance between two sides, it was worse than the Ospreys game. So you can kind of say, if it's raining, we haven't got a pack who can do a set piece, and we haven't got a functional kicking game or an existing kicking game. So if it's raining, you can say, oh, we've lost this. We might as well just give them the 28-0, because it's just not a competition. He's back. For how long? Right. 20, 25, he's back. Sell the timer. Right. Anyway, so a positive first-ish. Ben Williams had his best game for the Scarlets. So he wins my man of the match for this week. So eight out of eight tackles, 62 metres made, including a line break, nine carries, which made him second top. Would you like to guess who our top carrier was in the game? Yohan Lloyd. Yes, it was Yohan Lloyd who was our top carrier in the game. So eight out of eight tackles, like I said, two line out takes, one turnover, four defenders beaten, two passes, one offload, and like I said, one line break. So he was our best player. Steph Thomas as well had a good game. Didn't do much in terms of carrying, but made his tackles. But he was part of the scrum that got absolutely monstered. We gave away five scrum penalties. Our scrum percentage ended the game on 56%, and that's on our own put-in, not taking into account the opposition's put-in. Line out, 58%. And what that stat doesn't tell you is that even when we caught the ball and we did manage to get it away from the line out, we went like one phase and then lost it again. And that's because there had been some kind of issue at the line out, and then the play was disrupted, and then it got turned over. So essentially, the pack got absolutely monstered. And at no point in this game were we in the game. Castro were a step above us in every facet of the game, basically. Like I said, just to illustrate the point about our pack getting just not doing what it needs to be doing, the starting pack got 46 carries in the whole game between eight players. The starting back line got 47 carries in the whole game. So our backs are carrying more than our forwards. Now, I know that they're on the field for longer. Like I said, Yeo-un 10 carries, 10 carries, 7 passes, 6 kicks. That's what I've been saying. I can't keep saying it every single week. Six defenders beaten, but that only translates into one line break. 89 metres, so almost exactly the same number of metres in this game as you go against Cardiff. But he went off injured again, so we'll have to see what that injury's like. It's a shoulder injury, apparently. Archie Hughes, when he came on, looked good. He had a decent impact, and he was whizzing the ball around. Again, our ruck speed was slow. We couldn't get into their 22, essentially. If you look at where our possession was, it was between their 22 and the halfway, and they just put up a wall, and we couldn't get past it. The try that we scored came from Johnny Williams monstering someone. He knocked the ball on, Yeo-un Lloyd scooped it up and ran in. The only reason I'm not calling it our worst performance of the season is because we've had some rather really, really crap performances this season. We actually carried the ball more than them, believe it or not. Here's the stat that tells it to you. There's 119 carries and 116 tackles. We were tackled 116 times, so it was just one up most of the time. Now, tackle stats are always misleading, is my always caveat. Castro carried the ball 113 times, but only on the receiving end of 80 tackles. So that tells you they were just running. It wasn't a contest. There was a golfing in class between the two teams. Like I said, all of the issues that we've seen from the Scarletts so far this year were all present and correct. You can say we're not the most physical team in the world, and you can say what the Scarletts' way of playing is. The pack didn't function on any level. They didn't bring anything to the game as a unit. Now, from a line-out point of view, our line-out is there for Peter, and he wasn't there. Our back-up plan to the line-out is Alex Craig, and he also wasn't there. So there's that sort of mitigation I'm kind of willing to throw in. Well, honestly, our pack all this season has been Ben Williams, Teddy Leatherbarrow, and occasionally going to a Palazzo, trying to polish his head. It was a very depressing game to watch, I'll be honest. Okay, so, I mean, it was all the stuff about appeal must go, like, a couple of weeks ago after the Ostrich defeat, and we said no. We didn't believe that was the right way. There were other things. There were more structural things in the club. But our forwards are going backwards, you know, both in terms of in a scrum and in a ruck and, you know, on a skill level. So, Mark, are you still with us? No, we've just got the whole thing. Are you there? No, I'm not. Yeah, this isn't funny. This isn't funny anymore. I don't know why you're doing it. Okay, so just give us a quick rundown of what you think is going wrong with the forwards, as best you can. Well, you look through our entire squad and how we're playing, and you can clearly see the forwards are the issue. Now, we spoke a few weeks ago, well, a few days back, actually, about, you know, the new coaches that came in with the job for the boys. Now, I'm looking at it, and I think, you know, we brought Kearney in, we brought Jarrett Payne in. They both know Peel. Peel brought them in himself. He knows he can work with them. The only one he didn't do that with is our management, our own squad. And our forwards and our bunkers and our line-out doesn't exist. So, I don't know what to say. No, he's going. You're going again, Mark. Mark, try turning your camera off. That might help. No, apologies. No, I don't think he can hear us, mate. Yeah, Mark, stop, stop, stop, and I'll edit it. Mark, try again, Mark. See if the camera off is making any difference. No, you're cutting out again, mate. No, and I'm willing to bet. No, you keep patching in and patching out, mate, and it's, um, oh, yeah. You've slushed. Absolutely, you've slushed. You know what? One of you, put your hand up and just wave it slowly from side to side so I can tell when it's gone already. Okay. Just wave your hand out. Okay. Well, we'll try and continue as best we can. Forward chest. I don't know what he's talking about. It's not working. Sort out. We'll get rid of them. Are we still talking about the forwards coach? I couldn't even get that in. Okay, so seeing as Martin kind of did his impression of one of those old 1980s comedians, so, um, yeah, I think it's right what we're saying, you know, we've brought in an external coach and sometimes bringing in coaches that you know to coach with you, who've coached with you before, who you all kind of work along the same systems and it works, everybody clicks. And, um, yeah, bringing in somebody completely new, sometimes brings a fresh pair of eyes, sometimes it brings some fresh systems, shakes things up and brings some life into players that wasn't there before. And it just doesn't feel like any of that is happening across any of that coaching team. There isn't any part of the Scarletts game at the minute where you think, oh, we've improved on something. You know, we haven't, our defence isn't better. Our kicking isn't better. Our decision-making isn't better. Our contact work isn't better. Our line-out, our scrum isn't better. I'm struggling to find any way where we've improved from last season, you know? Yeah, so I was just going to say, the only plan we seem to have is give it to Yohan Lloyd and see if he can do something. And someone asked me on Twitter, because obviously a lot of people are saying, oh, should he be 10 for Wales? I would be shocked if Gatlin picked Yohan Lloyd at 10 to Wales, because he does not do what an international 10 is required to do, which is kick the ball. Um, yeah, it's, someone asked me, is Yohan Lloyd playing like this? Because this is how he plays, or is this what Dwayne Peel is asking him to do? And I said, I don't know. The reason I don't know that is because we haven't had someone else get decent game time at 10. So I can't see whether they play different to Yohan. So I can say whether Dwayne is telling them what to do or whoever it is telling them what to do. At the same time, Yohan Lloyd didn't play 10 until he came to us. So I can't reference his time at Bristol. All I can say is, how would a fullback slash winger play at 10? And it's probably a bit like this. So I'm minded to say that this is how Yohan Lloyd plays. But I can't say that for certain. I have to see someone else playing 10 for us to understand if that's the case. Yeah, and I don't want to make it out like I'm blaming Yohan. I'm saying Yohan's the problem. But he's like... Well, it depends if Yohan's out. Depends how bad the injury is, isn't it? Can we talk about injuries? Oh, do. Please. So I said after the first game of the season, if you remember, in that game, we had what felt like six players got off injured. It probably wasn't that many. I said, it's not luck. The reason we're getting injured is because we're not fit. That's why the players are getting injured. And just kind of to that point, if you look at the injury list, so when the Scarlets announced the team sheet, they put in a list of players not available due to injury. I don't really like this because it's kind of like getting your excuses in early. If I look at this list of players, Alex Craig, Wynne Jones, Dan Davis, Johnny McNichol, Eddie James, Joe Roberts, Gamsley Mathias, Tame Plumtree, Josh McLeod, Sam Lousey, Ken Owen, Samson Lee, Dan Jones, Sam Costello, Isaac Young. That's the injury list. If I look down that list, right? Sam Lousey and Sam Costello were away for extended periods in international duty. The rest were all with the Scarlets. So these guys have not had a high number of games. As we know, Ken Owens and Samson Lee haven't played a game. Josh McLeod, our squad captain, has not played a game. Who else are we talking about here? Dan Davis, obviously, limited game time. Gamsley, limited game time as well. Eddie James, limited game time. Isaac Young, has he played a game for us? He's on the injured list. I don't think he was on. You've been on the bench. I don't know if he's played. I think he came on for like the last 10 minutes once, didn't he? I can't remember. Yeah, or maybe the like. Yeah, I think he's had a little bit of time, not a massive amount. Yeah, and like, we were talking about this in the group chat as well. Alex Craig, Johnny McNichol and Ver Fafita played 18 minutes against Cardiff. But apparently they're injured for this game. Something about that just doesn't quite fit with me logically. And, you know, there's the speculation about Sam Lousey. It's what's going on. And you can set your watch every year by the Scarlets have 20 players out injured story. It's not luck anymore. It's not luck anymore. Now, I'm sure we've all heard stories. I'm sure you guys know a lot more about this than I can about players being things like players being asked to bulk up and put weight on that they're not comfortable carrying and then they get injured off the back of that. Now, I don't know. I'm not there. But it can't be just luck that we get this many injuries all the time. And I'm not sure that I fully believe that some of these players are so injured that they couldn't play that game against Castro. Now, if it was just rotation, just say it's rotation. But the thing is, with that team that we put out against Castro, it was neither a rotated team, nor full strength. It was just kind of in between. It was like a nothing team. I'll let you guys come in, come in there before I come to my next point. So am I being harsh or? No, 100% fair as far as I'm concerned, but you know, the HIA sort of boys who played 80 minutes, there are protocols before and after games they have to follow. So sometimes, you know, they do fail and it's just a couple more, a few more days longer, but it doesn't usually mean they miss a week. So, and the thing, I reckon Fofita could have played that game pretty easily if needed. You know, and I don't know what to say. I mean, I thought you'd be targeting Europe this season, you know, especially after a poor run to start the year as well. Yeah, or, you know, he's been told we need, we need to protect the league. You know, we need to protect our position in the league. We don't care about you. What is our position in the league? Yeah, 14th. Yeah. What are we protecting about that? Well, if you're going to put your players, let's say your Fofitas, your Alex Craves, all of the, you know, all your big ball carriers, you know, you're going to save them for the league because you desperately need to be, you know, 10th or above or whatever, let's say. Yes. We've got two break weeks in January, which I don't think a lot of people have really fought on this year because they've purposely done that, you know, trying to stop the games of the Six Nations, et cetera. So there's a natural break week in the URCC then, so there's no need for that at this point. No, but what I'm saying is, is if you put your, if you put Fofita or Alex Craves or Gareth Davies in against, you know, Black Lion, then the potential for injury is always there and, you know, you want to keep them for Ospreys and Dragons fixtures over Christmas, you know. Fofita played three games. Yeah, and I get it, mate. I'm just trying to work out why we're doing what we're doing. It's, I can't, you know, let's be honest, the every game we go now, it's not like we're playing well and getting pipped at the post. Do you know what I mean? It's not like we're playing well, but our pass went down or, you know, referee gave a bad decision. I could almost live with that easier. This is, we're not playing well and when you're in that position where you're not playing well, as a coach, it's really difficult to get out of that because, you know, how you coach differently to the way you've coached up until that point that's got you to the bit where you're losing games, yeah. So, I don't know what you change. I don't know how you change it because something's got to be changed. Well, that's exactly it. Ben Darwin talks about this in one of the podcasts he did with Rugby Pass down in New Zealand and he talks about how the best things sometimes you can do in this scenario is not change anything, but it's so hard because, you know, because Ben Darwin's thing is all about cohesion and saying if you just pick the same players and work with them, work with them, work with them, they will get better and I thought that's what this season was all going to be about with our young team and everything. And Ben Darwin says it's very hard to tell the coaches on a losing streak don't change the team because the coach will be there saying to you, I've got to change something. I can't be seen to not be doing anything. So, I don't know whether there's a bit of that going on. But at the same time, Alex Craig and Veer Fafita are our two best forwards and Veer Fafita in his three games has played three different positions. He's played second row, number eight and number six. And spent time at outside centre when he should have been in. Yeah, spent time at outside centre. I'll come to the centres in a moment, but that's the kind of thing. And with the Cardiff game when he brought Dan Davies back in, even though Teddy Leatherbarrow had been arguably our player of the season so far. But that kind of thing just was like, what's that about for me? And with moving Fafita from, we thought, OK, the plan this season is for Fafita at eight and then he'll fill in the second row sometimes because Lousey's been not available. But then he moves into sixth, which I can't think was ever the plan, unless the thinking is, Fafita is the closest thing to Plumtree and we want to have that like for like, but I don't really get that. But the centres was really the one where I was there yesterday going, I don't get it, because we've known for ages that Fox doesn't have the pace to play 13 anymore. And for the last best part of two years, he's been playing inside centre. And then Johnny Williams last week played 13. And Johnny Williams had this amazing distribution game. He had one of his better games for us. And with Joe Roberts being out injured, we thought, OK, Johnny Williams is going to be getting that game time at 13 then for a few weeks now, assuming Eddie James isn't out long term. So we know that. So we know Johnny Williams is going to get game time at 13. We know that John Fox has been playing at 12 because he's not placed for 13. What do we do? We play Johnny Williams at 12 and move John Fox to 13. This is something that I really got annoyed with Pivac about when he was Wales coach. Swapping players between 12 and 13, constantly moving them around and messing with the centre partnership. In the last three games, we talk about Yohan Lloyd, his development as a 10. His most important relationship on the pitch is with his centres. He's had three completely different centre partnerships behind him in the last three games. And this is what I mean. As a coach, how do you, you know, you can go, all right, we're trying to build an all-round team with 15 players that can play in numerous different positions and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can only do that once you've started to build a strong foundation. You need to build a 15 that you go, right, okay, this is my 15 on paper. And when you put 50 Scarlet fans in a room and you go right down the best 15, 48 of them will put the same 15 on the paper. You need to build a strong core before you start rotating, before you start messing around, before you start developing. And we haven't got that strong core at the minute. We're not building it either. No. And this is the frustrating bit. There's nothing there that says something is improving. And it's going to get to, you know, I reckon after the Dragons game, which is... New Year's. Yes, sometime in New Year's. I think it's the first. No, it doesn't matter. That's the Dragons game. Yeah, it's the first game of the New Year. That's when, you know, if things haven't picked up by then, that's only three games. That's the Black Lion, Ospreys and Dragon, you know. And if it's not improved or we can't see some kind of improvement by then, then people will start asking some really serious questions. If you remember, right, so Hugh, you probably weren't around at this point, but when Pivac took over at Scarlets, right, it didn't go well for the first kind of... He took over about halfway through the season when he used to be left, didn't he? And then it was a little bit of an okay-ish end to the season, but it wasn't great. And then the start of the next season, the first three or four games, we weren't winning. But you could see that we were starting to throw passes that were just on fingertips. And instead, they just weren't going into the breadbasket. And, oh, if that lands, he's in. Yeah. And now I can see, oh, we turn over there. Oh, that was so close to being a turnover. And if he turns that ball over there, we've got a four-man overlap. You could see that we were building a style of play. You could see that, you know, that clicks, then that clicks, then that clicks, then, you know, there was a chain reaction going to happen through that side. And I'm not feeling that for where we are at the minute. I'm not feeling that, you know, we're defence-led, we're turnover-led, we're set-piece-led, we're, you know, we've got 101 different moves we can run off the backs. And that's the frustrating bit at the minute. And it is frustrating, because you want to watch it out and you want to see those boys get some reward for what they're doing. Because they are working hard. You know, nobody goes out on the pitch to fuck things up. You don't go training every day to injure yourself, you know. But maybe the boys are training too hard. Maybe that's why we've got the injuries. It's because the boys are pushing themselves too hard and that's having the effect on the body. I don't know. But, yeah, it's just really frustrating to be a Scarlets fan at the minute. And I don't know what the route out is. Genuinely don't. There isn't an easy route out of this. The question is, what's our go-to? We know what the Ospreys go-to is. We know what whoever it is, we can say, this team, that is their thing. I don't know what our thing is, apart from, like I say, give it to Yohan Lloyd. So let's change it up a little. Let's slag off the Ospreys for a couple of minutes to cheer ourselves up and then we'll talk about Black Lion. So Ospreys are shit on the weekend. Don't care if they won. They were playing against a bag of crap. My granny could have beaten them and she'd been dead two years. So, yeah, fuck them. They could have won, they could have lost. If you can find me someone who was there to see it, I'll believe what they say. Right, there were 15 people on that. There wasn't anyone that was there. There was a tough judge and a referee and the whole coaching team were there. So they swelled the numbers. Toby Boo's working absolute miracles there with his 15 orphans that he's rescued from a burning orphanage down the road. These complete unknown players like Jack Morgan and George North and people like that. Or you've got First Choice Wales, Loosehead, Gareth Thomas, Wales' co-captain Dewey Lake. How does he do it with the same pick as British and Irish Lion, Adam Beard? Honestly, miracle worker, Toby Boo. Absolute miracle worker. He's turned nobody into the 2015 All Blacks. Incredible. That's another one of the conversations that you've had on Twitter, haven't you? No, I don't. I only have that. It's been filled enough. Okay, let's... Wait, can we sag off Leinster fans next? Yeah, let's go for it. Let's just alienate everybody that isn't a Scarletts fan. Go on. Leinster fans don't know they're born. They don't realise the advantages they have and they just go, they assume like, oh, well, why don't you just rely on your 2.8 million population with the private school system that's built to support your rugby team? Why don't you just do that? I've got some very lovely Leinster friends and present company excluded for those guys and things. But there is one or two Leinster fans on social media who are very... It's very let them eat cake when you talk to them. And they have... One of them was saying, oh, it doesn't matter what about the league. The league is all about producing players for Europe, for your European campaign. I was like, it might be for you, mate. It's not for the rest of us. The rest of us don't have the entire Irish squad sat on the bench while we develop our kids. We don't have that. And they love a punch down. They love to go like, oh, we're absolutely top of the world. But let's just go in and just kick the Welsh regions for a bit. You know, just take the piss out of them for a bit. And I take the piss out of Scotland, of course I do. So I'm a hypocrite. But yeah, so that's the last thing I'll say. La Rochelle have been shit in the top 14 this season. Right. I told everybody Leinster are going to win this because La Rochelle have been playing badly. They scored the ninth in the top 14. They scored the fourth fewest points in the top 14. And they've played everyone in the bottom half and only three of the top half teams in the top 14. And that's how bad they're doing. Montpelier have only got one win this season. It was against La Rochelle. And what's his name? Ronan O'Gara was banned for the game. And yet Leinster are making it out like they just beat the Springboks. But I will say, yeah, and I've said this before, part of the reason that we can't talk about, part of the reason that we're frightened to talk about this, and I think we probably should start talking about it, yeah, is part of the problem with our game in Wales, yeah, I'm not just talking about Scarlett, but I'm talking about all of us in Wales, is because the solutions are political, not necessarily on the pitch. Yeah, it's a whole society thing about the way society has changed, the way schools have changed. You're talking about private schools, yeah, so England and Ireland, the way the game has changed, you need to be in private schools, this, that and the other, and that's how you develop your players, and they're all in one place, and you've got all this fantastic, you know, set up and all of that kind of stuff. Irish tax system doesn't tax the rugby teams the same way as it taxes everything else, because they've set that up that this is what we're going to be the best in the world at, and all of this kind of stuff, yeah. We don't have that. We work on a political system designed and run for somebody else to run a different system in a different country, yeah. We get allowed to tinker with a little money at the end, and we get told, be good boys, and we might let you have some more money next year, yeah. If we're going to run our game, and we're going to run our country the way that we need to, to build our game, yeah, then we can't do it in the political system that we're in now. We used to build our schools around rugby. We used to build our towns around rugby. Rugby used to be everything, and then rugby moved away from that, and our towns and cities and schools moved away from that, and we diverged. In England, it's fine, because you've got loads and loads of high-end private schools, mainly stocked with Welsh, Scottish and Irish players, yeah, and increasingly American players, Canadian players. They're all coming to English private schools to build themselves up, learn how to play the system, go home, yeah, and the Welsh system that used to exist is a shadow of what used to be there. You were talking earlier, Mark, about how good the youth teams are and all of that, mate. I've sat and watched a couple of youth games this season. We can't pass a fucking ball properly. Genuinely, we can't, yeah, and when I used to coach, that's the first thing you do. Every session, you have 10 minutes where you go, pass, this is how you pass, elbow, shoulders, chest, push, yeah, this is how you catch a ball, you do big Ws, yeah, the hands out like that, right, this is how you catch a ball, and you hit the ball in the middle there, right, your hands have to be all of this kind of stuff, basic, basic stuff. I'm watching players play, and they're going to be senior squads next season, and they can't pass a fucking ball properly, and these are the backs. We're not developing players the way we used to, for whatever reason, and we can turn around and then say, oh, yeah, you've got to have this, and you've got to have this, and you've got to have this, until we're in a position where we can make those decisions politically, we aren't going to. It's as simple as that. Our system is run to make English rugby better. Let's talk about what we've got coming this weekend. Let's talk Black Lion. So, Hugh, what have you got for us on Black Lion? Tell us about Black Lion. I've got a story time. I've got a Black Lion story. Go on then. Right, so, Black Lion. You may know this already, Lee, so I'm going to ask Martin. Martin will probably know as well, because he's a rugby norse. How old are Black Lion? Oh, they're very, very, very, very, very old. Like, they're almost as old as my younger half. Four seasons? Not even that? I think not even that. I think they're like three seasons old. I think they're 21, aren't they? Yeah. Francisco told us, yeah, 2020-21 was when they were spoken about forming, and then 21-22 is when they started. Yeah, so not even four years. Yeah. So, yeah, so they are like the peak of the pyramid in domestic rugby in Georgia. Beneath them, the Georgian league is called the DD10, and that's got 10 teams in it, and most of them are from Tbilisi, I understand. But anyway, that's not as important. So, they're based in Tbilisi. They play in the European Super Cup every year, and it's the final of that in a couple of weeks time, and they're in the final again. I think they're playing against Tel Aviv Heat, who are doing very well as well. But that's not the only competition that they've ever played in. Black Lion played in the Curry Cup First Division, which is like the second division. So, you've got like the Curry Cup Premiership, and you've got the Curry Cup First Division. So, people who don't know, the Curry Cup is the domestic league in South Africa. It's beneath the URC teams. It's their version of the Welsh Premiership. So, Black Lion didn't play in the top tier of that. They played in the second tier of that, and they did that a couple of years ago in 2022. So, in 2022, the tier two of the Curry Cup, known as the Mazanzi Challenge, I probably pronounced that horribly wrong. Sorry, South Africans. They opened their doors to teams outside of South Africa. So, there's Black Lion from Georgia, there's a team from Zimbabwe, and there's a team from Namibia, all allowed to compete. So, Black Lion at the time was just one year old. They'd played in the Super Cup, and now they're playing in this tournament. So, they played. Now, Curry Cup First Division, best names for teams anywhere in the world. So, they played their games. First win was against Goshawks, then they played against Eastern Province Elephants, then they played against Border Bulldogs, then they played against SWD Eagles, and then they played against the Leopards, and they won all of those games. And that resulted in them finishing fourth in the Second Division of the Curry Cup. That's not very impressive, right? Wrong, because they didn't play all of their scheduled games. So, the European Super Cup, the other tournament that they played in, remember that, they played in that at the same time. So, they were playing in the European Super Cup and the Curry Cup simultaneously, and they had three league matches, and the Curry Cup cancelled to go and play in the European Super Cup. But still, they managed to win enough games to get to the playoffs in the Curry Cup, which is what they did. So, they got into the semi-final of that. They played the semi-final against the Griffins. Now, Griffins were the best team in the league, they were the favourites. So, in this semi-final, it went 31-all at full-time between Black Lion and the Griffins, and it went to extra time. Black Lion outscored the Griffins five tries to four, but in the end, they came up just short and it went down 41-38 losers after extra time against the Griffins. The Griffins went on to play the Elephants in the final and absolutely battered them. Black Lion, on the other hand, went on to win the European Super Cup. They then went to South America and they toured the Super Rugby Americas, I think it's called, tournament. They didn't play in that, but they played all the teams from that, so all the Chilean teams, the Uruguayan teams. They beat every single one of them, and then a Super Rugby Americas dream team all came together, 15 select players from all those teams came together, and then that beat Black Lion. And that was right at the end of the tour. And then, like I said, Black Lion are now favourites to win the European Super Cup again this year. So that's the Black Lion story. I hope it was interesting, and you can find highlights of their games in South Africa all on YouTube, the full eight each. The bit I like about South African teams and teams from other places, they have like sexy names. The Leopards, you know, even the Eastern Elephants sounds, you know, sexy. The Rhinos, the Sea Snakes, the Sharks. And they go, well, what would we name our teams? If we named our teams after animals, we'd have like the Hedgehogs. Well, the Osprey isn't actually a Welsh native. It's not. It's a Russian. Neither should they be. They should be in London. A dragon is. A dragon is a Welsh native animal. Yes. By the way, David from the Scrum of the Earth podcast messaged me asking me, why is the Scarlet logo a dragon when there's already a team called the Dragons? I don't want to get into the history of it, but what this led us down the route of is, are there any other red animals that we could name, we could have on our crest? Pandas. The Red Panda is an option. Fox. Yeah. Lady Bird. I'm a big fan of the Poisoned Darfrog, myself. Did you see it on telly on Sunday night? No, I didn't. We could have a Red Kite, except they're not red. Oh yeah, we can have a Red Kite and an Osprey. It's a bit closer. Yeah, it's a bit too close, isn't it? Um. Robin Redbreast? Except it's orange. It's not red. It's called a Red Breast. Yeah, but it's orange. The Robin is like second tier, isn't it? It's not Batman, you know. And the listeners and viewers suggest there are some red animals. Anyway. We could have a Cockney and a Lady Bird. You can tell we're just doing everything we can to avoid actually talking about rugby. It's just like, this is hard. Right, let's do some predictions for this weekend against the Lion. It's called Black Lion. I learnt this tonight. Black Lion. It's not Lunzer. Yeah, Black Lion. I'm worse on this. Black Lion. Great kit. Great kit. They've got the black and yellow like our St David's kit. Yeah. So, who do you want to see in the team? And what's your score prediction? Martin, while you've got a signal. Go. Go. Who do I want to see in the team? Everybody's actually best, you know, best 15. Put it out there. Simple as. Let's put it that way. I'd like to see us knock and speed them all try. I can't see it happening. But it is what it is. I mean, if we can somehow control their set piece, which is no easy task. It should be simple. I haven't seen them do much extensive in the Super Cup. That's probably because they haven't needed to. Obviously, you've got to pay to Scarlett Wynne. Because Scarlett's always been at home, you know. We've never lost at home to a team called, you know, with a big-tack team of ways. You know, I'm not going to flash back a few weeks ago. No, it's going to be hard-fought. It's going to be one up front, which scares me more than anything. But I think we'll come to where? 26-21. Okay, so Scarlett with five for Martin. Cool. Hugh, anyone that you think is vital that we see back this week? Alex Craig, I'm here for Fita. I'd like to see Steph Thomas keep his place at loose head as well. I think he earned it off his performance just about, even though the scrum was terrible. But you can't pin it all on one person. If we're going to play for Fita, I'd like to see him either in the row or at number eight. Because I don't think either Ben Williams or Teddy Lotherborough deserve to lose their spot. And if Eddie James is fit, I would like to see him back in at number 12. And then it's a question about whether Yohan Lloyd is fit or not. But yeah, I think the thing that people need to know about Black Lion is that they have almost a full 15 of Georgian internationals. So it is like playing the Georgian national team in a way. A lot of their best forwards play in France. But yeah, it is a little bit nerve-wracking. And like Mark says, they have got the set piece to really, really, really cause problems. The reason that they lost against Gloucester is because they tried to overplay. They tried to chuck it about and it just didn't work for them. And it was peeing with rain and things. They didn't play the game right. Gloucester kicked five penalties to beat them. And the referee disallowed a couple of Black Lion tries as well. So yeah, it's not going to be a walkover. It's not like the bad old days of the Challenge Cup, where we would be playing a team from Russia or Romania or someone, and we'd walk all over them or, you know, a Calvisano or someone. It's not that. These are plenty good enough to play a Challenge Cup level. So prediction, if we bring those players back that I mentioned, I'm going to go Scarlets by seven. Okay, so yeah, for me, we're desperately, desperately missing Lousey because it gives us other options at line-out time and just really underrated around the pitch, particularly when you've got Lousey and Fafita that kind of ping pong off each other. You know, they work really well together. And they put the opposition back line in two minds. You know, you've got a 6'5", 18 stone running at you, and then he's about to offload it to a 6'4", 17 stone guy who can run as fast as an outside back. So, you know, it puts people in different minds about what's happening when those two are on the pitch. And I think we desperately need to see those two on the pitch now. I actually think Dan Davis is the right open side for this game because he's stronger over the ball. He's out for a couple of months, isn't he? Hang on, I haven't got to that bit yet. I'm sorry. So, yeah, he's the type of player that you need. He's more abrasive. He's more kind of in your face. So, yeah, it's a real shame he's not going to be there because this is the kind of game where he excels. This is that hard up front kind of game. I think we're running out of options with injuries at the minute. I think that's, you know, we said this was going to happen at the start of the season. You know, who's going to be first to pull somebody in on a loan? I think we're getting to that stage now. Where if we, you know, who else are we going to pull in? If we lose another outside half, who else do we put in? Yeah, if Ewan Lloyd is out and you've just got Teddy, not Teddy. Charlie. Charlie. You know, you haven't got a backer. Where do you go then? You know, so I think we're in a really awkward position where, yes, protecting players for the league. I can see why that's been done. So, I can almost see us not throwing out a strong side against them. I would love to see— Unacceptable at home. Yeah, but I would love to see, you know, go fully all guns against Black Lion. But think of this. You then play the Ospreys at home the week later. Would you rather go all guns blazing against the Ospreys or against Black Lion? Both. We haven't got the squad to do it, mate. We've got the same 23 players. Whoever plays a three-score, if you're playing an Osprey, you can't just go in off the back of no-gailing three-weeks. Yeah, no, but this is what I mean. This is the shit situation we're in. If we get a good win against Black Lion, it'll get people in the door for Ospreys. I'm sure that'll be a conversation that's been had behind closed doors. If Ospreys is going to be our biggest game of the season, we need to give people a reason to turn up for that. Yeah, no, I agree with that. So, anyway, I think if we win, we're going to scrape it. Genuinely do. I think it'll be a one point, two points at most. But I think this is... Normally, I'm farting around on Twitter on Friday afternoon or whatever it comes. And it pops up and I go, oh, right, okay, there you go. This week, I'll be midday. I'll have it in the diary that, you know, check Twitter, find the team. Because I think it's just so important this week. The team selection this week is really, really important. And it will tell us a lot about what's going on in camp, who's doing well, what's happening and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it is Friday, 12 o'clock. No, we're playing Friday, so it'll be Thursday, 12 o'clock. Thursday lunchtime, that's the time to check the forms. And it'll tell us everything that we need to know about, are we targeting Europe? Are we going for this seriously? Are we saving players for the Ospreys game? And what the rest of the season is going to be like. So, that's my piece of wisdom to finish for today. Martin, look stunned. No, he's frozen again. No, I'm just steady, I'm always there. You can never tell, mate, you can never tell. I'm probably rotating something, so you know I'm still here, like I've got... Yeah, you're gonna have to keep moving. You'll have to keep shaking those long, luscious locks of yours. Ah, right, gents, it's an hard one at the minute. It's really difficult to keep the heads up at the minute with everything that's going on. So, yeah, fingers crossed for a good game on Friday. It's, yeah, fingers crossed, fingers crossed. That's about all we can do at the minute. So, enjoy your rugby this weekend, gentlemen. We'll come back next week. We'll do the last one before Christmas. Oh, and one thing before we finish, before we finish. So, we've been working on something for YouTube over Christmas. Can't say what it is yet, but hopefully it will be ready to go on Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening. So, if you're around, check our YouTube page on Sunday evening and all will be revealed then. And we'll tell you about it next week as well. Should be a good bit of fun over Christmas as well. So, on that note, gents, adios, farewell. I shall see you all next week. Toodle-pip. 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.