The One with a Face Charge Down

The Ospreys Irie podcast discusses various topics, including the recent Wales vs England rugby game. They also mention the addition of three South African players to the Ospreys squad and the ongoing issue between Nice and the Welsh Rugby Union. The podcasters express their hope for a working relationship between the two parties. Welcome to the Ospreys Irie podcast, the podcast who in this situation will be Switzerland and will remain neutral in everything. More on that later. It is me, James, as always joined by the boys, Yestin and Robbie. How are we? Yeah, I'm all okay. Bit of a poor day for myself yesterday, but that's a completely different story. But yeah, I'm all right. I'm still here. And there's a lot of things to talk about, which is unusual for this podcast. Yeah, I'm brilliant. I've had the first game of Boofy Bingo in weeks. I've done it in weeks. Finally got to put Toby's first conference on the big screen and cheer when he said mindful. But for me, the one that made me perk up was like, we are where we are. And I was just like, yeah, this man is back. He's moving into summer wardrobe of just a t-shirt. It's February. Why wouldn't he be? And he said, we are where we are. And it was perfect. Well, we will come on to that as well. How's the week been, boys? Did you enjoy the game on Saturday? Enjoy is a strong word. Did you enjoy the Adam Beard mispass? Mate, mate, which one? Which one? Which one? Yeah. Glorious, glorious, man. Glorious moments, plural. Yeah, it was a as a fan, horrible experience. As a rugby fan, it was perhaps not the finest game I've played, but there was drama. So that's what matters most in the Six Nations, I always believe firmly. And I don't know, it's a weird one to know how to feel about the Wales game, because both Wales should have won it in so many ways. And yet, you know, you do, by the whole, it's a young team and they're developing. And we've seen, you know, from our perspective, how much they have been able to kick on over the last couple of years in terms of when young players get more exposure and build and begin their situations before. Yeah. Yesterday, how did you enjoy the game? It was OK, I thought, you know, I thought Wales played well in the first half. And then there was just chances missing the second half, which you thought, oh, you could have done with that one. And you obviously, you know, with someone like George Ford at five, he's obviously going to come back and sting you a little bit. And they did, and England took their chances well, they took their try rather well. And yeah, that was probably that Ford penalty was like, you know, is there a score in Wales? I don't know. And you kind of felt like the opportunity had been missed. Adam Beard pinched the line-up for Mauro Atorje, so that is great fun. And that was the personal highlight of the weekend. Wait till you see what he does to James Ryan. Oh wait, James Ryan will be on the bench. They've lost Keane then, so... He'll play full-back. Well, of course, I think most of the Irish side might just don't want to face a double-miss pass from Adam Beard. That might be that. James Ryan is so desperate to play for the Lions, he's willing to go in a full-back. I had a great time on Saturday, mainly because I was too inebriated to, well I wasn't inebriated, it was my baby shower on Saturday. Oh yeah, congratulations. And yeah, so then we went to the... So when my girlfriend told me that her and the baby's godmother had arranged it for the tent, I said, why does the tent stick out in my mind? And so the first one was, we had a very important rugby game in my local club, and she was like, well, I'm going to have to miss it. And then she was like, oh yeah, it's Wales, it's England-Wales. And I was like, oh right, okay, that's what it is. So we sauntered over to a pub in South West London. Me, my best friend and my father, the only Welsh people interested in the rugby there. And in a very rugby thing, the very London, very English man behind me, we sort of turned around and shook their hand, because we'd been bantering back and forth. He went, oh, you boys are Welsh here? I said, yes, very. And he went, oh, I'm Max O'Ellin. We did a show before with him and Max O'Ellin. Oh, brilliant. Oh, this is fantastic. This is so rugby. Bloody Welsh rugby. Yeah, so that's brilliant. We've got a lot to get through. Let's move on to the news. A lot, a lot of news. Let's start with what broke just after we went on air last week, actually. I awoke to a message from our good friend DJ Russo, who is the go-to man for everything Cheetahs related. A fantastic follower on Twitter. Essential if you're an Ospreys fan. Essential if you're an Ospreys fan. But he messaged me saying that three more South African players, or Cheetahs players in particular, are on their way over. So they flew from Amsterdam, where they were based for the European games, back to Swansea. So they are Victor Seketete, I think is how you say it. Victor Goforth, who is a LOK forward and, weirdly, the Cheetahs captain. Did this break last week? I can't remember if we talked about it last week. Yeah, it was, no, it was tail end last week. I think it was Thursday or Friday. It was tail end last week, right. Okay. And then they flew over on Monday. Yeah, who is Cheetahs club captain and LOK, former South African in the 20s. Giandre Rudolph, who is primarily a back row forward. An eights man, but can play as a fetcher if needed. Can also play LOK. DJ Russo described him as his favourite player, so we'll see. And then the greatest name in rugby, Ivadi Bosho, who is an outside centre, who in his Instagram photos looks huge. But I've been pointed out that he's 5'11 at 85kg. Him and Keith together. Yeah, so they might break 100kg if they play together. I love the thought of him and Kieran Williams playing together because they are the world's first onomatopoeic centre combo. Bosho and Kieran Williams together. That's brilliant. So they joined up, like Robbie said, they joined up with the squad on Monday. We'll come on to the press conference in a bit, but it does sound like at least one of them will be involved next week, on Sunday even. Then moving through the week. Late on, what was it, Tuesday night. So the EDC published nine teams that will be playing in the competition next year. I haven't got the list, I don't care enough. But essentially Nice wasn't one of them. Nice supporters group uploaded a hastily written statement on Twitter from the Notes app, which is always a great place to write a statement, about what basically Nice's feelings on this towards the WIU. And the last paragraph then was very derogatory and inflammatory towards the Ospreys. And they sort of just, this was breaking, so Robert Rees, who's big in the premiership, sort of the Welsh premiership, broke the news. Me, who was winding down for the night, had to obviously then sort this out. So I was messaging around different people, trying to get a statement of my own. I managed to get one that said that the Ospreys have, like, not rubbished the statement, but have said this is deeply inaccurate. And Ospreys then released their own statements. Saying that this is wrong, we want to work with Nice and whatnot. So we thought, right, there we are. And then, weirdly, Nice released another statement. But this one was quite hidden. And this one then said that, oh, do you know what? Actually, now we're in a meeting with Lance Bradley. He's sound. There's going to be a working relationship with Axial, the WIU's fault. So, and as I said to someone earlier on, there's a bit in an Al Murray stand-up set where he says to someone, I would explain the crisis in the Middle East to you, but every time I explain it, it gets more and more complicated. That's essentially what this is. And that's what the EDC is. I've greatly enjoyed watching Nice do this. Because initially it seemed like there's a bloke in the pub that's going on about, you know, some bloke they know, and how they beat them up as they could, and how they're a shit, and how they need to, you know, back off. And then suddenly that bloke turns around and backs into them and takes a glance at them. At which point Nice go, no, I'm still really angry, but I'm angry with your boss. And there's just a big vibe of them not wanting to, them being very, very angry and then changing their target. My other favourite thing is the fact that through all their statements on Twitter, on Facebook, the rest, the Ospreys is always just sort of a low-case O. And this has been rolled up to me by so many people. It's like, why is there a thing with capitalised Ospreys? The rest is all grammatically correct. But the Ospreys is always more case O. The sheer pettiness of it. I live for that. And I respect Nice even more for that, if I'm honest, just by not capitalising the Ospreys. Like, oh, they've capitalised the Lextan Null, everything. Like, they hate the WIU, but they've capitalised them. Look, all three of us aren't involved in Nice at all, right? Yestin is in a bit of a tough position, obviously being employed by Pontypridd, which is why I'm purposely not talking to him on this subject. I'm trying to save him from employer liability laws. We don't know enough of what's happened. There is historic bad beef between both Ospreys management and Nice management, and Nice obviously having a really tough few years financially. We really do hope that a working relationship is, you know, it's happening and it all sorts itself out, because, you know, Ospreys and Nice historically are intertwined. So the final statement by Nice was, the WIU gave us the above reasons this afternoon. Having had a very productive meeting with the Osprey CEO, Ospreys is not capitalised, we discussed our mutual desires to work together. We are seeking grant funding for some redevelopment facilities, after the current facilities were mentioned as the reason they can't pay to play at our grant, changing room size and access for broadcasters, which is fair enough. Having been to Nol very recently, it is not up to standard. And that's not saying Bridgend is either, but it's clearly more up to standard. Upgrades will be made soon, as some will be revealed very soon. To clarify, we would welcome a closer relationship between Region and Club, and their CEO wishes for the same. Unfortunately for now, the WIU has given us the reasons we felt imperative to defend and explain to our fans. So it does seem like it was something that was written with a lot of emotion in mind. And look, it's not gone away, but it's certainly gone to bed a bit. Yeah, imagine there were some flurried, panicked emails the following morning. This is the sort of thing that never would have happened during the day. If Nice had put that statement out during the working day, before 5pm, then we probably would have seen it play out very differently. It probably could have been resolved behind the scenes. But the fact that it came out in the evening, everyone then picked up on it, while Osprey's employees were out of working hours, and everyone had to kind of panic to calm it down, probably led to things blowing up a bit more than they necessarily had to. It was all just very, very Welsh rugby in the end, I think. Poor Tobias, who runs the Osprey social media, probably getting the text from Lance. It was literally about half eleven, saying, I need you to write this statement up really quickly. 11.13pm the Osprey statement was published. It's absolutely brilliant. And the statement was then published 20 minutes later. Yeah, not like they tweeted out, they just replied to Lance Bradley, that's why it got so lost on people. Yes, you can talk about this next bit, because you won't get sued. Good stadium. So, Lance tweeted out last night about Cardiff and their seemingly close to sell-outs for their Connaught game, and he's hinting at the Ospreys not selling many tickets at all. And that sparked a lot of back and forth about stadiums and accessibility and all this, and Lance tweeted out saying, we have the best rugby stadium, I think is what he said, or stadium for rugby. Now, what I think Lance meant by that is that they have the best in terms of facilities for players and for media and for the actual playing of the rugby's, not for fan experience, for accessibility, for all this. We know it's not news to us, but that's what he meant, I think. And you can tell me all about Rugby Parade and Cardiff Arms Park, but the fact is, in terms of actual facilities for players to use, Swansea.com stadium is the best of the four. It's a Premier League football stadium. There's not Breda underbrush there. Now, a lot of people have got angry at Lance, Ospreys and other regions alike, and look, we as a pod are not in any way, I want to put it out there, we're not in any way paid by the club. We are not in any way inclined to say things about the club or its management, blah, blah, blah. We do not necessarily agree with everything that Lance has said or in the way in which he said it, but what we do appreciate is the fact that we now have a management and a CEO who is willing to go out and engage and ask these hard questions. And there was a really good point on Facebook earlier by someone who said that ultimately he's right. If we want to redevelop or have a new stadium, and there is a chicken and egg argument. You could say, well, if we build a new stadium, the fans will come, but actually, if we're not getting 5, 6k plus at every home game, what's the point in having it? So, yes, have I explained that right, do you think? Yeah, I think probably this is where Lance Bradley went a little bit wrong by saying it was like the best stadium in Wales. I think probably most people read that as like a collective, including the things like atmosphere and location. There's been a lot of comments saying, you know, the location is not very good in Swansea, and in fairness, if you go to the Alms Park, you can't really miss it because it's right in the middle of the city. And one thing clear that in terms of atmosphere, personally, I think Cardiff Alms Park is probably a lot better than what it is now compared to what the attendance-wise it is in Swansea. And on a good day, Rodney Prairie is also probably quite up there as well. And I think where there wouldn't be complaints is if the Ospreys had an average attendance of, say, around 12,000 to 13,000, that stadium becomes a little bit more full, and there's obviously more atmosphere being generated, everyone's closer together than 3,000, 4,000 people being spaced out. So there's a higher average attendance. That's where I think, as well as the rugby facilities, that's where I think Lance Bradley was trying to aim at in terms of, you know, if there was a really good crowd of the Ospreys, I think the atmosphere would be genuinely a lot better than what it would be. And you just kind of see it in that way, in a way. And like you just said about the attendance needing to be a bit better if they want to redevelop one of the grounds and obviously move there. So there's probably a bit more of an emphasis on Ospreys as opposed to turning up. Even if you only turn up to one game a season or two games a season, or even if you go out and buy a season ticket here and there, you know, if the Ospreys' attendance continues to be roughly around 3,000 to 4,000, I think it would be a bit of a trouble in the next couple of years. But I think Lance Bradley's point in that example was, you know, in terms of rugby facilities, I think he thinks that the Swansea.com is the best stadium out of the lot, and he'd probably agree with him because the stadium facilities is more modern compared to what the Elms Park is, compared to what New Parade is. But if there was 12,000 or 13,000 coming into the Ospreys every week, you know, there's still quite a lot of empty seats there, but there's probably not much complaints as there is compared to now when there's 3,000 or 4,000 people there. So, yeah, it's a very interesting one. And, yeah, you know, for any Ospreys supporters out there that might be on the fence about coming to games, you know, if you do come to games in the stadium, you know, crowd numbers will go up. You might get a bit more of an atmosphere, OK, not the perfect level of atmosphere you might see elsewhere, but if that helps the redevelopment of a new ground, even potentially keeping the Ospreys afloat in some ways with the budget cuts and everything that's going around in Welsh rugby, then I'd strongly advise buying a ticket here and there. And, you know, I'd get it if we were back in the performances of the Alan Clarke era, and we'll talk about that later, if you're a player, but we're not. And Lance is right when we're saying we've won, we're five wins in the league, we've qualified for knockout in Europe. 86% of home games won. 62% of games won in the season. We've got a European knockout game, which by all means is selling well and long may it continue. We have got arguably the most exciting breed of youngsters who have all been on display. Like I said, we've used the second most amounts of players in the UFC. We're playing a good brand of rugby at the minute. We've certainly expanded in terms of our style of play. There's reasons to come. I get the Cardiff feel-good factor, right? I 100% get it. But the reality is Cardiff have won three games this season. Yeah, three games. And that's not me disparaging Cardiff. I get why the feel-good factor is there. Again, they've got great youngsters. They do play an exciting brand of rugby. But they've won three games, right? We won our Champions Cup games last year, right? And we took 1,000 fans up to Saracens. We know the knock-on effect it has. We just need it consistently, right? If you support, if you put your weight behind these players, right, they will pay back in dividends. Is there anything more to say about that or should we go on to the good news? Well, I think it's interesting with the new stadium potentially coming over the next couple of years as well. Just with that in the background, both in terms of what they're looking at and what the Ospreys are hoping for in terms of developing a stadium that's perhaps more modern in its facilities than the Alms Park, than Rodney Parade have been, which is interesting in that perspective. But the other point is just the better atmosphere will drive more people in as well as the team continue to do stuff. Yeah. You know, it's one of these things, right, where I don't think anything incorrect has been said, but it's very easy to take out of context. Heaven knows I've been there before. And, like I said, Lance has the best intentions at heart and, you know, it is very refreshing. And Jamie said it on RAF on Monday, everything that Lance is doing now, David Butcher has already done. Yeah, yeah. Right, a few moments of really good news. Yeah. I love good news. It's my favourite. We finally have some contract renewals. So I've been pestering Ospreys for so long now on the IRE Twitter account. So our first bit of good news came with Kieran Giles re-signing the region with a really cool video of him scoring for Wijnaldum in the 16s and then scoring for the Ospreys in the exact same way. I love that. It's glorious. With the monologue he's giving over the top. The, like, intro to a rap video from the noughties. Loved it. So he's re-signed. Jester, how important is Kieran Giles? Very. You know, he's, over the last, probably say the last year or so, he's really established himself as a first-team player. He's got over that really horrid injury run that he had. And, you know, since he's had a consistent run in the squad, he's, you know, if you look at this season, he's been playing really well, you know, took his trade well against Cardiff, obviously got the second one, the pitch started deteriorating near the end. And, you know, I thought he was very good in the two European matches as well against Perpignan on the Lions. Scored against Connaught as well. And scored their first try of the season. So, yeah, it's a good re-signing. You know, he's still relatively young and it's exciting to see how he's going to kick on over the next year or so. So we thought that was done for the day and then I pushed some more. And, well, the best episode of A Place in the Sun I've ever seen. Because the man we thought, and I thought we were going to lose. I genuinely thought, I thought this is his last season. Tommy Boater, the Stellenbosch sniper, or as I call him, Tom Boater, born in Ponte Vecchia, has re-signed. This made me so happy. Because there's this new thing around props, right? And I'm going to blame Ellis Gench on this, and I love Gench, is that props' main job now is not to scrum. Props? Props, yeah. Props' main job now is not to scrum. But I don't want to live in that world anymore. As a prop, I want to scrum. You know, and that's what Tom Boater does. He's there to push very hard on the scrum, and by God he does. And to hit rucks, because he supports someone else while they carry the ball. And that is all I want from him. You can have your Rhys Carries, you can have your Archie Griffins, you can have all those products, but I want a prop who clearly is having an asthma attack on the fourth minute, and will just push scrums all day. Right. How many metres do you make off a good carry by a prop? Like Rhys Carries you mentioned, how many of the Hollywood props do you want to mention, right? How many metres do you make off a good carry by them? Three or four? Four metres, yeah. Yeah, they might carry for 20 to 30 metres, right? How many metres are you making off Tom Boater smashing every scrum? If he's winning a penalty off each scrum, you're knocking that downfield, you're making 30 metres each time. Tom Boater should be winning every award for most metres made in the URC. I say. That's my rationale. There's a genuine argument to be made that he is Osprey's best at non-worst qualified cycling. Ooh, he's the best of... I think he's got to be right up there, best of the post-Galacticos era. Yeah. He's up there in recent times. Obviously, Tommy Bowe and Gerry Collins and so on. If we're talking about, if we're talking about Bowe, D'Atea, Collins, Pollard. D'Atea, yeah. And then generally, slipping into number five could well be Tommy Boater. Yeah. Because he's been here since 2018. He's on 113 appearances. Martin Ginnan loves him. He's only ever missed, what, two games? Something like that. And Martin Ginnan will continue to remind me that. Hassler and Arjon, I guess, are the other names that deserve mention. See, on a personal level, Tyler Arjon is, like, number one. Yeah. But in terms of impact... Yeah. Hassler, though. Yeah, but he got it off to Hassler. He did get it off to Hassler. He got it off to Hassler. Ring the bell, take your drink, I'll give you vodka. He did get it off to Hassler, though. And he still can't believe it. He still can't believe it. I'm sorry, I'm going to come back to the Ruddy Dark clip. It's the way he says it, because he clearly doesn't... He clearly doesn't see the ball being passed. I remember not seeing it at the time. I remember watching that live and being like, oh, good, it's in Hassler's hands now. He has truly got it off to Hassler. How did he do it? How did he get it off to Hassler? He's got a scrum cap here as well. Yeah. Oh, peak, peak stuff. Peak stuff. I know, we haven't got enough time. Fair point. Sorry. Finally, getting a fresh trim and a new contract is a certain magic. I am very excited. He was like the surprise to me. He wins a lovely retention, you know, but I wasn't hugely surprised by it. I was very glad of it. I was delighted by it. And, you know, by that video, by everything. Look, if we can retain any former nominee of the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year. Previous winners of that award include Tom Daley, Andy Murray and Wayne Rooney. And Keelan Jarosz was one of the three nominees that year. And Patrick in Europe. Yeah. What a guy. He scored two tries against England in the 20s. With Matt Prover at 10 for England. Look, that's obviously wonderful. Tom Boateng was a fantastic retention. And so I would have imagined one or two of the South African clubs or especially clubs in France to be after him. But retaining him was great news. Max Adjou was one I expected to lose. I was kind of expecting him to be a Sam Underhill, or anything related to him you now discover, who will further ambitions and go off and play in the Premier League. He shouldn't probably excel. You know, he's from Northampton, grew up playing for Northampton, grew up as a Northampton fan. There's clips of him out there playing for, like, an England Aids grade side at 10. And when he's interviewed and says, like, his dream is to play for Northampton, whatever. I figured that would happen. But instead, he's clearly really loved his time. With the Osprey, he seems a big part of this group. You watch those little things they do with the players coming off the end of training and ask them a question. The amount of times they use him as a punchline. He's clearly, you know, a very valued part of the squad, as the squad Ken, as he was dubbed during kind of Barbenheim a week. Yeah, I thought he was going to be off. I thought he was going to head to the Premiership and try his chances at an England call-up. And really glad to keep hold of him, really glad to have him there. Him and Yeson Hopkins able to kind of battle for that shirt in the long run. Yeah, Yeson, obviously, we've talked about a length at Nagy. We've been staunch Nagy defenders, actually. Throughout our little group chat with some Osprey's people. Especially when Yeson Hopkins came. Because Nagy, he had a really nasty injury. I think one of them was against Ulster, actually, in that home win. And he sort of didn't look, because he burst onto the scene then he had these injuries and then he sort of didn't look comfortable. And then Yeson Hopkins came in and then Osprey's fans went, ooh, shiny thing. And it was like, this is my sweet little ginger prince and he can do no wrong. And then Nagy, up until his injury at Benetton, just how good is he and how vital is he to this Osprey system going forward? Yeah, I think he really kicked on, especially at the start of this season. The only downside to all this is I can't run my joke about him inevitably joining Northampton for another year or two. Which is probably good news more than anything. But yeah, he seems to have kind of balanced everything up now, in a way. Obviously it's a bit of a shame that that Benetton game where he did go off injured because he was looking in real good form and he obviously took his try in the second half. And you kind of just felt there was a bit more balance there as well. And hopefully he makes a really speedy recovery from his injury. He didn't look good that particular injury against Danforth. And when he's back, hopefully he can hit the ground running and continue the form that he showed at the start of the year. I would just like to point out as well that he is not 27. Peter Griffin, I know you're listening. He is not 27. He's younger than me. He's 24. On a personal level, I'm really happy for this because I watched Nagy from when he started in university and watched him get a Pro D. I used to watch him every Wednesday at St Helens, Play for Swansea evening with Hugh Sutton. And he was bloody good. You can ask Dave Rogers as well how good Nagy was. And he's done some penetrating stuff for Bucks as well. God, he's the prototype. He's what people look for in a full-back now. He's six foot four, four-eating stone. He probably needs to work on his high ball retention a bit. But the fact that he's six foot four, he's going to get up there. He's not going to get out-jumped very often. It's just getting him to the point where he's catching it and catching it. He runs a lovely line. Christ, look at that. The dragon Zebra. He comes from nowhere on a beautiful line and then does that awful swan dive. I've always said he'd make a great third team, right? When Justin Hopkins came along and I was like, how did Nagy get into this team? I was like, well, train him at 13. He's played there before. Because you look at that dragon's penetration where he gets on the other side of Umaga. And you're like, how do you stop that? That's ridiculous. He's six foot four, four-eating stone, gets on the outside of you with that turn of pace. I just think he's got the building blocks to be such an integral part of the system for years to come. He's got 32 appearances in a minute. He's scored six tries. I don't think he'll ever be the one to set the world on fire. Because he can just set my world on fire. Happy Valentine's Day. Yeah, Happy Valentine's Day, Max. Please call me back. But just looking at the way he plays, he sets up that try for Dan Edwards and Scarlett. His commitment in that try against the Sharks. I'm just so happy that we've managed to retain him. And like Robbie said, I thought he was going to be one that we were going to lose. But there's also implication in the press conference from Toby Proof that there's a few more coming. He says that there's a good number that have signed. And he says you guys don't know who's staying. He does. So there's more to come. By the time most people are listening to this, I imagine there probably will have been one or two more. It looks like they're going to trickle them out over the course of this full week, leading into the Ulster game. And then probably more afterwards, which is fantastic news. Hopefully we have a few more coming in the next few days. It feels like a lot of the perhaps bigger names, the ones that are more under threat, were the ones that signed contracts last year. I did have a moment of going through. So like Lake and Morgan's contracts and Nicky Smith's all say years, plural, in the contract. Yeah. So he presumes at least two seasons for each of them. So they make up next year. But yeah, it's a lot of those really important squad players that are coming up. So the likes of Keelan Giles. Yeah, the likes of Nagi and so on. But hopefully we're going to see a few more of them retained and signed over the next couple of weeks. And considering where we were this time last year in terms of player retention, we didn't currently have a squad of 15 to put out for the following season by after the Saracens game. I think after the end of the season. I think it was like after that last game against Cardiff that we finally had some contracts start to come out. So it's great to be seeing this happen so early. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, just that field of factor just gets put back in the club when you get something like this. Right. I think that's it for the news. And a mixed bag of news this week, but ultimately some really, really, really, really positive stuff. Go on. No, no. Just the other point is the injuries, isn't it? Which will lead us on to... Oh, yes. Do we want to do injury room now? Injury room now then? Should we talk about injuries? Or do you want to wait? We can shuffle between the two, I guess. Okay. I was going to propose that we do good player now and then end with the Ulster preview. Okay. Because I feel like if we do... Because we'll just want to go to good player. So there was some deliberation, believe it or not, because Robbie sent in one of the best off-spring strides literally about five minutes before recording, which was Tommy Bowe in 2010 at the old Raven... Yeah, Ravenhill. Ravenhill. It was Ravenhill. Yeah. Yeah, it was Ravenhill. Where Adam Jones funts it upfield and then Tommy Bowe comes out of nowhere to score against his home problems. Brilliant. Game played on a Wednesday night for whatever reason. Instead, we are going with what we promised, which was a face-charge down game. Yes! So this was Ospreys 26, Ulster 24. Now, let me give you a bit of context going into this game. That's Max Vaggie, not Instagram, Wikipedia. So let's look at some stuff that maybe don't matter. So our average age of forwards is 28. It's not when you see the squad you're like, fair enough. Backs, 26. Different nationalities for starters. 87% Welsh, 7% English, 7% South African. Pretty standard. On the bench, again, 83% Welsh, 9% South African, 4% English and 4% Moldovan. We'll come on to that later as well. So we look at the table beforehand. So, do you remember what were before this? Weren't they bottom of conference A, something like that? We were bottom. Now, I remember going over this as a point of pride because there was very little else to enjoy that season, right? I remember working out, certainly at one point, I think in the lead-up to this game, around the start of the Six Nations this year, in 2020 that was, the Ospreys were the worst team in any of the three major European leagues. They had the fewest games, they collected the fewest points. They were dead bottom, like the lowest of the low. They should have been super relegated to like six divisions down in like the Russian leagues. So, just, you know, the week before, we'd lost 25-18 to the Dragons at the Rodney Parade. The Scarlets had won 16-14 in Cardiff. Ulster, our opposition had beat Munster 38-17. But no, today was a different day. We're to win our second game of the season. So, let's go through the Ulster team very quickly. I've got my notebook right here. Also, with our team, ready for our team prediction later. The loose head for Ulster was Eric O'Sullivan. Oh, good player, good player. I'd forgotten this was a game and I got suddenly excited hearing the name Eric O'Sullivan. Adam McBurnie. Don't remember him that much. Vague memories of him. Solid player. One of those players, if he said his name to me, I'd say, oh, yeah, he played hooker for Ulster. Couldn't think of anything else about him. Three, Marty Moore. Oh, good player, good player. Yeah, good player. Yeah, a tidy player, yeah. I just realised he was on the bench. I thought, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, no, the bench is good as well. Perhaps more of Marty Moore later. Alan O'Connor. Oh, good player. Good player. I think he was Skipper that day. I'm going to write that down. He was Skipper. Now, I have, in my head, Alan O'Connor is like a Northern Irish Stuart Hooper. He gives off that vibe. Really sound. Yeah, but going to a middle management job. When John McFarlane eventually leaves Ulster, Alan O'Connor's just going to replace him. It just sounds right, doesn't it? Alan O'Connor, Ulster coach. One of these players, absolutely nothing against him. I hope he never gets a cap for Ireland because it's too perfect. One of the players who should play about 400 games for Ulster. He's currently played 189 games for Ulster. He, I hope, is less than halfway through his career with them. And 12 caps for the Wolfhounds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Retires the Wolfhound's most-capped player, but never wins a senior cap. If he does, it's like off the bench against Samoa when the Lions are away. Somehow Rob Howley's coaching them. You've got, part of the second row is Kieran Treadwell. I really like Kieran Treadwell. Always one by him. Always stood by your underrated Kieran Treadwell. Fantastic back row of Matty Rea, who I really liked. Sean Reedy, who I thought was vastly underrated in a time where Ireland had some fantastic open sides. And then Marcel Coetzee, who haunts my dreams of how good he is as a number eight. That is a bloody good back row. And I was like, yes. Dave Shanahan? Yeah, he was alright. Decent, reasonable player. I think he played the full 80 that night. I think he did. Who's he mentioned? OK. One of those players that's just about still going, Dave Shanahan. He pops up every now and again on the bench for Ulster. At 10, William Burns. Billy Burns. I think this is his inaugural season at Ulster. That would make sense. Having jumped from Gloucester to where he'd been. I like Billy Burns. I thought he was a weird signing. When he first went, I thought, because Freddie was always a bit of a mean, because he was like, I beat the All Blacks on my debut. He was always like, he's a good player, but he's not a good player. And then he had his... I didn't know until you discovered he qualified for Ireland the day he signed for Ulster. I think that was the big one. And I remember being around this time when he first signed for Ulster. I think it was right before he played his first game. I went to the Ulster which played Munster in Europe in Durham Park. Kai Evans kicked all our points that day. It was miserable. Not because of Kai Evans kicking the points, because of the points the other team scored. But I remember talking to some Munster fans afterwards who were saying they would rather go into a game with Kai Evans and lose it than have Billy Burns at ten, because he's English. And they were furious about the thought of him playing for Ireland. Well, I'm completely wrong, by the way. He joined Ulster in 2018. Okay. So he has 101 appearances for Gloucester and 106 for Ulster. That's not bad. He has seven caps for Ireland, eight caps for England in the Twenties. One of my worst aged takes was saying they should be starting him over Sexton in 2021, when Sexton had a bad run of form. And I was like, they should start Billy Burns over him. And then that aged so badly. That wasn't great. I won't lie. So that was Billy Burns. Now, this is a good backline. This is a really good backline. He got 11 as Louis Ludic. Oh, good. Really good player. He played against us in the previous fixture. Yeah. 12 year old Stuart McCloskey, who turned up for his annual I'm going to batter the Austros, as he does every time he plays us. Always pops up in scores and does something really, really good. In the last time we played them at home, he does this outrageous offload to Robert Ballacombe right in front of you. Yeah, I remember that. I was probably in line with it as well. Yeah. 13, Luke Marshall. Oh, good player. Good player. Underrated player. Yeah. Had like one of the players who had what looked to be a really promising international career, got one injury and never got back in the scores. Marshall. 11, Caps Ryland, I think. Yeah. Yeah, 11. I remember scoring you. Yeah, 11 Caps. I remember scoring you at Scotland once. 14, Robert Ballacombe. Fuck. Really good player. He's a nearly player. He's a good club player. Yeah. Never really kicked on other than being like a good club player. Big Bob. Yeah, Big Bob Ballacombe. Great name. Good looking guy. Yeah. Just never really kicked on at an international level. He's one of those guys that's won enough lotteries in life that only being a good club player probably levels everything out. Yeah. And then at 15, a man I have no remembrance of. Matt Faddis, who was an Australian. Oh, yeah. Great player. I think he dropped a high ball after about 10 minutes in this one as well. He was a centre primarily, as I remember. I didn't really think he could play fullback, but he was a good centre. I was at the Highlanders for a long time and kind of one of those players that like, you know, TV would be hipsters would bring up as, oh, you should be an All Black. You should be an All Black. And then, you know, the likes of me and Paul Williams would be like, yeah, great player, you know, be a hell of a signing for someone. Went into Ulster and was fine. But yeah, you can't really but yeah, he tells you that. I always thought he was a centre. I think he played a lot on the wing as well. Yeah. And yeah, the fullback. He joined Ulster as a fullback for some unknown reason. That was weird. Didn't really settle in. Well, on the bench and another really good bench. John Andrew. Great name. Good player. Jack McGrath. Jack McGrath. Lion. Tess Lion. Yeah, Tess Lion. Really good player. It's one of those where like, I feel if you are a Tess Lion, like Adam Beard perhaps, then, but maybe not, you know, some other people, then saying good player feels patronising. If you've won a World Cup or played a Lions test, then saying good player, maybe you're a step above, you know. So James Ryan, good player. Jack McGrath. Good player. Tom O'Toole. Reasonably good player. Was in the Ireland squad on the weekend. Was he not? Tom O'Toole? Yeah, yeah. He was on the bench against Italy, yeah. Yeah. Weirdly still only 25. Wow. Yeah, he was young. He's got an old face. Yeah, so. Then we go on to David O'Connor, which I think is quite cheated if you have an Alan O'Connor and then a David O'Connor. Were they related? I want to say no. I don't think they were. I'm going to have a look. He plays for Eden Trailfinders myself. Oh, what a lucky sausage he is. Yeah. Alan O'Connor. David O'Connor comes up when you type Alan O'Connor brother in. Yeah, they're brothers. It's Alan O'Connor's shit brother. Man, what a giant. Yeah, 15 games for Ulster then went off to Ealing where he still is. He went on loan initially then decided on a permanent basis. Good. Well, not a good player. Jordy Murphy. Good player. Great player. I remember I remember writing a piece soon as the World Rugby eligibility laws changed saying that he could qualify for Spain. So, of course, he did that. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my God. They could have had a back row of Josh McLeod and Jordy Murphy. I mean, one of them would always be injured, but they could have had a back row of it. 21 is Johnny Stewart. Who I only remember as just sitting behind whatever his name was. Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy Stewart. His brother. No. It's a wonderful life. No. Who is the name? One of them is a giant invisible. Yeah. One of them is a giant invisible rabbit. The other one is a giant invisible John Cooney. And they're both haunted by each of them. Then you've got Bill Johnston, who I'm sorry is not a rugby player. He tried to lift up gold in the last play, apparently. Is he in MLR now, I think he went off somewhere, Matt. No. So his career after Ulster went to Ealing and then to Richland. Oh, OK. Bill Johnston. And then Craig Gilroy, who again, good player. Good player. That was a decent squad. So Robert Ballacud scored the ninth minute before Matt Faddes fell over the try line, I'm going to say. And he's not a real person. I scored in the 60th minute and then 10 minutes later, Stuart McCloskey scored. Again, turning that prism, one good game against the Ospreys per year. So let's move on to the Ospreys team that day, a bit of a mixed bag in this one. So starting off, Nicky Smith, good player. Yeah. Shining star in this pile of shit that was the Alan Clark era. I'm sure he'll get a mention later on in this podcast. Oh, but wait, there's more. Scott Arden scored two this day. Great player. Very good commercial director, don't get me wrong, but good player. Impossible not to like. Runs marathons for mental charities. Stop being so likable. That three, Simon Gardner. Emergency signing player. That is just the definition of Simon Gardner. Yeah, I think the less said about Simon Gardner, the better. I'm sure he's a lovely man, but he had an OK game. Christ, Tom Hull was clearly very injured. Yeah, we had four. Adam Beard. Oh, yes. Let's not forget what was coming later in the year for Adam Beard. Somehow in all of this, Adam Beard was a test layer. Was this, was he just back from injury? Because this was during the Six Nations. This was, you know, four years ago tomorrow. This was what date was this game? February 2020. It might have been the 17th to the 18th, actually, which is eerie. The Adam Beard timeline, am I right in saying, was he got dropped? That was that autumn, wasn't it? Was it? No, was it the autumn coming? It was the autumn after. Yeah, the autumn of 2020. He got dropped. He'd come off the bench against Ireland the previous week for Wales then sent back to the Ospreys to play that game against Leinster the following week. Because then Toby Booth obviously came in. When did Toby Booth come in? Over Covid. So, yeah, this would have been the last game before Covid, right? The penultimate game. So then Toby Booth comes in over Covid. Adam Beard gets dropped, I want to say for the autumn of 2020. And then has a stormer against Glasgow in January, was it yesterday? I remember his first game back was against Benetton in St Helens. That was the red card game. Yeah. We played Glasgow at home, I remember he had a really, really good game. Then he got back in the Six Nations. Then he got back in the Six Nations and then he became a Test player. Yeah, he had a whirlwind. And let's not forget that, what, a year before this he was an integral part of Grand Slam winning team. Okay, yeah, so Adam Beard, it was in a whirlwind year. Bradley Davis was just there for vibes at that point. Was an integral part of that squad, but he was just there for the fight. He probably, like, called Marcel Coutinho a prick before the game in the tunnel and was just hoping he'd punch him. He's that character in Mulan who just always is a black guy. That's what Bradley Davis is. He's Roche Rugby's Begsby. Begsby, yeah! This is an athletic back row. Dan Lydia at six. Still chopping trees at this point. Test playing. Olly Cracknell who we got rid of him in good faith. It was nice, you know. Toby Booth didn't see him and we see now the type of seven that Toby Booth wants and he's doing well at Leicester. He suits Leicester's game plan perfectly well when Tommy Ruffalo is in there. Then you've got Gareth Evans at eight. Oh, man! I kind of forget Gareth Evans in general. I don't think you're the only one. So Gareth Evans obviously was... So what I remember with Gareth Evans, right, was that when we signed him, it's because he came from Gloucester, who obviously England is the best league in the world. Everyone went, whoa, now! We've just signed like a world-beating eight from the English giants at Gloucester. And then he was like, he's okay. Because it was Gareth Gell with mark two, wasn't it? That we signed this guy that's highly rated at Gloucester at number eight. He came over and was okay. And then he went to Leicester for a bit and then, yeah. He did, yeah. He went to Leicester for a year and then retired. And then we move on to Alex Davies. So Alex Davies famously charges down the final kick of the game with his face. The winning drop-goal attempt from Bill Johnston. Am I right in saying this? There was a TMO deliberation over this. No, I remember Maurice Matreya was in the middle. Nigel Owens had been in the top, actually. And I think the charge-down happens and it bounces off a couple of different players. That's what happens. So Matreya just stops, gives the knock-on, and then he realises, oh wait, that's actually the full-time, that's it, that's done. And then eventually he blows his whistle. But that 3-4 seconds where he's just giving out all the movements, like knock-on, scrum, was the longest 3 seconds ever. Because I was just waiting for an Ulster penalty. Well that's the reason I thought they went for the drop-goal, because they had the penalty. No. Bill Johnston just fancy that. Yeah, I think that's just a matter in an attempt by Bill Johnston, I think. Oh, Bill Johnston. He's a scrum half by trade, by the way, Bill Johnston. Oh, I thought he was a ten. Maybe they thought he was going to be an iconic performance here. Get him in the Ireland squad. Then you've got... So Alan Davies, right, at the Ospreys. Good player, really good player. He didn't have the pack to work behind, I think. No. The reason I think he's been so good at Saracen is he's had that pack in front of him. And I think it just compliments how he plays. I always swore by we should have kept him instead of signing Rhys Webb. Would have suited the way he played better. But then, as much as Rhys Webb was bad at times, you can see why Toby was liked because of the way he played on the next flanker. He was the best defensive line, probably, in the league. The way he would shoot off a line out or he'd blitz. Because he is Rhys Webb. He's just so hard to not be tackled by him. That ten, Luke Price. Always. Good offerer in the Welsh Premiership. Years ago, I once saw him with the Ospreys S&C staff in a cafe in the Uplands. And I was like, oh, that's Luke Price. But I was more like, oh, it's the Ospreys S&C staff. And then, I was sat by the window and the guy who runs it, Neil Navara, who's done some DJ stuff for the Ospreys. He's a pretty world-famous DJ and stuff. But he's good mates with all the Ospreys boys. And then a load of players came in. I might be confusing it with another day, but I'm going to tell the story anyway. Scott Williams was in there. And I feel that, I think Derry Lake was one of the other ones. And Scott Williams was really transfixed on his car out front nearly being hit by a bin lorry. And he was doing that thing where he should have just said to them, like, lads, wait a sec. I'm just checking to see if this bin lorry hits my car. He was clearly trying to have a conversation with someone, but also kept looking at the window of his car to potentially hit by a bin lorry. And I was like, well, I was just writing him a note, but Scott Williams says like, undiagnosed ADHD. That's going to the Western Mail tomorrow. Yeah, so all manner of things happened in that cafe, but no. Luke Price. One of those, I think the most universally noticed in the Welsh regional rugby. Example of a player who was over-promoted was a really good Welsh, as I say, every time I'm playing the Welsh prime, he was really solid. And by all accounts did well when he moved to France. But just looked slightly off the tempo when put into bigger games of the Ospreys. And I always felt for a bit, because it felt like it wasn't his fault. You know, there are some players that got a lot of criticism and you're like, well, you know, whatever. But I always felt a bit like I always felt for Luke Price a great deal. I felt the criticism that came his way was perhaps undeserved. I think, yeah, Price, that he picked up, I think it was two seasons in a row where he started in front of Sam Davies in the first game of the season. And both those times he went off injured. And I think the second one was a really nasty one, which like ruled him out for a year. And you're thinking, you know, if those injuries don't happen, I wonder what would have happened to Luke Price in a way. You're thinking, wow, you know, alright, it was the Alan Clarke era, but if someone saw a potential of Luke Price to be in the first shot without those injuries, what would have happened? I'm not saying he would have been like the next Dan Biggar, but would he have been a solid club playoff operator without those injuries? The other interesting thing on that end is when he left Wales, Sam Davies talked about being dropped for Luke Price in one of the first couple of games of the season, being a big loss of confidence he had at Jospres, and he felt his form go down massively because he was dropped and Alan Clarke didn't give him any feedback on why he dropped him. And when he tried to ask, you know, what have I got to do to get back in the team, he didn't get any response, and he said he just cracked his confidence. And so it's interesting, yeah, because that kind of backfired on two levels. One ending up with an injury and one ending up with, yeah, greatly dropping confidence. Weird era, weird guy, Alan Clarke. Yeah, well, we move on to the wingers, so Luke Morgan on one wing, who was pretty much a staple around this time anyway. Did he pick up the yellow card this evening? That's what I'm checking right now. No, he did, he did. I watched the highlights back, yeah, he got the yellow card. Oh, was that the one in 21, I thought? No, no, he doesn't get yellow cards this week. Okay, I watched the highlights of two Ulster games back and I'm mixing them up then. No, he didn't get this one. Another one Ulster played afterwards. Yeah, he did get it in the most recent one at home, though. So, yeah, we're okay on Luke Morgan, yellow card this week. Keir Williams on Watkins? That was like the first time that centre pairing ever happened and they both played really well. Oh, and Watkins picking up a try? Great line. Keir Williams made like a 60 metre brick immediately from that restart as well. I often wonder why teams kicked to Keir Williams. Yeah, I question this quite a lot because Saracen did it and he just exited rather well in the European match in April. Conor did it and he dropped the ball at the start of the season, whoops. Yeah, that was when we started our season. But the majority of the time when the ball either heads to him or Morgan Morris, you're thinking, why did they kick to them? Because you're going to have solid front football to exit regardless of who you're kicking to if you're kicking to that part of the field. My favourite one with that is, there's a bit, and I've gifted, it's still on my profile actually, that weird 50 point Scarlett's game that we won where Scarlett's clearly have put a technical kick to Owen Watkin off the kick-off. Because they're like, oh actually if we catch it right he either has to pass it and we slow him down in the 22 and he has to kick it. But then they just don't chase him and he puts in a really beautiful kick to exit it and they're like well into the 10 metre line next in their half. Okay lads. Hanno Dirksen at 14, this must have been one of his last games, wouldn't it? I think he had another season or two I think he was, I think he played in the Toby Booth. Yeah, because he didn't play and then he requested a release to go to Nola Gold. Yeah, and then he had a big there was a clip of the big ceremony with the announcer and everyone gave him a standing ovation. And that was in Toby Booth era. Then yeah, went and played one season in MLR. Yeah, he played three matches in that 2021 season. And then went and played for Nola. And played regularly, you know, joined them early in the season. Yeah, good on him. What a player. What a servant. Love that guy. Hero. Opposite number in his first Sorry, go on. Opposite number in his first game in MLR was Dougie Spice, Scotland International. Good player. Riff, at fullback on his side, former Dragons fullback, Karl Mayer. Oh, Karl Mayer. Good, yeah. If my name didn't exist, it would be called a Karl Mayer. And then 15 was Kai Evans, who at this point was still not very good. Thompson certainly games on the Ospreay side but he felt like it was a little bit too soon for him to be playing. Still not very good at this point. Bench is again a mixed bag, Sam Parry. I can't say more about Sam Parry, he's so good. Good player. Didn't score, surprisingly. Rare. Gareth Thomas, who let's not forget, at this point Gareth Thomas was fourth choice for the Ospreays. Good player. Full-time photo, the full-time footage is him fist-pumping as the whiffle goes. 18 is Rugby World Cup 2023 player Georgie Gaujon. Some of the biggest shoulders I've ever seen on a man. Good shoulders. Good shoulders. Plays for Stade Montoir Rouge, I think. Yeah. Yeah, Pro De Deux at least. Where he belongs, to be honest. That's not insult, that's just like, that is his vibe. He gives off massive Pro De Deux vibes. Who wants to start a scrap with that? Let's be real. Lloyd Ashley at 19, who I think just permanently had the 19 jersey at this point. And that's fine, because he did a job. He was really good. Sam Cross, that stepped away from opening Aldi's, and graced the bench at this point. Sean Venter at 21. Good player. I have a lifelong... What's a word for a relationship in which someone is your nemesis? Because, look, to me, Sean Venter is my nemesis, because Alan Clark signed him and let Tom Haverfield go. And he is the reason Tom Haverfield did not get to play in the Boothy era. It's purely down to that bloody thing. That scrum off, he could play on the wing. Oh, I don't care. This bloody elderly South African lad, he was like, oh, he'll be fantastic at scrum off. And you're like, I don't care. I don't care about you, Sean Venter. Get out of here. Get out of my club. Go off and sign for Montalban, where you can be perfectly happy. The best thing about all that is, Sean Venter played on the wing when Osprey's won in Leinster as well. Just to, like, top it off. Yeah. That's, like, perfect. Has that been his last game? Good riddance, I'd say. He got red carded. Is he the red card in the Benetton game? Penultimate game. He played in that. That was Gareth Evans, yes. No, he scored in that Benetton game. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He did, yeah. Came off an inside ball from Kieran Williams, I believe. Tian Thomas Wheeler, 22. Good player. Good player? Good player. Never quite hit his potential. Beat the baby Blacks. Look, I loved Tian. I played rugby with Tian growing up. Oh, well. We played together. Really, really good guy. Like, really good player. Never would have really fit him in the Ospreys. There was that bit just before he went to Japan where he looked really good and there was that game against Zebra and I was like, oh my god, where's this been? That was it. He felt like he was finally starting to live on the huge potential he had right when, you know, budget and squad size and everything else and if it was the equivalent of Scottish or Irish region both budgets, he'd still be here and he'd have a chance to kick on. He is having that becoming in Japan, which is a shame because he's finally starting to really look like the proper quality player that we all knew he could be from the flashes we got. And then, um, Robbie, I'm sorry but James Huck was in 23. The nemesis bench. It is. All my nemesises on one bench and Lloyd Ashley was all right. This was his final season where he played seven matches in the league and two Champions Cup games. This is the only game he won all season. Oh, he scored against Saris. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was days before my James Huck story, my infamous James Huck story that I think I've alluded to on this podcast and not... I've told it elsewhere. Yeah, just quite... That was days before that. So, yeah, that was Ospreys 26, Ulster 24. No bonus points for the Ospreys but a losing bonus point for Ulster. Ulster remained third in the league after this. Ospreys, I think, moved up to 13th instead of 14th because the Kings got battered by 60 points as was James Huck. So, yeah, that was Ospreys 26. 60 points as was... But we couldn't talk because we lost to the Kings in the November before. In a team that contained Alan Wynne-Jones, which I assume he personally went and punched everyone involved. No, that was in the World Cup. I think in probably after World Cup. AWG only came back for the Saracens. Oh, okay. Even worse. That's worse. So, yeah, that was Ospreys Ulster. Let's talk about Ospreys Ulster again. Well, hold on. There's three things I want to add, right? One, the inspirational team talk that Alan Clarke gave before this game that has lived with me forever since. I want to play you a clip of him in the press conference beforehand, or the TV interview beforehand. Always stayed with me this. I was able to dig it out. Now it's going to be funded or not at this stage? That's way above me but I can tell you that the Ospreys exist if you look at the calibre of... His pre-match interview, he told us that the Ospreys exist. Did you hear that? Did I come through? Yeah, the Ospreys exist. The Ospreys exist. I can tell you that the Ospreys exist. I'm glad he got one thing right during his reign. Never forgotten. He's like inspirational. What do you think of this weekend? Well, you know what? The club's here. The club exists. Good on him. Right, as per the other week, top of the film and singles charts this week in February 2020, right, to set a picture. Blinding Lights by the Weekend was number one in the singles charts. Good song. Which, yeah, good on them. Number one in the film charts though, the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. Oh, good film. Which, it's the only time I've ever been to the cinema drunk. I feel like if you went sober, you would have felt drunk as well. James Marsden, like, talking to a CGI blue abomination for two hours. It was my type of movie. I went with my friend at the time, who you know, we had a separate falling out because of how they treated the part. That's a whole separate thing. He suggested the idea of us having three pints before seeing Sonic the Hedgehog. He then arrived late, and ended up having to down three pints in 15 minutes before we got to see Sonic the Hedgehog, because we committed to this. It was about 20 minutes, but it was a whole afternoon, whole afternoon that. It was over half term as well, so the screening was full of kids. Anyway, that's enough about Osprey vs Ulster. I'm sorry I do this. No, it's brilliant, because I've been reminded of Sonic the Hedgehog now, and Jim Carrey's quite frankly brilliant performance. Carrey is defining. I am checking what was on TV that day. I feel like this is always a good thing, but it's not showing up for me. I'm quite annoyed. Come on. This was the only event on TV for me. Yeah, true. Right, I'll come back to that. So, let's talk about the Ulster game. So, going into this game, Osprey sit in 8th place in the league. We've won 5, lost 4. Sitting on 25 points, which is exactly what... Well, I don't think anyone really predicted us to be on this. I certainly didn't. I expected us to be maybe around the 15 points at this mark. Maybe I was underselling us a bit. So, we sit on 25 points. Ulster sit in 5th on 28 points. They've won 6, lost 3. They've come off a, quite frankly, terrible run in Europe. In Booty Bingo earlier, it was revealed that back this weekend, for the Ospreys, who are available to be selected, is Morgan Morse, who we knew anyway because of Yeaston. Alex Cuthbert. So, he's clearly stepping away from the media for a bit. He's been raring to go, to be fair. Every interview, he said, he's like, I just want to get back out on the pitch. Who, lest we forget, before his injury, was playing some bloody good rugby as well. Especially for the Ospreys. Yeah. Toby Fricker. Yeah. Good to see. He played that one game, I think, against Sharks. It didn't set the world on fire, but it's good to have the numbers back. I think I'll have that depth at wing. Nicky Smith. Hugely important. Philips is available. Cameron Jones, no, not that one. Again, taking the weight off him. So, having that available. Ulster have got a handful of players, obviously, still with Ireland. But a player they do have available for them is Stephen Kitsoff. Having an international standard loose head is going to come in handy. Yeah. And the last time we played Stephen Kitsoff, by the way, we were screwed over so many pounds by the referee about Stortford's game. It was the one we drew. Do you remember that? It's still in Yeston's mind, though. Oh, yeah. I'm not saying it was Andrea Piardi, but it might well be Andrea Piardi. 16-0 draw in a horrendous night in Swansea in terms of weather conditions. Ironically, the first try score was Paul De Wett, the Stormers' scrum half. Yeah, Paul De Wett. Then the Ospreys scored from a maul, which was normal. I think Scott Baldwin might have scored, actually. Oh, was it Scott Baldwin? Oh, it was Scott Baldwin, you're right. Stephen Miler wallops a touchdown conversion from nowhere to level the scores before the Ospreys try and go on the attack in the last play. Rhys Henry makes half a break, which ignited everyone before Owen Rocking drops the ball the next pass, and then it ends in a draw. I definitely want to say it was Andrea Piardi, because if we weren't getting scrummed out, it was definitely Andrea Piardi. I'm pretty certain it was as well. Robbie talks about Sean Vinter being his nemesis. Andrea Piardi is my nemesis. Because every time I see him, I'm filled with rage and the want to hurt bald people. Sitting next to a bald person for 80 minutes. Well, he is in Wales this weekend, but good news for you, James, he's at the Cardiff Con again. I hope his train gets delayed. He did a nightmare getting out. Get caught in one of those bloody railing hells we have at Cardiff Central on international days. But you don't want him to be that late, just in case they reschedule it for him to be in the Sunday fix. This is why I should have taken my chance at poisoning Frank Murphy's coffee when I saw him at coffee number one in Swansea before a Champions Cup match. It was a Champions Cup match, actually. I'm pretty sure it was. I was like, oh, it's Frank Murphy. Oh, I have a chance to do something. Boris is back as well, which is really good, actually, because we would have been potentially lining up with Ivani Poshoff, who's debutant at 13. So that's nice. And then El Cap, Justin Tipperick, is back. He has stopped talking to Ben Youngs now, weirdly, on two of his podcasts. There is a great clip going around that Justin put me on, too, where Justin Tipperick talked about Dan Cole, and he calls him the godfather of cheats, and then goes into detail about how Dan Cole pinned him in a rut, and Tipperick looking up and just seeing a shiny bald head, which I absolutely love, because I cannot picture Dan Cole doing anything bad, but him just pinning you down, and you're being blinded by some bald head. But yeah, Tips is back, so that is just from a... thing in the interview, is when you lose players like Beardy, North, Gatton, you're not just losing Lions players and Wales players, you're losing leadership and linchpins of a squad. And when you've not got Morgan Morris and Rhys Davies, Morgan Morris especially being captain for large parts of the season, you do lack a bit of leadership sometimes. And I... that was evident a bit in South Africa probably, with Adam Beard wasn't led very well, but if Adam Beard wasn't there, who steps in as captain? Do you know what I mean? So there is to say that, so you've got Cuthbert coming back in, who's not necessarily because he's not played that many, but he's a leader in terms of how experienced he is. Tipperick has obviously been there, done it, he's done it all, he is Mr. Osprey, he's behind Alan Jones in my eyes. So he, you know, Nicky as well has been around since what, 2013? Captained quite a few times. Captained quite a few times, yeah. You know, but then to feed into the guys around like Morgan Morris, like your Frickas, like your Don Morrises, so just having them linchpins is really, really good. And I expect to see, maybe except Toby Fricka, I expect to see them all involved. Which is just a huge boost when you go in that game. It's like, I completely forgot Kitsoff was a thing. But it makes me feel better when you have, it made me feel better that Tom Boatoo will be going against Kitsoff, but when you have Nicky on his other prop inside, you're like, yes, right. It reminded me a bit when I was quite scared in that Leinster game we had where Al Alatoa went backwards and up in the air. I was like, oh, Al Alatoa, he's like, we could struggle a bit of scrum time here because we've got a bit of a lightweight pack behind us. I was like, oh, no, it's fine. Nicky's here, he's just put Al Alatoa in a suplex. I went in the middle for that evening's game. On to Ulster, so they have had some players released. Sorry, I have to scroll back to the tweets. Jacob Stockdale, Ian Henderson, Nick Timoney and Tom Stewart are all training with the province and a head coach at Denmark Parliament's disposal. Stuart McCloskey and Tom O'Toole were not featured. So Stuart McCloskey, clearly shitting out, doesn't want a big game of the year. Tom O'Toole, I'm quite happy he's not playing as well. Nick Timoney could have been difficult to against. The big one for me is Ian Henderson and Jacob Stockdale. But Henderson in particular. Yeah, Henderson's the big name there. A year ago he would have been a regular in the Irish squad and there's no chance we've seen him here. But obviously Joe McCarthy's emergence has meant he's dropped on the pecking order and suddenly he's being released for this game and it's a real chance for him to prove something. He is probably the player if you look at the likely Ulster team or a likely Ulster team I'd be most worried about. When you look at their kind of press conference, they didn't send Dan McFarlane, the main head coach out. Instead they sent out assistant coach Dan Soper, which to me, to use the common parlance of amateur rugby, they don't want it. They're not sending the head coach out. They're not interested. They're only sending the assistant out. But he did mention they're going to look at a lot of academy players and they've performed really well for them this year and it's a good chance for them. So there's a chance we may see a younger Ulster team, but also they've got a very strong team available to them. Yeah, this is what worries me. You look at the table and we've said the URC table from I'll count Cardiff in this because they are 21 points, but between fourth and tenth or eleventh, they're six points. Yeah. That's mental. The URC has been slated probably a bit rightly so, being a bit one-sided a lot. You know, like going on big unbeaten runs and things like that. But actually this year there's only ten points between ninth and first. Or eleventh or first even. So that's two wins. Yeah. No, I spent half an hour the other day because you know, the back into the URC season one of my favourite things to do, and I haven't attempted it for a long time, comparing last season's table from this time last year to the current table, to the table from the end of various years, to see if there's any change you can pick up on in terms of, you know, what they need, how this may play out, etc. There's nothing you can work out. But the one thing that does stand out is how tight it is between the top, and say down to about eleventh or twelfth. Where you've got a drop-off at the bottom, but still those teams at the bottom, you know, the three teams at the bottom have won collectively more games, you know, each of them have won about the same number of games that the teams at the bottom three had between them last year. So, it's all yeah, it's really tight. We'll lose really tight this year, and that may help us out in the long run. I'm just reading them Ulster Notes there, because they handily put out notes, the full interview in text form. So yeah, they're definitely one to watch. Because they could bring a load of academy lads, but then still bring like John Cooney, Dave Ewers, Nathan Doak, who scares me a lot, Billy Burns. So, I think we'll see. I think if you're a casual and look to the Ulster team, if you're new rugby enough to know that Ulster have the likes of Ian Henderson, McCloskey, Stockdale, Kiptoff and all that, you think oh, this is not a scary team. But then you actually, if you're a rugby Norse, you're like shit, they've got John Cooney, Nathan Doak, Billy Burns, Dave Ewers, you know. Alan O'Connor playing an 800 second game. Yeah, 800 second game. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see. They can still put out a team of primarily internationals and very seasoned, you know, European Cup standard players. So, it's scary. It's a scary thought. And yes, they had a bad run in Europe, but like, they beat Leinster away the week before that. So, they're capable of big things. Do we want to have a go at predicting our squad for the weekend? So, I have got my handy dandy notebook. So, what I will ask you is the player, and I will do one for each of us. Yes. We'll start with you. Let's start with Loosehead. Yeah, I think if he's set and obviously Toby Booth mentioned it. So, Nicky Smith at Loosehead, I think, is the only, well, one of the only answers he can really give. Are we all in? Completely. Completely, yeah. Nicky Smith claims three. And if we do, I want us to revert back to play that forwards-orientated game. Nicky would be very important to that. Hooker. There's only one man, surely. Are all three picking Robbie? Yeah, Sam Parry. Slides in. Sits there. Very injured. You know, safe hands. I feel like the front row is the really easy part. Yeah. And then Tom Boat at three? Yep. Apologies to Big Sexy, but... Yeah, sorry, White Chocolate. Not today. The second row gets interesting. This is where it gets tricky and it all starts to kind of feed in together. Let's start with you, Robbie. Okay. I think, well, I think there's a very decent chance James Ratty has to move up from the back row into the second row. Referee's Dave is not returning in time. Fender injured. So I think James Ratty comes in. So Ratty in at four. And then who's your... Who's partnering him? Is it Victor? Yeah, I think you're looking at Victor Secchetti. Secchetti? Yeah. Victor Secchetti. There's a difficulty. He's been in a week. Can he line up calls and so on in time? But also, you know, he's a very well-established player. He's been around a long time. Played at high level, you know. Hopefully he can pick it up in time. Yep. Yes, Sid? Yeah, I'm in agreement. I think it'll probably be a bit too soon for Lewis Jones to be starting a big DRC game like this and potentially calling out the line-up. Nothing against Lewis Jones, but I think he's probably a smidge too soon. Cool. I'm absolutely in agreement as well. We said in the group chat that Ratty, if Rhys Davis wasn't available, then we'd be seeing Ratty Victor. Back row gets a bit spicy. Yes, then talk me through your back row. I have got Justin Tipbrook at 6, Harry Deans at 7, and then Will Hickey at 8. Unless I've missed someone glaringly obvious. Your actual mate? I listened to Toby Booth and I think he's quite right in what he said in terms of managing game loads because he is still really, really young and even though it was his 19th birthday a month ago, he's still got a bit of development to do, so I don't really want to start him after two big performances in the 20s. Robbie, talk me through your back row. I think there's a chance he could put Tristan Davis at 6 to give you more of a traditional 6 because that's three 7s by choice, so you may balance that out and move either Hickey or Tipbrook play 8 and put Tristan Davis at 6. There's a chance that Rudolph comes in straight at 8, primarily at 8 by preference, but you worry about having potentially three players in the potentially starting team, but at least two players in the pack who have been in a week and the kind of cohesion that could bring, so probably safe as yet. Tipbrook, Hickey or Deaves, and Tristan Davis. Right, I need definite predictions. Okay, Tristan Davis, Tristan Tipbrook, and Hickey's probably the best option at 8. Interesting. I think if that does happen, by the way, Tipbrook will go in at 8 at scrums, as he's done many, many times before. Okay, I am going to be bold and say it's going to be Tipbrook at 6, Rudolph at 8, and Deaves at 7. And one of them, their only job is to hit debuters. That's their only job. Target is awesome, you can't miss. Pretty much. Okay, then we go into 9. Yestin, you start me off. I think it's going to be Reuben Morgan-Williams, I think. Yeah. Because he's injured mysteriously. I'll make him start again. I think he's having a quietly good season as well. Not if you're on the LCS fan forum. No, completely agrees, completely agrees. Robbie, you're in agreement, yeah? Yeah. Okay, I am going to say Luke is going to stop. Okay. I don't know why, I just think he will. 10 is an interesting one. Hmm. What are we saying? I think my previous instinct was Jack Walsh, but the more I think about it, the more I think this is a Dan Edwards game, to be a bit calm and see if Walsh comes on and maybe can change things later on. So I think I'd go for Dan Edwards as a starter. Yestin? I'll go Walsh to be different. You'll go Walsh. It's got a Dan Edwards drop goal to win it written all over it. Dan Edwards. I'm going to go I'm going to go Dan Edwards as well. I would not be surprised if he starts Walsh and I wouldn't complain either. No, no, agrees. Wingers. Talk to me about Wingers. Let's start with left wing. I think Keelan Giles holds his place, stays in. Are we all in agreement? Giles gets one nod in the wing. Keelan Giles times three. 14. What are we saying? I would go with Cuthbert, I think personally. Give him a run, providing he's all good to play most of the game. I'd start Alex Cuthbert. If he's fit to play, if you look at the two wins a couple of years ago against Munster and Ulster, he didn't score but Cuthbert was quite excellent in the defence and under the high ball. He was brilliant. He really impressed me in that Munster game. How he learned his defence from the wing. He's always talked as a system referee as well. I'm really excited to see how he can fit into this Mark Jones defensive system. He feels like he could be a perfect option within that. We haven't really seen him play in a defensive system where he's applying a lot of pressure from the wing. I know in past he's perhaps been criticised a lot for defensive whatever. He's a really coachable player and he's always overcome that sort of thing really quickly, I found. I've been really excited by the thought of that and having that extra leadership in the team helps. You mentioned James earlier, every interview he's been doing since the World Cup in September, he's been talking about how he agrees to get back playing. That is a guy that's going to give you 110%. You may need that in a game of this. I know it's the great week in the Six Nations but from an office perspective, this is huge. So I think 12 is pretty self-explanatory, right? Yeah. Who else? Yeah. Right, James Huck is playing in 12. Thornton at 13. Thornton at 13. 13 is where it gets maybe a bit complicated. Andre Piardi at 13. Yeah. I am going to say that Boris starts because Don Morris can cover more positions. So it makes sense. But now I'm saying it, Don Morris should start and Barshov comes on and Don Morris can move around. So I'm going to say Morris starts. Are you in agreement? Yeah. I would want, considering how led from 13 this Mark Jones defensive system is, I would want someone who has been in the environment and knows it, even if they've not played that many games, leading the defence. Yeah. Don Morris for me. Yeah, I agree as much as I really would love to see Luke Scully at 13 again. Test level 13. It was very good in that Zembra game, where he got injured and then you had that weird moment where Morris got it off to Morris. He thought it felt like if this was on Sky Sports he would have had it out. Morris, he's got it off to Morris. What? And then 15. Are we saying the Ginger Prince? Who else? Yeah, with injuries it's kind of him or Provero, isn't it? So yes, continue. I think we could see Provero, but I'm going to say Hopkins. Hmm. Yester? I think it would be Yeston Hopkins because if I picked Walsh at 10 it would be chaos for Provero at the back as well. I'll have a little bit of steadiness somewhere. So let's quickly go through the bench then. Ethan Lewis? Yeah. Er... Rhys Henry for Loosehead? I'd have Garen Phillips as Loosehead. Is he available? Ooh. Or was he not? He didn't play against the Lions as you remember. Of course he didn't, of course, yeah. So yeah, in that case, you know. Well, I think Rhys Henry's one of the two props and then depending on fitness I'd have Garen Phillips or Ben Warren. So I'm going to say Henry. I'll stick Henry as Loosehead as well. With a star next to it to know that this is the very wrong Garen. And then if that means Warren at 18. Second row would be I'm going to say Jones. But then I'm also going to slap Regan there as well. Would that be his first game back? He played for the Whites, but yeah. 20? Are we saying Morse? Yeah, Morse or Rudolph. Or Rudolph. Equally, Tristan Davis could win 19 but I think he'd won the second row. 21 is either Luke or Ruben. Yeah, the other one. Yeah, or you could say Cameron. But I think more likely it's going to be whichever one doesn't start. 22 is going to be Scully. No, it will be Walsh or Edwards. Walsh, yeah. So let's just say Walsh. I'll put Edwards because I know Justin chose Walsh. 23 could be Boshoff, could be Fricker, could be Prother. I'm going to say Prother is the most likely. Sorry. Has Roger even released? Don't think he has. Interesting. Sorry Robbie, go on. Boshoff strikes me as someone who could make an impact off the bench. Who could come on and cause a bit of chaos. So I think that's a possibility. But he doesn't have the versatility. No. Which leads me to believe that if Boshoff is going to play, he'll start. Yeah, I get that. Because he's at 13 directly. Yeah. So you want Kovrov and the team to slide around already. The front row is we're all unanimous. Actually the front five are all unanimous. In Nicky, Sam, Harry and Tom Boater. Ratty and Victor Secchetti. Whatever. Victor. Dan, we're looking really at we've all chosen Tipperick. We've all chosen Deebs. It could be Hickey, it could be Rudolph. Tristan Davis. Nine, we're looking at Reuben or Luke. Ten, Walsh or Dan. Twelve is unanimous in Keefe. Thirteen, unanimous in Morris. Fourteen, Cuthbert. Eleven, Giles. Fifteen, Hopkins. That's a team that can win. Yeah. It's a proper find a way team, isn't it? It is. Find a way. The limitations of it, I think all carrying, you're relying a lot on your Keefe's to get over your game lines. Actually where you probably find more success carrying in that team is out wide. I think if you're playing that, that's where Dan Edwards maybe makes that. Dan Edwards will get the ball across the line quicker. Walsh will make that half break an offload. That's where your two tens are looking at. Luke Davis will play that ball quicker. Reuben will kick you into space and kick you to compete. Again, Tiprick operates that wide channel. Deebs will carry. We know this. If you play Rudolf, I think you look at him as a primary ball carrier. You're looking to lead the sleigh. Yeah. James Rafferty leads the pack. Yeah. James Rafferty is a ball carrier. You're looking to lead the other Wind of the Willows characters. Lead the other Wind of the Willows characters. I'm sorry. You've got second rows. You've got a line-up operating team, I think. In that team, because you've got Tiprick, who was Wales' main source of line-up ball for years. Victor Sechdete is Cheetah's captain. Rudolf is a line-up forward as well. Have we seen Deebs jump? I don't think I've ever seen Deebs jump. A couple of times. Yeah. He's kind of a tail jumper rather than a... There's line-up forwards there to set up the driving ball. I think another part of why I'd look at Tristan Davis. Yeah, maybe look at Tristan for that. Obviously, we know about the scrummaging prowess of it. I think having Victor in them adds that bit of bulk as well that we're probably missing. I think if we go with that Tiprick, Deebs, Hickey back row, it's quite a lightweight back row on the face of it. I know Deebs is a hard hitter, as is Hickey, but it is a very lightweight back row in that sense. So I think having that bit of extra bulk, again, that's where you could bring Tristan Davis in. It's just about where the boys are at in terms of mindset. We had this conversation pre-Lions. We were like, we could just have a good performance or something like that, but we know this team can pull it out of the bag. The really interesting thing about reading the Ulf Suppress stuff is how negative it is and how much of it is about their poor performances leading into the international break. A lot of the players, Marty Moore and Dave McGahn, both talking an awful lot about how they spent a lot of time really bollocking themselves for how they played and really being tough on themselves. Marty Moore talks about, again, they don't want it, he talks about how he doesn't feel low on confidence, but he gets why people would look at how he's playing and feel that way. And there's a few things where you look at it and you're like, they don't seem particularly overjoyed to be back in the way that hearing Toby Booth talk, obviously we're going off one guy who's very good at talking to the press rather than a range of players, but the vibe around the Osprey seems much more positive. You could see it as perhaps they're staring down the barrel a bit. I don't know. I'm anxious and excited and eager for Sunday to roll around. I'm a big fan of what he said about what he views the away days the Ospreys are, where he says it's attritional, low scoring, hopefully this weekend is different. When I think back to other games, this is a tough day, one that has always relied upon set piece and territory, which pre this season I absolutely agree with you, and I would have said there's nothing wrong with it. But now knowing the way we can play with a fuss on attack in the sense of that offloading game, that looking at tired shoulders, getting that half break for the offload, the way Giles attacks lazy defenders and wingers, the added presence of Tipric in there in terms of what he can bring with his hands. I think back to that, not the wonder Montpelier tried, the one where he puts in Cuthbert for his second. With the way he comes into the line for that, that's what you get with a Tipric and maybe what we've lost with Watkin in that regard you can bring back in with a Morris and a Tipric. Yes, how do you feel that the game is going to go? I think it's going to be like many Elster sides, they can really say what they want about team selection and things like that, but you normally tend to see a good Elster side come down to Swansea. Even when they've ended up on the losing side, you're thinking that they're still a good side. I'm fully awaiting Robert Ballachan to pop up and score a couple of tries here and there. It's going to be tough, but with recent results and some big players coming back in, players that you'd probably expect on the first, if the Osprey felt their strongest side, you'd probably expect those three to start. I think it's going to be a really interesting game in terms of just whatever goes on. I think set-piece is going to be huge. I think the battle between Hawthorne and Kitshoff is probably the one to watch up front, hopefully aided by the rest of the pack. I don't know how it's going to go in terms of prediction, because you think, despite their two European losses, one of their games was against Toulouse, and Toulouse are Toulouse, for crying out loud. They've got Antoine Dupont, but they used to have Antoine Dupont. He is a very good rugby player, and you just think, well, I don't really want to ignore that because Toulouse put 40-odd points on them, but the week before, they win in Leinster, and you think, ah, right, that might be an issue, but with the way that the Ospreys have done over the last few weeks, I hope they can sneak it, and I think I do think Ulster might nick it by a score, sadly. I'm not sure. I think the Ospreys go into this game favourite, and I think we can genuinely put them 40 to win this. I think it's not necessarily a bonus point win, but I think if we consistently keep the scoreboard ticking over or applying that pressure and not letting... I told you I was talking about in the press conference, they start really well. You nullify that, I don't see Ulster getting that momentum. They kick a lot off nine. If you look at the way their two nines set up in John Cooney and Nathan Duke, both brilliant to the box kick. Billy Burns has got a weapon of a boot on him. They do play a bit like the Ospreys in that respect of they want you to make the mistake so they can scrum you. If we nullify that start and have them defensive sets that we know we can have because we've done it and keep that penalty count low, we are favourites. I think the Ospreys squad has come an awfully long way since that Glasgow game at the start of the season who are a reasonably similar team to Ulster in terms of the pack they can put out, in terms of where their biggest threats are, being out wide and that scrum all. What we saw in that game was a team good enough to win it that couldn't close it out and over the course of the season since they've learnt to close those games out and learnt how to be very careful and are tactically so much more astute and the players are making better decisions in the later stages and are really getting used to the habit of winning which is the most important skill in rugby. It's knowing how to win a game which is a habit and a big part of it and we're starting to see that develop and that I think is the big test in this game is how far they come. Can they do it when it's not a surprise if they win and they're not against another Welsh side where they're perhaps more evenly matched? This is big. These three games over the international period, this Edinburgh away and then Munster home the week after the Six Nations finishes when most of the players from the Six Nations will probably be rested still will potentially be season defining and could be the keys in getting a source of playoffs. So, again I would have the Ospreys as favourites but then when we get the teams named I feel there's a very good chance I'll look at the Ulster team and go, okay, maybe not. Maybe we should be looking at Ulster as the favourites. So I've got two things. I don't want to piss on anyone's chips but Alan O'Connor is unavailable for the game with an ankle injury as is Kieran Treadwell. They don't want it. Rob Heron's also out and Stuart Moore as well are the other notable ones I can see on their injury list. Give me a prediction boys. I need a score prediction from you. Bear in mind we have not seen team sheets. I hate this. My gut tells me my gut is looking at Osprey's win. I hate to say that out loud by a couple of points. Perhaps slightly higher scoring than Marty Moore is expecting but not that high scoring. But saying that out loud now I feel like I've jinxed it. I feel like I've ruined it. So Ulster by 61. I hate that now. I hate that now. I put that out there. No, I... No, okay. I want to say Osprey's by like 5. Osprey's by 5. You stick with your own field decision. I think yeah, I'll look at the teams on Friday. Yeah, they might win. I think they will. Tom Stewart scores off every ruling more possible. He's like an Irish Johnny Matthews in a way. Yeah, I think they'll pinch it. It'll be quite a high scoring game. Something like 25, 22 to Ulster. Something like that. I'm going to stick my prediction from the wrap and say Osprey's by 8. I hate myself for saying it but I do. When the team sheet comes out on Friday I'll feel a bit more... I'll feel more confident in either decision. Other than that, gents, I think that's it for tonight. We've been round long enough. It's nice to have some actual rugby to talk about. You can find us all on the usual socials. Yes, it's got Thomas 21 and at Osprey's diary on X. Yeah, we'll see you next week. Oh, go on, yeah. Please, please, no, please go and watch Games People Play from 2020 on Viaplay. It's 153 minutes long and an ensemble comedy about a group of old friends in their thirties regressing to their teenage selves over a long weekend. I had never heard this film until about two minutes ago. A Finnish comedy from four years ago. Aged 12 years and up, rated 6.9 on IMDb. I know what I'm doing this evening. Happy Valentine's Day. I won't be watching that. What? Yeah. You can find this all on the regular stuff. I'm going to go and do some digging about... I'm going to message some Ulster people about what squad they're likely to bring. Probably should have done beforehand. But who makes notes? I can play Baldur's Gate three instead. You can find me every... Well, it would be Tuesday, a few, but every Monday night on the WRAP podcast spouting bollocks about the Ospreys. Defending our honour, if I'm quite honest. Yeah. Brilliant. I think that's it for tonight, folks. You can get some of the usual podcast stuff. We will see you next week where we will review the Ulster game. Yay or damn it, Mr. Italian Referee, why didn't you give us that penalty? And then we will look ahead to the Ospreys' involvement in the Island game and preview. Well, what are we doing for Good Play next week? Have we decided yet? We'll work that out. We'll work that out. Okay, I've got some ideas already. I've got some ideas. We're going to talk about that now. Right, we'll see you next week. Have a good one, everyone. Bye now. Bye. Thank you for listening to the Ospreys RE podcast. We hope you enjoy the show. Please subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to us as it really helps spread the word. You can find us on all the usual social media channels or email us on welshregionalrugbypod at gmail.com and remember, whatever the question, rugby is always the answer. Thank you for listening to the Ospreys RE podcast. We hope you enjoy the show. Remember, whatever the question, rugby is always the answer.