Can the Scarlets REALLY Beat the Bulls? Huw Ran the Numbers | Loose Pass Rugby Podcast

This is the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, only on Megaphone Rugby. Welcome back to the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast. As usual, Hugh Griffin and I are going to be talking about this and that and the other. Most notably about some money issues in France and the premiership and everywhere else. But before we get to that, you this weekend, Scarlet versus the Bulls, the one you and I have been waiting for, your team versus my team.

What's happening? Yes, welcome back, everybody. You know it's serious this week because I've got my pen in my hat. Yes, the Bulls are losing this weekend to the Scarlet. I'm looking forward to it greatly.

We shall continue our fortress in Hlenethli, which the bulls have never conquered. They've never overrun. They've never besieged successfully. And we're basically putting an end to the bulls' resurgence here and now. And I'm looking forward to it.

So what have you been eating this afternoon and smoking more accurately? Something is off, yeah. You sent me your predictions and I thought, what are you on about? And you said, no, but the bulls have never won. What is it?

How do you pronounce it? Hlenethli. van Nath Lee and uh i i'm shocked that you think that you you what where are you on the log again it doesn't matter look the history the precedent is there history tells us we must learn from the for the lessons of history and lies lies and damn statistics man so there we go you and i had a very interesting conversation this week with Neil the brain this attack coach of the bulls we will be publishing that on sunday uh we're not allowed to talk about that uh before then but um i was worried about you being a spy for the scarlet apparently you're very well connected to the scholars so is there any truth to the rumors that you're going to be telling the scholars everything that you learned from the conversation with you with me well as you will attest i'm there i pumped neil for information as vigorously as i could and unfortunately got absolutely nothing out of him so no he wasn't i i was reprimanded by my superiors in and the scarlet's for failing to to provide any kind of information i asked him point blank what are your line out calls and he didn't he just refused to tell me so um you know maybe on reflection i could have been a bit less direct with that i could have tricked him into telling me but um no i didn't but other than that um what a cool guy great guy i'm not surprised that the bulls have gotten better since he's in the building wow yeah that's the thing you said you might have tricked him with a bit of a more subterfuge but he's too clever for you that guy is so intelligent i mean that's the one thing i got from that conversation and meeting him at loftus so sharp he's not swaisa's son for nothing he's so intelligent he's you can fully believe that he's one of the most intelligent people that you've ever met he he and he's so i don't know if zen is the right word but he's so calm and so self-aware in a good way and reflective and never never despite being so intelligent never believes that he has the answer because there were times when we were chatting it's like oh that's interesting oh i hadn't thought of that maybe we'll maybe i'll explore that a bit further and you can see that his motivation is like pure in terms of he just wants to do it because he just wants to be he just wants to understand rugby as well as possible and he wants to do his job as well as possible it's it i don't he didn't strike me that he was about the money or there was any kind of jadedness about him he just wanted to it was rugby really really was his passion but he was so self-assured with it and i can imagine i i get this from when when i spoke to swais when i spoke to andre as well and when i've watched you guys speak to franco these coaches it's not just that they understand rugby it's just that they communicate rugby so simply to you that you sit there thinking like oh yeah it's easy really yeah the one thing that i did notice is um how close he is to you are akerman and um how much say he's got in running that team man that's that's an interesting one you'll see it all on sunday i'm looking forward to publishing that yeah thinking back on it i liked some of the answers that he gave because i asked some i asked him some of the same questions that i asked him and he didn't give the same answers like about offloading sways hates offloading he bans his team from offloading whereas neil is like well you know if the situation's right i don't mind or i asked sways what his favorite teams to watch and sways said and i'm paraphrasing i really like the really structured teams like joe schmidt's teams i really like those i don't really like the french teams and stuff whereas neil was like i kind of like the french teams i'm not really about all that overly structured team stuff it was like completely opposite so it's like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree but it doesn't it's not the same tree it's not the same orchard that's another thing yeah he's not he's not a copy of his dad that you know he's his own man that's something that came across quite quite clearly but yeah looking forward to that on sunday we'll publish that and then another interview we did which i think is one of the best i've ever done you've ever done i suppose as well libby jansen from rings but what a character one of the best ones ever yeah definitely one of the best interviews that we've done i listened back to it and it's still still kind of that moment of like i remember watching you do what you did against italy in the world cup last year vividly i remember that match vividly and now i'm listening back to the podcast i'm like that's my voice asking her a question what the like it's crazy and yeah i was definitely one of the more starstruck i've been in a in an interview and yeah she was just so great did you what i really stood out to me i don't know whether this was your editing did this or something but she was so fast with the answers like so often when you interview someone you finish the question that you're asking and there's a pause and they go look you know uh well and you know they then they answer libby was just like the second you stopped talking she's like well it's this she was so purposeful with her answers as well she like had something to say like it was she was she was great she's if she wants to go into like media or punditry especially i think she'd be amazing at that yeah she would yeah that's the other thing you know the one thing she and Neil have in common is that that intelligence just shines through you know she's well-spoken eloquent thoughtful um but so bubbly you know when that little short i made today when i said you asked her are you tired of being asked about the Italy game and she says no i'll never ever get tired i just you know when i'm done i go watch it and i feel better again all you know from from scratch kind of a thing how good is that it's so good it's so good one of the things that i probably learned from talking to her is there's still lots i don't really understand about women's rugby and specifically being being a woman in south africa playing rugby i've never been to south africa and obviously i'm not a woman so there's there's a whole like lived experience that i just don't understand so i think that was really good with some of your questions towards the end about like as a woman how do you start playing rugby in south african stuff and that's not a question that i would think to ask because in the uk you know there's different it's a different culture and and stuff so it that really made reflect on that so next time we speak to women springbok which i really hope that we do again soon um i'll know to ask different questions because there's there's parts of the experience that i didn't appreciate so it was a learning experience for me as well well not like you didn't appreciate it in other sense of the words just for us so africans the fact that you didn't think about it that's what yeah appreciate is in understand yeah yeah yeah no i agree with you um paul our friend paul avonant from long way to the game said to me i was like the bomb squad just when you finish your questions i came along with the heavy question which was quite fun it just happened to work out like that anyway you got the best bit that you got the best bit of interview out of her which was her her auntie going i don't like this guy who's supposedly coaching a rugby team and bought a ticket to go to paris so she just could keep an eye on where she was folded like a laundry i love that that quote as well first time should play contact rugby i mean that was fun anyway listen uh let's talk about the usc uh limitations coming up you you had your your thing so tell me what your top eight looks like because i have another my own angle yeah okay so my top a i went through all of the games and you have to be specific because you can't just go i'll win lose draw you know that kind of thing it has to be like how many points how many losing bonus points are they getting and things like that so my log for the end of the season is glasgow leinster stormers bulls monster lions ulster connect okay can i read your mind i'll put them on the screen so we can compare i've got glasgow leinster bulls stormers ulster connect lions and monster You've got Munster down in eighth? Yeah. Really?

Why? Because they're not going to do so well towards the end. I don't think so. Well, their last fixtures are Ulster at home, Carnacht away, and Lions at home. And I think they win at least two of those.

They win. Munster always do well in interprovincial derbies, which is what the Irish call their Irish derbies. And then I don't see the Lions going away and beating Munster. Well, I give them seven points from the last three games. so one win which would have been Lions and then I said losing bonus point against Ulster and Connacht and Ulster is at home but Ulster I think is doing better than they are at the moment in better shape I don't know I think Ulster might be running out of steam I think that they are their injuries are catching up for them they're playing too many games I think they're going to target the Challenge Cup and accept that the URC is a little bit beyond them because they're not going to win the URC they're not good enough to win the URC but they are good enough to win the Challenge Cup so I think that that might be where they're thinking is now that loss to Leinster last week I think is going to change the mindset for them no I don't think so I mean I don't think they would have gone into the game thinking they might win it I don't think so I know it's a home game I think Munster can get top four no I don't know let's see at the end of the season who's going to be right but the point is my my semi-finals look like this Glasgow Munster Leinster Lions Bulls Connacht This is your quarterfinals I mean quarterfinals, sorry and yours?

Mine is Glasgow Connacht Leinster Alstern yeah, Leinster Alstern that's a harsh way to end their season Stormers Lions and then Bulls Munster and then your semis it depends who i think is going to win out of stormers lions it's actually quite it's funny that we can we have to be wondering about that normally it would be that it's almost like that but yeah i don't want to get any more angry whatsapps off harry for criticizing his little baby stormers so stormers would be at home to the lions in the semi-final you would surely surely they'd win that and then uh it would be yeah so we leinster stormers it does it kind of is immaterial to be honest and there because i don't think either the stormers or the lions are going to go away to leinster and win um and then it would be glasgow bulls i've got i've got basically the same i just have Glasgow Stormers and Leinster Bulls but we have the same four teams in the same my way and I've said this to you and I've said this on other podcasts as well is I've had a feeling for a couple of weeks now that we are hurtling towards another Leinster vs Bulls final the thing, let me just check because the Stormers did the double over the Bulls because I've got the Stormers in my permutations I've got the Stormers and the Bulls ending on the same points, 57. But in the head-to-head, the Stormers did the double over you. I think that how it decided first There a flaw in your argument You saying the Bulls are going to lose against Scarletts and they not If you not a Scarletts fan if you not a Scarletts fan then you would say that Leinster and Bulls are going to get 15 from 15 in these last three games. In which case, the Bulls would finish above the Stormers. Yeah.

But then, like I said, we've got some massive games this weekend, though, Enver, don't we? we absolutely have some massive games because if glas glasgow stormers that could completely rip everything up that could completely change everything and then lions connect you've got to watch that game man yeah yeah i know lions versus connor because that's a knockout game because it could be that the lion the lions could not connect out of it put them out of the running because then connected to finish the season i've got edinburgh have got munster at home which they could lose and edinburgh away which they'd be favorites for but they still could lose so massive two massive games this weekend for sure yeah i saw you're saying the bulls call it's not a massive game so the bulls will win that quite easily you know if you have to be honest it's a foregone conclusion scarlet's victory obviously but it's delusional i'm sorry just it's so funny anyway that's the yeah so all of these predictions could look very stupid very soon is what I'm saying and there are some massive games who do the sharks blame because Joey Magallo said today they've got a 10% chance of still making it somehow if some UFO were peers no no no no I agree with you I agree with you but the people are just jumping up and down because he said that no no we're not completely out of it we have 10% chance I'm quoting he said 10% chance if this happens and that happens and something falls from the sky and a tree falls over or something happens, then they might make it. So according to my notes, the Sharks aren't actually playing anyone inside the top nine for the rest of the season. But are they home or away? No, I'm not sure.

I never even looked because they're out of the rain for me. So that's why I'm asking you. I'll have to go look now. The point I'm trying to make is they screwed it up by losing to Ospreys. I mean, that's never true about them.

In a not controversial game of rugby at all. Well, that brings me neatly to my Afrikaans word for you for this week. Are you ready? Okay, we already did Skellums and I already know Tsutsi from Libby. From Libby.

Tsutsi, bro. Tsutsi, not Tsutsi. Tsutsi. All right, but it's very much in a similar vein, especially after that Instagram post that he made. What's the guy's name who jumped on Ethan Hooker's back?

Luke Morgan. Luke Morgan. he was making a legal tackle yeah he means no you weren't yeah so the word i'm going to use to teach you today is under dames under that's a hard one under oh on under dames like dames like women you know ladies dames yeah under dames pronunciation so what it means is underhanded pretty much the same as gallum he's under dames that's what he was dames okay a bit of a dash word there from well i happen to look up the scrum stats this week this is a bit of a bonus i wasn't planning on telling you uh i can even send you a graph to put on screen now uh so the i did the the cleanliness of scrums in the urc so i broke down using the urc official stats page which isn't always perfect but i went with it anyway um for scrums on own put in percentage where they played the ball away the scrum the ball left the scrum percentage penalties won and percentage the scrum was lost they lost it on their own putting and the ospreys have lost the highest percentage of scrums on their own put in this season with 15 percent um would you like to know the only team in the urc who have won more penalties at the scrum than they have the played on as in the ball has left the scrum more likely to win a penalty than the ball come out the back yeah i would like to know i don't know who that is guess stormers yes how good was that and he will be very happy jumping up and down for joy that you're not you're not running down the stormers again this week i mean that's a that's a bit of a change i'm sure he's gonna write you nicely all that what's up there and say thank you i already showed it to him the other day what did he say he gave a love heart emoji oh okay that's it's quite eloquent for a yeah listen talking about bull scholars we're sort of talking around this thing you did a bit of homework after our conversation with you and your failed attempt at you know getting information from him what did you see about the bulls yeah now someone might say that a professional would have done the research on the bulls before i interviewed neil but i didn't have time so i've done it after um so trying to do the stats on the balls is quite difficult because you've had such a season of two halves and also opta's stats website hasn't been updated can i say something it's a b in and a in before new and after new well we'll come on to that because not quite okay so i'm going to i'm going to give you another graph to put on the screen now which is a very complicated graph so i'll talk you through it so you've heard of um points per 22 entry so how many points a team scores when they get to the opposition 22 so for the bulls what i've got here is the points against so when teams get to your opposition 22 how many points do they score and i've got it for every game of the season so far and there's 20 games played which is a really nice sample size and including the champions cup now sorry yeah including the champions cup and i've drawn a line across the graph and the line that i've drawn is three points per entry so just for context at test level the average points per entry is 2.9 for tier one nations around that so i scored against him scored against him well scored four but it's just for context so to let you know that three is reasonably high you know it's pretty normal so in the first 11 games of this season the bulls allowed their opposition to score more than three points per entry in eight of the games and then since since the poe game when you won away to poe in the champions cup since then you have only allowed it to happen twice from nine games nine games and how much more was it this is a matter of interest than three in which game sorry the ones that we did the last two ones the last two ones edin edinburgh scored a lot nearly four but that's kind of might be inflated because you um they didn't sometimes that stat can be inflated by making not very many 22 entries so when you do score it kind of the number on the bottom of the fraction is smaller so it's bigger you know um so edinburgh did a lot and then stormers is the other one stormers at home scored three point something so what are you saying the defense sharpened as well apart from everything else yes the defense is sharpened now should come on to the attack now so this is an even more complicated graph i'm giving ember to put on the screen and what this shows is it is very complicated so some people might be like oh what is that so this is net 22 entries so this is how many 22 entries the bulls made minus the number of 22 entries the opposition team makes so i kind of equate 22 entries is like a shot in soccer and football it's the number of opportunities that you had to score basically and what you want on this graph is you want your line to be higher right the the higher is better on the last graph lower is better on this graph higher is better so basically can i just say this we entered the 22 five times and they entered ours three times so we have a net plus two correct absolutely absolutely so in the first half of this season it went really bad culminating in the worst game of the season was northampton saints away where you were minus 14 was the nets that's instances so there were 14 times more in our our 22 than we were in this in that case wow okay that's shocking um but it has been slowly getting better since then and since edinburgh away you have mostly been in the positive you literally went from ulster away to poe away which is a one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven games where you were negative for 11 games in a row and then since then you are positive five times negative three times and the times you've been negative is storms at home minus two munster at home interestingly minus two and glasgow away minus one so it's uh i've drawn the um the rolling average on there as well the orange line it's been going up and it's been staying in the positive so it's not quite before neil and after neil but maybe if we talk about like bristol being the nadir bristol being the worst game it has been on an upward trajectory since then which is quite interesting um in terms of other things i also had a look at your selections because we talked about uh we talked to neil about the fact that the bulls are basically picking your strongest team every single week and when teams get better when their form turns around what you normally see is that there has been a change in selection so i noted a couple of changes in selection that you've been making one that i didn't realize no one really talks about this is uh vermark the second number four he's coming his big name is the rooster yeah what does that mean uh like uh like a like a like a um so thoughts on him because i think it's visa is who he replaced and i know visa is very popular and yes the the results suggest that we're markers had a very good impact even visa are interchanging uh visa was injured when he came back and if mark was injured for a very long time that's he also just came back so when they started coming when he started coming back they were just interchange you'll see this week or last week um i think visa started and for marcus off the bench the week before for mark was starting results off the bench they have a different sort of the same thing they have pretty much the same build as well they're not huge like uh you'd expect the bucky's butter or somebody to be or even but um nuggety you know yeah i don't think there's any big difference there i know and remember visa was injured quite a bit as well remember he wasn't playing that much okay so he's one who's come in and his his coming back into the team has coincided with an improvement in results uh coach sear another one uh seems to be picked more often than not in the games that you've been winning i can't remember maybe i think he's the one in the back row yes michelle he's a captain yeah yeah okay well there you go deserves to be be captain then um curtly arenser has also hit that uptick in form is coincided with him coming back into the team that's not a surprise world-class rugby player um elriclo didn't happen immediately he took a little while to get going i think but since he's been back in the team things seem to have been getting better would you say yeah i agree definitely what do you think about all his game against um didn't watch that closely i mean is it why not i mean it's the best game of the weekend I'm saying that I'm not watching the first half because my wife wanted to watch a movie I was already a massive Elric Lowe fan I was calling for him to be in the springbok back row for a long time uh and uh he seems to have made things better as well yeah well russie i jacked him now to go to japan to protect him what's going on with papir oh yeah i have to ask russie that we don't know that's sort of the you know one of the mysteries of modern day rugby why is he not in the springbok reckoning i don't know no what's happening with papilla at the bulls is he saying i'm going no no because i know he's not going sharks sales sharks wanted to buy him they made him an offer wanted to buy him out of his contract bulls hit no so he's going to stay there at least till his contracts expired which is sale have signed a kiwi now that's in the that's in the news today they've signed a guy from super rugby to replace him to replace their guy okay so papilla's not going anywhere i need to delete a drafted short um and then uh right so problem areas for you because there are so actually i'll skip on down to this so in the last so up until the the poe game you are averaging eight changes per game to the starting 15 so over half the team changing per game up until you played poe since poe it's dropped to five changes per game this is very common that you see when teams get better you see that they're making fewer changes to the 15 and the 15 is more stable it's not rocket science however out of the 135 changes that you have made in that time in sorry this season 33 of them 25 have been in 13 14 and 15 and i'm looking at your selections in those jerseys they are a bit of a mess you are selecting a different combination pretty much every every game um another bonus one for you since the bristol game david creel has not played 13. yeah he's been playing um 12 or 15.

yeah that's interesting he's gonna be a huge loss he is a huge loss i'm telling you now such a pity but i mean did what do you think of takir abrams by the way come to think of it how we talk about it from playing for monster um he seems like an x-factor player a lekker back for for sure. I mean, he wears the scrum caps. Definitely sort of in the Aronson, Cheslin, Colby kind of mould. I don't know if he's as good as them. The fact that he's not been capped by the spring box probably suggests that he's not as good as them.

But it does seem to be a similar kind of player. It probably fits the mould. You could probably use him in a similar way to Aronson. It brings me neatly to my next question. Franco Smith said after this weekend's, you know, walloping by the Lions, that the difference between Eastside and South African sides, for example, is the fact that the second best players, the next level, there's a huge difference.

Most South African next best players are almost good enough to play for the Springboks, but there's just no space for them to play for the Springboks. Like Frankie Horn and Kion Horn and those guys are classic examples of that. And, you know, signing players like Takir Abans who are not Springboks and probably won't be Springboks or not immediately, that seems to be the way things are going here in South Africa. Like Shark said the same thing. They're not going to be signing those big-ticket Springboks anymore because they never get to play.

that spend a lot of money on them, either injured or banned, like Eben Edzebe. So I think that's actually a good thing that is not necessarily a spin ball. Yeah, definitely. Club rugby sides are incentivized to not sign internationals. The Scarlet's had this for years, where our squad got loaded and loaded and loaded with Welsh internationals, and they never played.

And our form dipped. It was literally, we put together a team that had maybe five or six regular internationals in it. And they were like top-class internationals. And we won the league. And then suddenly our entire team was getting picked.

There was literally seasons where we had three scrum halves and three loose head props in the Wales squad from one club. And we tanked. So, yeah, it's not rocket science. We had Lee Halfpenny, Liam Williams, and Johnny McNichol all on the books at the same time. It should never have happened.

And guess what? It didn't work. so um yes that is generally the way to win a club rugby is to not have lots and lots and lots of internationals a big thing about if you look at like the galacticos too long they're actually too long that won three back-to-back european cups like johnny wilkinson wasn't playing test rugby then it was mostly players who had retired from test rugby won them that those trophies a big thing about playing internationals is the fact that the the salaries are subsidized by african uh is a rugby ponies you know what a pony is p-o-n-i player of national interest so that gets to budgets and we'll talk about budget just now i'm just you know putting this out there you've got the numbers from the french leagues which we'll talk about i just want to quickly look at the games coming up this week and you said some big ones just quickly the stormers versus slasco i have one last thing on the balls oh sorry man let me just let me give you your full view on the bulls i'm all yeah well just quickly the other jersey that's in a bit of chaos this season is number eight where you've had a lot of different players i think you're on to like your seventh or eighth different player to wear the number eight jersey this season so if you take 13 14 and 15 and number eight that accounts for one third of all of the changes you've made where did you get that from it was john redolphe nizam car cameron anacom who was injured that's one of the reasons why that happened who else played eight i don't have the list on me should i go and check the list on my other laptop. I'm definitely going to get a comment or two on that, I'm sure. Hello, everybody.

I had to fetch my other laptop. So, number eight, man. I've got Theron. Oh, JJ Tron, yeah. But it was at the USC or was it in Curry Cup?

It was at USC. Against Ospreys and Leinster. Then Rudolph. Kudseer. Lowe.

You had Elric Lowe there for one game. Nazeem Kha. And Cameron Hanekom. yeah not Nazim Nizam Nizam Kyle sorry yeah obviously Cameron Hanukom was the first choice he was injured and he kept you know postponing his return JJ Toronto is always the only one that really stands out for me I mean Marcel played for the Bulls last year against last go at night remember that one when we beat them so all of this was sort of I think a bit of a stopgap just to experiment you know waiting for Cameron to come back what did you think of his form the bit that you saw by the way since it's kind of calm yeah he's not firing on all cylinders yet is he i mean he was out for a long time his legs look a bit skinny yeah he was serious injury now by the way we spoke to his dad joe hanikom just have a look here what an interesting man what an interesting conversation me and all other i'll put him link up here make sure you watch it you know the story of his of his career i ended up at boys i went back to charlie off my then he went back to see it was quite a sad thing a lot of a lot of stuff in there that we didn't know the saddest thing of all is he's got a welsh granny but opted to play for the spring box this the nicest thing about that is when his dad told him he wasn't aware of it and his dad told him about it he said the only thing he's going to do for a while is to show warren gatlin what he's going to miss out on that was that was his attitude that's typical camera anyway sorry i got either guessed let's move on stormers glasgow i see stormers now have another lock crisis the ruben van der den's out um um i don't know uh someone else is out as well so the point is that they don't have any locks coming up in this Glasgow looks like they're going to be playing their their strongest team what are you expecting there a good game won't it looking forward to it early kickoff as well have a sandwich while you're watching it I've heard that a lot of Coptonians are going to it as well a lot of people are excited to watch this game people want to go and watch the Warriors um i don't know what's going to happen i uh my my expectation for this game is i think that i don't think that glasgow are going to be able to put up with the stormers scrum i think the stormers are going to scrum them off the park but i don't think that the stormers are going to easily break through glasgow's defense i think that glasgow's defense is excellent and i um i'm not going to say anything else about this and are you scared are you running scared now you what's happening i just don't i'm sick of the controversy i just don't want any more i just want people to like me um no i think you've that bridge perfect um so i think it might be a bit of a stalemate this game in some ways i wouldn't like to guess who's going to make it is sure because it's who's it a bigger game for remember who's it is a big game for the storm as you think i mean they both lost last weekend but i think the glasgow warriors expected to lose maybe not as bad as they did stormers never thought they're going to lose that game but i mean the the occasional overwhelm of it there was a bridge too far and yeah i can understand that but the point is they are a little bit on the back foot forget about the attack and all that you know these are two very good rolling mall teams for example glasgow you said last time scored the most tries off from rolling mauls if if I remember correctly, the most successful rolling mall team in the US. Yes, over the last few years, yes.

Yes. And stormers are not a bad rolling mall team either. So that's going to be a nice, like I said, I think you're right about scrums. I think it's going to be a bit of a toss up, especially with local conditions. I don't know what the weather is going to be like, because last weekend was a bit of an Irish one, Irish weather for an Irish team.

I'm not sure what it's going to look like. I think it's going to be a better weekend in terms of weather, which makes things a bit more, you know, skewed towards the Stormers, I think. I think they're going to take it, the Stormers. Maybe just only just, but they're going to take it. Like I said, big game.

Looking forward to it. It's first, first, second. This is what you want. This is what we live for. Yeah, you're right.

But what's next? What's the other ones that we have to look at? Lions-Gonacht, like you said, that's a big one. Gonacht now, oh, Cockerhoop and Dale and Air. I think they're going to repeat it against the Lions.

But have they played, have they had their big moment now? Are they going to come out? There's a lot of rugby teams who have beaten very good opposition away from home and then got done by the Lions. The Lions' scorelines recently are ridiculous. I think they've scored over 50 points in like twice in the last three games or something crazy.

It's ridiculous. And this is their last home game of the season. Like, if they can bank this one, then they're home and dry in the playoffs for the first time. And Champions Cup rugby to Johannesburg. Can you believe it?

So it's kind of their final Maldon-Connacht. oh but it cannot need can't i need to win to stay in the hunt as well otherwise they've got to go back to ireland and play a couple of inter pros to stay in the chase it's exciting isn't it i'm interpro i told i told you this literally earlier in this podcast and then surprise i can't remember eight minutes ago it's too long the an interpro is what the irish call their derbies oh i must have missed that i must have and i'm not at all there or something you know your dulcet tones put me to sleep must have been that all right so yeah i i think um i think connor's gonna not take this one and i think the lions will take this one quite comfortably and that's my feeling also monster also big one monster i think monster i think because i think monster have been bad there's no two ways about it monster have been bad lately however they're not as out of it as people think and they still could possibly get a top four spot so they've got some favorable games so i think munster so bull scarlet's now put your money where your mouth is how far do you think you are going to beat the bulls by and once i pick myself off the floor where i would be rolling around laughing i'll tell you what i think scarlet's by two oh man that's not edging your bets bulls by 20. Okay I saying just to roll you up Yeah honestly that what I trying to do all right let move on you talked about finances and uh france put out their reports and it staggering numbers that we've been seeing there just talk to us about that a bit this is my this is one of my most favorite things in rugby i wrote about this today i know i had the biggest grin across my face so this is like unparalleled definitely in rugby as far i don't know any of anything else in sport who does this so if people want to suggest in the comments let me know france does this incredibly transparent and very very detailed annual report into the finances of all of the top 14 and pro deader clubs like how much they're how much profit they're making how much money they're losing how much they spend on player salaries how much they spend on coaches salaries how much they spend on marketing how much money they make from merchandising how much money they make from tickets how much money they wait from sponsorship every single team it's a pdf document report that it is it's 137 pages long and it's got an appendix which is just the graphs i love it it's the best thing ever it's like one of my most favorite things in rugby i like okay let's look at this you know when it comes out and stuff and you always learn so much and the fact it's in french it's so well done as well it's so well presented because it's all in french and yet you can understand it because it's so clear and well explained and stuff but anyway what would you like to know about the money in france yeah how much money do they spend on on players and staff and admin so even admin staff is in this you know how much money are we talking about here and then you're talking about euros now yes euros so it depends per club so on average uh the average outlay by a top 14 club median average i think this is uh is 36.7 million euros per season or for this is for the 24 25 season uh on average 36.7 million euros euros that is 708 million rand big money in france yes big money anyway sorry okay the la the largest outlay is player salaries that's on average 27 percent of expenditure by top 14 clubs is player salaries the top spending club no prizes for guessing is stade to lee zane or to lose uh to lose have an income per season or of last season of 63 million euros and they spent 62 million euros 1.

2 billion but that's not all players i mean that's just the whole thing that's the whole thing that's the whole thing so interestingly toulouse spends the most on marketing and admin and commercials 4 million euros last year on 18 million guess how much toulouse made in merchandise sales last season because i'm going to guess high now 20 million euros no not quite that high i have no idea okay i'm pretty damn close 15 million like 300 million rand in merchandise yeah wrestling 92 only made 56 grand really it's good it doesn't go much to beat the allegations that wrestling have got no fans um but anyway so yeah so to lose spend way more than everybody and check the league table it shows um so yeah so in oh you know but in the kind of uh profits and losses kind of thing la rochelle actually make the most profit made the most profit last season la rochelle also make the most in sponsorship revenue they made 21 million euros last season and they made a 1.8 million euro profit five of the top 14 clubs operated at a profit but some of them quite low so to lose for example made a 141 000 euro profit which is like less than one player salary um but then convenient you know then eight clubs made less than a million euros lost so five made a profit and another three lost less than a million so in the in you know in the numbers that we're talking about breaking even stad francais lost 16.3 million euros last season for what why what's the biggest expense as well the other thing is they had an awful season as well they finished third bottom and barely scraped not getting into the um relegation playoff game but they had the largest outlay on coaches of any team by a lot and i wonder if that might be the fact they sacked a load of coaches and had to pay them off was why that was but yeah it's not would you like me to go to the top 14 appendix and see what they did because they do a bloody balanced scorecard for every team it's literally the best document in the world this so you're getting so excited about it a fringe rugby document it's so funny anyway so good so total salaries for Stade Francais were 17 million of which 2.4 million was coaches and another 2.1 million on that was was technical staff and then it's a bit hazy after that it's just like oh general stuff you know other charges and things like that um but yeah you mustn't lie on your arm like that because you're disappearing from the camera I'm sorry I'm just slipping under your desk yeah from pure excitement.

Stade France don't make that much in sponsorship, considering that they're a big iconic French rugby team. They only make 13.56 million, but of course their front of shirt sponsor was Capri Sun, which is the company of the guy who owned the club. Owned Boston's? No, still owns the club, but now they have signed a new sponsorship deal with DHL.

so we'll see what those numbers look like next year all right let's just focus on the big stuff number one where does the money come from mostly like you said some of the responses from marketing but most of them have a big sugar daddy let's call it that oh no it's got deep pockets well 45 of the income in the top 14 comes from sponsorships or partnerships as they call them which in some cases will come from sugar daddies you know in the cases of montpellier in particular are sponsored by the guy who owns them stadfranc they were what's interesting is that sponsorship revenue in the top 14 has gone up by 13 million compared to the season before and has gone up by 55 million compared to four seasons ago so that's an average of 1 million euros per club per season it's gone up in the top 14 in four years which is pretty damn impressive um ticket sales have also gone up so ticket sales are 16 of the revenue ubb make the most on ticket sales which is unsurprising because ubb are the most attended rugby club in the world that's also gone up a lot i think that's gone up something like is that a fact the most thinnest club in the world 32 000 fans every single week that's amazing it's crazy okay sorry yeah um and ticket sales have also gone up a lot i think that's gone up 40 million in four years across the league and then tv uh deal is the second biggest so that's 19 comes from the tv um stuff only eight percent on average comes from merchandise sales okay now let's talk about the stuff that's most important how much money do they spend on these players because that's we're going to be comparing apples of apples here so Toulouse spends 13 million on their squad. Let me see if I can find it. Hang on. I need to have the table open. 250 million rams.

And that's not what you're looking for. That's just players. That number is just for players. Isn't there a 10 million rams cap or something? Or 10 million euros, I mean?

Or 11 million. Yes, but you get credits. How many French internationals that you provide you get credits on top of it so you're allowed to spend above if you provide a french player so to lose have like 12 french internationals on their books so they get they're allowed to spend way over uh to lose spends 13.2 million ubb spend 11.6 million to long spend 11.

4 million um and then the lowest is van who got relegated they spent 6.1 million 117 million now i said to you before we started from what i know the local goes salary cap plus t contributions that srf makes to each team is about 130 million rand so we're basically spending what the bottom team in that league is spending in our top teams kind of a thing and then we wonder why we run out of steam in a european cup competition yeah basically and the french are playing 26 games a season as well in the regular season have we got these squads as a matter of interest because i know franco said to us the other day he squads only 38 players the bulls are 57 storm is 57. how much are bigger those those squads pretty big they've also got a full um development league as well they've got what they call the espires which is like the the academy teams plays a full league parallel to the to the top one there's something else that is it i've been not sure if you're aware of this they started an under 23 competition but it's not really under 23 it's only the four big ones the urc teams that play against each other um and the players have to be under 23 but you're allowed to have seven players that are above 23 for to start with three off the bench so you have your nicolas jansen van reynsberg and janus kirstens and dan serventine playing over there to get fit again just started this year i think that's quite a good thing then obviously sa cup and everything else is still going on um on the side there yeah that's how it works in english football as well where you can have an under 21s but you can have senior players play there it's quite clever for fitness listen we spent a lot of time and i never got around to the Toyota challenge that's quite an interesting one that uh we're wondering what the Toyota Cheetahs plans were and the Greek was and Pumas as well just talk just briefly about that I know you don't have too much information but just a general idea so yeah like I said I don't know tons about it but it's a bit like it's a bit like what the Curry Cup first division was where they invite international teams so they're doing that again so it's going to be the Cheetahs the Greek cars and the Pumas and it's also going to be some European teams. It's going to be the Black Lion from Georgia, who played in the Curry Cup Division 1. It's going to be Lusitano from Portugal and it's going to be Romania A.

Romania A being not the full national side? Yes, correct. Okay, that's interesting. And Isaac, do you have any idea what the format's going to be? You know, I'm in a way or what does it work?

There's going to be three rounds in South Africa and then three rounds in Europe in October. So we're going to all travel over there, play those three games, and then come back again. Okay, that's that, man. That's apart from the SA Cup that they're all playing now, the Pumas and the Cheetahs and the Ricois. Then the Curry Cup's going to happen, and then they're going to play this one.

You know, it's six extra games. It's not bad. I like it. Yeah. Five extra games.

Yeah, awesome. But that was quite a long one, but what an interesting conversation we had tonight. I loved it. Thank you. Appreciate it, man.

Always a pleasure, mate. This is the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, only on Megaphone Rugby.

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