Is SA Rugby covering up a ticketing blunder? | Rassie's Genius | Rugby Rundown

welcome back to the rugby rundown on a tuesday i'm still on holiday as you can see jan nice to have you again we have a lot to talk about you published an article this morning in racket 365 about russi's true genius and we'll talk about that a bit later but i think it is apt to talk about the ticket situation at alice park or not as it seems to be talk to me about that Yes, Enver, thank you for having me again on this podcast. I really enjoy this. This is where I can spill my guts, so to speak. And to me, yes, I had a lot of discussions, should I say, or communication with Saru and the media department. And I had some interesting replies.

The one thing that I noticed, there were two things that I need to speak about. The statement they put out on friday about how untrue uh affectionately inaccurate our reports were which is uh part of their smoke and mirrors campaign and then also the 52 000 they said that were there on saturday so i have the following two questions for saru and i will reach out to them and ask them these two questions how many of those 52 000 tickets were sold after they slashed the prices because it was severely slashed i mean your 900 rent ticket was for 600 or 950 and ticket 650 and everything was so how many the the surge in sales was how many how much of that was after the the price drop the drop in price and then also i know for a fact that a number of tickets a substantial number of tickets were given away for free so so the guys who paid full price if you paid 3 000 rand you're going to be miffed because i have at least 10 family members we are personally know that received free tickets they went to a spot i mean on a saturday morning you decided i've got three tickets i'm going to alice park and they went so so they didn't pay for the tickets they went for free so so how many of those so my question did how many and who gave those tickets away and how many of them were given away i suspect some of this were the corporates or whatever tickets but you know so sorry to me sorry still i i know there's this fight with with the sweet holders that laugh after this game and we'll discuss that now but saru is busy with smoke and mirrors and unless they give us straight answers which they're not i mean that's two paragraph three uh statement three paragraph statement they put out on friday was definitely not um that was just covering their tracks and like i said i'll use the term again it was just smoke mirrors because i know because i'm thursday when i did another follow-up article about the slash prices i could check on the booking agencies and i could check that there were at least if you ask how many tickets in this block you could quickly work out that there was about 30 000 tickets still available so they had sold roughly 30 odd thousand say 32 000 uh by thursday so i suspect maybe they sold 35 maybe 40 who knows i don't know how many tickets because if they tell us how many they were sold when they slashed the prices that will give us a better idea but they were definitely that statement was definitely smoke and murder so my question to saru is uh how many tickets were really sold after the drop in prices and how many tickets were given away and who gave it away because i know for a fact because i have family members at least 10 family members that had tickets so if you get a group of 10 or a packet of 10 tickets that goes into the open market for free imagine the oak that pays 3 000 rand and sits next to you in the stand and find out that you got there for free he's going to be very miffed oh that's that's they said the president now there's an afrikaans saying that translates i don't know how to translate and that's a big one they just need to be honest right from the outside they needed to say to the public be transparent say listen we maybe overestimated the ticket prices we are working on a solution and leave it at that but be honest don't pretend come on a friday when you know that you suddenly had a search on sales because you slashed the prices and then people started giving tickets away now you say oh look at we're gonna have a lot of people there so yeah they said their goal was 90 90 percent 90 percent of of uh ticket sales of capacity uh 32 000 is not exactly 90 but it's pretty close so if they want to spin it they can say oh we did get close to our goal of 90 percent but in reality they got there because there's less the prices and then gave tickets away for free the the thing is they've now set the precedent like i said earlier and they've now vehemently denied that they will ever do that again but if they overestimated loftus they've overestimated at Durban and going for it. All Blacks are different because most of those games are sold out. All of them are sold out, as I know. But the point is they are going to have to do the same thing and people are just going to wait it out.

And that's not the only thing. We see now that Loftus' sweet holders are up in arms. They paid for it and now they can't use it. I'm not sure why Loftus specifically is so upset. I know that they've been upset for a bit now.

What's the story there? Do you know? I don't know exactly what it was. I knew that previously the Loftus owners had but this is all related to the fact that Saru takes it and they want to sell the sweet tickets to the Loftus owners at inflated prices. And these guys don't want to pay.

If you pay 10,000 Rand for your ticket and initially said I have access to a test and they tell you you're going to pay another 10,000 Rand for your ticket then suddenly you know to pay 20 000 for one extra game i can imagine why they were upset so i know that the the bulls officials are reluctant to talk to us uh certainly publicly talk to us because they have to work with saru again somewhere down the line you know they don't want to start a fight with sorry but this relates to the fact that sara took over the test match the test match uh host agreement it was taken away from the unions and Saru now runs the test matches so they do they pay the union, the Blue Bulls a fee to have to rent or hire the stadium for the day and they insist on a clean stadium which means no Bulls advertising so Saru do all their advertising and I see the Bulls the important thing is the Bulls have got a new set of lights, I'm not sure they're bragging about their new lights, I'm not sure if that's because SARU did it for a test or they're doing the bulls are doing it themselves so good on them so there's something that they that they're doing well so i think you know the fact is this thing about SARU's test host format is going to be a point of discussion and a debate for a long time coming because all the unions and unless you're in SARU's pocket uh you you your sweet holders will draw the short end of the stick we spoke to hichu kemp a little while ago on this channel he's the chief operations officer of the bulls and we talked about the lights but the bulls are putting those lights up themselves because it's been rugby by candlelight for quite a bit now they needed this they desperately needed new lights i saw them putting it up it was quite an quite an adventure getting those lights up there that high up um yeah but i'm looking forward to see it change colors and everything so it's quite fancy it should last a couple of years so well done to the bulls this has got nothing to do with star as well as i know so i'm looking for this whole model of the uh srgp taking over the the hosting call of that and pocketing the money i know it's causing gas flow problems to the to the unions because it was a big part of the income and now suddenly it's gone and uh you know you would have had so much money in your bank account at the start of the season that's no longer there and it's gonna you know just never mind the 12-month season for players 12-month season for the unions anyway that's on the back foot let's talk about your article that you published this morning in rugby 365 i'll put the link up on the screen also down in the description. People can go read it. But your article goes about the true Russi genius, the true genius of Russi. Let me rephrase that. That might be a bit of a acne phrase, but it still rings true.

What did you say there? To me, the people you know, Russi's got this thing that he's created. So I think we just got to take a step back. When Russi arrived, we were number six in the world. We were declining.

I mean, I not criticizing Alistair or anything but I need to point out that he had a 33 record the first year and then he had a win record and then it went up to about close to 50 But our ranking slipped to number six, which had people up in arms, and it had people burning jerseys and stuff. When Russi came back, he made a point of saying, he doesn't want the fans to burn their jerseys. He wants to create a culture where people are... So he's created that culture. The players believe that players are brought in, and Russi has taken us to number one.

So he's now on a 10-match winning streak. We haven't lost a match since September last year. I think our last loss was against the All Blacks in Auckland. But Rassi himself is on a 10-match winning streak. One of them includes the Barba's game, which is a non-cap game, but still a 10-match winning streak.

And so everybody looks at these numbers and how great. And they're great. I mean, it's wonderful. I think what people are missing is what Russ is doing with the team so part of this article points out that Russ said it, he mentioned it in passing and very few people picked up on it in his post-match press conference after the England win he said they are at eight you sit up and you hold on a second and then he started mentioning them you know, Eben is out Luit is out, Franco is out Riley is out Salman Muratis out then there's Fenta the Lions flanked lock that Rasi wants to turn to a number 4 lock utility like Peter Steff I'm not talking off the top of my head but the other two is in the article all eight is in the article so when Rasi mentioned this it made me sit up and think and then I went and did a bit of research and looked at things and one of the things that eight locks out. We've still got enough depth.

So on Saturday against Scotland, Ron Orkear will start at lock and Kubis Vissers, the two Bulls locks for the last few years, or for this past season at least. They're the starting pair. And then people say, oh, but we haven't got lock cover on the bench. Actually, we've got three players on the bench, all three loose fours, who can all play lock and have played lock. So Ben Jason Dixon can play lock.

He came on at the weekend against England and he had a stunning game. I thought he really cemented his place in the box team. You know, he won a really good game. Vincent Tuttukas played lock, can play number four lock. He's played number four lock for the Sharks and he's a loose forward.

And then Elric Lowe, I know very few people will know, but he's had outings at lock. You know, he's a loose forward, but he can play lock. So you've got lock on the bench and that's a real genius. When people look at the team, it's a 6-2 split on the bench and they will look at all sorts of numbers and they miss the real genius of Russi is how he deals with what people see as a crisis. Russi sees an opportunity.

And that, to me, is the real genius of Russi. He creates opportunities out of what other people see as crisis. Yes, we've got an injury situation at lock. We've got a problem at lock. But other people get opportunities.

You know, Kribber's visa might have a blinder on Saturday and suddenly he's the next number four lock. I think that's where Rossi is really good and people often miss the point that Rossi does all these things in the background and then they just look at the team and oh is Marnie playing again? Or no, why is Andre Pollard playing again? And then they miss all the real things. Because we know Scotland's got a heck of a pack.

They're going to give us a run for our money up front. So Rossi's got a pack which I believe can overcome Scotland on Saturday. The interesting thing was that most of the away teams won this weekend in the nation's championship. Scotland beat Argentina. Argentina never had a game before.

All their players had to come back to Argentina. I understand all that. But still, Ireland beat Australia. France didn't beat the All Blacks but came pretty damn close. That's an interesting phenomenon.

but, you know, talking about the genius of Rossi, it's also couched in the comfort of knowing that even if he slips up a little bit, he's going to be forgiven. Because, you know, people say, no, Rossi's experimenting. If we made for argument's sake lost against England, with that sort of a makeshift team, with those last-minute changes, people would have forgiven it and said, yeah, okay, but maybe he just tried this and that and the other. That comfort zone might not be around forever, or do you think he's got a bit of a runway in that? I think Rossi is busy creating people and yes I understand that one loss could change the sentiment towards Rossi that's just the nature of the Springbok fans we all just want to win we think we're invincible when I was 16 I thought I was invincible I still think I'm invincible but I know that I'm getting older so yes there comes a time when you have to you're going to run into a wall and the wall is not going to give way so but Rashi is still building towards the World Cup and I think he's also building towards 2031 you know that's why all these young players are coming through and I think we'll see less rotation next year but this year Rashi has already said it and that to me is the other genius like you said you know people are going to say oh he can be forgiven because he's doing this and we're winning and we're still number one I think he's going to keep doing it even if we do slip up somewhere and he's going to create depth that if something happens ahead of the World Cup next year, he's got depth.

He will know if Kubis Visser can slot in suddenly. If Jean Klein, that's the other guy that's injured. If Jean Klein doesn't come back, Kubis Visser could play that role. He comes off the bench as a muscle or the big bulky player, strong carrier. So he's got all that sort of stuff that he's busy planning and he's creating that depth.

and I think that's the part what people often miss is what Russia is doing, they don't see the bigger picture of that Russia is painting Well, okay, you've got eight locks out injured and imagine this happened next year just before the World Cup the issue is why, why were eight locks, why is or why are eight locks injured, what's causing this that 12 month season and everything else, so we've got a bit of a luxury to experiment a bit and build more depth like you just said but if we do the same thing for the next 12 months and we end up in a similar situation next year we might have a problem what do you think is causing it and what do you think they're planning to do about it it's now July we're waiting with bated breath for SA rugby we know they're not going to withdraw from the Champions Cup but they have to make a plan somehow because they also have to wrap these players in cotton wool a bit yeah the problem is and that's another point which some journalists and I'm not criticizing, everybody's doing their job and if they've got a source that they refer to and they trust the source and the source gave them an info and they run with it, we all do that. I read The Room that day when Mark, Alexander and Rian was talking and to me, the body language was clear. Certain people always come to the table with the same thing and we start over. And we know the two countries that are dead set against the Suns are moving to the European window. The Suns are moving to the February, having the rugby championship in February and March.

That's New Zealand and Australia. They want to have it there because they've got a break over December and January. So that's when their players rest. We need to find a break because we're playing in the Northern Hemisphere. We need to find a break in August, September or October.

We need to find that two-month break there. So we want to move the rugby championship to February and March. and I think the hint that Mark Alexander dropped that people missed was that he was suggested that they've already walked away from Sunsar in the Super Rugby and they showed they're not scared. So the next question is, where do the Springboks play? How do we entertain them?

How do we keep them? That's probably part of the discussions that they are having now in July. What is the alternatives? What can they set up? Will a competition against Argentina, Japan and Fiji or whatever suffice, you know, and leave New Zealand and Australia to play 10 Letterslow Cup matches during the rugby championship, you know.

I've already seen what happened to the Super Rugby once the Springboks were gone, so I think if Springboks called their bluff, they'd be very quick to maybe change their minds. Well, how soon will it happen? Let's say if I come and say New Zealand and Australia now suddenly agree to move the rugby championship, will it move next year already, or is it too late? And that comes back to... One move now Most of these contracts are in place still including the Champions Cup and our Northern England are in place till 2030 So any changes will come 2031 the next World Cup cycle after the next World Cup cycle So I suspect these discussions are tough for the long term.

So this 12-month season problem we're going to have for the next few years. So there's a realistic chance that we're going to have some injuries next year with players being overplayed. That's part of the problem we have, and that's one of the issues we have to sort out with, or Saro has to sort out in terms of where do they find rest. You know, just haphazardly resting the players in the middle of a season, February and March, you know, to give the players a six-week break is not doing the franchises any good. So, you know, on the one end, you know, compromising the franchise, you want them to be competitive in Europe, but they can't be competitive because, as we've spoken previously, you know, Jan Ackerman's not going to have his Springboks until at least December.

So he's going to be without his Springboks until at least December. And Doxon. John Doxon's the same. The Sharks will have a few, well, even Etzivert doesn't even play anymore. So, you know, there's a problem.

I mean, I seriously think there's a problem. So they're alienating their franchises on two fronts. firstly they overplay they're forcing them to overplay their spring box and then forcing them to compromise their own campaigns to rest those spring box and then also they're alienating by taking the money the big income stream, the best income stream away from them because they want to you know, so this money that Saru makes the other question you can rightfully ask is this money that Saru makes, how much of that goes back to the unions to make up for the money they lose by not losing test test income. So yeah, you know, Saru might be sitting pretty and they might be able to say we had 52,000 people at Alice Park, but how much of that goes back, how much of that really is money and how much of that profit, so-called profit, goes back to the franchises so that they can supply another batch of Springboks to the national team. You raise an interesting point here.

I've had several discussions with certain senior members of management of the unions. And one thing that I was told was, for example, a round of 16 game overseas makes more money than a UFC final at home. So if you can get your franchises up to strength and they can actually compete in these overseas Champions Cup, Challenge Cup finals, supposedly most of the Champions Cup, they can make up the lost income. They're losing with the test model, that's now changed, but they're not allowed to have their players. That's a bit of a catch-22, don't you think?

Yeah, absolutely. That's part of the problem that Saru is creating, by forcing the players to rest. Because they haven't had the front-line players, the Springboks, because Rashi's got 46 players in his squad. That's apart from the guys who are injured and not in the squad. So, you know, you talk about at least another 10 players.

So let's say 50 players. So every franchise is at least 10, 12 players missing. Well, not every franchise. The Lions are left. On average.

Yeah, on average. But let's say the other three Sharks, Bulls, and you're talking about 12, 13 players per franchise that's missing, even more, 15 perhaps, and then the Lions fill up the gap, you know, and a couple of overseas players and so on. but the reality is that the franchises have to start a campaign without their main players and then still rest their players during the season and then are expected to be competitive. It's unrealistic because they don't have the budgets to compete. You know, they can't go buy an RGS Neumann or a Bonfente, well, the Lions now got Bonfente, but, you know, You can't go like Leinster does, go by Erkia Sleiman and Enrico Ahani to fill those gaps and let them play, and you have these international players that play for you while the other players in Ireland, because that's the type of player you need when your springboks are away.

So you've got that type of international standard player. Right, let's talk about rugby for a bit. Saturday's game against England, you know, two late withdrawals, dropping the average age from 31 to 27. Still a fairly experienced side. But just briefly, before we talk about the team against Scotland, what was your impression of that game?

You know, with the upsets and the upheavals, let's call it that, did they perform adequately? I thought it settled down a little bit in the second half when Jason went to lock, like you mentioned earlier. Peter Steyer moved back to number seven flank. I wonder if they shouldn't have started like that, maybe. Yeah, not necessarily.

I think Rashi had a specific game plan he wanted to play. And I think the big thing was the game plan works exactly like it did against Australia last year at Alice Park. The same situation. Went up 17-0. We looked in complete control.

And the players got overexcited and started the concentration drop because it was almost too easy for them. And then suddenly they allowed England to come back into the game. and the big difference this time was that halftime they had a good I mean it was 17-14 at halftime they had a good chat and Rashi obviously made changes and the players the team itself unlike last year didn't panic so they showed that they can overcome you know a lack of concentration you know you can get focused again you get you start getting your mind back in the game and i think that's a big difference uh from last year and so yeah i'm i'm happy with i think i think as you said better than adequate or something like it i think it was a 70 80 performance there were a lot of good things that we did uh and you know to me i think Marnie had a good game I think Marnie the fact that he doesn't have to kick that he doesn't have to get the goal kicking in his head he could focus on his general game and that showed so yeah having Chestland kicking and having Marnie just play just be the fly off works so there's little changes that Rassi does that people often miss I mean Chestland Colby is not an 80-90% kicker but he's adequate and if he scores more tries than the opposition you don't have to kick all your goals so yeah I think it was I would put it at 70-80% performance and I think we're just too good for England England's got a problem their team are in decline and the fact that they had to leave Murray Tojo at home tells me there's something amiss in that team and yeah they're also relying on some very senior players and they haven't got depth coming through so if you think of it, if England has to lose 8 of their front line locks what do they have I don't watch a lot of premiership but what I do watch is the depth or the quality in terms of tight forwards in the premiership is not as great their best prop in the premiership was a spring walk Thomas de Tue it tells you a lot that you want to know about England's game they've reduced their competition to a 10 team competition you know and then eight of those ten teams go straight into the Champions Cup where they can't compete because they I mean if you eight in the Premiership you don't belong in the Champions Cup because that's a competition for a real Champions League but we got usually we had three teams this year and only two of them were competitive in the Champions Cup or semi-competitive in the Champions Cup I mean the Lions struggled in the Challenge Cup and then they focused under USC, which was right. Now they're getting to the Champions Cup. Maybe they can attract a few more players and a few more sponsors.

Although that seems unlikely if rumours are true that the sponsors are queuing at the exit door. Or entry door. Well, we saw a couple of players, but the Chamberlain coming back to the Lions now. The Sharks and the Bulls, the Newcastle, Red Bull, now it's back at the Lions. Aram Andrews, all these signings are not really big name signings.

You would have expected a bit more fireworks. Buonfenta basically the marquee signing, but yeah, we're not here to talk about the alliance. Talking about this coming weekend against Scotland, you know, everybody's sort of, you know, dismissing it or whatever but remember Scotland beat England in the Six Nations They finished higher than England in the Six Nations They supposedly actually a better team than England Yes we been thinking that England is the big test. It's not. Scotland's going to be the big test, I would think.

And Scotland beat Argentina this part. And yes, now Scotland's going to travel to South Africa, adjust to the altitude and everything else. But the point is, we shouldn't underestimate this. And what is the fact that Drussi has made so many changes? It's effectively a completely different team, you know, almost.

Even Damon Willemso, who had a blinder at fullback, is now playing 12. Like I said earlier, lots of experimentation all the time, but are we not maybe, you know, dismissing Scotland too early? No, definitely not. I think the reality is Rasier just planned out. He said before the England test, before they actually started prepping for the England test, I was specifically asking the question about, you know, how much he's going to rotate, and he said he's going to continue to rotate for the rest of the year.

So that was clear. He was going to continue to rotate for the rest of the year. I think I touched on it earlier as well. He's a real genius. He's got a plan in place.

So this plan, in that press conference, he also said to me that the players know who's going to play and which test. So this team has been preparing together. They've been together. So these guys knew before the England game that their run comes. So Pollard would have known, him and Ambrose would have known they're starting this test.

So they can prepare for this test. You know, Fassi would have known, he would have had, edwell um okay jesse and damon said canaan uh evan russ knew you know uh he was going to play he's got paul uh the village um so yeah yeah you know ron and kribbs would have known that he was going to play in this game uh wilco would have known that you know he had a bit of extra time to get into shape uh we know and bone would have known you know so jan hendrick knew he was going to play that dual role off the bench again. Mithulu knew he was going to play, Porthen knew he was going to be in both games. Ben Jason Dixon knew he was going to play off the bench in both games. Elric, Grant Williams, and Horn.

So those players knew before the time what they were going to do. And the team will again change for Wales. You know, it's going to change for Wales again. And people will say again, the game can change this. Why?

Because that's what he planned. He knows exactly what he's doing. So I don't think he's underestimating Scotland. I think what he's doing this he's got a team that he thinks can beat scotland comfortably so we might play a bit more conservative game and people can say oh 100 pollard can't play maybe that's russia's plan because he knows that you don't run against scotland you don't run against glasgow warriors because it's probably going to be the bulk of the team will be glasgow warriors in any event so you you don't make the mistake of running everything at them you put them in their half and then you pressure them with defence, you know. So those sort of plans were put in place before the season even started and Rusty is just following the script, you know.

Yeah, will there be hiccups along the way like losing Ibn and Sia? Yeah, but Rusty's got a plan. He's going to fix it. And so, yeah. No, I don't think we're underestimating to answer your question.

No, we're not underestimating them. I think it's a plan that's in place and Rusty's sticking to the plan and that's why the player's trusting because if you get told you're going to play in that game and suddenly Rusty's like, ooh, things didn't go lack in that game. Maybe I want to give that guy another chance. No, I said to you, you're playing, you're going to play. You've got to carry us this week.

Yeah, that's interesting. I've had a couple of people asking me what do I think of this team. They feel that maybe a bit fragmented, sort of back of the cigarette box kind of a team. I don't think so. It's a proper team and most of them, or many of them, are bulls playing at Lodgers.

I was about to say, there's about eight bulls in that team. Let's quickly run through. Kanan is there, Pollard, Ambrose Roan Orkeer, Koebus Wiese, Wilke Lowe, Johan Groblar, Jan Hendrik so yeah, you know Eldridge is there as well so I'm just going to share I know it's not what you asked me but I'm just going to share this with you Willem Strauss, the president of the Blue Bulls rugby union, had a trip about how many Bulls, I think 9, 8 or 9 players in the Bulls team in the Springboks and the Bulls in the Springbok team. Apologies. Nine players, nine Bulls in the Springbok team.

So I pointed out to you, but hold on a second. Ruanas left and Wilco has already left. So he said to me, no, no, no, no, no. I'm still paying their salary. So as long as I pay their salary, they're my players.

So, yeah, I mean, it's just a bit of humor, but that's Willem's dry sense of humor. I like it. I love it. But the fact is that they played together on a serious note. They played together this season.

Everybody said, what did they do? They went and beat Glasgow. Those guys played against Glasgow and they beat them in the semi-final away from home. So they're not going to be scared of these guys. They know these guys.

They know how to beat them. They know that they can be physical enough and match up to them. So it comes back to the fact that Rossi knows what he's doing. Cliché as it might be, he's picking horses for courses because he thinks this is a combination that's best suited to beat Scotland. I agree.

I want to just briefly, before we finish, talk about the All Blacks. Against a French team that was without many of their stars, most notably. Unsurprisingly, Antoine de Ponce wasn't there again. But Maxine Leucou and Jalipère at 9-10, what a combination that is. They're actually the Champions Cup champions.

They played exceptionally well and they came pretty damn close. Do you think the All Blacks were maybe a bit, not unprepared, I mean, this is the first game under Rennie. He had only 10 days to prepare with them. Why do you ascribe to All Blacks, you know, almost losing it at home against the sort of a, let's call it a B-side French team, or was it just a matter of, you know, it's going to take some time to settle down? Yeah.

It's difficult to assess, Rennie, on one game, but there were clear signs that they will be playing a more expensive game. They want to. But then you've got to understand that if you play against quality teams, They're not going to allow you to just run around nilly-willy. This is not super rugby. The fence is still important.

It's test rugby. People are going to put pressure on you. It worked in the early stages and then the fence got on and the fence started closing that and started getting more aggressive on the fence. The significance to me is that this French team was basically a Bordeaux team. The Champions Cup winners.

So, the bulk of the team was the Bordeaux team and they had time to rest because They didn't play in the French top 14 final. So they had time to rest and prepare, and they went to New Zealand. And they're not a bad team. You don't become European champions if you're a bad team. So there's some really quality players in there.

And if you look at that French team, so you mentioned the Scrum of Flyoff now. They understand each other. They know exactly what they're doing, and they drove that French team, and they got them into positions. So, yeah, this French team is a very good team. We're going to be – France had full – you know, we're playing France in November.

in Paris. It's going to be a massive game. If we're still number one, imagine, you know, last year we beat them quite comfortably. But I think it's going to be a different team in Paris this year. Yeah, yeah.

It also depends what type of game they're going to be playing. Yeah, anyway. Okay, Jan, there's lots to talk about, but we'll do that next week again after this Scotland test. I'll be talking to Franco Smith today, later on. So any ideas, any questions, shoot me a message.

I confirm, so I'm looking forward to that. I'll ask Franco to talk of Afrikaans do you? He loves talking Afrikaans. No, I will. I definitely will.

I will throw the occasional Afrikaans word, but still, I'm going to ask him what he thought about the Springbok performance against Scotland. And also, like you just said, most of the Scotland team will be Glasgow Warriors. He's players. I want to ask him about that. Obviously, he's not going to give away any secrets, but I'd love to hear what he said.

Maybe if he thinks they'll move too far away from the Glasgow game plan, because I didn't see the Scotland-Argentina game, so I don't know what type of game plan they played but it would be interesting if you think the Scotland, because there's only two franchises in Scotland, so it's a bit like Italy, you know, all the players know they all play together either for one of the two franchises and when they get together they sort of play the same game plan, so maybe that's something to touch on with Franco I'm looking forward to it, thanks Jan, I appreciate it, we'll do it again next week always, always, thank you very much Thank you.

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