Jacques Nienaber: A Deal with the Devil? Gráinne Seoige Explains

Consider, you know, if it was your sister or your mother or your daughter. Consider how you would feel if something like what was done to Keanu Moody and his family was done to your family. But I think Jacques Nienaubar can basically walk on water in South Africa. And why wouldn't he after all the success that he has brought to the country? And he was brought into Ireland to do a job with, let's say, mixed results.

It's going to be an incredible final and I think it's going to be test match intensity all over again for the final as well. This is really, this is not the Bulls versus Lancet. This is Ireland versus South Africa in many, many ways. But we're not getting that match this summer. We're going to have to wait till the end of the year.

So this is the nearest thing. This is the Lekker Rugby Pod. Only on Megaphone Rugby. Welcome back to the Lacquer Rugby Pod and back by popular demand at last, Gronya. Welcome back, Gronya.

Thank you so much for having me back. It's missed you guys. It's great to be back. We missed you as well. And you know so much about rugby.

That's what one of the people said to us after your reaction after that Glasgow O'Connor game. That was such a good thing. So, Harry, today I was asked by the Bulls to maybe, you know, add a bit of weight to the argument about this fake news thing about Ken and Moody's mother and all kinds of other rubbish. Talk to me about that a bit. Oh, it's a scourge of our age, of our era.

Everyone's lied about people for ages. There's always been scurrilous rumors and made-up stuff. But what's different about today's age is the ability for it to look real, to sound real. People can steal your image. And for anyone out there that's thinking it's still kind of a giggle and it's just happening to famous people, so who cares?

It's going to happen to you. It happened in your family already. happens to your daughter being broken up with and some stupid boy is going to put crazy stuff on there. Maybe in your business, it's been afflicted by a stalker or someone who's got it out for you. The ability to create misinformation, disinformation, deep fakes is unbelievable in my day life.

I do a lot of this. I handle a lot of this. I'm actually going to London soon to talk about handling scandals. And a lot of it is putting it to bed. It's difficult nowadays.

It It hangs on forever with these deep fake images and clones. I would beg everyone to take it seriously and not indulge it. Don't feed it. Don't unintentionally feed it. Sometimes we do that when we're trying to dispel it.

It's really about building your own good story and swamping the bad with good. It's all I can come up with. And I've been sent around the world with a bag to take care of these things. But in the end, it's about doing what you can to squash it, but then really working on creating good news, truth, and propagating decency because what occurs to me, Invia and Rania, is I just think, have you no decency? When someone puts on, it just happened to someone in New Zealand where they said his mom died or something.

And then it's now it's happening in South Africa. And it's just, it shouldn't, it doesn't belong in our culture. And it's up to us to make people's name and shame for the good reasons and drive it out. Rania, I know you've worked a lot on maybe getting legislators and different laws around it because it's not so, as a one human being not much you can do right i i agree it is a huge problem and i've actually had it happen to me where an image was created of me a deep fake image it was sent around on whatsapp in ireland and it caused me a lot of pain and trauma and those who love me and i couldn't get it taken down because messaging is private on whatsapp so i've been working i've just shot documentary in Ireland on this subject, on the effect on victims, on what boys in particular are hit with online at a very young age that removes their respect for women and heightens their tolerance for images that are not good. And they all think it's, a lot of them think it's a lot of fun.

And the friction now is removed because you don't have to be technologically adept to create these images anymore it's the press of a couple of buttons and it's done so that time where people might have had that cool off period where you might think better of your actions after a couple of hours or the following morning these things are created and they're out there before you've had a chance to really consider it and and then it's too late and there are real world consequences for harm that takes place online so like you harry i would ask people to consider if you you know if it was your sister or your mother or your daughter and consider how you would feel if something like what was done to kane and moody and his family was done to your family and i used to always have a philosophy never put anything on a tweet that you would not like to see on a billboard i think a lot of irish and south african people would do well to think about that at the moment because people are people are finding it very easy to be unkind to each other and rude and abusive and i think we need to check ourselves a little bit more regularly i want to say i'm going to put those two sites on here the one is called blue bull's empire the other one's called iron horse those are content farms people absolutely rubbish there's nothing nothing to it i double checked it it's not true it's simply for you to click on it and they get paid they get money from it so yeah i'm i'm i'm naming and shaming as you call it and talking about you know online behavior growing here last week i had a bit of a tongue-in-cheek dig at the jag ninawe witch hunt we called it and uh what a reaction we had so we thought we'll bring you in to play umpire maybe a little bit you know explain the differences because you've got a a foot in both countries, I suppose. And I think a lot of it can be, you know, put down to cultural differences. Little things like don't call somebody that in South Africa. An island is completely normal. Or the other way around.

Talk to us about that reaction. What happened there? I think there's a couple of things at play. And the first one is I can talk about my mom, but you can't say anything about my mom. And I think South Africans feel that way about Jacques and Rossi, although I think Rossi is better able to take care of himself and he's often on the offensive anyway.

But I think Jacques Nienaber can basically walk on water in South Africa. And why wouldn't he after all the success that he has brought to the country? And he was brought into Ireland to do a job with, let's say, mixed results. and you know we have a robust and free press in Ireland and they are eloquent and they are not afraid to say what they think and I suppose we what we saw recently was one of these great cultural revelation where we see that we are, South Africa and Ireland are two countries divided by the same language, or one of several languages, where Rory O'Connor writes an article where he talks about the fact that Leinster have done a deal with the devil, which is a lovely journalistic narrative kind of hook to hang a story on where the deal is that you compromise something important for a short-term gain and it goes back to Renaissance times this story and he used it to show how Leinster have compromised maybe their more beautiful style of play the Leinstertainment style of play that people in Ireland would have been very very proud of to bring in a more pragmatic, a more dour, maybe defensive way of looking at rugby to get, you know, to get wins, ugly wins, we'll say. And that they have now fallen in between both styles and not really winning.

And people are annoyed and don't like our Leinster play anymore. And have they actually gained? So that's Rory O'Connor's idea. But I think Jacques took it in a very Afrikaans, very you know i suppose religious from a religious point of view where you know in ireland if we call it a cheeky young guy who's charming but you know he's hey fuck can't say you call him a devil a rogue or a devil or you know you might say you're an awful devil okay you can buy me another drink we we use the word devil all the time in ireland and it's actually affectionate and humorous it means somebody's you know it's a bit like you know when your dog jumps up on the sofa beside you and they have been asked up on the sofa and you look at them and then they look at you and they come home and they kiss you on the ear and they get around you that way we call that your little devil as well you've got cancer that's what we mean in ireland when we call somebody that oh he's he's got a lot of devilment it means twinkle in the eye it means a little bit of a troublemaker a little bit of a cock mucker but no harm no harm in it and so when we use that word it's not taken in a serious way like it is in south africa particularly maybe in afrikaans culture where the devil is a very real concept very live concept the spiritual battle that is going on every day is very real to people in south africa and it doesn't exist that way for irish people so when Jacques said you call me the devil I could see straight away that he was really personally offended by it and Rory O'Connor was trying to say I didn't call you the devil I said it was a deal with the devil and it was a way of me you know it was Rory's ego I suppose writing that story but Jacques took it personally and he obviously sat on it for some time and it It came out in this press conference. And as somebody who has lived in both places, I could see the tension there and I could see the misunderstanding.

And of course, then people planted flags on the ground and got very, very exercised. And I could see it from both sides. I could see also Jacques's first language is clearly not English. He speaks English very deliciously. But I think he's like a lot of my friends over here.

When I meet them, they go, apologies if I run out of English in about an hour's time. You know, they have a finite amount of English words in a day or they joke that they do. And when they get excited or exercised, they want to go back to their mother tongue. They want to go back to what they speak comfortably, like we all do. My son used to always say he knew when I was cross because I would cross back into Irish.

When he had really gotten into trouble, the Gaeilge came out. And my mother is the same. So I understood it on a really human level. I understood it. But at the same time, I think we got to see how passionate the man is.

We got to see how much he cares because I've been used to seeing half of his baseball cap for months. You barely see him in a box with Leo Cullen. He's as far away from Leo as he can possibly be and still be in the coaching box. So for once, we got to hear out of his mouth that he cares. and that was the main thing I took from it.

The man really cares. He loves his job. I genuinely believe that he loved coming to Ireland and he's upset that things had not gone as well as he would have hoped. It's such an interesting relationship. I looked at some old historical documents and I found that Ireland and South Africa were both viewed by the British Commonwealth as the two most restless dominions.

And it was just sort of this brothers in peskiness, you know, could not be properly domesticated. And so when you rub up against each other, though, it's friction versus friction. It's, you know, porcupines and hedgehogs. And it seems like it's a growing rivalry and a tasty one, which is the bedrock of all sports. And it's what makes it all go around.

If it can stay in, like, in sort of in the sanity region and not in the insane region, I guess it's going to be great. But both cultures, and we say this about South Africa, when you say culture, like which culture? So you're going to have to dive down deeper. And there's a little bit, maybe a little bit more homogeneity in Ireland, a smaller place with a more common root. But you can tromp on so many toes when you start tromping between these two, couldn't you?

for sure and i'm just lucky that i have lived in both places long enough and spent time around both cultures enough and i'm not saying i get it right all the time but i i have a in our word for love and respect is grow i have a grow for both cultures i have a love for both world views and I have I suppose an understanding of them now that gives me a lot of compassion for both sides And I think pride and love is behind everything And like I said said at the start I think you know we we very proud of the fact that you got Felix and and Jerry now you know and you're proud maybe that Jacques is in Ireland imparting his wisdom I just think we need to just be more respectful all around everybody's just trying to make a buck everybody's trying to make a living maybe enjoy themselves have a have a couple of pints after the match and everybody goes home with 10 fingers and 10 toes and a nose that's you know still straight on your face I think if we didn't have this great rivalry now we wouldn't be talking here we wouldn't be having a conversation today so that's that's interesting and that's good it's where it spills over like what we were talking about at the top of this conversation there's there's there are levels aren't there there's there's interesting debate there's slagging there's fun there's humor there's you know buying each other a round of pints and you know having a braai and you know here's some of my whiskey from my little silver flask at the match and then there's the other side of it where it becomes nasty um and it's a shame when it goes there there's no there's no need there's no need my reflection is that i've never seen anything wrong happen between 10 paces and in uh arm to arm same tables at a bar we've always been great irish and african fans even sitting next to each other watching a cruel loss or win it's always been with the remove of social media or you know a press conference also has that sort of you know the pews of the church and the the duemani up front or vice versa and people can take things an affront um irish people in my experience a bit more loose with the talk a little a little more tolerant of the profanity probably some things that could be considered blasphemy by some cultures a little bit ironic about it, not so serious about it. I remember my son and I in Galway, early morning in a pub because we were eating every meal in a pub and a guy staggers in and it's 7.30 in the morning and he comes in and just addresses the whole assemblage at large and just goes, anybody got a f***ing light? And I just thought, why would you use that? I'm just eating my eggs right now like dial it back man you know this is a 10 year old next to me um and and we just realized that everyone was doing that so part of that is you know when you're talking about the devil or you're trying to put a flourish in there i think that's a pretty big divide now i i agree that that is a bit that's a that's a doozy it is it's one of the the places where we are different where religion and talking about religion sits in everyday life ireland has gone from being an incredibly religious country where 95 i think percent of the country you know the republic of ireland predicted was catholic and they went to mass um very very observant very very pious and now in the last 50 years in you know we have become incredibly secular there's been a real reaction to church scandals and abuse and people have sort of moved away into more personal spirituality a lot of them and then now there's sort of a return back for some people but personal spirituality is more the order of the day now um being liberal non-judgmental that's what you believe i believe different i'm not going to shove my belief down your throat we're a lot more live and let live but yeah i think our language would probably be more salty salty and and and the addition of a couple of drinks won't won't won't i suppose won't uh dilute that it'll it'll add to it but you know we're good at telling a story as well we don't have to rely on that um we're good at telling a story we laugh at ourselves a lot we take the piss out of ourselves we and we slag other people too and we expect people to be able to take a joke like we do and i think sometimes that's where it gets a little lost in translation i think sometimes well we we're apparently a little dim with it so maybe the jokes went over our head we've been told we we had a grania we had people from donny brook they almost all had donny brook in their um handles and um and they took a moment they stopped driving their maseratis that the dad gave them for a second to um gather around and tell us that we were dim-witted low information and um and and always would be it was even like a prognostication forever like we're never gonna be even medium information it's like i know you're talking to us about either right now but we're not even hearing you gron yeah it doesn't even go into our thick skulls and so we engaged with it to be funny um and it turned out that they were like we thought a little bit parochial and inside ireland talk to us a little bit about that there's a there's a part of ireland that even the other irish are kind of looking at right now sort of south dublin what is that you know like what's the equivalent in south africa oh okay so so there there are there's a there's a funny comedian at the moment called Rory O'Hanlon who's blowing up on Instagram in Ireland doing this South County Dublin accent, a guy who only wears designer loafers, chinos.

He's so funny, he's hilarious. Yes, so you know who I'm talking about and his whole world is around what school you went to. There's the big five schools in South County Dublin which do produce a huge amount of our Irish rugby players and they are Mary's, Michael's, Terenure, Blackrock and Klangos. I got it right and I suppose the the equivalent would be office and you know like there's a joke oh yeah yeah I'm not an office guy I'm sorry I'm gonna get crucified now. You know what I'm saying there's a joke here in Pretoria how do you know a guy went to office because he'll tell you yeah sooner rather than later that's also a great college but yeah so there is that there is it's a there it's their private schools you have to pay to go there there's an accent that goes with this there's an upbringing that goes with this there's a lifestyle that goes with it they are amongst the most privileged um people living in the country they all live in a very small area around dublin the cost of living crisis won't bother them I'll put it that way and you know they would look at people from the countryside as sort of like country bumpkins and you know GAA like the Argaelic games and that are sort of foreign very foreign to them and you know the good thing is they can laugh themselves because I know these sketches are popular with them also but I'm not sure if they realise that people are laughing at them and not with them so you know so you have it everywhere it's just that you know then that's the accent you hear people like Cailin Doris who was actually born in the west but went to Black Rock College that's the accent you hear Hugo Keenan speak with that's the accent you hear jack conan speak with and there's a lot of cultural capital that comes with that and they are a tiny portion of our population but they they have a big presence when it comes to rugby so it's a bit like you know the guy who's the son of a fellow who owns three wine farms and he's choppered into games and the you know the the the the busian who is from uh the free state who you know wears two pairs of shorts when he's cold in the winter and and and he's you know he's getting a lift on the back of a bucky to a match they they both end up playing the same sport but they are both coming at it from you know different upbringing and we have a lot of that in ireland also it's like a derby ronda bosch bishops and you know what the people in the stands what they're talking about their vacation holidays coming up where they're talking about you know it's it's pretty preposterous i put up a video that i made in nantes with five or six irish guys southern south dublin guys and uh one guy was comparing the different parts of irish rugby to like a giraffe an elephant and and it was so self-parody they didn't even get it that it immediately went viral in ireland and i realized that the level of the vision is pretty stark so we kind of view it as being one like oh they're all against nina but but they're all they're all playing out their hand you know the munsterman the ulsterman they all have their own bandetta against leinster some of them are kind of going haha look at that that's funny you lost to bordeaux a lot of people are saying ha ha ha it's funny you lost to bordeaux like a lot it would surprise people in south africa just how many people outside of leinster are tickled by leinster not getting that fifth star at the same time i take it because maybe because i'm out of the country a favorite as well and because a lot of those same guys haul off their blue mp and they track on a green one and we are cheering for them in a month's time i you know and winning is a habit and i see a lot of the problems that leinster have end up trickling forward into how ireland are performing that i sort of i'm ambivalent with leinster for that reason you know i want them to win and i don't because that's like me in the stormers i know exactly what you mean i know exactly what you mean is that why you is that why your eyes are watering in via because of this thing on my chest this insane i was leaving that for last because i mean it's just disgraceful i mean it's not side by side coach and player it's a bloody shirt man come on so on on the deal on the deal with the devil and you know and there's an old story about why the tablecloth on top of table mountain fun hunks and the devil we're having a smoking contest but on this on this rory thing about the devil i think what he was meaning was the mephistophelian bargain like the blues singer that cannot play the guitar but then he makes deal with the devil and for 10 years he's on top of the charts but then he'll come to a tragic end and all that stuff um so he was referring to i think leinster's inability in the biggest matches specifically against french teams but also in the the new irk to close the deal and they've and they thought that it was all pretty the bicycle had nice spokes it was running really nicely uh but then someone just put a stick in the spokes and they came off and they would lose to physical teams the bulls in that semi-final um they would just lose two big strong teams la rochelle um and so they bring in the the coach that's been the best at stopping teams negating teams and they do get a trophy but it's the wrong one it's the irk not the european with the fifth star and ninaber was engaging with o'connor and he was telling him but um you're looking at the wrong part of the bicycle you know it's the attack that sputtering and it's not true that my defense makes the attack sputter i don't tell them how to attack um all i'm supposed to do is keep teams under their average which he did bordeaux scored a try of pinot's knee in an intercept uh but three tries given to bordeaux's nothing that's not shabby and so he was trying to engage with o'connor and o'connor felt like to us that he was doing more poetic uh poetic uh debate and and ninabra was saying no let's get back to actually what i do and what i don't do this is what i do this is what i don't do and it was to me it was fascinating it wasn't bad to watch but also i just i was like let's go outside and have a fight now because i want to fight somebody but but internally i could get it like oh yeah this is a good debate it was a great debate and again because we've all been wondering in ireland who who does what who's head coach who's director of rugby who is running the show i mean we have all of these amazing and iconic video pieces of jacques and rossi with their heads their foreheads stuck together in the box gesticulating madly and and you know covering their hands as they send radio messages down to the line you know during chasing the sun one and two and then like i said the man is it's like he's i don't know it's like he's barely in the box and so people look at that and they and they they look at how he is in south africa where he's animated and he's looking at the soul of teams and you know everything is in the round it so holistic his approach um you know he wants to get into the heart of what makes um Ireland tick or Scotland tick or some more tick and then he like no that not my job and I don do this and that makes me very sad because that makes me think we're not getting the best of Jacques Nienabr and I am going to name drop now because I've been lucky enough to meet him and care with him a little bit my husband has um a business in ireland called firebox and they sell rata after south african brys in ireland and in the uk and we delivered one to jock meen albert's house after he moved back to dublin and we ended up getting on well and then we went for a few drinks and I could see how excited he was to be working with these lads and something has obviously not quite clicked and I don't think it's Jacques and I don't think it's the players I think it's happening somewhere else at the executive level where a lot of people would feel that he hasn't been allowed to take over completely and do everything that he wants to do and that's why people think there's this sort of conflict between the attack style and the and the defense style and they're all high energy and everybody has a finite amount of energy and and that's why it's not clicking that's my theory it's so strange to me though ronnie i don't so it's almost like the leinster support base is acting like they were winning before jacques came and now it's not working the only cup since 2018 uh in european is nowhere it's still trying to be found uh and in and in the urc which grew out of the you know the celtic leagues it's you know that win um against the bulls was a masterpiece in stopping a team they just stopped the stormers hold them to 11 points um so to me it's it doesn't make sense it's like um lancer is pretending that since 2018 they've been sweeping the table but they haven't and it's it's very strange because i think jacques was trying to make that point but the eyes still hadn't opened reminds me so much of when i'm helping clients and they're in a pickle a really bad situation and they start arguing with me and i'm like but you know you didn't you were nowhere i'm here to save you listen to me it took three years for nina arber's system to really bet in at the box i mean literally the first season was kind of scary england was scoring 40 points it took a while to do that ring rose and james all that again because i think sometimes people forget that yeah so the first season in nina was it was playing this edge umbrella an upside an umbrella shuts on you and blitzes in and 13 or 14 were coming in like incredibly high but also tight giving england an edge and england took the edge and they just kept scoring and it was a absolute catastrophe uh everyone said nina but it's not working what is he he's just a physio he's never even played the game at the high level what does he know and russi's took with his man stood by his man and it came around and three seasons in but not two but three you know about system was shutting people down and making everyone have they would only score two tries or less against the box always i went back and looked at it and it was like only two or three games the the All Blacks and maybe Australia could get to three tries.

Everyone else was shut down, which puts so much pressure on it. And it gives you so much luxury, Nina Arbett's system, to be able to have an off day and still win. You don't have to have everything, the miracle ball doesn't stick. So that's literally what the Leinster brass, the boardroom thought that Leinster needed was, we were too reliant on perfect, beautiful, pretty rugby, which always fails in a big knockout. We need to win like 13-8 in the pool game in the World Cup.

More of that. So they bring Nina Arbery in, who could hold Ireland to 13. And it just takes a while to be able to know when to blitz. Rico Ioanni didn't have the brief. It takes a lot of reps and pictures to remember it.

I would submit that if he wins this one again, the IRC, that's two in a row. And then the next season would be the best time to judge whether that system's betted in on the defense side. and he's working with turmoil on the attack side and a spectacularly uninspiring head coach in Leo. So all of it to me is incoherent. Birch Jackman, you know, both of us are, we're friends of his, he calls it just no alignment.

Like it's not clear to people what they're doing. So we just find it weird that Nina Aber is the number one search term instead of Thayer Blandal on why it didn't work. Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing. We're just saying it using slightly different words. I think there's two points I would make.

I'm going to make the second one first. Everybody's constantly analysing each other. how are we going to get around this attack how are we going to and i think every style has its day and i think possibly ireland the way they were in 23 was at its heyday then but that's the form that leinster fans love that leinstertainment the style the actual style yeah even for me looking back it would say ireland ireland france in dublin in 2023 in the six nations that first half of rugby is one of the most beautiful things that you can see on a pitch. Moi, moi, moi. And people still think you could be, maybe are able to win that way.

And I think it's becoming increasingly obvious that you can't. So if you want to win, you're going to have to move away from that. I think sometimes a lot of Leinster people behave a bit like French people. And I'm sure you're aware of French people would rather lose by while, you know, or up until recent times would rather jouet and lose rather than play ugly rugby that they don't like and win. But we've all learned from South Africans that winning ugly is still winning.

And it doesn't matter whether you, you know, you painted a masterpiece on the pitch or whether it was a blood and guts up the jumper and you got there. If you've got your two hands on the cup, you have the bragging rights. and you know that's where I think Ireland is caught a little bit there but I think the right thing to do is to give Jacques the keys the kingdom properly for next year I just don't know if that's going to happen I want to say this you Griffel and I spoke about it last week and we looked on their website and at Lens' website it says Leo Cullen head coach the attack assistant coach attack assistant coach this but Jacques Lina was called the senior coach not attack coach or defense coach I mean so what I'm saying is who's actually what who's actually supposed to be in charge there is Leo supposed to be more of a director of rugby and Jack's head coach but he's not being allowed to that's what I'm getting at you you just talked about it as well Harry who's now actually in charge of what and should he just be given the keys to the kingdom and say let's just go with it this is actually a real title nobody's going to interfere with you anymore let's see how it works out going forward I think the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result and I think Leinster have done that now for a couple of years I think the time, if they're not going to change personnel, at least change the responsibilities of those personnel and I think Leo does need to take his hands off and Jacques needs to go more hands on, I think the players seem to like him, I think that they'd have a lot of respect for what he brings to the table, obviously Leo is a legend in his own right in Leinster but you know, as Harry said, possibly not the most inspiring speaker i love it when you're trying to be diplomatic doing well there listen i want to talk to you about tony brown because you know last night or saturday night when i heard the news i thought i felt a little betrayed almost i know it was i knew it was coming and everybody knows it was coming but the way it played out you know new zealand officially announcing it in south africa wishing him best and everything else i don't know it just didn't sit right with me and then i started thinking about you know two other international coaches like jockey nob and our being in ireland and everything else why do we sort of adopt them and you know arie why did why do i feel this way why do i feel that maybe tony brown should take a sabbatical and go and leave or something because he's going to take too much ip with him and it just doesn't sit right with me i don't know about you it's an extraordinary situation but also it taps into this african conspiracy brain so we're already reading five different interpretations into this right that maybe behind the scenes there was some squabble and then uh maybe you know maybe new zealand went first and now we're just covering our tracks and acting like it's best wishes and how could a guy have two parts of his brain why wouldn't he always have to serve one master not two and we go we go down this track from all i've heard tony brown is the consummate professional that they're chuffed that they have him that he he unlocks things in in people like sasha or damian or um ethan hooker that you know others haven't so far real footballing urges canaan moody look like look how he's come along with with that influence the nines i think the buck nines is a is a incredible uh exposition of tony brownism so i think they're fine also he's kind of an odd guy i mean he's a bit like i don't know he's on the rugby spectrum a little bit you know he just kind of looks at daisies in the sky and then he he takes drop goals and tries to hit the poles himself he can keep the ball up you know like a soccer guy for about 50 times you know he's just kind of in his own world so i don't think anyone thinks of him as machiavellian or that he's got some big plot here i think he's just a true rugby man who's been around the world japan new zealand south africa and he and he's just in love with the game and i think i think if if rossi who is really good at smelling out any betrayal had any inkling that there was divided loyalties he would kick him to the curb right now um one time there would be no no grace so i i'm taking it as being one of those few outcomes razor things where it is exactly what it is it looks exactly how it looks tony was always wanting to be all black coach to be the all black coach you've got to be in new zealand and you've got to be an understudy before you become the head you got to pay your dues it doesn't work if you do the razor approach the only time it didn't work it always is more like you're the assistant before you're the top guy you're the vice before you're the president that's what it's got to be i think it's just the way it is and uh that they're happy and everyone's happy and they want to see what what and tony wants to win uh with this team look at look at the box uh in wellington go back and look at that footage where jerry flannery is punching the air and felix is head-butting people and tony brown is right there in the middle just giving Rossi punches in the stomach. They're just having so much. It's just an actual Joel.

And there is fire in there. I don't think, I think Tony wants to beat the All Blacks and then he wants to go into the All Blacks and become the All Blacks coach. But first he wants to beat them. That's my reading. I might be wrong.

No, I agree with your reading. And I think, you know, when we end up, you know, playing you again, Gerry and Felix will feel the same about Ireland. And we'll watch those, you know, if it goes your way on the day, we'll be watching those pictures in the box going as an Irish person looking at Gerry Flannery who used to cry like a baby when the when the anthems were played in Dublin and you know and Felix but hopefully we'll get them back and that's the thing you've got to let people fly do their thing learn their life lessons and hopefully hopefully they come back and you get the benefit of that we've had something I suppose this week as well with Andy Farrell signing on for another block and England, English people are really crestfallen that he hasn't gone home. I was watching Tim Cocker talk about it on Egg Chasers the other day and he was, you could see the man was genuinely disappointed because there's so much respect for him as a coach, hoping they'd get him back. but we're really happy that we've held on to him because he fits well in Ireland he's really well liked and these same Leinster players who are underperforming and who are not working to their potential when they wear the blue jersey and he gets them for a few weeks and he gets a tune out of them again they go to a different level with him so he's one of those guys in world rugby who, like Rossi, like Jacques, like Tony Brown, I suppose, you know, coming in the future, are really worth their weight in gold and worth locking down.

And we're happy in Ireland that he made the decision that he did. He said he loves it there. His son is in school in Blackrock College and one of the big five schools Possibly will play for Ireland in the future who knows and he definitely have that accent and so yeah I glad business is locking down and I glad it been handled in such a classy way in South Africa regarding Tony Brown we need to talk about the the final upcoming I mean that match on Saturday Stormers versus Lensdale, Lensdale versus Stormers, Groneau you know you're in South Africa and but it's not the Bulls I understand you would maybe not have supported them as much who did you support there you know who who you know i always know who i'm supporting once the game has started i can't say before and except for the bulls obviously how do you feel i i was supporting leinster i'm gonna be honest i was so easy for you to say i mean that's shocking yeah well again it's it's it's a thing that they you know many of these lads will be wearing green next month and it's you know i think you go through this thing like Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh people go through when the Lions come about. And it's these men that you hate to see doing well. All of a sudden, they pull on this red jersey and, you know, we're all in it together.

We're all roaring for Owen Farrell or we're all, you know, roaring for Ellis Genge. And so I am a little bit like that with Leinster sometimes. So, but I admired the Stormers. I admired what they brought to the table. I admired the game plan.

they were without their 9 and 10 first choice so that was a massive blow Ireland were up without players too but I think that's fine those decision makers to be without them was massive loss I think they went at it in exactly the way that they could I also thought John Dobson spoke so well after the match and again what a classy representation of South African rugby what intelligence what humility what sportsmanship and I thoroughly enjoyed the game and even you know the little tete-a-tete at half time in the tunnel loved it Joes said that people cared, there was no harm nobody got hurt but it just shows that these matches matter and I think the URC has really benefited from South African teams being in it It has brought it to a whole new level. And I'm really sorry that I'm not going to be at the final. I thought Stormers did really, really well. They made things really uncomfortable for Leinster. A couple of brain farts, a couple of cards.

You know, it could have been very, very different. How are you going to be at the final? We're just organising some nice Axis stuff for us. Talk to us about that. Yeah, I'm going to wear my Stormers jersey.

No, you're not. No, you're not. I'm phoning Edgar right now. It's a team approach. we softened up the Donnybrook boys.

We gave Caitlin Doris a bit rough treatment in the tunnel. Yeah, just a bit of... We sent our bishops boy, Connor Evans, to shake him up a little bit. I thought it was devastating. There's been few, on a provincial level, there's been few defeats that have made me sadder because I had invented the story in my head.

I'd gotten caught up in some kind of mythology. It was good versus evil it was like david versus goliath 900 caps all we have is 90 off of them for damien williams sir we've been talking we've been talking to inga croix that dabo on with that rito on we've had norman on we could see them hear them feel them it was like the the pain was much more probable because then we're talking you know post-match with these people and they're telling me and sending me audios about how painful it is and it all comes down to this and drawn is exactly right the game plan was spot on it was take them to the gutter bring them down to the docks um we're not going to be in ivory you know towers we're not going to be in um you know grass covered walls in some beautiful school we're going to be here on the docks where we know how to play we know that you're a more skillful test international laden team we know that if we all just play pretty rugby you're gonna win so what could we do to make you have to play down here with us in the trenches and it and and for it to work as daba said we had to all be on the field so that was you know problem one number two and lindsay had been the more carded team so it was an interesting approach number two was we had to get to a certain point in the game which was 68 minutes 11 13. job done but then everything had to go right from that point on it had to be scrum penalties easy exit and easy access and then punch it through and as it turned down as it turned out little tiny moments always matter in knockouts and the lenserman showed their comfort with being in those massive moments and just buckling down being more precise and and making it happen but i couldn't have been more proud i don't know if there's ever uh been a game by the stormers that have been more proud of in the loss than that because you know 24 tackles evan rus uh ben jason dixon almost making that tackle enrico and coming from really far away uh imi khan you know battling with jameson gibson park you know one of the best class in the world and not not looking like he was incredibly outclass you know just hanging in there hanging in there trying their best and then um at the end And, you know, all power to Leinster. And, you know, what a team. So now looking forward to the Bulls, I'm going, what do they do?

And I just think the Bulls can do exactly what the Stormers did. But they can do it a little bit better because they have two packs. And they have Andre Pollard, who's not going to miss that many kicks again ever in his life. So I don't know about you, Gronje, but I feel like it's going to be a proper final. Not like a year ago.

Not like a year ago. I feel like this is going to be a hotly contested, down-to-the-wire match. I agree. I think the Bulls have the blueprint now. Do what Stormers did, do it better.

I think the difference as well is that last year, everybody was so over the Jake White era. There was clearly so much unhappiness there. That really fed into the result, I think. And the Bulls are so proud. They will never allow that to happen again.

And this year, the trajectory is, you know, it's obviously going the right way. And even the way they grew into the match against Glasgow the other day, you know, Glasgow definitely had the better of the opening exchanges. But by halftime, Honecombe was motoring. You know, the centres were, they just grew into the game. And watching it, you know, and I was out watching it with a lot of goal supporters, it just felt like and i said it in the whatsapp group a really old-fashioned south african win it reminded me of you know watching springbok teams of you know a few years ago and fair play to them fair place them because glasgow have you know they have a very attractive style of rugby they were able to play it for a while and then you figured it out and then the squeeze came the squeeze came the squeeze came the slow poison came and all of a sudden they were out of gas and franco smith and um nisel carolin's faces at the end they were they were devastated because they should have run away with it they should have harry how much do you think the fact that they played on grass affected glasgow because we figured it out i mean if you play 18 games a season you play nine of them at home that's nine of them on your own ford pitch and maybe against ulster in Cardiff as well away maybe it's more than half your games played on plastic call it that how much do you think that game was actually built around playing on 4g and then the grass caught them out you know so one so the people talk about the effects and you know with Norman Lake around here talking about how difficult it's to stop a mall on 4g but one of the things is if you're if you're quick you like quick so if you have an advantage on speed which Glasgow actually did against the team that the Bulls named with Stradivarius, the big piano on wing, the big giant midfield, Andre not a sprinter nowadays, and Vili lost a few steps.

It wasn't... I mean, I think that was a disadvantage to Glasgow not to be on a quick, quick surface. I know Hans came on and injected some pace and Papier is as quick as anybody in the world game, but I do think that did help the Bulls in that it clogged up the midfield 60 minutes in, 55 minutes in, everyone was the same speed. There was no running away from anybody. So it kept them close.

They couldn't finish the deal. And I think also any disruption or change, teams are very superstitious and very routine-led, and they love their structures. And so anytime you're having to, oh, now we're going to host the game at Murray Field, it might have just felt a little bit off. And it's just little routines that you do before you go into the locker room and how you come out and what you do there and this and that i think you know you're sacrificing your home edge a bit it was still a home edge but maybe that the edge was slighter um you know and i think but i think it did come down to poison uh the slow poison that um the box have always had in their locker and i think the teams uh our teams can always go back to that you know in the slideshow that the storm was developed which i was privileged to be able to look at and contribute to. Some of my stuff got in there, so it was really funny to watch.

But one of them was called Poisonville, and it's a big slide of Poisonville. We wanted to drag Leinster into this proverbial, mythical place where everything is miserable and, sorry, I'm not talking about the devil here, but hellish. You know, 80 minutes of hell. And I think the Bulls did it. I think the Bulls took Glasgow into places that were not, they were joyless there was no mercy there it was um it was really rugged there was an incredible physical i think ackerman said that there was like test match intensity i i i agree with that i think both of those semi-finals showed the neutral or anyone what you know super rugby fans just watch that and go that's pretty close to test rugby and so the bulls could put that blow torch on and Glasgow couldn't live with them when they went into the inferno, into down low in the gold mine, you know, where it's really, really dark and really scary and everything could collapse on you.

And it felt like when I looked at the guys celebrating on the sidelines, that was jubilation. You know, I haven't seen some of your Bulls, you know, with that much grinning going on. That is scary for Leinster. I'm thinking that the Bulls are in a very, very good place right now. I agree.

I think it's going to be an incredible final. and I think it's going to be test match intensity all over again for the final as well. This is really, this is not the Bulls versus Leinster. This is Ireland versus South Africa in many, many ways. Because we're not getting that match this summer, we're going to have to wait till the end of the year.

So this is the nearest thing. And I think a lot of people will attach those values to it, including the teams themselves. And while I suppose for Leinster, the URC is not the prize that they really wanted this year, I think beating the Bulls would be an incredible prize for Leinster this year, it really would You mentioned about John Dobson being so eloquent afterwards you should see Jan Ockermann and I'm not wearing my blue Bulls shirt yet just one of the nicest men I've ever met honestly, a nice guy through and through and a genuine guy I had a meeting with a Bulls player today and he said The one thing, the culture of the Bulls at the moment, it's unbelievable, and it's all down to Jan Akraman. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to that one. But we have to wrap this up.

Thank you very much. Harry, I don't know what else you have to say, but I think take it away. Oh, well, I'm really happy that I'm going to get to go to this match. Thanks to Edgar and the guys. And you're right, Jan's a really nice man.

Adobo's, like, you know, 2% nicer. I'll just throw that in there. Of course he is. Yeah, sure, Harry. yes you just have to you know i'm telling you right now i'm gonna get a one of the new blue blue jerseys i'm gonna organize that i'm gonna sit here proudly and no one else will have one of those okay that's a hint it's so sad envy and i are like kids trying to impress the parents you know it's like mommy loves me more yeah yeah it's ridiculous yeah well i'm a clear winner it's an amazing insight and insight that you have on this podcast into those two amazing clubs and long may continue.

It's great for all of us to be the beneficials of that. Don't stay away so long next time, Gráinne. We couldn't handle it anymore. I was crying. We were waiting for Tani Gráinne to set us straight, but it went better this time.

She's never going to be a Tani. Never. Never, ever, ever. This is the Lekker Rugby Pod. Only on Megaphone Rugby.

Thank you.

Transcript generated automatically — may contain errors.