PWR Cup

I believe North Bristol had some stuff as well.

And it seems that where those pre-season games occurred... meant whether you could have a full game or not if that doesn't make sense I'll elaborate a bit more so Richmond played Ealing Trailfinders at Ealing Trailfinders and as I understand they played pretty much like a full 80 full contact because it was hosted at the PWR facility you think fantastic that's a really exciting pre-season fixture that's a fantastic opportunity for Richmond players to like test themselves And it's a fantastic opportunity for Eden Trailfinders to get some contact prep in before the Jayco PWR Cup in September.

So you think, wow, that's really cool.

What an exciting event.

I believe they are led by ex-Saracens Georgie Gulliver.

So very, very exciting to see that team come up.

And a semi-local derby with North Bristol, a team who have... been ingratiated essentially into the Bristol Bears pathway and lots of players have been playing Jayco PWR Cup.

So it'll be really cool to see those teams go up against each other.

Welcome back, everyone.

And we'll move on now to the first appearance of the season by Saracens women, who opened their defense of the PWR Cup at Leicester.

And once again, I'm flying blind here with no footage at all so far on social media.

But David, looking at the team sheets, a mixture of familiar names in the starting lineup and, at least to me, near unknowns on the bench.

Her knowledge of the game is growing.

I mean, she was another one who was learning as she went.

She was integral to the PWR Cup win last year, the retention of the trophy, and she's a very, very good lineout operator.

And who knows? I mean, opportunity may knock for a little bit more this year.

On the other side of that match, fullback Tess Feury started for the Leicester Tigers, working hard through 67 minutes of play in this opening round clash.

Rounding out Saturday's PWR Next Gen Cup action, tighthead prop Nick James earned the start for Sale Sharks against Loughborough Lightning.

James packed down for 57 straight minutes to anchor Sale in a competitive 34 to 26 victory.

We spoke with USA women's head coach Jack Hanratty about players like Tess and Lottie last week.

Because we will be joined by our... resident bloster fan in america bill um so he will be joining us in a few weeks time to talk through that he'll also be giving his view from the uh other side of the pond um on the uh on the quins game as well so that'd be good to get his viewpoint um

but one other thing before we disappear um i mentioned earlier just um george brock being named captain of the next gen pwr cup Jay Koo, whatever it is.

She's got a very long name.

That's her name, yeah.

You can see that from some of the way she is in the dressing room, much like Sarah Beckett did quite a lot last year.

So hopefully that will be something that she can really relish.

And obviously we've got so many quality youngsters that Sean Jones just got called up to the Wales WXV squad so a lot of those youngsters are potentially playing their first season of PWR and having someone of her experience at the helm is great it'll be really interesting to see how the girls get on because historically we have not really performed very well in that because we have had so many internationals that are either being rested or unavailable because they are playing international rugby so it'll be quite interesting to see how the youngsters get on in that I think probably the other top teams in that PWR Cup are in a similar situation to Gloucester Hartbury in

that

the Saracens game this Saturday at Matterley Woods, Welford Road, two o'clock kickoff.

And that is the opener of the PWR Next Gen Cup, previously known as the PWR Cup, previously known as the PWR Up Series, previously known as the Alliance Cup.

So it's a competition that loves to change names.

As a reminder, you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter and Blue Sky Social, LTW Fancast, or you can send an email at ltwfancast at gmail.com. but let's get on with the rest of the show.

yeah.

Yeah, so we are sort of seeing this kind of a little bit more, and I think... you know the pwr is fantastic but when you've got the pwr and the pwr next gen cup like you're playing the same teams like four times a season um and then even more if you've got knockout games so it just needs a little bit more variety particularly when we're still only at nine teams

yeah and it's and yeah that's a really really good point like If you're a young player and you're signed into Gloucester Hartbury and you play PWR Next Gen Cup, you play, what, two months? And then maybe the playoffs...

No, it's all wrapped up before Christmas now, isn't it? It's changed format.

The Next

Yeah, very interesting.

So I think that's pretty much everything for this week's episode.

Next week, we're going to do, I'm going to be joined by another guest co-host and we're going to do a little overview of Tigers Women's Squad and sort of start previewing the opening round of the Next Gen Cup.