Scarlets

When you had the pro teams beforehand, everything I've known is regions.

So you've had the Dragons, Scarlets, Ospreys, Cardiff Blues.

Knowing and seeing in the news that the Scarlets and the Ospreys, one of them, obviously, back and forth, who's actually going to go, I honestly think you are... getting rid of some of the biggest history in, in Welsh rugby by getting rid of one of the clubs.

Um, not only are you shrinking the pool of players, um, going through the Welsh system because you're, you're missing a pro team.

You basically cut, you are cutting a whole squad.

The Ulster players speak, uh, very fondly, uh, of him.

I think he did a decent enough job when he was there with the Scarlets.

But the reality is he, from my understanding is, he was Munster's third choice on their preferred list of, uh, attack coaches to come in and work with Mossie Lawler.

Roger Randall was the second choice, and Jason Holland was Munster's first choice.

I, I guess it depends how fit he is having missed a, a bit of, a fair bit of preseason and stuff as well, but, um, I mean, no, probably.

I don't, I don't think he'd be quite comfortable [laughs] going in against Scarlets and being fine.

Um-

Was it his elbow? He broke his elbow, right?

Yeah, I agree about the, with Fraser about the 13.

I'd like to see Milan in there and then, you know, Thomas or Manuel at 12.

Um, I'd like to see quite a similar team or certain combinations that would be, that will play against the Scarlets, just so players have had game time before they go into kind of the URC.

It's kind of like they do in football, don't they? The last football preseason match tends to be, like, you know, pretty much the same team that will play the first game.

Hang

on, a Scarlets player getting picked up by Munster and then ending up in Ireland.

That never

happens.

And then it feels like that the first team's preseason is usually the first few rounds of the URC.

Now he's actually put in the actual players who I knew the names of this time.

Does this mean that you might actually hit the ground running this year? Just asking for the team that's playing you first, because we'd really appreciate if the normal Scarlets who don't know how to play for the first few rounds would be there.

Well, we are missing and going to be missing a couple of players at the beginning of the season.

And then they end

up at the Scarlets, yeah.

So we'll probably do some regional stuff in following pods, unless we find some time on this, because Zach needs to get off to... play water polo which i think is really cool to make horses go in swimming pools but that's a story for another time so main reason we've come come back this week is wales women have at least their final squad for wxv series because it's not the wxv tournaments um basically we're formalizing planes and friendlies similar to the autumn nation there to the nation's championship i can't even remember what that bloody thing's called never mind anyway so hattie highlights lowlights

I mean, do you want me to go through highlights, lowlights of the squad or highlights, lowlights of WXV organisation? I can give you both.

Yeah, and these have interesting implications for the head coaching search as well that we can get into.

But Steph Hughes has gone back to the Scarlets, where he played quite a lot as the interim defense coach.

I don't think there's any official word on how long he's going to be there, but my assumption is that he's probably not coming back.

He seems like a guy who's going places.

And I think wherever he ends up, whatever level of involvement he has with rugby in the future, I think it's going to be positive.

And yeah.

Yeah, we're rooting on Steph and his new role with the Scarlets, obviously cheering on Stan South and what he does next in his career and his family.

They've come on the show before.

Now, of course, if you remember, Cheltenham Tigers were the team that beat Leicester in the Champ One North final all the way back at Twickenham in 2023.

And the two teams haven't played since.

Obviously, Cheltenham have always been dominating the division below the PWR.

They've got a close linkage with Gloucester Hartbury.

And the vast majority of the rest of that Leinster team is homegrown compared to what we see in the PWR, where we see a lot of players coming in and a loss of squad churn.

And...

I'm sure that people could find plenty of examples of men's teams having big squad turnover between 10 to 15 players per season.

There are teams out there who do it.

Ospreys have recruited a Welsh rugby legend in their bid to stave off being axed by the WRU in 2028.

Welsh rugby's governing body confirmed at the end of last month that either the Swansea-based club or the Scarlets will be discontinued, with just one licence being issued for a professional side in West Wales from 2028 onwards.

But Ospreys aren't backing down.

They released a statement last week arguing that the axing of one professional side is not inevitable.

Um-

The Scarlets are the reigning champions of the Pro 12.

The Australians-

Yeah