2023 can probably get in the bin. Okay, it wasn’t all bad. Some of us had a great trip to France and it’s great if you follow 7s rugby, but otherwise, it’s been tough. Joining Matt to have a quick review of the year and where to next for Australian rugby is Blake from the Rugby Report Card with a slice of umbrage but plenty of strong, honest views. We talk about the Eddie show, Hamish McLennan vs the Rebel Alliance but also look at the positives, our women’s 7s, the opportunities for building...

It was an interview that was months in the making. Then he was sacked but still the opportunity was there. At the time of recording in early January 2023 he was a former Wallaby coach and at the time of publishing he is now the current Wallaby coach. Eddie Jones, a man who needs no introduction to Australian rugby fans. We dig into his origins at Matraville High playing with the Ellas, his coaching journey, the rise of Japan and how he changed their mindset, the evolving professional players...

Since when do we lose to Italy? Another historical Wallaby loss surely requires a response and with a little wine in hand, Matt decides to give it a go. Not much here except a good old fashioned cathartic whine about the bleeding obvious. We dwell on the Italian game, touch on some points around the business of rugby and also raise a glass to the Black Ferns victory and why that could matter for Australian rugby. Pour yourself a strong drink and dig in!

We made the call and many of you answered! A short but sharp Q and A session with writer/director Matt Durrant and Director of Photography Majdi Slaibi on the newly released feature documentary Gold Digger: The search for Australian Rugby. Some background on how the film came together, technical aspects of making it, more anecdotes from the production and the questions from the many and many listeners out there! If you're in Australia, you can now watch the film On Demand via Fox Docos which...

Finally, the documentary we've been waiting to share with Australian audiences will get a local release this Thursday the 15th September 2022 on the day of the Bledisloe Test Match in Melbourne. The film will be screened on Fox Docos via Foxtel and Binge. Director Matt Durrant and cinematographer and co-producer Majdi Slaibi from Thiqa Media share a few stories of how the film started almost 3 years ago and the journey of getting it from concept to broadcast. A battler story of two guys with...

The Ella brothers are synonymous with Australian rugby and especially the era in which the Wallabies and the "running rugby" style took over the rugby world. Glen Ella, the twin of Mark and older brother of Gary, lived and played through it all from that Invincible Schoolboy Tour of 1977/78 to the dominant Galloping Greens of Randwick in the 80s and then the highest honour of  playing for the Wallabies with his brothers. We talk to Glen about his thoughts on the state of rugby now in...

Eddie Jones talks about it, Scott Robertson swears by it and cohesion has certainly been a frequently mentioned topic across all sports lately, but GAINLINE Analytics is a company that has devoted itself to using cohesion to search for that elusive answer of what makes teams successful. With the success of our previous episodes "The C Word", we talk to the other half of GAINLINE Analytics founding partnership, Simon Strachan. Simon is also a former Wallabies performance video analyst and...

We're back after a bit of a break to pull out our calculators and dig into the financial inner workings of the business of rugby. Following Rugby Australia's announcement of a $4.5M loss in the last financial year, the prospect looks more positive with the news that Australia will host the Rugby World Cups in 2027 and 2029, along with a lucrative British and Irish Lions tour down under in 2025. To help us make sense of it all, we speak to Dr David Bond, a qualified accountant and professor...

Not strictly an episode but an update on the latest exciting news that our documentary feature film Gold Digger: The search for Australian rugby is going to be released this coming week in South Africa on Saturday the 16th April 2022 on SABC2!  The reason for the release in South Africa and not Australia is explained by Matt and rest assured the pending release in Australia and other countries later this year will be made shortly. More podcast episodes to come so stay tuned and keep on digging!

We've talked cohesion in the past and you just can't mention the word without mentioning the most cohesive professional rugby club in the world right now, Leinster Rugby. So who better than Leinster's current senior coach and former England head coach Stuart Lancaster to come on to the pod and talk to us about the success of the Leinster system, how Ireland is benefitting right now from it, his career pathway through the English RFU coaching system, the trials and tribulations of being...

We continue to dive down the cohesion mine but instead of a historical interview, this time we get to have another candid interview with Ben Darwin as he travels through London in March 2022! Ben and Matt sit down and discuss the many questions and queries posed by the findings in Part 1 as well as respond to the explanation video that was released this week on Youtube detailing the rise and decline of Australian Rugby Union. We go through what Australian rugby needs to grapple with to...

It's a word spoken about in sporting terms by players, coaches and pundits alike but never has "cohesion" been so articulated and detailed by none other than a former Wallaby in Ben Darwin. Along with his business partner, former Wallaby video analyst Simon Strachan, they have founded an Australian business called GAINLINE Analytics that consults to both sporting teams and the commercial business sector. Focusing on cohesion analytics and developing sophisticated and data driven metrics such...

Welcome back for 2022 and we're giving a nod to the pending Six Nations series by travelling north and interviewing rugby royalty in the form of Sir Clive Woodward, the former England and British and Irish Lions player and coach...and of course that little thing that happened in Sydney back in 2003. We tackle the politics of being England head coach, the difficulties of coaching the Lions and we dive into Clive's time when he was living in Manly in the 1980s and playing for the Marlins...

One of the magical stories of the recent Wallaby Spring tour, tighthead prop Ollie Hoskins was playing Dungeons and Dragons one minute and then the next, he was being summoned to the Wallaby training camp to debut against England at Twickenham 6 days later. Matt had the opportunity and privilege to sit down with Ollie in London and chat over a coffee about his journey from junior rugby in Perth, getting his first professional opportunity with the Western Force, learning the front row craft at...

A historic new expansion that turned into one of Australian rugby’s most bitter civil wars, the Western Force is a franchise that has ridden the rollercoaster of excitement and devastation. This is an episode that looks at how the team came into existence, how Australian rugby and Super Rugby evolved over that time, the inside story of the controversial axing of the team and how the Force managed to rise again from the ashes. With first hand interviews with former ARU Board director and WA...

It's been one of those weeks, hell months, if you're a Wallaby fan. Within hours of that devastating loss in Cardiff to Wales we pour a glass of whiskey, press record and let it all out. The Welsh loss, the TMO, the Spring Tour, the Giteau Law, 2021, everything. We ask how the Wallabies have performed, where do we want to see them go from here and what questions the administration has to start answering. To help us out we talk with our very own rugby agony aunt Mitch "Rev" Evans from the...

Dividing her time between training in the Wallaroos squad, being a STAN Sports pundit, ABC Sports podcaster and public speaker, Sera Naiqama is one of the busier rugby personalities going around. She drops in for a quick chat to dissect Australian rugby as we experience that post domestic season lull before the Spring Tour/Autumn Internationals commence!  We discuss the difficulties the Wallaroos are facing having played no games in 2 years and being a year out from the World Cup in New...

The Wallabies and Springboks continue to have a decorated rivalry with the men in gold taking the latest chocolates over the reigning World Champions. But when it comes to peaks and troughs, both Australia and South Africa have many parallels in terms of controversy, challenges and dire patches in performance.  To unpack this we speak with Thala Msutu from the South African rugby website and soon-to-be podcast “Rugby Bits” and cover the recent games between the Wallabies and Boks in...

Imagine having Toutai Kefu teach you the ins and outs of back row play, or having Elton Flatley give you a personal kicking course, or perhaps a one on one exclusive from George Smith on how to jackal at a ruck? Welcome to Wallaby school and two different academies that are designed to pass knowledge from some of Australia's best and most experienced players to the emerging youth coming through. Firstly we speak with All Black legend Murray Mexted about how he set up IRANZ (International...

From rugby battlers to reigning Shute Shield Premiers, the Gordon Highlanders have a long history of achievement but a recent one of survival and reinvention. We talk to club stalwart and Gordon rugby life member Peter Sherwood about how the club went from being on the brink of insolvency and struggling for numbers to now being one of Sydney club rugbys power houses. Along the way we get a history lesson, discuss the current controversy around the SRUs plans to impose new conditions that...

The “grassroots”, the beating heart and soul of our game where rugby is often discovered, life long friendships formed and even future Wallabies are discovered. Well in Western Sydney the grassroots are being dried out and left to be paved over with countless other sports. Right in the middle of this is Penrith and the many historic clubs and rugby union diehards who are powerless to the pain impacted upon their existence due to rugby’s waning popularity in the area. We talk to Adam Fletcher,...

It’s the biggest rugby market in Australia, with the most clubs and players yet it’s currently the lowest ranked rugby franchise in Super Rugby AU. Just what has happened to the Waratahs and NSW rugby since the giddy height of that Super Rugby championship of 2014? We talk to former cop and Manly, Waratah and Wallaby die-hard Carrick Ryan about the blooding of the 2021 Waratahs, the lost identity of NSW rugby, the struggle to make the Shute Shield that next level competition and what changes...

The Brumbies and the Reds, two powerhouses of Australian rugby both historically and right now in the wake of the 2021 Super Rugby AU final. But why is that so? What made these two teams so dominant back in the 1990s and what was that correlation with the Wallaby success of the Golden Era? We speak for the first time with foundation Brumby and former Wallaby Rod Kafer about how the ACT became a hotbed for excellence that made the Brumbies instantly successful. We also hear from their first...

It’s grand final week of Super Rugby AU, and a special podcast episode sees a four way dance between Ando from Pick and Drive Rugby, Mitch from Rugby Fixation, Nelson from Draft Rugby and yours truly. An Australian rugby podcast "Royal Rumble" where we review the season so far, examine the semi-final in Canberra and make our predictions for the slobber knocker of a grand final in Brisbane this week between the in form Reds and the reigning champions, the Brumbies. We also talk about the...