6 Nations Launch: Pivac, Jones, Farrell and Sexton

Matt Southcombe (0:16)

Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of the Welsh Rugby Podcast. First of all, thank you very much for listening, however you are listening to it. If you would like to go to your podcast subscriber, your podcast service, I should say, and give us a rating and a few stars and a review, we'd greatly appreciate that. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by our rugby writer, Simon Thomas. We're here at the 6 Nations launch. Simon, it's that time of year once again.

In general terms, how are you feeling ahead of the 6 Nations, given everything that you've heard today?

Simon Thomas (0:46)

I'm very well, Matthew, thank you. I'm very, very good. It's interesting, you say it's the same as every year, but it's very different in one respect. For year after year after year, we used to go to a place called the Hurlingham Club in Fulham, kind of Patney area, which is very swish, and I always used to make the same trip up there, but this year, we're in a different venue. It's a very interesting one. We're in Wapping, which obviously has a great heritage in terms of recent heritage and in terms of the newspaper industry. And we're in a place called the Tobacco Dock, which is an old 19th century listed building, which used to be a warehouse in the old dock days and I guess tobacco coming through here. It's a nice old venue, isn't it? And we've sat and we've listened and we've taken it all in.

And I've found it really fascinating. I think, you know, it's been new as much as anything from our point of view, because after 11 or 12 years of sitting, having Warren Gatland giving the talk about what Wales are gonna do, it's a new face. Another Kiwi, Mr. Pivac. And I thought, you know, in the interviews I sat in, I thought he handled it really well. He looked assured.

He was humorous.

And interestingly, he's spoken to a lot of journalists from other countries, perhaps having dealt with him very much, and we're all very impressed. So, yeah, a good start for Mr. Pivac on the communication side, certainly.

Matt Southcombe (2:00)

Just give our listeners a bit of a flavor for what this day entails. And, you know, people like yourself have done this many times. It can be a little bit chaotic on days like this. You've got players, coaches, and captains from every nation here, and the women's teams as well represented. There's a lot of people walking around, a lot of moving parts, and it's a little bit chaotic at times.

Simon Thomas (2:19)

Yeah, it involved my alarm going off at 10 past four in the morning, thanks to the arrangements Mr. Southcombe made. And it also involved a quite a cramped tube ride. But once we got here, I have to say, you know, it was a bit delayed. I mean, I often get that on here. It's almost inevitable. There's a few delays around there.

But it worked pretty smoothly. I mean, essentially, they divide you up into different rooms, depending on what part of the media you work from. There's an online section, which is a growing audience these days. There's the written press, which tends to be interviews, which are embargoed until 10 o'clock in the evening. You've also got, obviously, the broadcast rooms for the rights-hold broadcasters and others, and there's radio rooms. So you need a big place, and it is a big place, and everything's sectioned off and organized very well. And you can pick and choose where you want to go. And it just happened. It was quite a nice, sometimes you have to wait forever to get all your information from Wales. But Wales did their first two main hits for their online section and the newspapers straight away in the first kind of hour of it. So we were able to sort of get our work done early. But yeah, it was interesting to sit in on all the different coaches of Fabian Galtry with his lovely white shoes. I noticed that, and a few changes.

But essentially, it's a lot of familiar faces. You get to see a lot of people you don't see that often.

And yeah, you can fill your boots with material to last for a few days, if not a couple of weeks.

Matt Southcombe (3:43)

All right, and let's get down to business then really. And let's talk about Wales. First thing on the agenda really was just to touch on the injuries.

Lewis Resamit, let's get that right. Lewis Resamit, obviously the new teenage sensation, the winger from Gloucester, came into camp carrying a knock that he picked up against Toulouse on the weekend. Liam Williams, the other one, and Owen Watkin, the other injury concern there. Before we get into it, say let's have a listen to what Wayne Pivac had to say about those three players.