Bits & Bobs | Shane Lowry's agony | Boring title race | Six Nations friends

0:00This is an Irish independent podcast. Now, welcome bits and bobs in a Monday, a lot to get through from the weekend that was happy to say Rory O'Connor here in Studio. Rory, you're very welcome. Nice job. And Conor McKeown. Conor. Hi, Joe. Let's get straight into it, I think. Quiz question. Who won the 2026 cognizant tournament on the PGA tour? What's the name? We were both watching very less than 15 hours ago. 15 hours ago, I would think. At your very, wasn't it? It's close, close enough. Nico at your barrier. At your barrier. This will be remembered, I suppose, as the one that Shane Larry lost, because he was three strokes clear standing on the 16T. And all hell broke loose. It's a case of lightning striking twice from mid-January at the Dubai Invitational. He had a double bogey on the 18th, which he called a disaster. Here's what he had to say last night. He did media. I mean, I kind of almost just expected golf,

1:00sort of like golfers to not do media. And in fairness to him, he did and spoke to the media at large. So Larry hasn't won a singles event on either tour since 2022. He won that team event with McElroy, obviously more recently. But it's, you know, a bit of a dread for a player of his standard. And he spoke afterwards. I'm obviously extremely disappointed. I had the tournament in my hands and I chewed away. What more can I say? It's twice this year and I was so far. So I'm getting good at it. Yeah, look. What can I say? I played unbelievable all day and then won by a chart in 16 and completed me truly for the last three holes. It's never happened to me before. I said to Darn, I said, how do I feel like this now? When I went through what I did in last September in Beppe, you know, got through that fine. You know, I just felt like it was weird out there. I just really, yeah, just couldn't feel the club fest in the last three holes.

2:02Then after my T-shirt in 16, it was, it was strange. But, you know, what can I say? It's very, very disappointing. Geez, like, this is going to be hard to take. The hardest thing about today is I've never won in front of my four-year-old. And she was there, waiting for me. Yeah, it's... That's what I only wanted for her today. I didn't want it for her. I don't care about anything else. Like, I wanted to sell bad just to see her little ginger head running out in the 18 green would have been the most special thing in the world. But, I thought I had a thought I was going to win. I mean, I didn't get ahead of myself. But, like, I felt so comfortable out there and then... Yeah, tried to try to get a lot out of my three R&M 16. Yeah, and did the only thing I couldn't really do. Yeah, which was put in the water, which was all the way right down 16. I'm conscious lots of people wouldn't have seen this. So, he had shot a 63 on the Saturday to put himself in the final group,

3:03writing contention, had bumped into Jack Nicholas after the round. Nicholas said, good round. Larry, kind of... You know, Jack Nicholas says, good round. What can you say? Except, yeah, it was okay. Nicholas said, finish it off tomorrow. Larry revealed those two. Obviously, he's a member of the Bears Club in West Palm Beach. I've had lunch a couple of times. Jack's often there playing cards. This was kind of a hometown event for Larry, sleeping in his own bed. He has a great record of this course. Four, top 11 finishes in his last four events there. And, right from the first hole, the putter was hot. And, he put it beautifully. So, in his first 15 holes, four birdies, one eagle. He kind of took control of the tournament in a really traditional, emphatic way at a key point in the final round, which was a birdie on nine. And then, on the 10th, the par five. Great drive. And Radar was sort of saying, look, easy par five downwind. Just hit this to 40 feet and two putt for your birdie and move on.

4:04And Larry kind of, relatively speaking, stitches it to kind of 16, 17 feet, an amazing shot and holds the putt for eagle. So, like the tournament is his. And then, on the 15th, par three into wind. I think, to a lot of people's eye, I may be shot of the day. He just drills it low over water, hint of fade. It's kind of a flex. It was a flex shot. Like, there are levels to the game. It was just an elite shot. And he is walking off the 15th green, talking to Austin Smotherman, who was now out of contention. And therefore, you know, it's not kind of a mano, a mano. Dynamic between the two of them. And like, they're chatting. They're joking. They're laughing. He just looks beautiful. And then, as you heard, 16th, iron in his hand, tried to get a bit too much out of it, withed it right, bit of hazel reckoned radar. And thereafter, he couldn't feel the club face. 17th, which he said was, and this is over water, par three. Perfect number for me, suit me perfectly. Wind slightly at the left.

5:04I'm just going to hit a little chip seven on. It's my bread and butter, and a with that way right. And the thing blew up in his face. Double bogie, double bogie. Absolutely extraordinary drama. You know, this is why golf is kind of compelling to those of us who love golf. It's not over until it's over. It's kind of as big a collapse as you tend to see of an average year in the PGA tour. Oh, yeah. It was excruciating. Even if you were watching that casually, and Shane Lowry was, you know, Austin Smotherman. Austin Smotherman, you would genuinely ache, I think, for somebody that has to go through that. You can just tell how lonely a place it is with the world kind of caving in around you. And it is why golf is so compelling. And it is why many people don't find Scottish after that compelling, because he just keeps doing it all the time. And golf is one of those sports where the sort of human condition, the weakness of the human condition comes into play.

6:05And like the big thing for Larry here isn't that, you know, he coughed up a million sheets or whatever it is. It's that he needs to get a win. You know, the meat of the golf season is common. It's Bay Hill this week. It's the players. It's a gust. And it's been a long time. And for a golfer of his standard, he doesn't win with the same frequency as other golfers that are ranked in around himself. And it seems to have become a bit of a self perpetuating thing. Like I did think he was playing so well. I mean, we already know he's an elite ball striker. The statistics bear that it hits the ball as well as anybody else. He calls himself a streaky porter. He put it like a god yesterday. You put those two things together and he's going to contend absolutely everywhere. So in terms of his own game, common together, it was the perfect alignment of the planets. And then there's simply a case of somebody not being able to do something that is mundane and routine for them when the pressure is on. And then the second act of that is when it goes around the first time. Like all elite sports people will make mistakes. But the really, really elite ones are the ones who can regain their composure

7:06the quickest and the best. And he didn't. And like you can see the PGA tour had that dispersion map of all the shots on 16 where they are landed. And Larry's one is so much worse than the second worst shot. So for a guy who strikes the ball so well, that's like if he gave him that shot, it's a three-iron. So if he gave him that shot off a tee a thousand times, but not in the context of this tournament being underlined, he won't go near that once. So it is so many not being able to execute. And then it compounds itself. And it sort of degenerates into what it became. And it's all disappointing for him personally. Because like if your heart didn't go out to him, just watching them on his own, trying to come to terms with it in real time. Because 18 was a bit of a procession. He had to eat it. It wasn't going to happen. Then when he spoke about his daughter afterwards. And being so honest in that situation, when like most of us, when you have a kind of a disappointment or your ego or whatever takes a knock,

8:07the human composition is to be defensive. And he wasn't defensive at all afterwards. You know, we've seen him after rounds where he's angry, where he's annoyed, he's taking things out on me. But he came out with that and he was really, really honest. And that just made it, I think, a little bit tougher for everybody to take, but especially him. You were watching as well? Yeah. Well, I knew it was coming in. And I saw he was on his way to winning. So I flipped it on. I was trying to catch up on everything last night. And like it was just like a sequence of replays of his great pudding across today. It was a lap of honor that he was on. And it just seemed, you know, it seemed so comfortable. I was kind of flicking on my phone when it went to the water. And you kind of had to double check that you actually see what you've seen. And like I'm a very casual golf fan. I mean, I didn't understand some of the words you used. And you're in your lovely opening and description. I don't know what a puzzle is, but I can see a person who's beaten. I can see it. Like the arrow went out of his balloon. He looked like a diminished presence on the television screen. And to do it again, I think he said, Jesus Christ, as he hit it,

9:08the mics picked it up. And he was beaten before the ball that even hit the water the second time around. And he was still a shout-out going into that hole. Wasn't he? Or maybe, um, Atchavere, I had kind of caught up on him because he was playing really well. And he was kind of... He just birdied the 17 ahead of him. I can't remember if Larry had seen it throughout a bad break. And they were waiting on the tee. It was the flukiest party of all time. He nearly went into the water. He nearly, he nearly, he most have seen it really. I mean, he's waiting on the 17 tee. You know, on the composer point. So obviously, yeah. And Hazel is like a shank. It's a bad mess. It's what Connor do. Um, he did obviously then go into the bunker. But he played it. An extraordinary bunker shot. Like down hill, I, risky. Really risky. It was a grade six. And I thought to myself, well, somewhere in the midst of like this genius in the sand, he's regained his composure now. He'll walk off thinking that's not a bad six. And then 17 happens. Yeah. I like the great, like, you know, we listen to Ruby players, sports people talk. You know, take your breath, park the moment, move on.

10:08You have a new hole, a new challenge. And I don't know the fact that his daughter was there. I saw the stat flashed up. Did he never run in Florida? Which is, um, I think that's correct. I think that's correct. But like, you know, that does that bear in his mind. The fact that it is 2022, all the stuff that they're supposed to be able to park, that they're supposed to be at such an advanced level was all just bearing down on top of them. Um, it's incredible to see someone at that level who has access to whatever he wants in terms of, I'm sure if he wants Gary Keegan, he wants anyone on sports speed dial, he'll have them. He has his own people. Um, and, and yes, there he is. And he's not able to do it because it's so hard to do. It's not as simple as just taking a breath and moving on. It's still there. The daughter factor. It's all weighing on his mind because I would think, and we're all armchair psychologists, obviously, but based on what you hear, um, the best in the business talk about, I feel they would say that staying in the moment shot by shot and not visualizing your daughter, which is the outcome running on to the green is the way to go.

11:09And yet it was striking a pet page. He talked about walking up the 18th fairway and saying to Darren Reynolds, God, this will be one of the coolest moments of my life if I pull this off. So again, he was completely outcome focused, the ramifications, the rest of his life focused, but delivered. Hmm. So now, I mean, you do what works for you, maybe trying to pretend you're not aware of the ramifications of a big moment is silly. You know, maybe you're as well off facing them and dealing with them and talking through them and, and therefore it's fine to think about your daughter. Um, I saw Josh Sons in at golf.com reporter on the grand said before his random Larry was on the range with Barbara Teller, supposedly the, you know, the doye and the two reportedly talked about keeping things simple and staying relaxed. I, I taught the same thing in real time at bad page. I remember I listened to Shane Larry said that afterwards, like, like recognizing on the 18th tea, like this is all on, on the line here. And maybe it's because there's a lot of group thing that goes on in the sports and the team

12:10sports because it's, you know, across the team. And maybe because of a sort of bet down with, with GA players and other athletes talking about all you keep it in the moment and it's all about the process and making the next whatever. And not thinking about the outcome that that stood out so much. And I actually remember asking Shane and the press conference before the, when the Europe had their big press conference before the tournament said, they ever wondered that you've built this up a little bit too much in your head. Like he was talking about it from sort of two years back. And he started replied, I look, this is who I am. This thing means a lot to me. I can't pretend that it doesn't. And you don't just do the logic because you're just fighting with your natural kind of compulsion. But you're just, like you do wonder now whether this, I mean, look, when you're three shots up with three holes left to play in a PGA tour event, it's inevitable that you start to consider like what's going to happen at the 18 till finally I've done this. But the problem now with what we all suspect this kink is like that it's a psychological thing that some people can't execute under pressure, that it's now affecting Larry when

13:11he's trying to win is that you'll only discover that it definitely is affecting the next time you're in that position. So do you take preventive action? Do you try and break it down? Because he's a very, I mean, it's such a broad time, but it is such a natural goal for you. You see it in his hands. You see it in his swing. He has flair. It's all common from within. There's nothing robotic or manufactured about the way that he plays golf. And it might be a bit of a bad fit for to try and to get him to delete the significance of what he's doing because he seems to thrive on it. Well, I mean, it worked from the writer cup. Yeah, totally. So he delivered like one of the great kind of finishes there. But like that line he had about, I couldn't, I just couldn't feel the club face for a natural player like he is. That is just a death sentence because he is hands and he is timing and he is rhythm and a more mechanical player is probably more able to handle kind of nerves, like Larry is sort of a bad expression in the best sense. I mean, he was in flow, wasn't he? Like, I'd say he was walking up to the puts and just, he's barely looking at them, he's just knocking them in. And that T-shirt on 15 is like that it was, it was honestly a flex, wasn't it?

14:16It was such a golf shot and he walks off the T-smiling. It's therefore impossible to fathom that the next hole, he even thinks, hustle, water, wiping at that. I mean, he said I tried to get a bit too much out of it. You just don't see that coming. But then certainly, I guess the really interesting question is, why do you think it disturbed you for the next three holes so much? You know, like you do make a great six, you're still in it, but he said, I'm done. One kind of bad swim, one bad shot and I'm done and I'd love to have been there when he turned, as he said, to Darren Reynolds and said, well, can I do a bet page what I did and I can't get this going together? What do you think Darren said? Honestly, what would you say to him? I don't know, actually. Wait, what? I mean, that's a great, him having a drink of water here, you know what I mean? I don't know. I say, because after a bet page and in the, where he made the double bogey on 18 and Dubai, I remember thinking that final round, God bet page is going to stand to this

15:17guy for the rest of his career, he'll never feel pressure like that. And even like we, we kind of dismissed the open, not dismissed the open, but where I would say, well, he won by a lot, he wasn't under pressure, but like, if you have a big league going into the last day of the major, like he did that day, all you need is one bad hole to go against you and it starts to fester. So like on the biggest stage, but all of it left to play, he has proven that he can't do it. But it's a bit like Rory Michael Roy, when he in 2014, he looked like he was going to split all of golf and all it takes is one or two bad experiences and it does seem to kind of get into players and takes them a while, first of all, to recognize what the issue is and then figure out a good way to save it because like Rory at the Masters last year, like he had like three or four situations, but he was good enough to get himself out of it. And he had even enough time left. It's just that when it happens on 16 and you take two shots off your lead and then the guy in front of you gets such a fluky party. Like a lot of things had to go wrong for Larry not to win that tournament and they all

16:17did. Yeah. I guess he's raised on, you know, the story of Harrington at 07 Karnusty and talking himself back from the brink. He's probably heard that. Can you imagine how many times that's come up at the times they've had dinner talking about these kind of scenarios and that's what makes it so fascinating. And he's like, he's a ball of contradictions in that people say he doesn't win enough. Yeah, but look at what he's won. And he hasn't won since 2022 a singles event. Yeah. That wasn't like, you know, the Connor McKeele classic in January. That was at Wentworth where he held off John Ram and Rory McAroy breathing down his neck. So, you know, he can't do it under pressure, can't he? So that's what it's, I mean, it's golf as well as he said himself, you do funny things. But his humanity is why people like him as well. I think it's part of the reason he's so popular is that he comes across a bit of it as in every man and you can see a bit of, you know, I can see myself cracking in a similar situation. I'm sure he would, he would much prefer it to be a killer, like a, you know, a killer

17:20all the time. But I think part of the reason people are so invested in him and people are tuning in last night is because they want them to do it so badly and they know that he can sometimes get in his own way. So yeah, that's Larry. Remarkable drama last night and very grim for him. Let's move to football. A few different things going on. Geopolitics obviously took a turn again over the weekend. It's hard to think that when Donald Trump was going to invade Greenland, that was a simpler time, you know, that was a quaint, simpler time. So obviously as Israel and the US reigned fire down on both innocent people and murdered the leader of a country, FIFA and Gianni Infantino were watching an opera singer in Wales is the word. Yeah, they were at the big Congress and so they had to, obviously, sit through the performance

18:25and also stare at their phones as the inaugural, what was the name of their war? Peace prize. Peace prize winner was taken out his second world leader in almost as many months. I saw Miguel Delaney in the fair point that like Gianni Infantino has picked a really bad time to start really acting like a statesman, a very involved statesman, you know, as the world order sort of disintegrates. So I don't know, the ramifications are kind of endless. Will Iran boycott the World Cup? Will Iran send a team and not be allowed in? If they weren't allowed in, what would FIFA have to say about Donald Trump affecting the integrity of the competition? They're due to have a training base in Arizona, too much is in L.A., big Iranian population in L.A., and one in Seattle, it's their fourth World Cup in a row. Apparently some of their officials, these applications were rejected for even the World Cup draw in Washington, so like that's been kind of obviously techy anyway, and of course the US bummed around last year as well.

19:29So I don't know. The word from all sides at the moment, FIFA, Iranian politicians, US officials is, well, we just have to see how this all plays out. I mean, it's an eternity away. Yeah, just everything felt trivially at the weekend. I think Trump was actually in Palm Beach where the golf tournament was taking place, you know, recording his videos with his cap on about this war that he's waging, and Infantino sitting on the board of peace, of course. It's just so dystopian, you know, as he went, you know, went about your business, watched your sport at the weekend or just any time he looked at your phone, it was just kind of incredible mad stuff happening, and the World Cup has just been lingering there on the rise in this event that like, you know, Ireland are striving to get through and, you know, I mean, however, however, so in the times at the weekend and all the issues that are, you know, the again, trivial sporting issues about who's fit and who's playing well, and you're trying to get to the tournament, then you're like, do you actually want to go to it? You know, they want to be there. Like, I saw Neil Reardon from the Sun wrote that, you know, for the first time in his life, he doesn't want Ireland to qualify, because he doesn't want to have to deal with

20:32the, doesn't want to have to go to the States. He doesn't, you know, want to kind of legitimize what's going on there. Um, we've obviously, you know, the Israel game is lingering there in the, in the, in the, kind of what the medium term, as an issue that's kind of just bubbling away under the surface. And, um, I thought Miguel's peace and the, the indeed that we carried as well, kind of summed up the, the, the kind of buying the FIFA find themselves in their commercially tied in. It's the biggest event that they have. It's the biggest world cup they've ever run 48 teams. But ever since Trump's come to power, whether it's trade wars against the other host countries, you know, Venezuela, Greenland, now this in Iran, Gaza, like, we've never had a woke up, take place, certainly for a long time in a country that has so much complexity. I guess it's a little bit maybe like the Berlin Olympics or was not a woke up in Mussolini is Italy, you know, just that the, there is just so many different, you know, the Russian

21:32world cup. There are so many different things going on right now. Um, that's going to be very hard to focus on the sport when it comes to the summer. And it's going to be very, it's very hard to see how they're going to be able to bring these 48 countries together to play a tournament as if it's normal. Mm hmm. It's hard to know whether it was just kind of, well, I tell sometimes just whether we're getting older and we're more aware of these things or is the world actually going to share as we sort of sit by and taught our way into it. And then we called back to, like, there was a lot said in the sort of sphere of sport and everything else last week, but it's not the most sort of objectionable thing that anybody said was Patrick Donovan's insistence that people were politicizing a game of football when they had objections about Ireland versus Israel looking for a headline, looking for a headline, politicizing a game, I mean, like, wait, wait for that game to take place and look what's happening in advance of the war cup with American around and look at the head of FIFA going around with a stupid USA cup, giggling away as he tries to wedge

22:35himself further into Donald Trump's sphincter. I think that's the really interesting thing is that in a different time with the same events happening around FIFA, they would probably go on a degree of sympathy, like what a nightmare for FIFA, how do they navigate this, would actually that they've been, you know, under Infantino, I behave so ridiculously in an overtly political way, there's almost a degree of like, Shadden Freud about it, like, this is, you deserve this mess. I suspect they will just, um, brazen it out, you know, um, like, you would hope by the time the world comes around, the acuteness of the Iranian situation will have settled, they'll send a team, they'll play, I suspect it will just pass off. And any questions you may ask of Infantino, you know, like one, just the sheer recklessness of what the US are doing here on a grand scale is extraordinary. But even like, you know, if you were to put it to Infantino in that first press conference, well, with like supreme accuracy, they can target the supreme leader in his bunker under his building and like get him.

23:38And yet they can't seem to avoid blowing up, uh, girl's school. How is that right? You know, I saw a video of the weekend of a father going through his daughter's schoolback. You can't even believe what you're seeing, you know, like how can Infantino, um, I kind of gloss over that. Now the answer is he just will. Yeah. He'll just brazen it out. So I kind of, I kind of, I kind of think it's extraordinary, but if I was to guess now I suspect Iran will play at the World Cup, it will all go largely okay. It'll just be obviously strikingly odd. Yeah. Like, we had conversations inside and I, we said a couple of friends and they were kind of saying, what do you think will happen with this Ireland, Israel game and Dublin? And I was like, well, it's gonna happen, you know, like, I don't think it should happen. So I'm not exactly sure, like, which chain of command is the one that needs to pull the plug here, but like if, if, if, if, uh, you if you wanted to happen and the FAI say it's gonna happen and the government wanted to happen, where is it not going to happen? Yeah.

24:38And the problem with sort of all sitting here and scrutinizing FIFA's take on this or Infantino's take on this is that we're coming out of it from the point of view that there's sort of a right under the wrong. And when you're embedded, it's not like about right or wrong. It's our lads against their lads, like, it's, that's literally where it is. When you hit your wagon so firmly to something as Geani Infantino has to Donald Trump or Qatar before that, you justify anything because that's how these people come into power and the force base. That's how they stay there. And that's why he's gone around the world and a private jet that's funded by the Qatar government. And these people have all the power. And like the American situation, I don't know how, I don't know what's going to happen between now and September, but it comes back to, and maybe this is the least of anybody's worries. But the idea that everyone's going to allow the people are going down to do them back for the Irish open when the guy named above the door is on Braille's analysis, I find that a little bit too hard to take. Yeah. It's, it's, I don't remember a time where it's been so inextricable sport from politics.

25:41And in simpler world, the Premier League continued as it goes over the weekend, same kind of cadence to the previous weekend, Man City did get a result Saturday, the beat leads at Alan Road, and then Arsenal high profile, Super Sunday 430 game London rivals Spurs last week. Chelsea, this, and it's a two one win. I would try to tell you say, if you want entertainment, go to the theater. Don't watch Arsenal. It was quite entertaining, but only from the point of view of, you know, it's like watching a sort of a goal card go down a hill and you know, the breaks are gone and the wheels are about to fall off and you're just wondering, can they make it to safety before the whole thing kind of falls apart? You thought they were falling apart nervy, did you? I totally followed by it. They demand, oh, for the last 20-ish minutes, and instead of keeping the ball and doing the thing that, you know, teams do, like they were hoofing the ball up front just to alleviate the pressure for nine seconds or whatever would take for Chelsea to come back. And but for David Raya, I think Arsenal would have lost the game. So like they, they know, I think at least everybody involved knows what's up play here.

26:44There's no marks for artistic merit. There's nine games left. Arsenal are not the perfect team. They're not even the team they look like they were at the start of the year when nobody could get a shot on target against them. Teams have obviously figured out where they're weak and they still haven't really got the most sort of functioning attack from open play, but they don't care as long as they kind of get it done here. So, I mean, it makes for an exciting one way title race, but you wouldn't want to have to sit down and watch every minute of it. 16 goals from corners is now a joint record in the Premier League, they are going to smash this record. There's still 10 games to go. They've equaled, of course, old them in 92, 93, I don't need to tell you that, right? West Brom and 16, 17, and of course, Arsenal themselves in 23, 24 with 10 games to go. 16 goals from corners. The athletic of just published a piece. It's there understanding that Nicholas is a yeover or a jover, I think he's a yeover. They're set piece coach. He now is on a bonus for a goal scored from dead balls.

27:45Apparently, the athletic say he was attracting interest from elsewhere, he had a strong hand in negotiations, so the set piece coach is on a goal bonus from dead ball situations. So that's where the point of emphasis is, Chelsea, seven red cards and 28 Premier League matches. It's every four games. It's a lot. Which even think of Chelsea as a tough, oh, Chelsea, whoo, it's not like Chopra Harris, they just... It's a stupid red guard. It's hard to know what Chelsea kind of stand for anymore, you know, it's such an expensive, expensively assembled collection of players that don't really stand for anything. Yeah. You've just distracted me, but thoughts of Ian Marshall and the old him too much. There's a flex. There's a flex. All right. Shane Larry on the 15th. It's a funny title race in that this should be absolutely thrilling. There are 10 games to go, a two-point gap assuming city when they're going to hand. 10 games to go, two-point gap. Both have it in their own hands. Yeah. Arsons little have to go to... City. City, yeah. So is this grabbing like the Liverpool city race of a couple of years ago felt very alive?

28:49This should be like the most grippy... God, this title race. They both have it in their own hands. It's the profile of the team. Like, City have won everything and now they're at a stage where the team doesn't really lack that much of identity because they're changing the fair bit from the great team and the city fans, like they stopped showing up for games, they'd won so much. So they're a weird, bringing a weird kind of an energy to it. And then the Arsenal thing has become almost tedious because they've been so close so often. I remember watching at the time, the all are nothing of Arsenal and it was that season where he kind of got rid of Obamian and brought in some young players and you could see the joy in the Arsenal fans face. It was like, where could this go? Oh, and there was young Arsenal players and there were all non-quantities. And now there's something so utterly deliberate about Arsenal. You can see, okay, they don't have a present midfield, spend 100 million on Declan Rice. The Indian striker, the guy who scored 60 goals in Portugal last year, they sign him. And it all, there's no real kind of, there's nothing romantic about this. It'd be one thing if this expensively and deliberately assembled team were kind of win and foreign in every week. It's going brilliant goals.

29:49But they have found this very functional way to be just about at the top of the Premier League. And the evidence of the last few weeks demonstrates that there is no game that is necessarily safe unless there are about three goals up. So for the Arsenal fans who've been through this, it's deeply, deeply excruciating. It's also, I mean, it's only the start, really, like the rest of the season is jostling for position and points accumulation. It's nine games to go. I don't think you can judge the title race until it's actually, it could take out the race. It could take up. Yeah. And we're kind of rounding the point where it's set up quite nicely and like, when it comes to set, did it play each other? Yeah. Yeah, like when that rolls round, that's an epic, now that's nil all and I tell it does what he's sometimes does in these games and kind of settles for trying to just keep keep them at arm's length, then it will be underwhelming, but I think it's too early to judge. I know it's felt like Arsenal are about to get away, but they've always just, you know, where city have always been able to rain them back in or they've rained themselves back in. And I do think there's something compelling about the stress factor, you know, the fact

30:49that Arsenal are just so stressed all the time. And if you're around any of their fans or if you watch their games, you can feel that anxiety. So that's, that's, there's an entertainment to that as well. And that's only going to ramp up every week between now and when they get it done. They made the car above final as well in a couple of weeks. And I just wonder, like, does that game have an outsized importance beyond the fact that Arsenal could do with the trophy? It's obviously not the end of the world if they don't, but if they lose the city, that's just the different thing then. Then it kind of, then it kind of nearly makes a bit of a sort of a point, you know, maybe city or the team here, who nobody expected a few weeks ago when Erling Highland couldn't score a goal. And the team was losing games. It wasn't usually, and they have the kind of momentum where as Arsenal just seem to be shipping a bit too much water a week on week, they do look like a bit like a team, like if you go back to the world's game, this game yesterday, the game between was the spores game, which doesn't say much about spores, but they do look like a team that it could all fall apart at any given time. Yeah. The world's game is not that long.

31:50Yeah. So there's a lot to, like, I'm prejudging it. Maybe it's coming down to the last day. If it comes down to the last day, like, I don't remember to run into a Gwerro, but I will always remember a Gwerro. True. So, you know, then if there's, like, you hope there's spills as well as trails that they both drop points and say, city go above them after, after when they meet and then lose the fight. Well, I think they will have a few times. It's not Liverpool City where we're, but when and every game to the end of the year. It's true. Even Arsenal a couple of years ago where they won the last, was it eight at the last nine and finished with 90 something points. Like, that was a better season for Arsenal than this season in terms of performance and I'll know every metric. Well, you do wonder if there's a case that the general sound of the Premier League, you know, what teams haven't so much to spend, even mid ranking teams and, you know, a couple of teams that they're like, brand for them, Brighton being the kind of, you know, the product of intelligent design, whether it's just the days of any team being that much better that they can win 11-12 games in a row, just don't exist anymore. It's not possible. Could Manchester United sneak up on the outside and win the league is a legitimate question the steam train continues six wins in a draw and abomination of a decision, by the way,

32:53just to, oh my god, that penalty in a red car. I mean, like an abomination. He had VAR. Like, the foul so obviously started well outside the box, had sort of finished by the line and he just was like, I know it's a penalty and a red car. I couldn't believe it. And then Martin and he was peacemaker on the pitch at 74, grabbing it. Get away from him. Get away. After two to draw, I rock hearts with a nicely now six points, care of Rangers, eight clear Celtic, Celtic came a hand. And of course, Rodin Berry and the lead, who can stop Bose is the early talk in league of Ireland circles with their three wins one draw. Alan Relth, I don't know what this means, but like, it's positive, you know. They beat Shamrock over three two, which sounds dramatic. It wasn't really. It was three nil as the clock passed 90 and then Bose went full arsenal and gave away two goals and everything. He's like, hang on. They screamed. You were in comms, I presume. No, no. Virgin had the game. So that was it. No, I was happy to.

33:53It was the last Friday night, Darby in Daily Man and really hadn't struck me. That's nice. It's like the last season, the Daily Man before it's redeveloped and the first home game of the season was at the EVV stadium. So this was the first match of the day, the amount of the season. How do you do? Do you much prefer Daily Man versus Aviva? No, sorry. I'm completely on board with the EVV idea and think it should continue because I think it's lucrative. It's a day out. It's two o'clock in the afternoon. I mean, my son, I'm completely appeased with it. But I was, you know, the fact that there's only, however many home games left, it is sad that we kind of gave up on in them, but I'm completely okay with it because it will get Bose true to the years where they're out of the stadium. We still don't know where they're going to be. But Friday night, I hadn't anticipated that it was going to feel as special as it did. Even before the game, there's a clip, Bose have put out of the fan singing, hold me now, and they used the Virgin drone shop beforehand and it's spying tingling and it was spying tingling at the stadium. So like a lot of the times, you know, some people joined in, some people didn't, but everyone

34:55was on their feet singing. The fact that it was made, I'll kick off, it just people were in a bit earlier, I think people didn't realize the whole place was round. It was strong. There was displays on both sides, rovers made a very strong statement against Patrick the Donovan comments saying, this is our culture minister, a bit more explicit than that, but on the game, you know, I know you declared rovers champions last week after one game, but it looks like we might have a bit more interest in it. I would love it. I would love it. Bose were really good. Did I declare? Are you actually, are you this one I'd weirdo around Bose? Oh my God. I think the question to Dan was, like, will it be another season of rovers being hard to stop? He has. Running away, but I think it was the first. You should set up a Reddit, like, like, like, Joe Maloy just declared, but listen, I've got burner accounts. Yeah. You know, we are in the business of manipulating, quote, quotes, of course. And I don't think Bose are going to win league, but they were really, really, outstanding rovers played four teenagers and the difference between the Victor Ozenfuna, I watched last

35:59year and the, the, the monster. Yeah. He's become in the last, well, months, you could see exactly the player he's going to become. He, he moved magnificently well. He just, he didn't, like, rovers looked really impressive in the first half, but couldn't penetrate. And Bose were kind of on top of them. And he did get not made by Ross Tierney. So when he goes off and does what he does with his career, we'll always know, he can always remember he got not made by Ross Tierney in the second half, Adam Brennan. They, you know, the four teenagers, like, they went, they're going with a very different profile this year rovers, which makes them a different proposition to what they have been, because they've been vastly experienced and I don't know that catch up on them. But it was a proper occasion that looked good on TV. It felt amazing in the ground after, you know, they're playing on both your house or on all your houses, comments of the week previously, it felt like a real, um, repost, repost is the wrong, maybe, maybe a repost, but just a reminder of all the goods, it was flares, they weren't thrown on the pitch, but there was flares. Um, it's raw, it's, you know, unvarnished. It's all those things, but it's, I love going on a Friday night and especially for that

37:00game and, and to that stadium and it's going to be gone and they're going to miss it when it's gone. Yeah. Um, Rudd cornered me in the toilets last week in a workplace to talk to you about Dawson DeVoy. Oh, really? Yeah. That's what kind of ship this is in here. Oh. And then, then complained to Dammit Dunlath, was that I hadn't listened in ten years. He was very good. Um, wouldn't I am kind of other wrinkle for rovers as this Michael Noon in situation? It's kind of dense enough, so I won't get, you know, we'll, Michael went to a deeper with them. Dammit Dunlath, some stage or Edinburgh's Morris in the coming kind of weeks, but, um, the nature of his contract has been looked at, FIFA involved, club have had two statements in the space of five days. Stephen Bradley talked a lot about it on Monday after the Dundalk game and then on Friday, he had the stock answer of speak to the club and then he was asked, well, okay, do you stand over what you said on Monday? He said, speak to the club. So the shooters were down very much so from Bradley. Sometimes reported that Michael Noon and his mother's made a complaint to the English bay.

38:01Um, in effect, the, the nobody issue is that when he signed for rovers, uh, John Martin who's the rovers CEO at the time now, FAI director football and David Moss, the agent, um, they agreed that when, because it kind of is a when, when Noon and would be sold on to, um, overseas club, that Moss would get what's reported to be a 10% cut of the fee. So in effect, we've something akin to third party ownership here, although the agent Moss has said he's complied with all legal regulatory requirements. And so, um, well, there's kind of a question mark over the nature of that deal. FIFA are looking at that. There's a question mark over when the board knew about this conflicting information, like there was a rovers statement saying we only first heard about this, you know, the kind of board August 25, but then there are reports from a board meeting in February 25, the minutes of which mentioned the 10% of the agent that was discussed at board level. Um, so I guess, um, they have to wait and see what FIFA make it at all has, has a line

39:06even been crossed here. We don't know, but, um, obviously, like I said, Michael Newton's mother's made a complaint to the English FA, um, FIFA does have, um, rules around third party ownership, kind of stemming from Carlos Tevez all those years ago. So I don't know, thoughts and all that? It'll dense and complicated, obviously. Yeah, I mean, not, not necessarily the issue itself, but it's more the internal, like that is written extensively about the, the internal dynamics of that club and how driven with discord it is and how Bradley has really succeeded in, in holding it all together on the pitch at a time when, you know, the two boards, there's even a complaint, I think from one element of the club against another over the Dundalk gaming called off, the, there's this kind of accusation that the pitch was overwatered, which just seems to be a, it seems to be a lot of off field drama going on and I'm sure Bradley has great experience of keeping, you know, everyone moving in the same direction within the football side of things, but whether there's any sort of overflow from that, you know, is it draining him of his energies, is he spending time on stuff that he doesn't need to spend time

40:09on? It's just one to keep, keep an eye on, um, whereas the actual Newton story itself is very kind of dense and kind of, I think hard, hard for you, average fan to kind of follow. I think that obviously keep an eye on what FIFA do and I think it's more just what's going on behind the scenes at Rover is that there seems to be just an awful lot of drama away from the actual incredibly successful football operation. Yeah. Um, meanwhile, the dubs were due to go to rescommon to, uh, confirm relegation was the general expectation, um, and they scored one twenty one five two pointers, uh, so one twenty one, the tally, rescommon to seven, um, you were saying in the first half, was it fifteen points to no score? They couldn't miss. I think it was one, thirteen or something. All I know is that yesterday morning, friend of mine contacted me for his, his weekend the cumulative later, and I replied with a voice note saying there is no logical argument that Dublin are going to win this game, like, like Roscommon's farm was incredible.

41:13There were score on goals. It's rated nuts. Dublin had been very, very poor. The only thing he said was unless they're holding something back and there was something in the nature of how bad Dublin have been the times of seeing them for me to think, well, hang on. I know I've seen those players play before, they're not, this is not what they're at. They were definitely capable of more, but I didn't know that they'd sort of figured it out in, in a week, and they were relentless, like the fans were brilliant, the goalkeeper who was all of them was exceptional. Their score taken was superb. Did they not miss a shot for, yeah, I think they don't think they missed something till the 23rd or 24th minute, and like, and it was the most efficient football that you've ever seen. So what's your rating of this? What's been going on? I tell you my rating of it, the empirical finding is that the league is bullshit. It's a lot of teams that are coming into a competition with different priorities, different timeframes because there are different schedules, and Dublin will be a fair bit better this summer than they looked over the four, three or four rounds of the league. And what's interesting, if we can use the phrase loosely, is that Dublin's remaining

42:16games are against Arma and Galway, who happened to be in the same bottom half as well. So, you know, sometimes the relegation, you know, in as much as nobody really gets too hassle to win in the league, you don't want to get relegated. It's just not a good look. And one of the teams that people would have pegged because they do get relegated with a fair frequency or a rough common, and they started so well, they kind of took themselves out of that equation. So, you know, one of the, one of the, you know, probably all Ireland contenders is going to go down, and they get to kind of fight it out amongst themselves over the next few weeks. There's no, there'd be no mitigation saying, oh, well, they play Kerry and Kerry didn't want to get to the finals. It was an easy blah, blah, blah. Like, they're going to kind of have it out. So there's a lot to be said for that. Okay. Yeah. That was the point. The points were, yeah. The points were believable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like, that's what you wouldn't expect, Eiter. You know, like, that school used long range point kickin' is something that we really associate with. I was kickin' free and everything. Yeah. Well, it's just all they've been workin' on the drain, and it's kind of developing the minute you practice it. Like, two point shooters. Like, all the, the, the, when, remember Daisy Farrell said at the end of the last year,

43:19you know, we don't have the kickers. Yeah. It's the same guys. It's literally the same people. Yeah. That was a mad comment. Well, it turns out that basically the big takeaway is that Kano-Kalan has been hold in Dublin back. Yeah. And Ireland Wales is on Friday night. Yeah. How do we feel about that? I don't like it, personally. I mean, a little bit of a tradition of stunning Saturday games are much better. Sunday games are bad, though. They're bad, as well. Yeah, Friday. Like, I think it's good for TV. I take it over Thursday, any day. We've been a bit screwed this year, though. Would you take a Friday or Sunday? For your Sunday, so bad. I don't know. It's always Italy. Yeah. I think if it was in France, they'd probably make it work really, really well. But I've sat through my fair share of Italy, France on a Sunday, and it's just, I don't know, work the next day. That's the issue. It's not as good. It's lunchtime. Yeah. Yeah, I probably would take a Friday over. Another guy I love going to football on the Friday. It's just, it's where, with the signations, I think it's all about the travelling fans. And, increasingly, it's not really, it's about the TV audience, but, especially Ireland Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Ireland, England, people, you know, hopping over for a weekend.

44:19Yeah. Like, the front, you know, the lack of Irish people in Paris for a Thursday night game was just staggering. I'd say Paris didn't feel anything like a rugby weekend that weekend. And Paris often gets lost anyway, but like, there was no sense of a match or an occasion around it. And that lose, that's really, I'm huge part of why I love the six nations. So, Friday, at least, people will come over on the Friday and stay for the weekend and watch the rugby on the Saturday and stuff. Yeah. I should be interested to see how many Wales travel, given that. Yeah. And it's been a Friday before over in Cardiff, and the Irish have always travelled in decent numbers because, frankly, you can get over pretty easily from Bristol and, and, yeah, the form is terrible, but there's a lot of tradition, a lot of people come over and back. And, yeah, like, I, yeah, I definitely take Friday over Sunday, but I would prefer a Saturday. We've been a bit screwed this year. Like, Thursday, Friday, and 3, 2, 15, 2, 10s is, I don't know why you may understand more from a broadcast point of view. Why Ireland always end up in the 2, 10 slot, rather than the 4, 30, but it's, no, I don't know. Not to get any this time around.

45:20Evening in Ireland, I was really surprised. Like, it was lovely to be finished work at 7 o'clock, but, you know, it didn't feel like the main event, and, and the crowd was, was a bit subdued. It's wicking them. Certainly the English crowd was because it was such an early start as well. Yeah. We'll shout it in my ear. Sorry. He said in my ear. He said in a lot of things. Was it a Irish start Cooper when he was small TV audience in Ireland? Probably. I think it's between ITV and BBC. But, like, there's a big TV audience in England, and we were, hmm, early in England. Yeah, and Wales Scotland was the other game, wasn't it, so, um, just a little off Broadway. Absolutely. And from the weekend, gone to Welsh side's beat Irish sides? Yeah. Cardiff beat Lanster, Osprey's, Beelster, Monster Note, bonus point against Zebra. Kind of you were see weekend where not many people are tuning in. It's kind of a people are taking a little break from Ruby for the, but, but from the team's point of view, it's actually very important in terms of points accumulation and getting to that last, uh, that playoff round of eight, and Collective themselves huge favors with their win. But, you know, Monster, who lost Zebra last year, so I guess it's an improvement back

46:22on home soil. So, coming on the back of losing Mike Prandtegas last week, it speaks to, uh, an unhappy enough camp, um, not being able to get a bonus point. When you've only got a couple of pairs in the Ireland squad, anyway, they got three back. Um, that should be a pretty strong monster team with points to prove. They come on the, you know, their record in December in January was very poor, obviously crashed out into the Champions Cup pool stages into the Challenge Cup, and we haven't seen a bounce or a reaction. Yeah. If anything, it's just stayed on the same curve. So, Clayton Mcmillan arrives at Monster, inherits the coaching ticket. Seemed happy enough to do that. Yeah. And now made way through the season, Mike Prandtegas attack coach is joining Johan Van Grand, who had very publicly made a case that he should be the Clayton Mcmillan that he wanted that job last year. The Prandtegas should be. Prandtegas, an interview for it, and it was ultimately passed over for an outside voice who he now has to work as his boss and has decided that his future lies elsewhere. A monster, if you read their statement, repeatedly used the word disappointments, they're disappointed that Mike Prandtegas has decided to leave. Doesn't speak to an entirely happy setup or a coaching team that's all moving in the

47:28one direction. And it's a big. It was always difficult for Mcmillan to pull that together. And I guess Prandtegas, maybe not swallowed it was probably, but to get on board with someone else's vision when he clearly had a vision for what he wanted for it. Well, generally, Annie Walker life, if somebody goes for a job in a company field, it feels it's their time and they don't get it. Often leave. Yeah. Well, right. I mean, it's kind of Anthony Foley, and I know Foley passed away a couple months later, but Foley and Rasmus seemed to build a bit of a rapport. And that was a tricky dynamic, but Rasmus is so charismatic and so good at what he does that he probably, you know, that he was able to get Anthony Foley on board. Look, we don't know how that would have played out in the long term, but it takes a kind of a special person, a bit of a special charisma to probably pull that all together, but it hasn't, it hasn't happened. And yeah, Mike Prandtegas, one of the most talented Irish coaches out there is now leaving the Irish systems to go work for bat. So that's a bit of a blow. And it just, you know, monster, it seems to be stuck in a bit of a malaise, a morassum. It's kind of season's drifting.

48:29It's not, there's still four, it's not a disaster, you or CY's. And if they beat Exeter, they could go in with the challenge scope. And yeah, they've gone on runs before, after the six nations, but their next two games are away in South Africa. So that's a tricky one. Yeah. Lancaster, by the way, called out whenever Glasgow should have said it was Glasgow 1510, it's a sweet one. And from Lancaster and their defeat away to Cardiff, Harry Byrne, lasted three minutes, head injury, he's ruled out of any participation in the Welsh game. So it's a six nations done. And after kind of coming in hot, you know, a lot of people talking about him as a potential starter. And that was coming from kind of, I think, quite close to the camp. He hasn't got a minute. And it's a, who's back in, who's back in for Wales, like will Prandtegas go on the bench, Sam? I know Keen Prandtegas got another match for him. Backed to him, Anne Frawley in the, the, the, the squad, and the big, like James Lowe and for surgery on the last, and the last week. So he's out of this. He's crying, wasn't it? Yeah. He's torn his growing. We all thought it was his caruff in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

49:30Yeah. He's gone. So there, there will be someone coming in for him. Either Tommy O'Brien keeps the job. He probably, he probably justifies based on what he did, but Jacob Stockdale's a more natural left-winger. Bunliak, he's back after suspension, my suspicion is he'll come on to the bench. If he comes out to the bench, he probably don't need Kiran Frawley as much. But for the developed bench last time, he covers more positions. He's probably a better bench option than Prandtegas. So I wonder will they bring Prandtegas back in just to, to return him to the fold, show everyone that he has been cast a drift completely and see how he goes, goes. There's, you know, Bryn Ward could make his debut. I don't think there could be a lot of experimentation, but they may look to just spread that net a little bit. I think it'll be the same for team plus one of those wingers and then maybe a bit of changes on the bench. The way things are looking. Okay. Prandt Murrayfield, that's kind of the interesting one Saturday. Yeah. Italy's interesting. Sorry. I keep overlooking Italy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, if they lose that one, which they've never lost it the before, and they go to Paris with one win out of three, a woman out of four, needing to go in to potentially

50:31save Bordswick's career because he has their next game after that is in South Africa. So they're on a bit of a sticky wicket. Now they should win in Rome. They've got the players, but we all know how good Italy have been this year. So I don't, yeah, I think all three, I think Pretty Ireland Wales is the weakest of the three in terms of a matchup. All the Wales, Ryan Ireland, really close last year and we're good against Scott. Yeah. I mean, people are back on board. The Ireland train after what happened as well. I think it's, it's funny. That Twickenham win felt a little bit like from the 90s, it came from nowhere and everyone, you know, just was talking about it for days afterwards and the good feeling is back a little bit. Yeah. We're back. We're back. We are. We are so back. Very good. That's all I have. We've probably covered the national championships, I'm conscious they're on with them called Danny at some stage and the Aliens protest at Congress kind of extraordinary, we'll cover that later on. So any other business at the risk of sounding like well here, just 30 seconds for American sport. Remember the last year we stopped with Victor Wembeniam at the Freakishly lean and athletic

51:32and trial basketball player for the San Antonio Sports and not long after I espoused his claims on being the biggest sports person in the world, he got injured but he came back in the San Antonio Sports. I think it won the last 12 games, sort of sure to make the playoff and it's themselves in the Oklahoma Tunger who were in the same conference who were the two best teams in the NBA and this guy is going to be the star and they're gone. They went from being the worst team in the NBA two years ago to at this moment of time being the best and if you watch this guy's highlights real, it really is an incredible thing to watch. The playoffs are kind of common up a little bit down the tracks but they've won so much it's clear they're going to be in it. America loves sports where one player and team has outsized importance. But this guy literally has outsized like, he's literally outsized, like he said, he's seven foot five. An exceptional basketball player can transform basketball team, quarterback and NFL. The sports that we traditionally like, like David Clifford's, David Clifford, etc. But like, America love an outsized individual.

52:33Yeah, I was talking to somebody during the week as well that the one big American sports organization that doesn't have a salary cap is the is major league baseball. And they can just literally go around signing all the top talent. That's why the drafting is so big. Like when when Wemba Niamma went to the San Antonio Spurs, they were at the absolute depths of despair and that's why the teams trade all the tickets for these guys. There was a phenomenon called the tank for Wembee and it was like in the lead up to that draft. A lot of teams that were low ranked in the NBA who had no hopes getting to play off. They all basically like rested their best players and they lost it so they could hit the bottom on to draft this guy. It's like the league. Yeah. Exactly. But that's going to be a big story when the playoffs come around. So we get a bit of a blast with it over here then. His image was plastered all over Paris. It was him and Bappe and DuPont, the three big three stars of French sport. I remember when the last rugby workup final was in Paris for the weekend and they had

53:40the kind of village set up down nearly 12 years and I just have rudely rivally there. And there wasn't a huge crowd around because obviously there wasn't like a French or England in it. But I remember going to some of the news agents and looking at the back page is the night before the work of final and the back page of Le Kipp and Le Monde and all these newspapers was Wemba Nyama because he made his debut that day I think for the San Antonio Spurs. Wow. This guy is huge. It's a rare thing that he's so big in the States and so big in France. But we haven't really sort of kind of cut it down to the public. We got him soon. I know you've been showing you've been banging that drum for a while. Never has a host country moved on from a tournament like France moved on after a quarter five. That's it. I don't want to talk about it. That's amazing. And can I give a shout out to my dad's? What do we think this is? What? When I say I think of their business. I just need you to welcome him. No. His friends went for a pint in the horse 50 years ago. The Hutt and Fisbert, 50 years ago, I'm not sure what it was February or March and they ran into a group of Welchmen who were over for the match and they struck up a conversation

54:41and they swapped addresses and my dad, I think, sent Con Hulens report on the match to one of his friends or one of his new friends and Wales and they kept in touch and the Irish went over to follow in a year and this year they're celebrating the 50th time that they've done it apart from Covid. I think it felt through the cracks during Covid for obvious reasons. So they've kept up the tradition, they've kept in touch, they've lost a few great friends along the way but they're meeting on Friday in the palace bar and having a weekend together for probably the 48th time if we take out the two Covid times but they've kept the friendship going for that long. That's why I love the six nations being a Saturday that tradition. That's nearly a good idea. I know. The lads from St. Gannon are coming over this weekend and when I was growing up every two years we'd have a random, sometimes it was a familiar phrase, sometimes it was a friend of a friend who was asked to stay in our house. We'd always have a Welshman stay in the house for a Welsh weekend so it's kind of steeped in the tradition. I'm sure there's loads of different groups like that across, well, to welcome people over. So you put them up, they put you up. Yeah, absolutely. As a kid we go over and stay in Carefully in a friend of family's house and kind of go

55:42for the weekend, go to Cardiff Park and stuff so yeah, 50 years is good going. In these grim times that is a heartwarming. That's gorgeous. It's hard, isn't it? It's a sheer act of what, camaraderie friendship. Yeah. Nice. That's good. It's what situations is all about. Yeah. No more Thursdays because they killed that sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So they just got talking and had the crack. So believe. Yeah. I mean, there's loads of yarns and different things kind of over the years of kind of, yeah, they were all young then. It would be 1920 and they've, you know, they would be not weddings and funerals and all sorts of things over the years. But yeah, I got to chat and stroke up a kind of a bit of a rapport. Stop the dresses, pre-wats up, pre-email, kept in touch and they're all in wats up groups now and kind of. Yeah. It's an amazing thing that they've managed to do and it's, they've teacher it's made, there's a flag made, call themselves the taffpads and yeah, I mean, I know all the kids of the Welsh man and the Irish guys do with that group but we might not see each other for the year in between but I always try and meet them when I'm over in Cardiff as well on the match day if I can get out of the work quickly enough.

56:45So it's, yeah, it's a great tradition and it's good achievement. Wow. That's cool. The romance of that. All right. Any birthday requests? Anything you want to? Honours birthday tomorrow. Is this? Yeah. What age you? What age do you think I'm? Just a note. For you 42. I'm 43. What can I say? I guess several years younger than I thought it would be. I rude thanks very much. Connor, go out. Have a great day. Thank you.