Will Stoddard

fair enough to say yeah I agree very straightforward like the only thing I suppose in my head was how Alencia would respond to the defeat against Bordeaux like we have seen hangovers before where it's been like sticky for a period or not very cohesive for a period they just came out and from the very first couple of minutes were dominant

And as I mentioned earlier, kind of made a joke, but like the Lions didn't look like they had any benefit from staying here the last two weeks.

They made a lot of mistakes.

There was a bizarre period of the game when they kept, everyone kept kicking the ball out in the full.

It felt like there was like four or five kicks out in the full and like five minutes.

And there was only 9,000 people at the game, which is like such a poor.

It's like it's 8 o'clock on a bank holiday weekend on a Saturday, but under 10,000 is like, that's a really small crowd.

And I didn't say, I flagged last week, I thought it would be a small crowd.

And I'd be interested to see if it's any bigger for the Stormers this weekend.

Does it get slightly bigger?

And if they play in a final, that might be a way if it's in Edinburgh against Glasgow.

yeah i interesting to see that but yeah i thought i i was kind of not impressed but like it did look like business as usual there didn't seem to be any hangover there um jonathan anything jumped out to you before i move on to some of the other stuff so i said that was the main thing to me that it looked very positive it felt like it was going to be a cathartic evening for them it i think it's interesting that uh

You don't have to wait much longer.

Yeah, but before we get into the press conference, I want to talk about James Lowe first, because it kind of emerged on Friday, like the story started to break that he's apparently leaving at the end of the season.

After nine years, his contract is up.

He has apparently been offered a contract that is not as good as the one he has been on.

Coming from next season, the provinces have to pay 40% of the value of the central contract.

So for Leinster, that's obviously a lot of money because they have the most central contracts.

James O has never been on a central contract so up till now Leinster have been the ones paying the bulk of his salary because he's also been on a they call it a pony deal which is a player of national importance I think or national interest top up basically interest yeah so basically it's kind of a top up to players who aren't on central contracts to give them a better deal so they stick around so apparently that was not going to be forthcoming with this kind of one year contract up to the World Cup so it appears he is leaving and

I'm really surprised that with a year to go to the World Cup a player of his importance in the Andy Farrell era Jonathan is being seemingly let walk out the door what's your perspective on it?