#19 Monster Appetite - Six Nations Squad Drops, & The Rugby Chef Reveals All

The Rugby Pod

The Ringer

Sports, Comedy, Rugby

4.7 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2026

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With the Six Nations around the corner, the lads are fired up as squads drop across the board, bringing big calls, big omissions, and some surprise bolters. We dig into every nation’s squad, from France leaving out some absolute superstars, to England’s depth options, Ireland’s late changes and injury worries, Wales’ omissions, a settled Scotland, and Italy’s hopes despite a mounting injury list. We’re also joined by England’s rugby chef Tom Kirby for a brilliant chat on elite nutrition, monster appetites, and what players at every level should actually be eating. Throw in some Prem and URC chat, punch-ups, plenty of other news, live show news in Dublin, rumours, and it’s a packed episode as the countdown to the Six Nations really begins. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pod, pod, pod, rugby pod.
0:07.5	Hello and welcome back to the rugby pod where we are nine days out from the start of the six nations.
0:17.0	The greatest competition in world rugby.
0:20.0	And we're started to get very excited about it. The squads are out. We're looking forward to a big couple of months, aren't we, lads? Correct, Andrew. The Six Nations training squads have been announced, and there were some big talking points. There's been some superstars dropped. As Penno, not in that squad. Anyway, we'll get into it. Some Wonder kids have been called up, so they'll be happy. And a few potential, well, there is. It's not even potential. Ireland have got an injury crisis. There was also punch-ups, wind-ups, and we might be a step closer to a global season. I told you. He was oldest, Jim. And we'll be, of course, looking into all the action in the Prem and the URC of round
0:57.6	10.
0:58.5	We've also got a great guest on today, a man who I'm very excited to talk to, all about food.
1:04.3	Yes, food, food, and more food.
1:06.6	You've probably seen him on England rugby socials.
1:08.6	Tom Kirby, the England rugby chef, joins us for a chat about fueling monsters, how big a part nutrition plays in elite rugby, and who's the biggest eater in England camp since I've retired many years ago. All right, let's get into it. You know the drill by now. Settle back. Enjoy. Make sure you've subscribed on Spotify and make sure, I'm going to do it
1:27.5	the beginning of the show, that you're following us on YouTube. We are, it could happen overnight,
1:32.4	lads, the raise to 100,000. We are nearly there. So get on YouTube, subscribe and leave a
1:38.4	comment, good or bad. We're not bothered. Let's just get to 100,000. This episode is brought to you by HubSpot.
1:47.0	Did you know that most businesses only use 20% of their data?
1:51.1	Well, that's like playing a rugby match with one-fifth of a team, Andrew.
1:55.4	It's going to be pretty hard to win, right, James?
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2:19.3	My classroom isn't just a classroom.
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	...

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