#40 France Sweep Europe, Leo Under Pressure, Spying Scandals & Diamond’s Crisps Rant

The Rugby Pod

The Ringer

Sports, Comedy, Rugby

4.7 • 5.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

French rugby takes centre stage this week after a dominant EPCR finals weekend, with Bordeaux-Begles battering Leinster 41-19 to claim the Champions Cup and Montpellier beating Ulster 59-26 in the Challenge Cup. The lads dig into how the Top 14 has opened up a serious gap on the URC and the Premiership teams, what went wrong at Leinster, whether Leo Cullen is under pressure, and how teams can bridge the gap. There’s also chat on Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s Player of the Year, Cheslin Kolbe's South African return, Steve Diamond’s brutal Newcastle exit, a Hollywood ending as Ealing are shocked in the Championship, rugby spying scandals from bushes to hotel fire alarms, and a few grassroots shoutouts from Middlesbrough, Mold RFC and Syracuse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pod, pod, pod, rugby pod.
0:07.3	Hello and welcome back to the rugby pod where we have crowned two new EPCR champions, basically the French.
0:19.3	Vive la France as they dominate the Irish in the finals in
0:22.9	Bilbao. Montpellier and Bordeaux are crowned Challenge Cup and Champions Cup champions. More Irish
0:29.3	finals misery, more Guinness and Blackcurrant for me. But a great, very hot and sweaty weekend
0:34.7	was had over in Bilbao. Oh, my sweats. It looked hot, only from
0:39.6	the thermometer. It didn't actually look that hot on TV. I don't know what everyone's
0:42.5	moaning about. Yeah, we're looking forward to hearing about you having the boots on the ground
0:46.5	and the verdicts around Leo and Leinster could be a tough conversation around that. But also, how do we, the URC, the Prem, close the gap on the top 14? Plenty to talk about. And there's a few of the pits that have gone on as well. What have we got? Steve Diamond lashing out at the Chris Salesman, world-class players on the move and men hiding in bushes with bushes.
1:11.6	More on that later, though.
1:12.6	Let's get into it. Settle back, you know the drill by now.
1:14.6	Enjoy, make sure you subscribe on Spotify.
1:17.6	This episode is brought to you by Expedia and Visit Scotland.
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1:45.8	slash visit Scotland. Right, home from work, walk the dog, kids are back.
1:52.4	Mom! Up the stairs for something. Ugh. Back down. No idea what I went up for.
	...

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