Can 'best ever' Italy beat England for the first time?
The Ruck
Reynolds Alfie
3.4 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
England make the trip to Rome in the 6 Nations following two defeats and two terrible performances against Scotland and Ireland. So how much pressure are they under ahead of facing Italy on Saturday?
Alfie Reynolds, Will Kelleher and Alex Lowe are on the streets of the Eternal City to look ahead to the match. They chat about the raft of changes Steve Borthwick has made for the game and what that tells us about the position England find themselves in. Is it bold selection or panic?
They also speak with the Italy winger Louis Lynagh who reflects on his move from Harlequins to Benetton - where he now lives with his Italian grandad - and his time in the England setup under Eddie Jones.
Plus, the boys look ahead to Ireland v Wales and Scotland vs France this weekend.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and the Sunday times and we are in Rome. |
| 0:21.4 | The sun is out. |
| 0:22.4 | We have just had lunch, a short walk from Piazza Navona in the buildup to Italy, England |
| 0:28.2 | on Saturday alongside Will Kelleher and Alex Lowe, who navigated passport control. |
| 0:33.0 | We've just enjoyed a very nice lunch. |
| 0:34.3 | How are you chaps? |
| 0:35.1 | I'm good. |
| 0:36.1 | It took a while. |
| 0:36.9 | Well, this is the thing look |
| 0:38.2 | so because of my surname i am able to have an irish passport which is brilliant so i just |
| 0:45.6 | swan through these airports don't have my fingerprints taken in anything and because of brexit you |
| 0:51.2 | have to do all the other stuff yeah i i also qualify for an irish passport. I just don't have one. I think as I stood there in the queue for about 45 minutes, I was sending myself reminders post Six Nations to get onto my Irish passport. But these are the pods we love. We love all of our pods, but this is the colour of the road. You can probably hear some Paggio scooters in the background, and we haven't done that. |
| 1:13.0 | It's not like a tape in the background. |
| 1:14.2 | It was a colourful flight. |
| 1:15.8 | We had England Blazers, England jerseys, club colours. |
| 1:20.6 | I think I pretty much a whole... |
| 1:22.3 | Jason Leonard was on our flight. |
| 1:23.7 | There were some stories being told at the back of the plane about knights out with Jason Leonard who was sitting at the front of the plane |
| 1:32.2 | Yeah, involving flatmates and nights spent in flats |
| 1:36.4 | Well, anyway, I'm not going to go in there |
| 1:37.7 | But it was it was basically a rugby fan England fan |
| 1:42.9 | Charterfly almost it felt like the B-A to Rome. |
... |
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