England's 'alarming' defeat to brilliant Ireland
The Ruck
Reynolds Alfie
3.4 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 21 February 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
England's hopes of a 6 Nations title went up in smoke as they lost to Ireland at Twickenham.
Following a loss to Scotland a week ago, Steve Borthwick's side produced another lacklustre and dreadful performance.
Alfie, Will and Charlie try to pick through the bones of a galling defeat which will ask major questions of this England team. Will it be a performance which ends England careers for some players? Is this 6 Nations campaign salvageable? And, why have the wheels come off so spectacularly?
Plus, they chat about Ireland's excellent display!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from the Times and the Sunday times. Saturday evening, |
| 0:22.8 | Twickenham, England 21, Ireland, 42. An extraordinary day of rugby. The Wales, Scotland |
| 0:30.8 | Games also just ended as well, which we're going to be speaking about on Monday's pod. We |
| 0:34.3 | caught the end of that in the press room here. The Six Nations delivers again. |
| 0:39.2 | I'm Alfie Reynolds, alongside in the gantry, Will Kelleher. |
| 0:42.2 | Hello. |
| 0:42.7 | And Charlie Morgan. |
| 0:43.8 | Hi, pal. |
| 0:44.7 | Gents. |
| 0:45.2 | I mean, so we find ourselves, second week in a row, a defeat for England, |
| 0:52.1 | but it feels like it's so much more than just the defeat will to me that |
| 0:57.0 | was a a soul destroying savagery really that was alarming it was humiliating fans left before the end |
| 1:06.7 | it was for all the good things that ireland did senior players being jeered senior players were jared for all the good things that Ireland did. Senior players being jeered. |
| 1:11.7 | Senior players were jeered. |
| 1:12.8 | For all the good things Ireland did, they were outstanding. |
| 1:15.7 | They were emotionally at an amazing level. |
| 1:17.9 | It felt physically, they were tactically smart, intelligent. |
| 1:21.6 | England were all of the opposite things. |
| 1:23.6 | They were dumb. |
| 1:24.9 | They lacked Nouse. |
| 1:26.6 | They were just off it in every facet. |
| 1:29.8 | And that is such a galling thing for England fans to leave Twickenham with, I think. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Reynolds Alfie, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Reynolds Alfie and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.