Welcome back to the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from the Times and the Sunday Times and England's November is up and running. It wasn't particularly pretty, but they got the job done against Australia here at Twickenham. Alfie here and alongside me, Will Kelleher, Alex Lowe, the gloom of Twickenham once more. I get used to these. It's good to be back post-match at Twickenham after a match. How we doing? Yeah, the smell of stale Guinness sprinklers in front of us. We've had Joe Marla actually going around the field. He must have been doing some corporate hospitality today and trying not to tell people if he won. How many times how many times? I reckon he's been asked today. We're not going to make this too much of a traitors crossover, but we're all loving it, aren't we? I think it's been great.

He's been brilliant.

He's like the perfect guy to be on it, because as we've dealt with him over the years,

he's incredibly hard to read and loves making people feel awkward.

We hosted a kids' Halloween party on Friday night, my youngest and all his mates, and they

were all asking me, what's Joe Marla like?

Is he like that in real life?

Yes.

I was like, yes, that's exactly what he's like. Really hard to read, a pretty astute guy. And yeah, I think he's been great to watch, great from him. I think if we wanted to get him on the rock at another point, I think it's now going to be a struggle. His fee has gone up a lot, hasn't it, in the last month?

I mean, 14 million people are watching Traders every episode. I think it's now going to be a struggle. His fee has gone up a lot, hasn't it, in the last month?

Yeah.

I mean, 14 million people are watching Traders every episode. Yeah, yeah. Almost as many people are listening to this, Alfie. So to bring it back onto the rugby, I was disappointed. Yeah, almost. Almost. You nearly missed my joke there. I did almost miss it entirely. I was thinking so much of I need to steer this conversation back onto the match that we've watched that I missed it entirely.

Look, I was. I was thinking so much of I need to steer this conversation back onto the match that we've watched that I missed it entirely. Look, I was hoping, I was actually slightly disappointed that it wasn't a comeback victory for England today because then I might have concocted some sort of contrived question about what's the better comeback, what you've achieved here or what Joe Marla might be able to pull off on Thursday of the faithfuls and the traitors. Anyway, England 25, Australia 7, your thoughts on that result on that

performance for England as they have got their November campaign up and running? I think for us

sitting in the stands during the game, it felt pretty tedious at times.

It was incredibly flat here at Twickenham, which is strange.

It was almost like, well, look, you can't criticise fans for coming here, spending a lot of money and then going, go on, then entertain me.

And they really weren't entertained for a long time.

And they offered kind of no real mega support, I suppose.

So that was odd. It felt a sort of clunky bitty clumsy game but it probably is going to be one of those matches that kind of grows on

everyone the further away you get from it like we're now a couple of hours on from it finishing and already

i think well do you know what like if it wasn't for the intercept it would have been a nilling it might have been a game that slipped away from

...