Welcome back to the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from the Times and the Sunday Times. It's another late evening here in Australia. It's another empty stadium. This time, Marvel. I'm Alfie Reynolds and once again joined by Alex Lowe. Hi, Alex. Hello. And Will Kelleher. Hello. And back on the Ruck is Owen Slott. How are you, Slottie? Hello, great to be back again, thank you.

We're pitch side this time.

Usually we're up in the Talk Sport Coventry Box,

somewhere in the eaves of the stadium,

but we're down pitchside in the Marvel where they're...

D-rigging, I think they call this.

They're basically hosing the rugby lines off the pitch

in order to get it ready for the Aussie rules here on Friday. The AFL, which is going to be Essendon against the Western Bulldogs, which is my team against yours. How are you calling that, boys? Who's winning? Well, I'm a massive Bulldogs fan, as we all know. And Alex is the hipster choice, Essendon. Well, they've lost their last six in a row. We basically have committed by buying some merch at the MCG today that was on sale. No, I've been a bulldog all my life. I've seen a bulldog all my life. I bleed blue, white and red if you cut me. And just that bulldog spirit just kind of comes through on the ruck, doesn't it? So after the AFL on Friday, that'll be your next podcast. Yeah, yeah, we'll do a post-match. So look, roof is still closed. They're spraying the paint off the pitch, and we'll look back on the Lions' victory over the First Nations and Pacifica 15, their final tour game, and the best tour game by an absolute mile, wasn't it, on this tour so far?

Loved it.

But firstly, we're all really enjoying Melbourne, aren't we?

Like, lovely bars, lovely coffee spots, nice river, ferris wheel, lights, all that sort of stuff, cool, walk to the ground.

And then we got a brilliant game.

The First Nation-specificer guys came with fire and fury and

niggle and physicality and all the things that the Wallavies just totally lacked. It shows,

yeah, but it shows how much emotion can get you a long way in rugby because we saw an

invitation or 15 in Adelaide, the Australian New Zealand team, who were just a

collection of players who came, didn't really have anything to fight for and just folded.

Here, you had a team who had spent the week exchanging stories of their cultures and their

backgrounds and Kirtley Beals have spoken brilliantly about the importance of a team like this

and how he'd love it to continue, the sort of an equivalent of the Maori All Blacks,

just a team that's built on culture.

And they were fighting for something out there.

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