Welcome back to the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and the Sunday Times, I'm Alfie Reynolds and delighted to say back alongside Will Callah Her.

Hello. When do we last see each other properly? Sydney. In the pub, Glenmore. Glemmall.

Glemmall Hotel. Eating a steak and chips mid-record, which none of you would have heard because it was edited out gloriously well by Alfie.

Something along those lines. So that would have been it.

But you've not been off. You've been podding every week with Elgin. Women's World Cup. Women's World Cup. I haven't never stopped. Haven't had much in the way of time off. But you've been away? You've been on holiday? I've been away. Yeah. I went to Sri Lanka, which was glorious. If anyone would like to get any tips on things to do in Sri Lanka,

I can get them from you.

I can tell you everything. But look, we've come back here. We're at Twickenham, and it's still raining. We left each other in the rain in Sydney, and it's still raining now. Usually, we're going to contextualise this by saying we're at the launch of the prem now we should call it the

prem the prem rugby new season yeah and yeah we're standing at the stadium the national stadium

and there's all sorts of activity going on there's content there's lights there's i feel like all

the d oars have had a glow up i was looking at rob. He looks trim. He looks ready for the new season.

He does. It's kind of...

Alex Anderson's all been on holiday. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone's got... Yeah,

Phil Dowson's got a nice quiff going. Like, it all feels very fresh, doesn't it? But an exciting start

to a new season. We're on the cusp of. Maybe to follow that analogy or observation is sum up the prem as we need to get used to calling it now, which we kind of called it before. We sort of already called it the prem. Didn't we? Kind of, yeah, but we can't call it the Premiership, though, because that's not what it's called. Although I think the organisation is still Premiership Rugby, but the name of the league is the Gallagher Prem let's not go down or open that

kind of worms but sum up willing so we're we're stood here now usually i associate these days with the

prem launch being really sunny it's been absolutely chucking it down with rain in the stands at twickenham

ahead of a new season which starts on a thursday which we're going to be chatting to alexandson about we've got Red Bull as the new owners of Newcastle we'll be chatting to

Steve Diamond and so a league that a couple of years ago was really struggling off the

back of losing a couple of clubs feels to me in a far healthier much more exciting

vibrant position yeah it's it's got a freshness about it, and we probably think that every time we start a new season and have had a few weeks off, but maybe just because of the fact that it is starting on a different day, the Thursday, and we know some of that is because they're trying to avoid the Women's World Cup final, which is happening pretty soon, and back at this gaff. So they didn't want to play on Saturday, so they've moved the sale. Glocked the game to the Thursday, a couple to the Friday and the others to the Sunday. So there's sort of technical reasons for that, but I think they just wanted to give it a go and see what happens. The Premiership Prem have been trying a few innovations over the last couple of seasons, like away ends that we've talked about on the pod and things like that and kind of just gathering the data about does it attract different people or younger people or different genders all that sort of thing so why not give it a go and it seems like sail were the first to bit the hands up and said we'll have a crack why not which is very in keeping with them also trying to be different as well and then the newcastle thing

that's the that's the big news of the summer broken by alex low in the summer yeah during that lines

tour that they are now newcastle red bulls falcons have flown the nest there no more falcons was

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