Welcome back to the Ruck, the journalist's rugby podcast from The Times and the Sunday

Times Monday morning,

in studio after a busy weekend of action and some big Nations Championship news as well.

Let's get into it. I'm Alfie Reynolds and it's a pack studio today. Back once again, Owen Slott. How are you doing,

Slotty? Very good. Please be back. Hooray. Exactly. By popular demand.

Oh, yeah. So I keep hearing.

Also, Alex Lowe. Alex, how are you?

All right, good. This is my studio debut, although not the first time I've done the Ruck in this room.

Because years back, when we started it, this was our studio. Oh, good old days. Alfi was still at school.

There was no fancy screens. It was in the Tettington Under 7s. Yeah, dominating. And the voice you hear there is Will Kellahar. Hello, back in the studio. I missed it last time. It's quite fun with all the green around, isn't it? It's like being a wicked musical theatre show or something. Which is the most Will Kellerher reference

that I think we could possibly have to start the podcast. Let's defy gravity on this pod, guys. Very, very good. But it's quite cosy with the four of us. I got it. I did get it. But thanks for explaining. I did get it. I was just I was going to move on. Some people might not be in the vend diagram between rugby

and musical theatre but some people will be so

I'm just ignoring you

uh going to move on. Some people might not be in the vendor diagram between rugby and musical theatre, but some people will be. Look, we've got, kind of as I mentioned in the intro, we're going to look back on the results of the weekend. We'll tear it ahead slightly to the matches coming up as well, although of course we'll have our usual pod later in the week as well to do that in a bit more detail. Plus, there's big news this morning, the nation's championship. We've got a little bit more news there, although maybe not quite as much as some people might think we'll get into all of that. Before that, though, to each of you, of all the results at the weekend, most important result. What do you reckon? I'll say England. I'll go first. Claim England, I guess we can all agree.

But I just think for the project that Steve Borthwick has been building over the last 18 months,

the run of defeats that they had where they promised to learn from.

And then this run of now 10 consecutive wins, but a lot of them against mediocre opposition,

but it was allowing him to

build depth, to build the fitness of the team, which I think is obviously improved. He needed

something that could bring all of those experiences together as a sort of flag in the sand of

where England are. Also, to validate, talking to Maritoggi afterwards, he made the point,

it validates all the work they've done. And I think it moves England into a new phase now,

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