From NCAA to Premier League: A Football Journey with Trystan Bevan

Join us on this exciting journey as we sit down with Trystan, an intriguing guest with unique experiences from one of the biggest American football colleges, Michigan State. His captivating stories about the NCAA sports system and his personal experiences on a boat are sure to keep you hooked. We've got you covered with conversations ranging from the world's wealthiest cities to the views of Aberdeen's chief executive on pensions, all leading up to an immersive discussion about the electrifying atmosphere of a college football game.

We then take a deep dive into the world of football, exploring the Financial Fair Play Awards and their impact on champions league, premiership and premier league teams. Learn about the challenges these teams face with Covid, salary caps and other financial regulations. We also explore how the Premier League contributes a whopping 8 billion to the economy and supports 100,000 jobs. Round this up with a closer look at how summer transfers and championship playoffs affect local economies.

As we reach the final part of our chat, we shine a light on the concept of a high performer, dissecting what it takes to excel in any field, be it sports or otherwise. Our discussion takes us through the changing culture in sports, the attention span of fans, and the influence of a team's success on young athletes. And, as an additional treat, we delve into the pivotal role of understanding your audience and how viewing habits are changing in the sports world. So, sit back and enjoy this enlightening conversation, full of insights and stories you won't want to miss!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello, welcome. Today we've got a special guest and Mr Bevan joining us. We're going to chat about what the Aberdeen chief executive says about pensions. Football will come to the fore, along rugby and the world's wealthiest cities by number of millionaires. Enjoy those three little pigs. Yeah, the water wasn't as much food eaten as I thought it would be.

Speaker 2: 1:08

I tell you it was quite funny. Your what's that mention the lake coming through and one came through at like 10 o'clock in the morning which was like literally darkness in the middle of the seat. I thought somehow you had docked that wanted because you meshed to coming through it like a weird kind of time.

Speaker 1: 1:26

That's because you were only hitting land or the, the, the, the three or four g network at certain times, because I only had one fight, one wi-fi code. It was $176 for four days of wi-fi dollars in France because it was Mr Disney's cruise everything's in dollars yeah, yeah, on board was in dollars, wasn't there? He's dead. What was on?

Speaker 2: 1:56

what was the currency on board?

Speaker 1: 1:57

dollars. Oh yeah, I think it's easier for them that's interesting. French sea, brish port. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Everything is even when you're paying, you're paying fatherly just like, drive you out of the port, and then you kind of stopped in the middle and then charge you for four days of you know, this includes about 100 yards from land.

Speaker 1: 2:17

No, we went up the Bristol Channel. Now we did. We went to Larochelle, which mr bevel will probably know of before. Do you ever play a game over there before?

Speaker 3: 2:28

yeah, absolutely pummeled as well. All right, doesn't matter what team you play for, you get pummeled in the last one.

Speaker 1: 2:33

Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say in the nice way, the past that we saw weren't spectacular. The port was well. The port is a port. The port is always horrible, but um it. We didn't spend a huge amount of time there, but it didn't look very appealing. So remind me again where you're from.

Speaker 3: 2:50

Yeah, yeah you got into a quick out nothing wrong with connet, okay, no, that's very nice.

Speaker 1: 3:01

Larochelle, yeah, booked it already for next year again all he gave you don't need that. Yeah, yeah, getting off the, yeah, the boats, yeah 24 hours to use it probably 48 hours, yeah, yeah same old, same old scarcity, a bilbao and lacquer on your next year, lacquer on your been there there we go Spain. Yeah, talking about what? Do you want to welcome? Do you want to welcome the guest properly? Before I go into chatting about certain things, well, am I a guest?

Speaker 3: 3:29

am I? Just thought I'd pop the car outside. I came in for a biscuit that was it he came in for a biscuit.

Speaker 2: 3:33

A microphone in front of my face came for a biscuit, a cup of tea and look what happened five biscuits later.

Speaker 3: 3:39

I did. I did see he threw the little packet away. I did do a nice.

Speaker 1: 3:42

There were five left in that pack on the other three, if you're gonna pick on me eating, you're gonna have a back, but I can use it myself absolutely.

Speaker 3: 3:55

My name is Tristan and I'm from La Trissante Almost rhymes, that isn't it. How many years of freshness were there? 25 now, wow. Yeah, it makes me feel old, that.

Speaker 2: 4:07

And you've worked in the US of A, haven't you?

Speaker 3: 4:10

Started in the US of A, a student in Michigan State, which was phenomenal as a 20 year old. Are they one of the?

Speaker 1: 4:16

biggest American football colleges.

Speaker 3: 4:22

That concept is a weird one to get your head around, because when you consider the size of America, the state of Michigan alone has got like four teams in it, so Michigan State, university of Michigan, central Michigan University, and then potentially there Northwestern, which is technically in Chicago Both. So all four of those would track 90,000 fans every weekend Really, and the state of Michigan is about the size of Britain. Oh, okay, so you've got probably maybe 20 primary institutions in America as far as sport, and Michigan State are probably in the top 10, yeah.

Speaker 3: 4:58

And that's just university, wow, university level. I couldn't, I didn't, I mean. My ignorance when I went out there as an athlete was huge. Most universities they're playing Saturdays and they get bigger crowds than the NFL, which is on Sundays Standard. So Spartan Stadium in Michigan State held, I think it's, 93,000 people. It's been sold out every game for the last like 20 years.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Where was the World Cup in 94 there? That was the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Speaker 3: 5:25

I think that's University of California Los Angeles. I think that is here.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Because I saw something on Instagram, social media, one of them the last day. Where, oh, what do I say? Do you have his name in the college? I can't think of the name. You're talking about the song the Sandman they come out to the last, I think that's Nebraska.

Speaker 3: 5:43

It was. I was a Tennessee or Alabama, maybe I don't know.

Speaker 1: 5:48

They were cutting to the stadium and all the crowd were just bouncing all day. It just looked like such a good atmosphere, and that must then push back onto the players themselves.

Speaker 3: 5:57

Yeah, the crazy thing about the NCAA, which is the university sports system in America, is that they don't get paid at all. So in order to go to play for a university where, if you play in front of there, was a guy called Charles Woodson when I was in Michigan State, who was in one of the I think he was in Nebraska he was the main player of the year and he'd have Nike chasing him down for like three or four million dollar contracts whilst he's still a student. But whilst he's still a student, he's got to pay to go to university. So he's playing in front of 90 or 1000 people. He's one of the most famous people in America, but until he finishes his degree, he's paying like everybody else to go to university and then at that point, once he finishes college, he then gets the huge deal in the NFL, of course.

Speaker 2: 6:42

Do you know the bit? Trying to keep yourself injury free, then, oh, 100% 100%.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Are you not allowed to get paid? Then is it or you.

Speaker 3: 6:49

If you get paid, you go throwing off the course, really. Yeah, I'm not massively all fair with the compliance of the NCAA these days, but like you're looking at, unless you're playing in a main university, you're not going to get drafted for the NFL, so that incentivises you to stay in college. Then Makes sense, yeah, and also like where they've stepped up. The next level is how do I say this? Now you could be a brilliant basketball player, a brilliant NFL player, and then, I don't know, I'll just do a surfing degree in college or something like that. Now they have to have set degrees that you have to do in order to qualify for the sports teams and you also have to maintain a certain level of grade point grade point average, they call it so you can't just fall in the degree You've actually got to study.

Speaker 1: 7:35

Is it the same as uni? Here? When you finish the last year in uni and you're on an American football team and there's 20, 25, 30, whatever amount on there, does everyone get drafted or it's not that way at all. It's only the no. Everyone gets put in there, but whether you get picked or not is up to the big franchises.

Speaker 3: 7:56

I went out there as an athlete, I had delusions of grandeur, maybe going to the Commonwealth, so maybe going to the European Championship or something like that. I was never quick enough, never good enough. During my last year there, my track and field coach, who was herself an Olympic champion, judy Brown King, won gold in Los Angeles in 400 hurdles, I think it was. She basically said look, you're not quick enough, like you're just not going to make the team next year, but you can hold a stopwatch and a whistle from me and help me coach. So as a part of that graduate assistantship scheme where you help all the sports and stuff, there's a few experiences with the football team, as they call it there, the American football team, and there's 120 in an American football squad. There's 120, right, and say, for example, every year there's 120 in Michigan States, maybe one every three years will get drafted to the NFL.

Speaker 2: 8:46

Really yeah, wow.

Speaker 3: 8:49

There was a couple of guys that I knew who were in classes with me. Chuck Buller, who played for that had to be a Chuck. It was a God-groomed Chuck Buller, isn't it? But there was a lot of my friends who were either track and field athletes or in the same university sorry, in the same class as me, who would never make it as professional footballers or American footballers, but they would be almost called the training squad. So one of them went to the Buffalo Bills and he was basically a pad holder for the Buffalo Bills on probably 120,000 dollars a year. Nice money if you can get it, oh yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1: 9:25

Wow.

Speaker 2: 9:26

So, one in 120.

Speaker 3: 9:28

No one in 360. One in 360. One every three or four years. That was the rate when I was there.

Speaker 2: 9:33

To get to a lead performance.

Speaker 3: 9:35

Yeah, at level. And when you consider the amount of players that play in the NFL, the majority of them don't last more than two years Before somebody else comes in and takes their place. Actually, this conversation goes all around for circles. So you were just about in La Rochelle and my very good friend, who is head of performance in Stade Rochelle rugby, who won the European title for the last two years, is a gentleman called Philippe Gardau, who used to play for the Carolina Panthers and for the Washington. They were called the Redsings at the time. Obviously, they're not anymore.

Speaker 3: 10:07

So he's French, philippe, and I think I believe he's the first ever Frenchman to play in the NFL. And yeah, he played maybe two or three years for the Panthers, a couple of years for the Redskins and still has to earn a living afterwards. Like, obviously you know he's earning a very good living in La Rochelle at the moment, I'm sure, but it's not a case of you've made it the NFL, so therefore you can put your feet up for the Redskins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that just happens in financial planning. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 10:37

We wish.

Speaker 1: 10:38

Do you know what? Talking about that? Look, I'm going to go on to stuff I wrote down on the times yesterday or today. How do you say it now? You know how it was Aberdeen. They've changed their name. It's Aberdeen or Aberdeen.

Speaker 2: 10:50

They still have a Dean, but they just made it. He's just written in like four letters.

Speaker 1: 10:54

And they spent 3.6 million, or whatever it was, on rebranding.

Speaker 2: 10:58

What a job.

Speaker 1: 10:58

The chief says, the pension contributions must double. So the 8% is not sufficient, it's not.

Speaker 2: 11:04

We've always said that 16%.

Speaker 1: 11:07

He wants to put it to.

Speaker 2: 11:08

Yeah, Well, we easily have a say in that there's a.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Imagine 16% of his wage.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Well, they probably put in more than 60% of his pension. That's be fair. He is the CEO.

Speaker 1: 11:20

But it's meant like an outsider for you. You spend all that money on marketing Nearly a quarter fifth of your wage. Having to go on a pension for the future, which we've always said like work Monday to Thursday and Friday, is the money you put for the future. You, but I can't imagine most people one could afford their lifestyle now by having an increase of an extra 8% on costs.

Speaker 2: 11:43

Well, unless you make a mandatory, they're not going to do it today.

Speaker 1: 11:46

True.

Speaker 2: 11:47

People just opt out, because it's just the mentality of the UK, sadly.

Speaker 1: 11:53

There's no point in talking rugby to this man here, so we'll. There was something in about football today. The headline was in football choice, in football's choice between morals and money, there's only one winner. So all of a sudden you throw that out to the two of you and you can have your rant about how bad football is and there's no morals in football, and all that.

Speaker 3: 12:15

I've got a nice little anecdote for that. Go on, I did a presentation. This comment itself is probably about maybe two years old now. I did a presentation a while ago where what does it take for a team to win? And one of the facts was, if you look at the Premier League football and what was then the I still is the Galic-Galic of Premiership in rugby and the Champions League. So three different sports, sorry, two different sports, three different leagues yeah, since 2015,.

Speaker 3: 12:47

How many of the teams that have won the Champions League for the last six years, the Premiership in England for the last three years and also the Premier League in England for the last three years, how many of those have failed the Financial Fair Play Awards? Oh beautiful. Have they failed the Financial Fair Play or have been obviously, in Saracens' case punished and sent back to the Champions League? All the Premiership teams, every single one of the Premiership teams, premier League team. How many years gone back? I think it was back to 2015. I'm putting myself forward to be shot down here, but I think this is correct.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Liverpool didn't, man City did. Who won the Champions League for Real Madrid? I don't know if they failed it, they probably just got.

Speaker 3: 13:29

No, basically the answer is all of them. Really, every single one of them has had some kind of sanction, I think that, because we probably would have been here for an hour. Yeah, you would have For every single team.

Speaker 2: 13:38

I'm in an hour in over where they probably failed it. I was inclined to say that's probably the right.

Speaker 3: 13:42

Yeah, I think all of them. Maybe Covid has slightly changed that Exactly.

Speaker 2: 13:45

it was like salary caps and all that sort of stuff Salary caps Financial. Fair Play. There is salary caps in football. Is there?

Speaker 3: 13:51

Well, no, they've got this sort of, They've got a fear of play yeah was the right and proper test and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 13:58

It's difficult to understand.

Speaker 2: 14:00

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Yeah, you're only allowed to pay a certain percentage of your revenue, as salary. So I think it's about 60% of your revenue is salary, but I think in the case of it's different than the rugby is actually a salary cap, isn't it there is?

Speaker 2: 14:17

yeah, yeah, they used to have marquee players in England and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:22

But for years and a half didn't they go and again, my brother-in-law was listening to him, he'll correct me Like man City were short some money before, I think, weren't they? And they went. How can we get around this? Oh, we'll rename the stadium the Etihad. Our owners will just throw some money in, we'll rename it the Etihad and basically they didn't give them a loan. It's another way of generating revenue through sponsorship, so you can get away with it.

Speaker 2: 14:46

I think Marketing, marketing and PR, just another line in the budget.

Speaker 1: 14:52

But the numbers coming out, the summer transfers were 2.3 billion pounds spent on summer transfers this year and the Premier League also just transfers and that's just 20 teams. But it generated.

Speaker 2: 15:05

But these teams actually make a profit.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Brighton do. Yeah, they made 200 million profit or something Really. Yeah, they sold a shed load of players this year and they've made us.

Speaker 2: 15:19

He sold a load of players.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Well yeah, that's what it does.

Speaker 2: 15:21

They sold the players, all the cars, all the fitness equipment, the ground, the land, no, no.

Speaker 1: 15:28

That's working capital, isn't that?

Speaker 2: 15:29

That's just like pens and stabilis for offices, but now they don't have a team to play football with no, they buy in a lot Like.

Speaker 1: 15:35

For example, they sold two guys to Chelsea, I'm sure for nearly 200 million.

Speaker 2: 15:40

They could have signed you now.

Speaker 1: 15:42

And they signed a guy from Ireland, from Shamrock Rovers, and he's 18. Is that actually real?

Speaker 3: 15:48

Oh, I was wondering how long this conversation would get around to the fact that he scored three goals over the weekend. What's his name? Again?

Speaker 1: 15:53

Ferguson. What was even nicer is the papers are touting him up to play for England Because his father is English and moved to Mead in Ireland. But if you listen to him, he's an 18-year-old. He goes. Why would I want to play for England?

Speaker 1: 16:09

Yeah exactly my father, Declan Rice and Jack Redish and Harry Kane, who are all based in Irish origin. But anyway, Premier League generates eight billion into the economy and four billion of that goes to taxes. So it's not all morally. They might be wrong in certain ways, but they do add a lot of money into the economy. And jobs oh, that fell on deaf ears. Jobs Well, the elite football supports 100,000 jobs.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Oh, football is a good thing. They're all in the UK people, right A?

Speaker 1: 16:36

bit like the rugby, just the Bevan there. All of the jobs in the back are not the 15 or 11 players that go out on the field, all the back office staff, the catering staff, the hospitality 100,000 jobs.

Speaker 2: 16:49

What's an hospitality part like that?

Speaker 3: 16:52

I know Swansea because Swansea was in the Premier League for a decade, I think wasn't it. The effect of having the Premier League in Swansea was huge in the local economy, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and the deprivation of such now is massive. The other side, yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:06

And the championship playoff game is the £100 million game, isn't it? That's how much you're going to make, even if you fall down the following year. For the club itself, Is that about the money Excluding where the club is based in terms of hotel and food and drink and people coming to stay and watch matches and stuff like that? Because, realistically, here in Cardiff, if Cardiff's just playing the championship and they've got I don't know Baronsley or someone, you won't get people staying. But if people, if they go for the Premier League and they've got Liverpool and man City, they'll come down and people might come from that are Cardiff based.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Yeah, people will come down who wouldn't normally go to some of the games and they'll spend the money down here, so it does generate more money into the economy. Nice Last thing I only have down here I was going to chat. This is interesting. I think probably isn't the world's wealthiest cities by number of millionaires. There's 345,600 millionaires in one city in the world. That's the number one wealthiest city. How many 345,600 millionaires?

Speaker 3: 18:11

That's going to be like Abu Dhabi as well, isn't it Wait?

Speaker 1: 18:14

Well, I'm not telling you you have to. It's an American city, new York. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 345. What's the beach color?

Speaker 3: 18:22

I was going to say Rubino for a second, but yeah, london is fourth, really.

Speaker 1: 18:27

Yeah, and where is Singapore? Los Angeles, Tokyo, San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney? There is no.

Speaker 2: 18:40

Well, we're talking millionaires.

Speaker 1: 18:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:42

Throughout that. Well, millionaires need all the hype performance, doesn't it? And we've got a man here who knows the hype performance. How do you classify it beforehand?

Speaker 3: 18:51

Oh crumbs. Very good question. Someone, either an entity or an individual, that's reached as probably as close to the ceiling in their space that they can hope to get to, that could be anything. That could be anything, for that it's old, isn't it? Do you know what? I'll take that back, because what I've just mentioned there is achievement, like there's a.

Speaker 3: 19:07

I think there's a bit of a sort of you can't go online these days or look at anything involving high performance, and there's like a thousand definitions for them.

Speaker 3: 19:15

Yeah, whether it's on podcasts or books or sort of reels and stuff, and one I suppose a high performer is someone who shows traits of someone who's repeatably good at something.

Speaker 3: 19:28

Shane or any three of us could go to a golf course and hit a lucky shot and have a hole in one yeah, which by definition, is high performance, but the repeatability aspect of it certainly for me anyway isn't there?

Speaker 3: 19:39

There's one sort of misnomer that I think is quite interesting, where people always say about oh, if you trust the process enough, you'll end up being a high performer or whatever the way to define that, and I always think that high performance needs to be measurable, it needs to be something that I don't know if you take a swimmer, for example, just because they get up at five o'clock in the morning and they go to the pool and they throw the laps in, that doesn't necessarily equate to you do that often enough. You'll end up in an Olympic gold medalist. You have to be able to break down the nature of the event, you have to find out what the standards are and you have to be able to do those. And not only able to do those, but do those under the stresses of expectation, competition, general sort of life stresses. So a high performer, I think, is someone who can repeat in a certain area or field, repeat something of a very high level On a constant basis, on a constant basis under various forms of stress.

Speaker 2: 20:31

Can anyone do it?

Speaker 3: 20:32

I'll be talking about this earlier before we come in. Can it be taught? I'm not quite sure if it can be taught. It can be experienced by a learner. And I mean you're talking down like Matthew Sayard obviously wrote the book Bounce about 10,000 hours of practice and then that's kind of been changed to. You know you need more deliberate practice and the best way of actually getting more deliberate practice is getting rid of mediocrity and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 3: 21:00

So there's various sort of ways of applying thought leadership to how it makes you a better performer. If you look at someone like Gerein Thomas didn't start cycling till relatively late often in his career but obviously shows the self-awareness, the ability to sort of repeat his behaviours and performances. You know he's way past his prime age while he's in sport now he's got first, second and third in the Tour de France. So in my mind he is by some distance the best while sportsmen in history. But the things that kept him going during his career of elevating high performance he still shows them now, even though he's basically no longer the main rider. So it's more a case of having those qualities but having those traits to underpin them as well.

Speaker 2: 21:47

So imagine if you look pre his career, he wasn't just on the lash every Saturday night and sat in the dancing and fooling. He probably showed those traits all the way through his life.

Speaker 3: 21:58

I don't know him to be able to say yes or no to that I imagine he probably was.

Speaker 3: 22:02

Yeah, and the higher I mean. There's a great metaphor, you know the higher up in the mountain he goes, there's less the air is thinner. What that means is the higher up in going standards. There's much, much less of a difference between winning and losing. It becomes very, very, very thin. You know, the air becomes very thin. So, like you know, geraint Thomas could at some point decided to run also in cycling and a local event. You, after having 24 straight nights on the razzle, dazzle and probably still win it by some distance because of his sort of his area of where he performs. But the higher up in competition you go, the more you get found out.

Speaker 1: 22:38

And you said earlier, has come back to training and planning. He because it I think it was Mark Cavendish was saying before, isn't it? They don't always do 120k cycle day on day off because they don't have the hours. It's that time and they train in the correct manner, not just training for training sake, because you can train and training correctly, they're training in the correct format.

Speaker 3: 23:01

Yeah, I mean you can train for quantity, you can train for intensity, you can train for longevity, you can train for just improving the sort of technical aspects of what you're looking at.

Speaker 1: 23:11

That's all aspects of life, not just a sport member. You know you know, all of your, all of your life.

Speaker 3: 23:16

No, precisely, I mean one of the metaphors in sport which is quite good, and this was something like obviously I'm not saying it's because you're Irish, but Lens there have been by some sort of distance, probably the most consistently good team in rugby For long enough to be able to say that's close to a dynasty, as you'll get there almost like the man United of rugby, marine, I did what they were the 90s. Lens there have been since the 2000s were too long, not a better.

Speaker 3: 23:47

Lens there by virtue of the fact that they were brilliant system around Dublin as far as all the schools, all the talent you've got to give it to them they've created themselves.

Speaker 3: 23:57

Yeah, but there's a monster man trying to crash that dynasty, or France yeah, that's very true, but it was in sort of the same metaphors we were talking about. Lens start. On a good day, there are 10 out of 10. On a regular basis, not so just on a good day. So the turn up on a Saturday, they play, everything goes well. There are 10 or 10. They turn up and they have a shocker there's still a 7 out of 10, whereas some teams have coached in the past I'm not going to say any names or anything like that Some teams have had a higher threshold of 9 and they've had a lower threshold of 6.

Speaker 3: 24:33

So I mean, one team that I've coached at a good day would be a 6.5 7, but by God, we got the potential to be a 2 leg. So when you watch these scores on a weekend, we're flipping a lens that have absolutely pumped. Let's say I don't know I'm picking any of them they've pumped beer it's 59 now, whatever it is. Well, lens still have probably operated at a 9 out of 10 level and beer, it's a probably pop, or operated at a 3 out of 10 level. Westport gets interesting and this is where the metaphor for life goes as well as is when you've got people who've got really high levels of performance thresholds, and the difference between their best and their worst is small, so you can still have a shocking day, but still be very good some guy that is over works in lense or so the last day he works on the Samoan national team as well.

Speaker 1: 25:18

can't remember who it was, but he said how good are our? Because they had a friendly challenge game last week and he went that is just an elite lense team, he said about the Irish team.

Speaker 2: 25:30

Yeah, but people do that at World Cup on the end of the part of the team and then the world cup and do some consultancy for some of these international coinage Flying for six weeks.

Speaker 1: 25:43

Fly out, you know help them, educate them in some format. You know to twist something.

Speaker 2: 25:50

I mean, they kind of think that with obviously didn't have that guess yeah but he do analyze.

Speaker 3: 26:00

What Britain is doing very well, and I kill island, scotland, wales and England, and that is the analysis and the sort of the crucible of thought in rugby is quite sophisticated. So you've got real top level analysts, really good sort of practitioners as far as coaches and SC guys and medics and stuff, and the majority of them have worked in a real high pressure environment such as the Premiership in England or the USC and stuff, and it ends up churning out. You know, you get the experience of having your philosophy tested against the league table, which is always very, very tough, and then you come through that. And then there's part of the reason like Italy, italy are improving without a single doubt, and like my dad was telling me years and years ago, you know, france didn't join the six nations until the 30s or 40s, I believe.

Speaker 1: 26:43

Well, I'm gonna say the seven. I thought it was the 70s.

Speaker 3: 26:47

No, it took France a good 35 years to become good.

Speaker 2: 26:49

If Italy came in around?

Speaker 3: 26:51

that Italy came in 2000, didn't they? Yeah, france.

Speaker 1: 26:55

You know, you boys chat there with your boys chat away there.

Speaker 3: 27:00

You know you're a serial art of a star.

Speaker 2: 27:02

I'm thinking about those different levels of forms like I guess Wales is a bit like that and they can be brilliant. They also be absolutely horrendous, and so I'm going to put a hundred points on it.

Speaker 3: 27:11

Shane, I think you better take on us, I might? What's that?

Speaker 1: 27:15

I'll hurt us if we have put a hundred points on them you could do On who.

Speaker 2: 27:19

You're listening, then no I wasn't listening.

Speaker 3: 27:20

That's why Tristan said he was googling to see when France joined the Six Nations or five nations, obviously, yeah, the five nations. But the point I'm getting at, france took 35 to 40 years to actually become competitive and then become very, very good 1931. Was it really that Okay? And then so, italy having a little bit of a service, should they be in the Six Nations or this kind of stuff? You know they need a few generations of plays to come through and to learn from the previous one. You know currently now, if you're an eight or nine year old boy in Italy, or, what sport should I go into? Should I watch Juventus or in the Milan? Oh, I'm on a second. The Italian national team has done pretty well, so it'll create a cascade effect when more players will want to play rugby and that takes time, like you can genuinely see, in 20 years time, italy probably competing or even winning the Six Nations. So here's one for you two boys as well.

Speaker 1: 28:04

people. What's priority in Wales now? Because for 15 years maybe the rugby was far the most dominant sport. Then all of a sudden, bale, ramsey and all these guys brought through the football and even though you had gigs and marques and bone and Neville South all on them in the late you know, 80s, 90s it didn't seem to be as popular as rugby and are as successful. I think football took over for a short while. But what's going to push through now? If you're seeing the kids in Italy are going to be watching the Italian team, what are kids going to push through on in Wales?

Speaker 2: 28:46

Well, rugby will still always be the strongest sport, is that?

Speaker 1: 28:49

just because it's interwoven in society.

Speaker 3: 28:51

I reckon, though, I mean I want to say yes, because I'm a bit of a serial romantic when it comes to all that kind of stuff, because I know from the area I'm from rugby is dominant in all that kind of stuff Working class. But I can only judge it by my own son's experience. Now I'm a touchline dad for the first time ever. Like yes, of course my son watches international rugby and blah, blah, blah. He's far more interested in Italy and Holland, far more interested in man City than anything else on there, and I think it was an interesting case study there. Like Wales were excellent in rugby in the 70s, not great in football, both teams had a real challenging period in the 80s and 90s. Not particularly good on anything really, and that was the area that we all grew through was watching football in. Well, same with Ireland, with you. Really, ireland and Wales in the 80s and 90s were particularly struggling in rugby and in football, so we had nothing really to attach ourselves to emotionally.

Speaker 1: 29:44

But then you can use that example that in Ireland everyone supports man United or Liverpool. There's other teams well, there's friends of mine that have West Ham and Ipswich but they were out of Europe, they weren't taking part in European Cups, they weren't really successful, but still lots of players and people supported them. So even though you are not as successful, there were still loads of people supporting them in a different country. So it kind of goes against the chat that we're having here that if you're not successful, people might not support you.

Speaker 3: 30:17

I don't know Gaelic football and rugby to me are in the two different countries are interwoven in society.

Speaker 1: 30:24

In every school there's a lot of people who support them. There's a cool little ground in Ireland. There's a Gaelic football pitch in primary school and that and it almost seems to be the same here that you go out from a big city. All of the small schools and stuff like that all seem to have a rugby pitch attached to it, Because that's society is built around that and the local rugby club. They have football pitches.

Speaker 2: 30:48

That's what I went to. We had a football pitch, we kind of had a football team, but it was basically the rugby players playing football in reality, because it wasn't really I don't know if it was 20 or 20 years ago now, so I don't know how that's changed. Maybe that's cool now there's a better football side than there's a rugby side.

Speaker 1: 31:09

It's one you could debate, I suppose, for a long, long time. It's just I suppose it's the eight, nine, 10, 12-year-old kids that are the ones that will funnel down to success, because they'll follow success more so than history, I presume.

Speaker 3: 31:22

Yeah, I don't think history really matters to people anymore. People got goldfish attention spans all of a sudden. No yeah, like sadly now watching Barry John and Phil Bennett and these guys I think we've all got to accept I mean, I'm 48 now we've all got to accept that even those amazing moments of sport are not going to have to be snapshotted into seven-second Instagram clips. That's how people will remember them now. No people. I used to watch the crowning years VHS, like spending an hour and a half every Sunday afternoon, like I was immersed in that stuff. But now, like, if someone watches a reel on a phone for 10 seconds, you're lucky, aren't you?

Speaker 2: 31:58

It's funny, though then you flip that over to Netflix and they'll have eight episodes about golf on some of these programs. So that's where it goes then, full circle in the fact that.

Speaker 1: 32:08

Yeah, they're all segmented, aren't they?

Speaker 2: 32:11

But we're now turning something which could be a film into an hour and a half thing, into basically 12 hours, which is bizarre. Our attention span is already good. We're suddenly having all these programs now about. Here's a Mark Cavendish.

Speaker 1: 32:27

That was the TV, yeah, but like you said, with the attention span, the golf I think it goes to. Let's say, it'll spend a few minutes with Michael Roy here and his chance on it, and then it cuts to another thing, and then another thing. They're very clever at it. Over the course of 50 minutes it could be cutting back in overloads of times.

Speaker 3: 32:41

There we go, there's Do you know who Thelma Scolomegger is? She's Martin Scorsese's editor, right? So Martin Scorsese is one of three or four? No, he hasn't. He's one of one or two Oscars, obviously one of the best filmmakers all the time. But Thelma Scolomegger, who's the woman who does the editing for him, is one like six Oscars, and her gift is effectively, she gets all the content of Scorsese films and she cuts the film and makes the film feel like his vision, right?

Speaker 3: 33:10

Right? So the Irishman, obviously, which is panned by critics and all that kind of stuff. I think she still won an Oscar for editing, but she made the conscious choice of making it in a three and a half four-hour film because she'd already anticipated people no longer go to the cinema. It's now. People will binge watch three or four, five hours in the afternoon. We can actually pivot the other way and make really long films with more dialogue. And I think she is genuinely, even though she's probably close to eight years of age now, she's probably got a finger on the pulse a lot more than other people do. She probably reads the room going now on a second, or this is what people do now. That's true.

Speaker 2: 33:48

And some people are good at that. They just read their audience and they learn their audience and so on and so forth, and that's why they become exceptional in their field, which comes back to how they perform.

Speaker 1: 33:59

Absolutely. And with that we'll say thank you to Mr Bevan and we'll go and find some more biscuits for him.

Speaker 3: 34:07

Easy now. You only got a cup of tea here. Come on now.