Is Henry Pollock actually the villain South Africa's made him out to be, or has the whole thing been built by everyone except him?Huw Griffin returns to join MW Welman on the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast fresh off a media day at England v Fiji, where he sat in on Pollock's own press conference and came away with his own read on rugby's most talked-about young player. From there the conversation moves through the Nations Championship's strange hemisphere logic, a form check on Wales heading into Durban to face yet another reshuffled Springbok side, and a look at the Springbok Women's wild split series against the USA.In this episode:- Huw's first-hand take on Henry Pollock, on camera and off it- Why the Nations Championship has fans cheering for their own rivals- Wales' form line into Durban: a big win over Fiji, a heavy loss to Argentina- The Springbok Women's first-half blitz against the USA, and what changed in the second TestIf you enjoy the show, the best thing you can do is LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and hit the BELL so you never miss an episode.

The case for SA teams pulling off both upsets is real. Huw Griffin ran the numbers on both URC semi-finals and found something worth paying attention to: the Bulls out-kick Glasgow over the course of the season, and the Stormers match Leinster almost exactly on gain line statistics.📊 The case for SA teams pulling off both upsets is real, and MW and Huw build it with data across Glasgow vs Bulls and Leinster vs Stormers.In this episode:🏉 Glasgow vs Bulls: the kicking battle, the turnover risk, and why rain at Murrayfield could decide everything🏉 Leinster vs Stormers: Sascha Feinberg-Mngomezulu's injury, what Yuri Matea changes, and the gain line collision🏉 The counterintuitive stats that shift the semi-final picture for both SA teams🏉 Jacques Nienaber, Leo Cullen, and the question of who is actually running LeinsterOn this episode of the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, MW Welman and Huw Griffin break down both URC semi-finals with data, disagreement, and a prediction or two.If you enjoy the show, the best thing you can do is LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and hit the BELL so you never miss an episode.

Kennedy Tsimba has spent years building a case that rugby teams are spending their training week on the wrong things.As Bulls skills coach, Tsimba has developed a formal thesis around transitions (the moments when possession changes hands), and the numbers from the Champions Cup final are hard to ignore. Bordeaux had 32 transition opportunities to Leinster's 20. They knew what to do with them. Leinster didn't. Tsimba calls the ability to handle these moments "the shift": a change in mindset, space, and tactics that most teams train for last, if at all. He draws on research with a Golden State Warriors psychologist, conversations with fighter pilots, and applied analysis from football and basketball to argue that winning the chaos is coachable.On this episode of the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, MW Welman and Huw Griffin sit down with Kennedy Tsimba to dig into his transition framework, break down clips from the Champions Cup final, and ask the question coaches keep avoiding: what happens when the structure falls apart?

A British and Irish League merger between the URC and the Premiership may be closer than anyone is admitting, and South Africa could be left with nowhere to go.Huw Griffin breaks down the clues: CVC's shared ownership stake across both competitions, Ealing Trailfinders reportedly being green-lit to join the URC, and quiet talks about merging the women's competitions on the same lines. Huw thinks there is substance to the rumours, and MW unpacks what it could mean for SA clubs, the Rugby Championship, and whether South Africa is playing a high-stakes bluffing game with very little to fall back on.Elsewhere: the Stormers' worrying run of form after losing to Cardiff, why the Bulls are hard to analyse but easy to fear, Connacht's remarkable turnaround under Stuart Lancaster, and a full preview of both European finals including Huw's case for why Leinster peak at the right moment against UBB. Plus a rugby stats rant that needed to happen, and your weekly Welsh and Afrikaans lesson.On this episode of the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, MW Welman and Huw Griffin give you Southern grit meets Northern tradition, unfiltered.

Rugby chose her. She made the most of it.Nadine Roos grew up on a farm in Limpopo, played cricket, athletics, netball and WWE with the boys, and did not know women's rugby existed in South Africa until she walked onto a university campus. She found out sevens was an Olympic sport. A month later she was in France.MW Welman and Huw Griffin sit down with the Springbok Women's star to go through the full story. The grandmother who set the standard. The five overseas offers. The ACL. The try against France that had the TMO second-guessing himself. The scrum half jersey she picked up almost by accident.This is the Nadine Roos story, on the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast.

Huw Griffin went back and watched every Stormers try scored this season. All of them. What he learned confirmed everything he suspected about the 48-12 win over Glasgow Warriors.Huw breaks down where the Stormers actually score from, why Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu's numbers from this game are unlike any other fly half in the URC this season, and a first-phase pattern off scrums and mauls the Stormers have been running quietly all year. Also: the exact moment Huw believes Glasgow lost this game, and why it had nothing to do with the final score.Also on this episode: Bulls vs Scarlets, the Scarlets' kicking game and what it exposed, and a conversation about Super Rugby's player exodus.On this episode of The Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, MW Welman and Huw Griffin give their unfiltered read on a big week in URC rugby.

Neil de Bruin, Attack Coach at the Vodacom Bulls, has a rule about how much information a player should carry onto the field. It's less than you think.Most coaches give players more. More detail, more scenarios, more to think about. De Bruin does the opposite, and the Bulls are scoring the most tries in the URC.On the Loose Pass Rugby Podcast, fresh from a week inside the Bulls' preparation room, MW Welman sits down with De Bruin alongside Huw Griffin to talk about how he actually coaches. Not the theory. The practice. How he arrived at Loftus mid-season with no runway and had to make an immediate impact, what he found when he walked in, and the single governing principle behind everything he does on an attack day.Because by his own admission, the Bulls are just getting started.

Huw Griffin is a Scarlets fan. He is also, this week, the most statistically informed person on the Bulls in the Loose Pass studios.Huw spent the week building a data portrait of the Bulls' season (measured, specific, gleefully conflicted), mapping points per 22 entry before and after the Bristol game, tracking 11 straight games of negative net 22 entries, and pinpointing exactly which jerseys have been a revolving door. Not a Scarlets cheerleader's wishful thinking. A data analyst's actual work, done by someone who also sat across from the Bulls' attack coach this week, tried to extract the line-out calls, and got absolutely nothing.The Scarlets host the Bulls this weekend at Parc y Scarlets. Huw will tell you the Bulls have never won there. MW will tell you Huw is delusional. This is the one week of the season where the podcast stops being analysis and starts being personal.MW and Huw also dig into France's Top 14 annual financial report, the full URC top 8 run-in, and the weekend's biggest games.

THE LOOSE PASS sits down with Libbie Janse van Rensburg, women's Springbok fly half and four-time Super League champion with the Bulls Daisies.In this conversation: how a free trip to Paris and zero knowledge of contact rugby started a journey that ended in a Springbok jersey. The Italy game and the moment that stopped South African rugby in its tracks. The Black Ferns quarterfinal and what 40 minutes against the best team in the world taught them. What makes the Bulls Daisies the most professional setup in South African women's rugby. And what she still wants to do in the game.Libbie also talks about playing under Swys de Bruin, the women's Six Nations playing to packed stadiums, and why she thinks South African women's rugby is only getting started.The Loose Pass is part of Megafoon Rugby, where we slow the game down. Analysis, conversations and stories about why things happen, not just what happened.

What actually makes good rugby, and who gets to decide?In this episode of the Loose Pass Podcast, Huw Griffin and MW Welman get into a conversation that starts with a simple question and quickly turns into something bigger.There’s a growing idea in the game that more tries and faster matches automatically mean better rugby. But that only really makes sense if you’re asking people who don’t watch the sport closely. It’s the same argument often thrown at football, that it’s boring because there aren’t enough goals. Anyone who understands it knows that’s not the point.So what happens if rugby starts shaping itself around that outside perspective?This is where the discussion lands. Identity, tension, structure, and why some of the best matches are not the highest scoring ones. Because if the game keeps chasing a version of entertainment defined by the wrong voices, it risks losing what made it compelling in the first place.