The Lekker Rugby Pod!

Megafoon Rugby! Podcasts
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The ever-curious MW Welman and globetrotting rugby poet Harry Jones explore the people, ideas and moments shaping South African rugby and the world game.

  1. 7 HRS AGO

    Episode 174: The Coach Doesn't Always Know What the Stormers Will Do. That's the Point | Dawie Snyman & Ruhan Nel

    The Stormers are second on the URC log, and yet their attack coach sometimes has no idea what's coming next. That is not a gap in the system. That is the system.Dawie Snyman has spent many years building the Stormers attack around one idea: give the right players the freedom to express themselves and trust what follows. On this episode, he and captain Ruhan Nel break open how that philosophy actually works: How the penalty decision gets made in real time on the field, why the new aerial contest rules have reshaped modern attack, what playing on a 4G surface does to a team that likes to use its feet, and what "peaking" looks like for a squad nobody can quite pin down. Real answers, Not press-conference ones.Ruhan Nel also unpacks his journey from trials rugby at Tuks to Stormers captain, and what sevens taught him about reading a 15-man game.

    59 min

  2. 4D AGO

    Episode 173: The French TMO Footage Drama: Our Take on Rugby's Online Debate

    The Bordeaux versus Bath Champions Cup semi-final ignited a very public clash between two of rugby's most prominent online voices over the standard of commentary, the integrity of the TMO process, and where the line sits between legitimate criticism and agenda-driven noise. MW and Harry work through what each side got right, where both overreached, and what the controversy reveals about the TMO system under pressure. The pod also covers a shifting Harry Index, Leinster rounding into ominous form at exactly the wrong time, the Junior Springboks closing in on a championship, and what the All Blacks depth chart really looks like under pressure.On this episode of the Lekker Rugby Pod, MW Welman and Harry Jones weigh in on the drama that has split rugby online.

    51 min

  3. 4D AGO ·  BONUS

    Special: Then Jake White Called: The Real Origin Story of Megafoon Rugby and Lekker Rugby Pod!

    MW Welman started a sports channel. Harry Jones was writing about rugby from the other side of the world. One conversation changed everything.In this episode of The Long Way to the Game, Paul Avenant sits down with MW and Harry to tell the full origin story for the first time. How Megafoon Rugby found its footing, how a single phone call became Lekker Rugby Pod, and how a channel that began with Formula One content quietly grew into a rugby platform with a South African heartbeat and a genuinely global footprint. Not a plan they executed. A thing they built, recognised mid-flight, and then pushed as hard as they could. The apology tours, the coaches who pushed back, the WhatsApp from Dobbo, and the breakfast in Pretoria where two men realised their dreams had already been exceeded.Hosted by Paul Avenant, with MW Welman and Harry Jones on The Long Way to the Game.

    1h 1m

  4. 6D AGO

    Episode 172: Why Franco Smith Is the Coach Every Team Wants | Jamie Lyall

    Franco Smith has been calling himself a Dreamgiver for years. This conversation explains what that actually means.Jamie Lyall, who commentates for World Rugby and writes for RugbyPass, has watched Franco up close since 2022, when a teacher from the Free State arrived in Glasgow with no recruitment budget, inherited a staff, and started coaching scrum sessions he had never run before. Lyall unpacks what makes him different: a cultural intelligence that can hold Jack Dempsey and Sione Tuipulotu inside the same framework, and an ability to make players believe in something before they have any proof it works.The conversation also covers Glasgow's URC title run and that afternoon at Loftus, Franco's legacy at Italy, Kyle Steyn's place in world rugby, and an honest read on Gregor Townsend's record when the pressure is on.On this episode of the Lekker Rugby Pod, MW Welman sits down with rugby broadcaster and journalist Jamie Lyall.

    1h 3m

  5. MAY 3

    Episode 171: Carrying Grief, Chasing Glory: Rito Hlungwani and Ben-Jason Dixon on the Stormers | Lekker Rugby Pod

    The DHL Stormers are top of the URC log. They also just lost one of their own. This conversation sits inside both of those realities.Rito Hlungwani has built one of the most dominant forwards packs in world rugby. The way he does it, the rituals, the methods, the connection he builds in the room before battle. You won't find it written down anywhere. Ben-Jason Dixon is the engineer inside that machine. The man whose questions in team meetings take weeks to understand, and are always proven right.Together they sat down with Harry Jones and MW Welman before the Stormers' European tour. On Chippie Solomon. On what holds a group together when everything hurts. On what it takes to lead the URC when you're carrying grief.On The Lekker Rugby Pod, MW Welman and Harry Jones explore the people, ideas, and moments shaping South African rugby and the world game.

    57 min

  6. MAY 1

    Episode 170: She Called Out Harry Jones. He Listened | Gráinne Seoige

    Gráinne Seoige has watched Ireland and South Africa play each other from both sides of the fence.One of Ireland's most recognisable broadcasters, she now lives in Pretoria, was at Loftus when the Springboks settled the score in 2024, and has been inside SA rugby culture long enough to see the pattern clearly. On this episode she makes the case that the two nations share more than their rivalry suggests: in how they talk, how they host, how they grieve, and why the underdog story never goes away in either country. She also defends Connacht, corrects Harry Jones on the Galway win over the Stormers, and says "hoendervleis" in the most Irish accent you will ever hear at Loftus.On this episode of The Lekker Rugby Pod, MW Welman and Harry Jones sit down with Gráinne Seoige, Irish broadcaster, Connacht fan, and resident of Pretoria.

    54 min

  7. APR 29

    Episode 169: Which URC Teams Are Actually Built for the Playoffs? Harry Runs the Numbers

    This is what it looks like when MW and Harry get a room to themselves.No guest. No agenda. Just Harry Jones with a spreadsheet and MW with the questions to make sense of it. Harry has been running numbers on the URC's nine playoff contenders, not just the table, but the categories underneath it: how teams carry, how they defend, how they use the set piece, how they kick and get the ball back. He brings a framework to a race that still has everything to play for, and MW pushes him on every assumption.This is what the Lekker Rugby Pod was built for. MW and Harry, no guest between them, knowing the game well enough to disagree on it. Harry also runs the Harry Index, MW updates the Megafoon Rugby schedule, and there is a story about a Connacht fan, a six-page letter, and an upcoming guest you will not see coming.The Lekker Rugby Pod. MW Welman and Harry Jones. Classic.

    55 min

  8. APR 27

    Episode 168: Why SA Rugby and Scotland Are Made For Each Other | Jamie Lyle

    SA rugby and Scottish rugby have been quietly in love with each other for years. This episode is the proof.Jamie Lyle grew up in rural Scotland, 20 houses, one black classmate across six years of school, and a satellite dish that showed him Super Rugby. He went to South Africa for his 30th birthday and came home different. Not because of Table Mountain or the Garden Route, though both surpassed every expectation. Because of what the trip forced him to see about himself. In this conversation with Harry Jones, Jamie opens up about confronting subconscious biases he did not know he had, what Trevor Noah's book unlocked in him, and how the experience changed the language he uses on air. Not only that. His voice ended up on Chasing the Sun 2. He spent a night with the Romania team in Bordeaux. And he tells the story of how Pierre Schoeman answered his very first media question.On this episode of The Lekker Rugby Pod, Harry Jones sits down with Scottish rugby commentator Jamie Lyle, only on Megafoon Rugby.

    38 min
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The ever-curious MW Welman and globetrotting rugby poet Harry Jones explore the people, ideas and moments shaping South African rugby and the world game.

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