Maul or Nothing

Louis Rees-Zammit vs Henry Pollock. Two of rugby’s biggest young superstars. Two enormous personalities. And now apparently… a celebration war. 😂

LRZ is absolutely FLYING for Bristol — so what has changed this season, why does he suddenly look so dangerous again, and what about that Pollock trolling?! 👀

Meanwhile, Pedro Rubiolo appears to have developed a genuine propensity for violence — including chasing kicks like a man personally offended by the existence of the opposition. Max approves. Obviously. 😂

Elsewhere in another completely normal episode of Maul or Nothing…

🔪 Has Aaron Wainwright accidentally entered his Jeffrey Dahmer era?

🍆 Naked Attraction comes up, which naturally leads to the far more important question: how much money would it actually take to get Max Lahiff to do a naked calendar?

🇦🇺 And Mark Nawaqanitawase signs off from the NRL in ridiculous fashion — TWO tries in the 2026 Grand Final as the Roosters come from 12–0 down to beat Newcastle 19–18. Now he’s heading back to union… and suddenly the Wallabies’ wing cupboard looks absolutely FILTHY.

🏉 THE 2026/27 PREM

🐻 Bristol v Northampton
LRZ vs Pollock brings the stardust, Bristol make another statement and Rubiolo is immense. Plus, what exactly has changed with the way the driving maul is being refereed?

🦈 Saracens v Sale
Naughty, naughty Jacques Vermeulen… Sale somehow go down to THIRTEEN men and still leave StoneX with the win. And Nathan Jibulu is looking like an absurdly complete rugby player — sort the darts and how high is his ceiling?

🔵 Bath 40–34 Exeter
Immanuel Feyi-Waboso looking borderline unplayable while the Bath pack starts purring.

🍒 Gloucester 48–0 Harlequins
FORTY. EIGHT. NIL. 😳 Against Quins. Jac Morgan, Dewi Lake and the Welsh contingent are already being adopted by The Shed.

🐯 Newcastle 19–24 Leicester
No win yet for the Red Bull revolution — but 10,210 packed into Kingston Park and Newcastle made Tigers seriously sweat.

🌍 THE URC

🏰 Edinburgh are 2 from 2 after following up their Ulster win by beating the Stormers. Are Edinburgh quietly becoming… good?! They’ve even impressed their harshest critic: Ryan Wilson.

☘️ Ciarán Frawley leaves Leinster to become THE GUY at Connacht… and immediately starts doing The Guy things. Two tries against Benetton including the 77th-minute winner. Stuart Lancaster + Frawley could be a very tasty reunion.

🦈 Sharks 26–20 Leinster — the defending champions are 0–2. Yes, yes, young squad, South African tour, nobody burn down Dublin just yet… but it IS very funny.

🍺 Glasgow 33–33 Ulster — cards, momentum swings, both sides down to 13 at different stages and George Horne hits the post late on. Essentially a rugby match played after everyone involved had consumed six pints.

🔴 Munster 26–22 Bulls — another big early-season result at Thomond Park.

🥃 WOLFCRAIG

This episode is brought to you by our brilliant friends at Wolfcraig.

Get 20% OFF EVERYTHING on the Wolfcraig store using code:

👉 MAUL 👈

Head to Wolfcraig.com and fill your boots. 🥃

👍 LIKE the episode
💬 Tell us who wins the LRZ v Pollock taunt-off
🔔 SUBSCRIBE to Maul or Nothing for more rugby nonsense every week
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Wallabies finished with ELEVEN MEN and still beat the world champions. George Ford spent his afternoon with Bears charging down his channel. And we’ve got two of them in for questioning… 🐻😂

England’s Benhard Janse van Rensburg and Scotland’s Tom Jordan join Marc, Max and Ryan for a Maul or Nothing loaded with international tour tales, Bristol ambition and the sort of stories that probably shouldn’t leave the changing room.

🦶 BVR’s bare feet, his England summer and the family learning the national anthem.
🃏 Card sharks, room wrecking and the dangers of touring with professional rugby players.
✈️ TJ’s tour tales, plane stories and why George Furbank gets dragged into the Scotland conversation.
🇳🇿 Facing the All Blacks, the madness of Josh McKay and what actually helps when New Zealand are coming at you.
🐻 Bristol’s big ambitions, European away days and the all-important question: who gets first class to Cape Town?
😂 Manus, pūkanas… and a haggis. Obviously.

Plus, a short, sharp blast through the weekend’s rugby: Australia’s amazing result versus the Springboks, the Prem and URC, and whether Bristol’s repeated visits to George Ford’s channel amounted to picking on him.

Saints come out firing with Archie McParland starting ahead of Alex Mitchell, that Carreras moment gives us vintage Brian O’Driscoll training-ground flashbacks, and we ask how often players produce THAT sort of filth when the cameras aren’t rolling. ✨

There’s also Will Stuart’s return and Max’s mate James Dun making the highlights for a little extracurricular push and shove. Lovely to see the dark arts getting airtime. 🤝😂

👇 Were the Wallabies brilliant, the Boks wasteful… or was that finish just completely unhinged? Tell us below.

👍 Like, subscribe and send this to the mate who’d book himself into first class and leave you in economy.

🥃 Proudly supported by Wolfcraig. Use code MAUL for 20% off. 18+ only. Please drink responsibly.

Maul or Nothing — Rugby’s most entertaining breakdown.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everyone’s unbeaten. Everyone’s optimistic. And at least one of our top-four predictions is going to age like milk by September.

Max, Ryan and Marc look ahead to the 2026/27 season with their Premiership and URC top-four picks. Who’s challenging for silverware, who’s being wildly overhyped, and who’ll be calling it a “rebuilding year” before the clocks go back?

We catch up on what the boys have been up to over pre-season, who’s putting in the hard yards and who’s already having a rough time. Fresh starts, big ambitions and the annual pretence that everyone’s in the best shape of their life.

Plus, Finn Russell’s wedding and a three-tier cigarette display. Forget cutting the cake — who’s going outside with the centrepiece?

Big calls, questionable logic and predictions we’ll be deleting by Christmas.

🥃 SPONSORED BY WOLFCRAIG
This episode is proudly sponsored by Wolfcraig Whisky. Use code MAUL for 20% off at wolfcraig.com.

Follow Maul or Nothing and leave us a rating and review — it helps more people find the show.

Maul or Nothing — Rugby’s most entertaining breakdown.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

🥃 THIS EPISODE IS PROUDLY SPONSORED BY WOLFCRAIG

Explore the full Wolfcraig range at wolfcraig.com and use code MAUL for 20% off the entire site.

England versus Argentina always delivers chaos — whether it’s football or rugby.

England win 31–24 in Santiago del Estero, but the real drama came in a furious finish. Did Bautista Delguy score the late try? Why isn’t Henry Pollock starting — and did he take the goading of Argentina too far?

Felipe Contepomi then accused England of showing a “lack of respect” after hearing their dressing-room celebrations during his post-match press conference.

Was he right, or had England earned the right to celebrate?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇦🇷 ARGENTINA 24–31 ENGLAND

🌶️ One of the spiciest Tests of the year
❓ Delguy’s late effort: try or no try?
🔥 Pollock winding up the Pumas
🪑 Why isn’t Pollock starting?
👕 And what was going on with the kit?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇳🇿 NEW ZEALAND 40–21 IRELAND

How did Luke Jacobson’s shoulder-to-head contact on Josh van der Flier avoid being upgraded to red?

Dangerous head contact continues to produce wildly inconsistent outcomes.

If that isn’t upgraded, what exactly is the bunker there to upgrade?

Ireland also conceded 15 turnovers on a night when very little clicked.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 SCOTLAND 33–17 FIJI

Much squeakier than the scoreline suggests.

Fiji led 17–7 at half-time before Scotland’s bench changed the match and inspired 26 unanswered second-half points.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇿🇦 SOUTH AFRICA 43–0 WALES

Another brutal demolition.

Four years ago, Wales travelled to South Africa, won a Test and nearly took the series. Now the Springboks are using the fixture to blood young players — and still winning comfortably.

South Africa have beaten Wales 116–0 across their last two meetings.

Are the Springboks already cruising towards the 2027 Rugby World Cup?

What goes into Building the perfect Bok and can Ryan tap into it for his offspring??

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 2026 Nations Championship is officially underway and WHAT an opening weekend of international rugby. 🌍🔥

Ryan and Max get stuck into every major Test as the Springboks destroy England, the All Blacks survive a French thriller, Ireland break Australian hearts, Scotland run riot in Argentina and Wales find a way past Fiji.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

💰 REFUND CLUB

The FCA has confirmed that millions of car finance agreements may have been mis-sold.

⏱️ It takes less than 60 seconds to check whether you could be owed compensation from a previous agreement.

💷 Marc checked and discovered he may be owed £829.

👉 https://www.refundclub.co.uk/maul

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇿🇦 SOUTH AFRICA 45–21 ENGLAND 🏴

England were battered at Ellis Park.

Yes, they fought back brilliantly after a brutal opening quarter. Yes, there were moments of genuine promise.

But this was also England’s fifth consecutive Test defeat and the eighth game in a row in which they have received at least one yellow card.

So we ask the uncomfortable question…

Are England beginning to accept mediocrity?

If Italy, Argentina, Wales, Fiji, Australia or Scotland produced that performance against South Africa, would we call them plucky? Brave? Gallant? Would we praise the fightback and talk about a young team taking positives?

Probably.

But what if it was New Zealand, France or Ireland?

Would they accept being comprehensively put away?

Steve Borthwick has a 56.5% win record across 46 Tests. At what point do “young England team”, “positives to take” and “building towards the World Cup” stop being enough?

Especially when the Springboks were without Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Franco Mostert, Lood de Jager, RG Snyman, Kwagga Smith and Frans Malherbe.

A bad England performance?

Or a huge statement win from the Springboks?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇦🇷 ARGENTINA 38–47 SCOTLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Scotland go to Córdoba and produce their best-ever result in Argentina.

Sione Tuipulotu leads from the front, Scotland find another gear and Gregor Townsend’s men start the Nations Championship with a massive away victory.

Is Tom Jordan the natural successor to Finn Russell?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇳🇿 NEW ZEALAND 34–32 FRANCE 🇫🇷

A captivating nine-try thriller in Christchurch.

New Zealand strike.

France answer.

France strike.

New Zealand answer.

Brilliant test match rugby and a fabulous first win for the Dave Rennie era. Ryan absolutely stoked for his former coach!

Plus, remember the name: Fehi Fineanganofo. 👀 but is he going to Newcastle Red Bulls? The boys debate players being tied to contracts

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA 31–33 IRELAND 🇮🇪

An absolute HUMDINGER in Sydney.

Back and forth. Five tries apiece. Australia with a chance to win it at the death.

But Ireland — and Hugo Keenan in particular — find a way.

Ireland continue building serious depth while Australia provide even more evidence that…

THE WALLABIES ARE BACK.

Carter Gordon, Dylan Pietsch and a wildly entertaining Australian side give Ireland everything they can handle.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🇫🇯 FIJI 24–39 WALES 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

The brutal efficiency of the driving maul versus the elegance, chaos and outrageous natural ability of Fiji.

Neck and neck deep into the second half before Wales finally pull clear.

And Selestino Ravutaumada probably won’t want to watch that Josh Adams nutmeg too many times. 😭

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The Nations Championship has arrived.

🔥 Subscribe to Maul or Nothing for rugby’s most entertaining breakdown.

🎙️ Marc Edwards | Ryan Wilson | Max Lahiff

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.