Mud, blood and earbuds: Rugby podcasts to check out during the 2023 World Cup

For the rugby fanatic, the podcast options are myriad, if not entirely varied. The Rugby Pod, which claims to be the “most listened to” of the bunch, involves the sports reporter and, now, uberpodcaster Andy Rowe and the former rugby union players Andy Goode and Jim Hamilton, the three of whom have been bantering with a level of professional slickness since 2016, and who’ve only got podcastier over time.

Then there’s The Good, the Bad & the Rugby, which claims to be the “world’s biggest rugby podcast”, with the former players James Haskell and Mike Tindall and the broadcaster Alex Payne, with content ranging from World Cup predictions to interviews with the likes of the hardcore Ireland supporter Jamie Dornan. The difference between “most listened to” and “biggest” remains unclear – as, honestly, do any other major differences between these two rugby behemoths. Expect professional banter, sharp analysis, strong opinions and male trios.

Blood & Mud, with the pundits Lee Calvert and Josh Gardner, feels a bit less plummy and less neatly packaged, in a way that manages to surprise. (Calvert is the rugby-podcast host most likely to break into a solid version of Love Cats at the drop of a hat). And finally – though, really, it’s not at all final: there are many more, but I started to lose the ability to discern after a certain length of time – there is Two Cents Gets Distracted, which comes courtesy of the New Zealanders Mark Morgan and Tony O’Sullivan, who lean heavily on the banter. All this and I’m not even counting Irish all-round sporting gems like Off the Ball and Second Captains.

Also on the home front, the Irish Independent’s Left Wing has spent some time recovering from allowing offensive comments from its former pundit Neil Frances to go on air unchecked. Since Frances was fired the team has expanded, with Sinéad Kissane joining her fellow journalists Rúaidhrí O’Connor, Cian Tracey and Will Slattery and the former Leinster winger Luke Fitzgerald. It has upped its game and is now a warmer, wider-ranging show, not least because it’s one of the few of its ilk that isn’t all male voices.

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Its updates on the World Cup in France include a candid interview with the former rugby star Trevor Brennan from his bar in Toulouse, in which he admits to missing Ireland’s win against South Africa, the defending champions, because of an ill-timed surprise birthday trip to Rome organised by his wife, plus one with the English sports writer Owen Slot about The Boys of Winter, his book with Lawrence Dallaglio on England’s 2003 World Cup win.

The content comes thick and fast on The Left Wing, and there’s plenty of variety, but not every wandering time-filler merits attention: a heavier edit would put a few extra points on their scoreline for me. There’s still room to button things up, neaten the back line a little and find renewed focus before this week’s big game against Scotland.