Hello @JAM and welcome to the Roon community! Sorry we didn’t get back to you over the weekend - Roon support is open Monday to Friday at this time.
Thanks for sharing the issue you’ve ran into. I’m happy to share some info, that might help @Fordski as well.
Airplay 2 is not supported in Roon at this time. However, Airplay 2 devices can still be used with Roon, but via the Airplay protocol.
While stereo mode is not supported, you should be able to stream music to your Home Pod directly from Roon, once you connect them to your Roon Core via Airplay. See this post on how to enable the Home Pods in Roon:
Please, let me know if it works 