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Australia’s rugby writers can’t see out of their own backyard

Agreed with most of what you wrote, particularly regarding this strange idea that quoting coaches and players should make up more than half of the article. Even if what they said was interesting analysis, I wouldn't care about it. I want to hear the writer's thoughts. In any case, players and coaches are trained (partly due to getting used to rubbish questions asked of them by journalists, partly due to them not wanting to say the wrong thing) to play all questions with as straight a bat as possible. It's completely uninteresting for me to read or listen to. The quality of writing in the UK about rugby is far and away better than what we get down here. I don't like Stephen Jones as he's an arrogant twat who wouldn't admit to being misinformed or wrong on any topic no matter the weight of evidence against him. He's interesting to read though as he has different opinions and that in and of itself is better than any of the writers here aside from Zavos really. I loved what I saw from Paul Cully (an Irish writer) on the SMH website in and around the RWC. Did anyone else see him? Clearly loves the game, puts in tonnes of time for analysis of the games and writes wonderfully well. Hope to read more of his stuff though he doesn't seem to be on SMH anymore.