Rugby media serve up same nonsense

At least Kearns and Marto have an opinion, something Gordon never did. I love the way they are not scared to criticise the referee when required, or even admit when a game is boring. Regarding the lowest common denominator, wake up, this is Australia.. One gentle rib tickler for Spriro.. I love his articles but I do remember a few years ago he seemed to end every piece he wrote with the sentence "Therefore.." as if he was writing an essay for 1st year uni students.

OJ, Unfortunately I've also seen Roarers rapidley repeat Kearns biased tripe, especially the "Richie McCaw's Always Cheating/All Blacks Get Away With It and Hypnotise Refs" bollocks... As far as I'm concerned the best commentator by a mile unfortunately died last year. Fox (Grant, not -tel) will be OK though.

What i get disappointed about with the local rugby media is its failure to do or promote interest stories about premier club rugby OR THEIR ADHERENTS. My team Parramatta Two blues are calling on three first grade coaches including the Wests Tigers physio and Two Blues legend and Wallaby Andrew Leeds. The coaches are very much expenses only.The club reverts back to its amateur days and will not pay any player in any grade so that it can survive. It like penrith exists in an area where Jim Beam Cup rugby league players can earn more than $500 a game. Both will fight to stay alive.and win a few games but need any exposure to raise interest AND SPONSORS.

The problem with Clark, Kearns and Martin is that Aussies watching believe the shit they're talking. I've been in bars where abusive Aussies were spewing Kearns-isms. At least Mexted is intentionally taking the piss.

The problem with Gordon Bray was that he didn't call it as it was but rather as he thought you should be seeing it. I saw him as less a member of a commentary team and more a member of a marketing team.

Buddha annoyed me but I actually liked Gordon Bray - despite the endless comments about pig farmers from Taranaki.

Gatesy, Not sure if there are too many who have similarly fond memories of the Bray/Buddha era. All I remember from Gordon Bray were the endless very-well-researched-but-completely-irrelevant "interesting trivia" bits... "This is the 3rd time so-and-so has played a night match in front of his home crowd while on the right wing" "So-and-so has 3 dogs, a cat and a budgee named Goliath" Etc. Cheers, WNM

That's funny - thought I posted somehting on this thread already. not sure if it got deleted or if I didn't hit the send button properly. I'm not sure if I'm forming a fair impression, but from reading a lot of the posts in this thread, not much attention seems to be paid to NH media by SH fans - on here anyway. I have favourite links under sport to 9 newspapers - print/on-line versions/4 discussion boards, and specialist sites like PlanetRugby. You'll even find the odd good or informative story on represetnative sites for the unions and/or competitions. The press agencies tend to perpetuate the proliferation of same stories or re-written stories - that's their job - particularly on small news stories. It's up to the stand-out popular columnists of this parish and others to make a name for both themselves and the media organisation they write for. And you also have to be realistic. When rugby season finishes at end of May in NH, I don't expect to be hearing/reading about it for about 8 weeks - get a life. Unless, of course, you want to switch on your satellite, and watch SH rugby comps/Summer tours/Lions tours/Currie Cup, NZ Air Cup, etc, etc. and before we know where we are, it's August again and the season is about to kick off. What's your problem? :)

I personally have been using sites such as www.scrum.com, www.planetrugby.com, www.theroar.com.au and the rugby heaven NZ version for all my news. I too find that Rugby Heaven AU is too NSW based, and not enough national. There is not enough articles written from Journals. I'd like to see articles written about country teams, and even state teams thats not media releases. Perhaps an article on players or past players that are putting back into the community? Even the Roars vidpodcasts are worth listening to as they expand past the normal media releases. As for tests I prefer to listen to www.arcrugby.co.nz. Sure Jed is biased to the kiwis, but its commentated in a way rugby should be. Beats listening to the Fox guys during the test seasons, or Ch7 team.

Brendan, I think the issue with Kearns and Martin is that they try to bring things down to the lowest common denominator - maybe they are trying to appeal to the wider Australian demographic, who, in all likelihood, can't afford Foxtel anyway. Its not something which is purely restricted to rugby journalism, look no further than that paragon of toilet bowl humour the Footy Show and its standing over the years, and generally I've found wider journalistic standards to have dropped as well - the Daily Telegraph is the most widely read paper in NSW, and its just sensationalist crap.

Gatesy, Good article. One of the most frustrating things with the Australian Rugby Media is that it is so Sydney focused, especially rugby Heaven. There is no news on QLD,WA and ACT rugby out side S14 yet we get a full run down of the Sydney comp. There is very little comment on International Rugby I find myself reading Rugby Heaven NZ for both Australian and International Rugby News. The site below provides Rugby news feeds from all over the Globe http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/Sport/Rugby+Union Cheers

Geez you fella's can be hard on your commentators!! Even though I'm from Souh Africa I loved listening to Phil and Mardo when I was living there although I have to say I wasn't a big Clarky fan as I found him a bit biased. As for your journo's, agreed Growden and Jenkins are pathetic becuase from a South African point of view they often had their facts wrong and they never mae much of an effort to be fair or balanced in their reporting. I do like Spiro's columns and the few articles I read that were written by Evan Whitton were good. Cheers

Westy If you accept that media have to sell their wares then it is not surprising they will tend to overegg a point to gain a headline. From a rugby standpoint the more publicity about the game the better regardless of the quality. Rugby is an infant in professional terms and it needs publicity to help fuel the increasing interest in the game. I accept that some of the headlines about the Guinness Premiership can be misleading but in the English professional environment you need the media to push rugby as an alternative to football. It will never directly compete but the promotion of personalities, Cipriani, Johnson et al, the continual problems between club and country, the financial problems, the poor performance of the English team, ELV's give the media plenty to chew on. Frankly most of the comment I see as a positive as rugby in it's growing pains has to establish itself in the professional arena and out of the continual questioning by the media an improved business model will emerge.

Iactually miss Dublin Dave and his reports on the Guinness premiership and European championships.

Keith you are right perhaps a little overkill but the underlying point I believe has some validity . The ratings would be "fantastic" and with obvious sarcasm i can just see the advertisers vying for the spots. By the way i regularly watch and enjoy the the Guinness Premiership .

"...how dare we translate our minority interest onto the broader community." Consider yourselves thoroughly chastised.

I do not know what realm of reality some of us exist in .For all the hype we hear of the over 200000 pound player per season player in england the average current salery of a Guinness Premiership player is 70000 pounds predicted to drop to about 60000 pounds next season before the largesse of the next television deal due in 2010/11. The number of players in most squads will be reduced to 38 some clubs will shed upto 10 players. For people who profess following the guinness premiership they certainly forget to give all the detail. The official salary cap is 4.2 million pounds for each club . However clubs like Bristol operate voluntarily below at 3 million pounds due to a lack of finance. .Newcastle Falcons home crowds of 4500 are oibviously not the best income stream. Six guinness clubs will run at asubstantial loss.The standards we impose on say the NRL clubs and their financial viability seem not to be applied with the same force to the English rugby clubs. It is in France the wildcard exists. the Guinness premiership is successful just do not make it what it is not. it cannot afford at the moment elite SH league and rugby players at will. It does not have the money. The sense of reality of some rugby people is mindblowing . What on earth relevance would watching the Bristol Shoguns v Newcastle Falcons at Mem have to the ordinary punter in Sydney. I might watch it with some of the rusted on set but how dare we translate our minority interest onto the broader community.The roar is great but it is beginning to feed a sense of delusion of major proportion.

The smh USED to be a quality broadsheet, 20 some years ago. Now days (Spiro - and a few others - excepted) it appears to be populated by caffee latte socilaists (the metrosexual - both genders - non-drink-driving version of champagne socialists) who to my observation (subjective as that may be) have a discrete socio-political agenda and its all about cutting down the tall poppies and trashing the real achievers and leaders at every available moment ... the delight which is so transparently taken in latching oin to the momentary lapses of any one who has demonstrated the initiative, skill & wherewithall to elevate themselves to a leadership position in society is really quite sickening. Perhaps if they all went and worked at the Daily Terror they might find a role to fulfill at that august journal. Subjective as I said, and YMMV.

I would like to know who handles Luke Burgess' publicity as it is working a treat. New season and same old stories front and centre on this guy. I think he actually went backwards during the recent Wallabies tour.

Australian rugby journalism is definitely number one when it comes to rehashing old story lines. In the 1980s every rugby article written mentioned Hika Reid's goal line tackle. In the 1990s Gregan's big tackle was referenced in every second article. I think Fitzy still throws it up from time to time. Very dull.