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Australian rugby union player Will Genia at Wallabies training. AAP Image/Paul Miller
I pulled open the Sydney Morning Herald (sponsor of the NSW Waratahs, and thus presumably Sydney’s rugby paper, as opposed to the league aligned News Limited tabloid) on Thursday, to find not one article on rugby.
Well, one snippet in “the Inside Back” with various gossip and tidbits about various sports – being Dean Young saying Mark Gasnier will take some time to adapt to league again as “he probably hasn’t tackled anyone or played a tough game of footy in 18 months”.
Top one Dean. Two words – Lote Tuqiri.
Anyway, back to the point. No rugby news.
Well, I thought to myself, the Wallabies are having a break before the Tri-Nations, so clearly anything else doesn’t rate in the Herald.
While the Australian can (as usual) tend be guaranteed to have an article in every day (two that day) during the season, they tend to have a more national focus given they are a national paper.
Whereas Sydney, the main heartland of the game (sorry Queensland, although you seem to be catching up) and the home of the premier club comp in Australia (being the next step down from Super rugby) could manage nothing, zip, nada, zero!
When I logged onto the Sydney Morning Herald web site, what do I find?
Two articles published at 2.06pm the previous day – “Staniforth to stay with Force” and “Lachie Turner called up to Australian sevens squad”. Which I would regard as newsworthy, and the Australian did with the latter making up part of an article on the Sevens team.
Clearly too stale for the SMH sports editor (God bless his cotton socks for bagging the AFL the other day, but now back in my bad books) with them only to be seen on the web site.
This caused me to think back to the Sunday Herald from the previous weekend, when there had been two full pages for rugby (not bad). However, two thirds of it was written by Greg “Grouchy” Growden. I had visions of a clone army of Greg’s writing articles, multiplicity style.
Perhaps Greg had a break on Thursday, thus bringing the Sydney rugby news machine to a halt?
Of course, the other third of the Sun Herald that day was written by Rupert Guinness. However, Rupert, with no disrespect, is a bit of a sports tart. He’ll shortly be off to report on his mate Lance in the Tour de France, so we can’t expect to see any rugby articles from him soon, or him filling in if Greg is at home sick in the pj’s with a cup of soup.
The fact that the Herald only started reporting on the Shute Shield in recent weeks when the Super rugby players starting coming back shows how fickle the Herald, and the media in general, has become.
While league is a media machine, with countless writers churning out column inches in Sydney papers, and the same for the AFL in Melbourne (and Adelaide and Perth I presume), rugby (and arguably football to a lesser degree) seem to limp along with the print media equivalent of a skeleton crew.
When the best analysis of rugby in Australia after the Australian seems to come from a free podcast run for love (the boys at Ruggamatrix) plus, of course, on the Roar, and the most consistent news on Sydney club rugby comes from the same source, there’s a worry.
In TV land rugby is served by Seven (shudder) and Foxtel (double shudder), while football is carried by the incomparable SBS (ignoring Craig Foster foaming at the mouth) and Foxtel with coverage that makes the rugby product look pale by comparison.
The fact is, sports is an entertainment industry now, so the level of sponsorship and revenue comes from how much attention you are getting. If rugby is not getting much news out there, it isn’t getting exposure, and its “stock” is slipping. Much like football with the Socceroos and the World Cup, it seems without the Wallabies doing well, rugby slips into some shadow world of the media.
I have previously on the Roar castigated John O’Neill’s comments last year about the new Super 15 ensuring that there will be rugby from February to November, with the Super 15, in bound tours, the Tri-Nations and then outbound tour. As I said at the time, when the Super 15 isn’t on that will be one Wallabies game every week at best, and at times only every few weeks. Hardly wall to wall coverage and product like the league and AFL (or even football).
If rugby can’t make the news when the Super 15 teams and Wallabies aren’t playing, then we have to look at what we are doing as a sport. While New Zealand and South Africa slip easily into the New Zealand Cup and Currie Cup respectively, Australia seems to suddenly be riding through a desert on a horse with no name.
John O’Neill’s long season of rugby looks pretty anemic, and the amount of coverage the media gives it will be the proof in the end.
Hopefully my opening the paper that day isn’t a vision of the future for rugby in the news in Australia.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.