Broadcasting - the IRB knows best
Paddy Lewis
THERE’S been something bugging me about the Rugby World Cup television coverage and it finally came to me during the All Blacks match versus Japan on Friday. The TV commentators (on SKY anyway, I haven’t listened to any others) studiously avoid criticizing players and/or referees.
Nigel Owens for the most part was guessing when penalizing Tony Woodcock at scrum time, but did we hear anyone say “That’s ridiculous”? No, we heard “and Woodcock is penalized again at scrum time”.
The referee who did the Samoa v Namibia match last week wasn’t fit to run the touch in a club game – but did the commentators question his clearly cockeyed (I would say biased against Samoa) decisions? Nope.
Does anyone deign to question Andy Ellis’s ability to pass the ball without first taking two steps? Did any commentator say in the first 20 minutes of the Japanese match “God, the All Blacks are looking disorganized?” In both cases, no.
Welcome to the brave new world of rugby, where broadcasters and journalists bend over and take one for the team(s).
I’ll bet you a brand new tenner that SKY commentators dare not say anything negative because being relentlessly positive will be written into the broadcast contract conditions from the International Rugby Board (IRB).
The journos are in a bit more of a bind. Because most teams will only make someone available for 10 minutes a day, and you’re never quite sure who that person will be, you have to take what you get. I recall a certain cricket association trying this back in the day when I was writing on a daily basis.
I just went straight to the players I wanted to talk to. Apparently, in the brave new world of rugby, this can bring monetary repercussions or worse to the player concerned. It’s in their contract, you see. So you could be a writer for a major daily and be best mates with (for instance) Ma’a Nonu. You might see him for a beer after a game (if Auntie Darren ever lets the All Blacks out) but even if he is feeding you the most inane space fillers, you can’t publish them without getting authority from the ABs’ media liaison or risk Ma’a getting fined.
This micro-management of the media kind of fell apart when a security guard with bizarre but perhaps well-meaning motives released a video of England captain Mike Tindall “chatting” to a woman in Queenstown.
Nonetheless, while all those journos locked out from the 10 minute daily RWC media briefings feasted on the Tindall story like hungry dogs, SKY and the accredited RWC journalists from New Zealand either ignored it or danced around it very gingerly.
It’s a pretty sad day when all you get from your commentators on such a momentous rugby occasion is a run-of-play trudge through a game.
The lack of criticism might please the IRB, but it does nothing for accountability. Those people (Andrew Saville and Hooray Hamish McKay aside) who have an indepth knowledge and access to the game and the players should be calling it as they see it.
I was watching the game with the Big Nipper on Friday and said “Who is going to critique this if the commentators don’t?” He piped up with “You, Dad.”
About five seconds later, his godfather texted me with an answer to the same question: “That’s our job.”
Shame no-one listens to us. But that’s the brave, IRB/NZRU knows best, new world of rugby.
Nigel Owens for the most part was guessing when penalizing Tony Woodcock at scrum time, but did we hear anyone say “That’s ridiculous”? No, we heard “and Woodcock is penalized again at scrum time”.
The referee who did the Samoa v Namibia match last week wasn’t fit to run the touch in a club game – but did the commentators question his clearly cockeyed (I would say biased against Samoa) decisions? Nope.
Does anyone deign to question Andy Ellis’s ability to pass the ball without first taking two steps? Did any commentator say in the first 20 minutes of the Japanese match “God, the All Blacks are looking disorganized?” In both cases, no.
Welcome to the brave new world of rugby, where broadcasters and journalists bend over and take one for the team(s).
I’ll bet you a brand new tenner that SKY commentators dare not say anything negative because being relentlessly positive will be written into the broadcast contract conditions from the International Rugby Board (IRB).
The journos are in a bit more of a bind. Because most teams will only make someone available for 10 minutes a day, and you’re never quite sure who that person will be, you have to take what you get. I recall a certain cricket association trying this back in the day when I was writing on a daily basis.
I just went straight to the players I wanted to talk to. Apparently, in the brave new world of rugby, this can bring monetary repercussions or worse to the player concerned. It’s in their contract, you see. So you could be a writer for a major daily and be best mates with (for instance) Ma’a Nonu. You might see him for a beer after a game (if Auntie Darren ever lets the All Blacks out) but even if he is feeding you the most inane space fillers, you can’t publish them without getting authority from the ABs’ media liaison or risk Ma’a getting fined.
This micro-management of the media kind of fell apart when a security guard with bizarre but perhaps well-meaning motives released a video of England captain Mike Tindall “chatting” to a woman in Queenstown.
Nonetheless, while all those journos locked out from the 10 minute daily RWC media briefings feasted on the Tindall story like hungry dogs, SKY and the accredited RWC journalists from New Zealand either ignored it or danced around it very gingerly.
It’s a pretty sad day when all you get from your commentators on such a momentous rugby occasion is a run-of-play trudge through a game.
The lack of criticism might please the IRB, but it does nothing for accountability. Those people (Andrew Saville and Hooray Hamish McKay aside) who have an indepth knowledge and access to the game and the players should be calling it as they see it.
I was watching the game with the Big Nipper on Friday and said “Who is going to critique this if the commentators don’t?” He piped up with “You, Dad.”
About five seconds later, his godfather texted me with an answer to the same question: “That’s our job.”
Shame no-one listens to us. But that’s the brave, IRB/NZRU knows best, new world of rugby.
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