I've never seen the Simon Pegg film How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, nor have I read Toby Young's 2001 memoir on which it was based. Nonetheless, the following article, subjectively reflecting on the quality and quantity of rugby coverage in England's national newspapers, may well serve as an apropos sequel. It may also be the one article that I hope fails to garner much attention outside of Talking Rugby Union's current readership. In the words of a nameless security guard in The Simpsons, "oh well, I'm an idiot.
We might as well start by taking a look at coverage in the tabloid newspapers, if only to get them out of the way at the beginning. In the off-season there will be almost zero coverage in the likes of The Sun; such papers only deign to dedicate a full-page or more to rugby when England plays. Football is unquestionably the national sport whilst rugby struggles to break the shackles of its upper-middle-class, public school image in England. Meanwhile the England cricket team's successes are greater and more prolonged than the national rugby side's, and the length of test series and tours in cricket means that even their failures are subject to greater scrutiny and dissection than a tour with three eighty-minute tests in rugby can be. As a consequence, rugby has to do battle with Andy Murray for third spot in the eyes of the sporting press; with tabloids looking to sell to the mass-markets and with brevity as their USP, our sport simply doesn't have the weight needed to contend for valuable ink. The quality of their reporting is almost not worth mention: flashy, sensationalist, and about as insightful and well-observed as Mock the Week*.
The national broadsheet press is, therefore, the place to turn for the impassioned rugby fan. The Daily Telegraph brings an informed and impassioned view: regardless of his blinkered prose, Brian Moore in particular is an excellent writer, as his recent autobiography showed. Whilst it may not be the most thoughtful or considered of papers “ it is still The Daily Telegraph “ you have to admire the gravitas of its writers: Mick Cleary is the best of them and a veteran reporter, whilst Moore, Paul Ackford and Will Greenwood are among the top players in recent English rugby history. All are passionate and forthright, and none could convincingly make a case for neutrality when writing about England. In this respect Greenwood is arguably the most infuriating, consistently insisting that the likes of Danny Care and Nick Easter “ Nick. Easter. “ are "world-class players . It belies the obvious intelligence he showed as a player, and instead reflects his appearance on Sky Sports, where he often resembles a star-struck child, who has won a competition to go and stand in Stuart Barnes' shadow. Still, for the patriotic defendants of northern hemisphere rugby, for those who vote Tory and genuinely think England can win the 2011 World Cup, The Telegraph is the paper to read.
Such trepidation towards objectivity is, incredibly, nowhere to be found in The Independent. Much like its website, the paper's style is stark, objective, and fuelled with unsullied facts... so, so many facts. Indeed, the sheer volume of information presented by the paper, without bias or often even comment, can seem a little overwhelming and crowded to the naked eye. It is the ideal paper for rugby fans who pride themselves on being open-minded (and have at least a hint of self-awareness) and wishing to make their own mind up on an issue, as it comes across as almost painfully academic and almost clinical; the occasional attempts at humour, frivolity and even subjectivity are admirable rather than enjoyable, and often come across as slightly stilted and awkward. It is admirably high-brow reporting, though there is a price to pay: match reports and analyses are not published online until the following day, unlike its broadsheet peers.
From a personal point of view, the best of the broadsheets is The Guardian, which strikes a fine balance between a lack of pretentions and genuinely being informed. Its rugby coverage, and that of sport in general, is refreshingly self-aware and intelligently avoids the sanctimonious nature of some of the more overtly liberal parts of the paper. Shaun Edwards is probably the weakest writer, with a clear bias towards his own teams Wasps and Wales noticeable, albeit also understandable. On the other hand Eddie Butler is considered and, unlike his BBC stints, bearable, whilst chief correspondent Rob Kitson is unfairly unheralded in punditry circles. Perhaps best of all though is the wonderfully moustachioed Paul Rees, whose weekly on-season e-mail bulletin The Rolling Maul is brilliantly insightful and raises issues that other mainstream rugby coverage may well ignore; it is so well-written it even makes his fandom of Brendan Venter forgivable.
But what of the big one: The Times? Quite frankly I don't know anymore, because Murdoch has deemed the news, current affairs, and global events too valuable a commodity to be free to the whole world. Basing my knowledge entirely on my Dad's Sunday Times (he reads The Telegraph in the week), their rugby coverage is spectacularly polarised. On the one hand you have chief correspondent Stephen Jones: booming, sensationalist, rose-tinted and spectacularly concerned with nought but the mighty England side, the rugby he watches is surely not the same sport covered by the aforementioned? Such favoured topics of his include: Danny Cipriani; Gavin Henson; why Brian O'Driscoll is no good anymore; Danny Cipriani; why the All Blacks won't win the World Cup; why England will win the World Cup thanks to divine intervention (he genuinely said this in 2007), and Danny Cipriani. Fans of these subjects (and Danny Cipriani) must love his writing, as evidenced by the huge number of readers he pulls in with drastic, spectacular and WOWing opinions that he has each week for money... almost as if they weren't real.
At the other end of the spectrum is Stuart Barnes. As a Saints supporter I may be ostracised for suggesting as much, but there is no finer rugby writer in England. He is measured, refreshingly intelligent, and unafraid to speak out against players, management, or even his own colleagues. Whether on paper or on Sky's television coverage, Barnes seems to stand alone as a monolith, able to crush some of the more outlandish and ridiculous opinions offered by various pundits through a combination of solid reasoning and demonstrable evidence. Still, you can prove anything with facts.
Online there is far too much rugby coverage to mention in any great detail. A plethora of amateur sites is out there, and their number is ever increasing. From the professionals, ESPN's Scrum.com is very much like The Indy: informative and detailed, if a little bland and medicinal. The BBC meanwhile offers excellent coverage, with features, reports and live text coverage of the big matches from good writers such as Ben Dirs (real name) and Tom Fordyce. The only problem is actually unearthing it all, buried as it is in the lower reaches of the sports section of its sprawling website. Meanwhile Sky's website reflects its TV coverage: bright and gaudy, but underneath very well produced, full of digestible information and comment, and all the better for a weekly column from Barnes.
But this is only scratching the surface. What's rugby coverage like outside England: in Wales, Scotland and Ireland? Does Super 15's predilection for all-out adrenaline-fuelled attack mean that the pundits are less well-versed in the game's finer nuances, or are some of them insightful enough to make up for their annoying accents? And in other media, can the BBC really hope to outclass Sky's money? Should we be mentioning ITV's token efforts with a World Cup on the horizon? And are there any outstanding, undiscovered writers on some of the internet's more niche websites, or do those I've criticised get paid where I don't for good reason?
*This is not a compliment.
