absolutely edit: delete mickckthegled replace with Steam the Pig end edit, awful semantics, it says against Saints which puts a timescale on it thereby making "close" redundant. Or alternatively against Saints could be eliminated as that is referred to in the third paragraph of the article which also makes it apparent that it is not the away fixture. On the other hand I thought that he should have inserted the word "other" in front of "non-impact" as exercise bikes are non impact but the article reads as if they are not.

To liven it up couldn't the articles be embellished slightly so that:

"Elliot Whitehad acknowledges he still needs to improve" becomes

"Elliot Whitehead turned slowly toward me, his face half-concealed by shadow. His eyebrows arched into furrowed tents as he spat out the words 'I know I still need to improve' like a rattle-snake".

A headline is a headline, but having now read Ross's article, I actually think it's a good article. It says that Elima may be fit enough to play against Saints, the medical advice being 2 to 3 weeks, and it depends how the knee reacts to increased training. In fact it tells me pretty much everything I might want to know about Elima's fitness situation.

Oh and I presumed everyone knows reporters aren't responsible for any headlines?

Aaron, both you and Mick have made this claim about Craven lately. Is there any evidence to support this?

The T&A were forced to retract/apologise for one of his reports, weren't they?
Something about some members of our coaching staff being let go if I remember correctly.

I remember that, but would be interested why people claim he "lied" - as opposed to having got information which proved to be unreliable and which perhaps he hadn't sufficiently tried to check?

To me, it would've read better as " Elima will possibly return against Saints" or "Elima, close to making a return" instead we got a conglomeration of both

But Heppenstall didn't write the headline

from memory it was about clawson and richards being let go, but quite a while before it was actually announced.

My mistake, I didn't realise this was a Ross Heppenstall thread. I thought it was a thread about how poor the T&A was in general

I'm not trying to big up one of my own, but the journalism trade is not all as bread and butter as people think it is.

The comments from sanjunien re: sub-editors and such are very accurate.
And we couldn't have a better T&A man than Ross at the mo. been here before, has the club (and the industry) at heart, and is very well respected.

I think people need to get off his back a little here.

I'm not on his back. My beef is with T&A (which was my original post) which needs to start reporting something of interest, rather than the drivel we have received thus far

But your OP was an accusation of "lazy journalism" and listing quotes as examples, and Heppenstall is the only journalist on Bulls matters.

do me a favour and do as I suggested - next game,take a pen & notepad,make your notes of moves,infringements ,changeovers,scores, missed opportunities and anthing else which you may feel the reader would find of interest then transcribe that into a match report (use any paper as a guide) in time for the sunday deadline of about 1600 hrs for the weekly papers on a monday morning and se how you get on

(then read the published report and see how much it differs from the copy you sent to the sub editor...)

it's easy to criticise - try it yourself and see how easy it [ireally [/iis !