There certainly does seem to be a general lack of insightful columnists at League Publications...

The new magazine layout is promising though I reckon.

I don't mind Hadfield but agree that Sadler does state the bleedin obvious. As for Fox I find his style verging on the unreadable. As for Richard delariv I don't mind him so much but I thought he gave far too much latitude to Schofield in some of his columns. His sniping at union recruits particularly John Gallagher left a bad taste in my mouth.

Is it me or does RL journalism completely shy away from examining the technical side of the play itself? Never do we really see much going into depth about what we see on the field in terms of the technical aspects of play. The journos themselves obviously either never got much coaching when they played or have never played at all.

It's the same in RL biographies, only the Aussie journos like Ian Heads tend to tackle this side of things.

"journalist can't be d finding out how things work but writes about it anyway" shocker....

OK, here we are slagging off one of the few established journalists in the sport. What do supporters want from a journalist working in RL?

This I would particularly like to know.

Something interesting to read. Interesting opinions. Not just popular obvious crap.

Would be nice if it was written in a unique style and not read as if written by a robotic drone.

Journalists who actually understand the game and are insightful, rather than media school geeks who portray the sport in a completely inaccurate way.

Although I agree with the OP I find it hard to criticise any press related to Rugby League due to it's spness.

If people are willing to moan about the poor standards of RL articles then is anybody willing to write a mock article and post it on here to show journo's how it should be done?

LOL

Are journos who analyse and criticise players and teams willing to put on a pair of boots and show them how it's done?

I'm sure if you're a critic you can com up with something better and more interesting than the journo's by trying to correct where you think they are going wrong.

A lot of people on here criticise players, team work etc but that doesn't mean we would make better players, it means we are looking more from a coaching perspective than a players.

I await your article

There are two weekly newspapers and one monthly magazine.

The weekly newspapers are pretty much similar in their setup and style and even have the same style columnists.

I can only talk about RLE after being a subscriber but their layout is pretty much the same week in week out. Off the top of my head:

4 pages SL news (2 articles per club)
2 pages of Championship news
2 pages of Champrionship1 news
1 Stevo page
1 Sadler / news page
SL Match reports (one of the TV games centre pages with Opta Stats which we'd pretty much already know from watching it)
C Match Reps
C1 Match Rep
2 pages reserve / academy
Amateur News / Reports / Fixtures
2 Pages of Letters
2 page of International / comment
1 pages of scores.


The news is generally made up of things that have happened the previous week with a couple of exclusives. This can be found easily on the internet nowadays.
By Sunday night we can have seen all the SL tries.

I think they need to concentrate less on transcribing the games (1 or 2 pages per game is overkill) and more on 'how and why' - why was the try scored, who was out of position, was it preventable.

I'd like to see stats of every game, more post match comments, interviews with players after the games (for example MoM interviews).

More about training routines, diet and the different methods players use to get fit.
Info on 'sick lists' - updates on players who are injured - where they are with their rehab. What are they doing to to keep fit, interviews with them.
Info from the RFL on Referees, feedback and comment on the referees performance (ideally unbias)

That's off my head as I sit here - some of it may be impossible / out of budget.

The newspapers need to assume that people will have heard much of the news before they publish therefore they need to being it in a different manner. An example would be the Newton incident - rather than report he has failed a drug test 6 days after it was announced, report on Wakefields plans and problems caused by his suspension.

When I picked my copy in WHSmith, the back cover flapped open to reveal a young lady in an England shirt, heels and her knickers posing in changing room showers, with a weak pun about April Showers (ahead of the next issue). At the front was the 'Random League' section for bizarre stories and I thought 'poo, they've turned it into a Lad's mag'. To my relief the stuff in between was decent enough.
I was a bit alarmed, though, that Steve Mascord thought the Huddersfield 6 should be named, shamed, fined and suspended even if no charges are brought or successfully prosecuted. WTF?

What mag/paper is this? I'm suddenly interested.

the 2 papers are worth a read but league express is easily the better. league weekly has a bit of an old man's feel to it like the old rugby leaguer and news that's days old. league express news seems to be more like updated news after the games. but it needs more features and player interviews like it used to have

rlw is miles better after the redesign. it now feels like a proper mag in its thickness and professionalism. the random league stuff was a bit bizarre and the championship investigation didnt really investigate very much. it didnt really offer much opinion either. at least you got that from schofield and the last ed. but hopefully it will carry on improving.