OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook

OK, rather than moaning to ourselves on here let him know what you think. Try to be constructive. Twitter https://twitter.com/CalvinBook

Of course that is criticism, it is one of the most obvious jibes in the whole piece, have you never heard the phrase damning with feint praise? It is basically taking the Michael out of the sponsors that Rugby league has and the fact that Rugby League cant get decent sponsors. It is certainly a valid criticism but it is criticism all the same and certainly isnt meant as a compliment to Rugby League.

I do get the impression that no matter what the game or general occasion was like that article, or a slight variation of the same theme, would have been printed anyway. I have seen many similar articles over the years, in various Newspapers, even after some cracking finals.

Just reading some of his responses to people show that he is proud to get exactly the reaction that he wanted. I have to say some RL fans dont help themselves though and simply make some of his points stronger and make it quite easy for him to appear to be the rational one.

Mine was very measured, I could see he was lapping it up.

I decided to tweet some sensible comments to see if I could encourage a grown up debate with him. However, he blocked me after just 5 tweets and further insults from him! He is a small time journalist seeking attention and clearly incapable of any reasoned debate.
Just in case he is only doing this to raise his profile and sell papers I will make sure that I never buy the Independent!

Kinda the issue with League in a nutshell though isn't it? On the one hand the strong community feel in the heartlands is a strength because of the close connection with the towns, but on the other hand, that deep relationship makes it difficult for other areas of the country to really feel the sport is for them.

This article was a mixed bag, as pointed out above he does highlight some of league's advantages over football and some of the points it makes are true.

However this is where you can tell the journalist is a smug arrogant toff wanting to patronise the sport of the working classesTribal rituals were observed at Wembley yesterday in what was the sporting equivalent of a Moonie wedding or a May Day military parade in honour of the Dear Leader in Pyongyang. Commitment to the sacred tenets of the self-styled “greatest game in the world” was absolute and unyielding.'"

disappointing from the indie that. is this a new crusade from the Russian owner to pander to the views of Se demographic as a way to drum up some more readership ?
does Dave Hadfield still do their regular coverage ?

His wife will probably endorse the comment that he doesn't know the definition of excitement.

Interesting to see some of the media reactions to the Ashes now that its over, you would have thought cricket was the ultimate sport of the Middle England media but they are generally being negative, saying apart from an exciting First Test it was a dull series played on lifeless pitches, with negative tactics and bad umpiring.

The broadsheets are running these lines today and it was all over the radio shows last night.

So I don't think we should be too paranoid about criticism, the media does lay in to other sports. After the 2011 RU World Cup the English media were particularly negative.

The big difference though, that comes in some of the RL articles, is a general nastiness about the sport and what it represents, ie flat cap northerners with no future. When the media lays in to cricket or RU it isn't laying in to the sport itself or its followers, it's just having a whinge about what's on show.

I was going to line the bottom of the budgies cage with it, but decided why should Joey have the privilege. Anyway joey can’t read….lucky old Joey I say.

The big difference is that other sports get large amounts of coverage all year round so a big negative article is well balanced with the good and the size or the article is in proportion to the the coverage that the sport would normally get. In Rugby league this is certainly not the case and in many of these Newspapers you cant even usually find a match report from a game the day before and if you did it would extend to a paragraph or two. However then out of the blue, usually well timed just before or after major occasions to undermine them, we then get a full page or double page spread that would equate to a full months of normal RL coverage for that paper.

These negative articles are usually written by people that have never written about the sport before, have no connection with the sport and are often written by Rugby Union journalists with an axe to grind who quite frankly have no credentials to write about Rugby League. I could deal with the large negative articles if they were part of a balanced reporting of the sport, as in the other sports you mention, but they certainly aren't.