Ireland and England losing sight of World Cup goal with media war
Ireland and England should know better
IT’S been a strange week, a week of national coaches either letting rip or using the sound of silence to wage war with the rugby media. Let’s start with Eddie Jones. Following England’s hard-fought victory over Wales, Jones was prompted by a BBC reporter to comment on the excellent showing of full-back Mike Brown and used that invitation to launch an extraordinary broadside against the fourth estate.
‘You guys tell me that he can’t play Test rugby and now you’re telling me that he’s good. You guys are unbelievable. You are always criticising him and now he has a good game, you are all on the bandwagon,’ said Jones.
‘I don’t think you can treat the whole media as one,’ responded the BBC man, not unreasonably.
‘I think we can, I think we can, and I’m sick of it, mate.’
It was an exchange that did Jones few favours and featured the classic ‘you guys’ dismissal coaches like to use when they feel they are being unfairly scrutinised.
There had been media speculation over Jones’ preference for Brown in the No15 shirt, with debate over whether England’s back three might be better served with the greater attacking instincts of Anthony Watson at full-back, which would allow Jack Nowell come onto the wing.
Nothing over the top, merely some selection discussion that was entirely justifiable — particularly as Watson and Nowell made last summer’s Lions tour and Brown didn’t.
Yet Jones decided to have a major cut — significantly souring his relationship with the English rugby media as a result.
Meanwhile, in Dublin, their Irish counterparts were informed before kick-off against Italy that head coach Joe Schmidt would not be doing his customary postmatch huddle with the Monday dailies.
These huddles, common practice across the nations, are mutually beneficial affairs — the papers get a second day’s fresh copy while teams can set the agenda for the following week’s coverage and push things forward. Dispensing with the huddle creates a void, always a dangerous action because if the media are not given content to fill space, they will fill it themselves and control of the message is lost.
You learn early on in this game that there is no appetite, nor should there be, for media whining — punters who have to dig deep to travel to and attend matches do not want to hear journalists complain about their own free access.
So, while the English media were understandably miffed at being talked down to and Irish media were justifiably put out by being denied access, they are not the story.
The story here is why would England and Ireland seek confrontation when there is absolutely no need to and how does such lack of judgement affect both countries’ progress towards the ultimate goal of success at next year’s World Cup? Jones has won 24 out of his 25 matches, developing squad depth, skills and mental surety that echoes England’s march to 2003 World Cup glory under Clive Woodward. Similarly, Schmidt is performing superbly with Ireland and, after achieving a first win over the All Blacks, has expertly managed the balancing act of securing results and widening quality options, with Ireland on a run of nine straight victories. Those are deeply impressive records and the reason why England and Ireland are the sides New Zealand fear most as they pursue their dream of three World Cups in a row. Rather than use these strong positions as justification for slapping down the media, they should be viewed as the basis for ignoring outside comment entirely. After all, there is no one in the media — including recently retired players — who knows more about what is going on inside the camp than management themselves, so why let it get to them?
The media have a job to do, reporting on the efforts of others for public consumption, which is parasitic by definition but the best approach is to swallow irritation and accept it as part of the gig.
It was interesting to listen to Eddie O’Sullivan say as much this week, describing his media duties as a necessary evil during his time as Ireland coach and saying the best approach was to just ‘get on with it’.
He was right but there is an element of revisionism to those observations because O’Sullivan fostered a particularly fractious relationship with the media, an attitude that filtered down to his squad (some of whom barely tried to hide their disdain while playing, yet have been happy to jump the fence after retirement).
O’Sullivan had a highly successful tenure, turning Ireland into well-drilled operation capable of consistently mixing it with the best. Yet, his oftentimes toxic media dealings ensured that, when it went disastrously wrong at the 2007 World Cup, knives were wielded with a degree of relish and there was no desire to dwell on mitigating factors as O’Sullivan was savaged. He was also gone a few months later.
Schmidt got a relatively soft ride after the 2015 World Cup failure, the then compliant media accepting the party line that injuries to key players were behind their quarter-final humbling by Argentina rather than focusing on the critical defensive complicity of the first 20 minutes — a tactical error Ireland acknowledged themselves in the fallout through the swift hiring of Andy Farrell and his aggressive line speed.
Such support looks less assured now.
England and Ireland have strong designs on this Six Nations as meaningful progression towards Japan 2019 and things are going to plan for both countries. Antagonising the media does nothing to serve those goals — rather, it increases the likelihood of excessive negativity when things go wrong.
Traditional media may have seen its influence lessened by the growth in online coverage and teams’ capacity for communicating directly with fans on social media — receiving the type of unequivocal foam-fingered support they crave. However, there always has to be room for independent comment and newspapers, radio and television (all of whom have online impact also) still drive coverage and set the tone. So why pick a fight?
It’s a lose-lose approach for two teams heading in the right direction towards next year’s World Cup. They need as little distraction as possible on that journey and those entrusted with driving their public relations are showing extremely poor judgement. ‘You guys’ should know better.