The Rugby Rant
Former lions offering us PR pap are pointless, writes RW reader Dave Carr
BRIT POP WAS IN THE CHARTS WHEN I THE LIONS LAST BEAT SOUTH AFRICA I
THIS IS less of a rant and more of a warning. A notice for you to prepare… Soundbites are coming. lions time means a circus of ex-players doing PR campaigns.
And they’ll be sitting on the fence or, worse, just being banal. It’s money for old rope. Some former lions star or World Cup winner rocks up to your club/dinner/ is interviewed at a sponsor’s event and chances are they haven’t really watched the game recently.
Or, worse, they are just there for a quick buck and hadn’t even considered preparing – they’re talking to real people, why put too much thought into it? Some will give an opinion, but often it is one based on when they played back in the day.
Britpop was in the charts way back when the lions last beat
South Africa, but those blokes who did it will be everywhere now.
Then we get these dreary chats sent back to us in dispatches through various media. Worth getting excited about? They will doutbless think so because their comments sections or replies tabs are brimming with people like me telling them how pointless these pieces are.
Those in charge of promotion should be made painfully aware of how irritating a deluge of empty words can be. Take the sevens as an example. It was hard enough listening to Sir Clive Woodward struggling to commentate for the BBC on a sport he had less than a passing knowledge of – at times it felt like Andy Powell trying to explain thermonuclear physics – during the Olympics. But every year we get ex-players who haven’t even played sevens promoting it (once they escape hospitality).
For six weeks of lions mania we’ll get people who have been there and done it, but giving almost zero insight. “Hey, (ex-player), is it an honour to be a lion?” Oh yeah, it’s an honour to be a lion. “Do they have a chance of beating New Zealand?” Oh yeah, they’ve got a chance of beating New Zealand.”
Truly tedious stuff.
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