Is art of post-match interview disappearing, like objectivity?

PLAYERS have been taking umbrage at post-match questions almost ever since Billy Webb Ellis ran off with the football at Rugby School. Few, if any, can have been provoked into wearing as thunderous a look as Peter O’Mahony gave his inquisitor hot on the heels of Munster’s PRO14 defeat in Dublin last week.

As if losing to Leinster wasn’t bad enough, O’Mahony then found himself being asked on television whether he thought some of his Munster team-mates had given less than their all for the jersey. Red rags and bulls sprang to mind as the rage welled within.

Now proper reporters spend a lifetime trying to perfect the fiendishly difficult craft of asking questions on behalf of their readers and listeners couched in concisely cogent form. John Humphrys of

Today sets the standard and while he remains peerless, there are some in my trade able to give the scourge of politicians a run for his money.

Reggie Corrigan is not one of them but then neither are any of his breed, the player-turned-interviewer. The former Ireland prop inquired of O’Mahony whether Munster overall “gave enough” and when his interviewee recoiled, Corrigan’s attempt to make himself understood served only to dig himself into a deeper hole.

Asked about it at the subsequent Press conference, O’Mahony admitted that he had taken “huge offence”. In other words he felt insulted by the sort of question he had never been asked before.

Anyone professing to know anything about Irish rugby knows Munster never want for any lack of effort. Corrigan, no doubt wiser for the experience, at least asked a question, a task which seems beyond other socalled interviewers whom television companies see fit to turn into Jeremy Paxmen.

Rod Kafer, the ex-Wallaby stand-off who once turned himself into a Tiger at Leicester, is a classic example. Kafer, whose tendency to start every sentence with the word “mate” suggests he still regards himself as one of the lads, does not, as a general rule, ask questions.

He makes statements, to Michael Hooper, Stephen Moore or whoever happens to be put up, along the lines of: “Mate, that was a great win.” Or, if the other lot have won: “Mate, you must be disappointed.”

Punditry at its best offers the viewer an insight into why a try-scoring move unfolded the way it did. Ben Kay and Gwyn Jones are leading exponents of the art, neither of whom allows himself to fall into the trap of becoming cheerleaders for their team the way Sky did during the Lions tour.

Objectivity in rugby, as in other sports, has become under an increasing bombardment, hence the constant social media rebuke to those of us whose role is not to “get behind your team”.

A reporter’s job is to give the reader the who-what-why-when of a match with the views of the chief protagonists thrown in, always assuming they are not statements of the blindingly obvious which can often prove to be a dangerous assumption.

Nothing grates more than the writer who refers to one team as “we” and “us” whether that team is England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales. It contains an arrogant assumption that every reader is of the same nationality.

Anyone is perfectly entitled to dismiss such views as the ramblings of an old school survivor from the days not long after the telephone replaced the pigeon but one fact is beyond dispute – objectivity is not what it used to be.