Quality of rugby media - TV Shows etc
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@antipodean said in Quality of rugby media - TV Shows etc:
@MiketheSnow I won't watch it for the simple reason every video of his I've seen is tiresome, with stupid cuts, pointing out the obvious or just plain wrong. His analysis is generally reddit level dogshit - catering to casuals when in reality it's more often than not surface-level, selective, or just flat-out wrong. I'm uninterested in his cherry-picked clips to retrospectively fit a narrative proven wrong within short order.
Keep enjoying The Breakdown
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@MiketheSnow said in Quality of rugby media - TV Shows etc:
Here's an excellent case in point
I quite like the guy – he tries to be creative and actually say something new which is more than you can say for 95% of rugby media – but the video is a pretty good example of why I don’t love him.
Every video there’s something that genuinely irks me. At the 16m16s mark, he’s talking about how the Canadian attacking shape is very fluid, showing how they can align on the fly even when it looks like they’re all out of position. As an example, he uses their game against the Black Ferns in Christchurch where Tessier, the Canadian 12, scores after such a spontaneous realignment.
The problem is that it’s a very bad example. The Canadian 11, Farries, runs immediately behind her own player as a result of the poor alignment, which means that the try is eventually disallowed. So rather than working as an example arguing for Canada’s attacking shape, it’s an argument against it, showing the potential downsides of playing too loosely and without structure.
Squidge Rugby doesn’t mention any of this. And that is bad and lazy writing. If you’ve ever attended a class on how to write, one of the first rules will always be to “kill your darlings”. Squidge was probably very proud of his insight on the fluidity of the Canadian attacking shape. But if you can’t find a good example of it actually working – rather than an example which ends up being counter-productive – then you simply need to bin it. If you don’t, it threatens to undermine the whole thing.
You could argue that it’s a stupid rule, that it stifles the creative spirit. But rules are there for a reason. As a wise man once said: “Socks before or after trousers, but never socks before pants, that's the rule. Makes a man look scary, like a chicken.”
And isn’t that the real insight?
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@MiketheSnow said in Quality of rugby media - TV Shows etc:
@antipodean said in Quality of rugby media - TV Shows etc:
@MiketheSnow I won't watch it for the simple reason every video of his I've seen is tiresome, with stupid cuts, pointing out the obvious or just plain wrong. His analysis is generally reddit level dogshit - catering to casuals when in reality it's more often than not surface-level, selective, or just flat-out wrong. I'm uninterested in his cherry-picked clips to retrospectively fit a narrative proven wrong within short order.
Keep enjoying The Breakdown
I don't watch it and I'm not the Lone Ranger here for reasons well documented.
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Yeah, I find Squidge to be insufferable for the reasons outlined above.
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I think my "favourite" is the 3 pencil necked Irish dipshits who said Sam cane was a below average rucker, what ever the fuck that was.
And then after he tore thrm a new asshole in the quarter they actually doubled down.
Real insight
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@sparky said in Quality of rugby media - TV Shows etc:
I enjoyed 1014 Rugby for a bit, but it disappeared around the time of the pandemic. And the presenters were on Spark for a little while.
I know a few things from when they were with Sky. Higher ups at Sky did not understand what they were discussing. There was a token effort to make the show more focused (cover less topics per episode, link ideas together). Because there was a lack of interest from management there was a lack of resources and they just let it die
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@junior said in Quality of rugby media - TV Shows etc:
Also, actually having more technical programming that allows the fans to get more of an insider's knowledge about tactics etc. helps fans develop their understanding of the game and therefore deepen their connection to the game
Totally agree. I know someone who has pitched what was internally described as a 'how to watch rugby' show but he couldn't get Sky interested.
Basic idea being that the game has changed a lot in recent decades and newer tactics aren't described well to fans (commentators being at or beyond retirement age doesn't help)
