Grumbles gone?

[Waylon]

OK Waylon - Knock out two stories of 1000 words a day on Australian rugby that keeps people informed on what's going on. Make them so non-rugby nuts will read them as well.

Make sure you have the latest player news in there, and what's happened at every boring arsed presser and captains run. Try and interpret what the hell Robbie Deans is saying. Don't slag off players, coaches and the ARU or they won't talk to you, but try and keep it balanced.

Oh and be sure to make it interesting and entertaining, but don't include any anonymous gossip because the guys on the GAGR forum will bitch about it endlessly, but still read it nonetheless.

Look forward to seeing how long you keep it up

which bit was hard?

 

[Inside Shoulder]

which bit was hard?

I accept that Gagger has a point but Phil Wilkins used to do great background stories, admittedly, many from clubland but they often were about blokes on the fringes of Tahs/Sydney selection. Well written and informative: 2 words seldom associated with Grumbles.

Growden hasnt written one of those for years.

Anyway it seems only Monday Maul has had the chop: http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/offtheball-exchanges-a-winner-20121006-275zx.html

 

[Gagger]

Always easy to criticise - much harder to do

 

[Hugh Jarse]

.../snip/..... Well written and informative: 2 words seldom associated with Grumbles.
.../snip/...

Kim, Look at Moi, Look at Moi, I've got two words for you.......

Well (1) Written (2) and (not in word count) informative (3) ..

 

[BPC]

OK, WJ - let me hear you defend Satan..come on

How can any defend used car salesmen?

 

[Inside Shoulder]

He's having more farewells than Dame Nellie Melba - but this article is his best for years (I only cringed once at the syntax), IMO:
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/u...llfed-scribe-to-bid-adios-20121007-277co.html

It was a good enough article to convince me to try and get there next year - could be busy:
samoa club rugby tour
lions in HK
Ashes tour
tour de france 100 years

 

[Slim 293]

I have been reading rugby journalism for more years than I care to count. Growfat is easily the worst "rugby journalist" that I have ever read. The. Worst.


Who is, or was, a worse rugby journalist, in your valued opinion?

Former Telegraph writer and ARU comms manager Peter Jenkins wrote some petty spiteful pieces in his day...

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Former Telegraph writer and ARU comms manager Peter Jenkins wrote some petty spiteful pieces in his day.

Always like him - probably a message in that

 

[Slim 293]

He always had a big chip on his shoulder regarding Gregan and the Brumbies...

 

[Richo]

OK Waylon - Knock out two stories of 1000 words a day on Australian rugby that keeps people informed on what's going on. Make them so non-rugby nuts will read them as well.

Make sure you have the latest player news in there, and what's happened at every boring arsed presser and captains run. Try and interpret what the hell Robbie Deans is saying. Don't slag off players, coaches and the ARU or they won't talk to you, but try and keep it balanced.

Oh and be sure to make it interesting and entertaining, but don't include any anonymous gossip because the guys on the GAGR forum will bitch about it endlessly, but still read it nonetheless.

Look forward to seeing how long you keep it up

Growden's problem was that he was trying too hard to be an insider, not that he didn't attend pressers or talk to players or what have you. I'm sure he was great and dedicated at all that. What he didn't do was offer much in the way of analysis. Maybe it wasn't his job to do so, but too often his thoughts on rugby -- not the players as people, not the politics, not the silly story lines, but the game itself -- were wanting. Perhaps it was inevitable that someone who spent so much time thinking and talking about insider gossip struggled to offer much optimism, but it felt like he enjoyed being a player rather than an observer just a little too much -- especially where the Waratahs were concerned. I'm not saying his job wasn't hard, just that he didn't do it as well as he could have.

All that said, it's a crying shame that we'll have one less rugby journalist. Why couldn't they give Danny Weidler a redundancy instead?

 

[Gagger]

That they didn't have someone else to do the analytical stuff is the editor's fault, not Grumbles'.

I'd say it's unlikely you'd find the right person to full both roles

 

[Cat_A]

Perhaps the biggest issue with Growden was that he didn't have that other journo to be his counterpoint- the other viewpoint or the analysis man/woman- that he had earlier in his career when newspapers sold regardless.

If you look at GAGR as an example, we have more than 10 (help Gagger?) writers, each with their own styles & specialties. It strikes me that a major criticism of Growden, at least on this thread, is that he didn't cover enough subjects deeply enough. I can't help but think it'd be pretty tricky being one man trying to think like the multitude of writers on GAGR.

 

[Richo]

Gaggs, you could make that case, sure. But he was the Chief Rugby Correspondent. He could have put some thought into analysis once a week.

My view is that lots of writers fall into habits. They tend to write what comes naturally or most easily. No doubt Grumbles was better at the gossipy, insider stuff. That's fine, but also a bit lazy. At times he had denigrating things to say about a team's performance, but rarely much analysis to give it weight. I'd have liked some more substance.

 

[Gagger]

He's a reporter, a correspondent, not an 'analyst' or even 'expert'. He gets the news, hopefully with a scoop or interesting twist and dishes it up for you. I'm not seeing the same level of animosity for Georgina Robinson who does exactly the same thing, but with much nicer hair.

Now don't get me wrong - my personal view is that we need less of this and more of the sort of stuff we do (or try to) but remember he came through in an era with not even any email and works for an organisation that has a very different commercial model to ours - even if it is going down the gurgler

 

[Inside Shoulder]

The analysis was Spiros job: and we all know what you guys think of him.
Personally, he was ok until he too got petty.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Jnor]

I think increasingly the 'analysis' role fell to 'experts' in the Matt Burke field of being an expert, namely Matt Burke. Quite who thought that would be a good idea I don't know.

I'm sure in theory getting a former player with an illustrious career to write insightful and though-provoking commentary was great, it just didn't work with Burke (Although Eales and McKenzie are much better).

Paul Cully's excellent columns do fill a lot of the void.

 

[waratahjesus]

With what rugby rates on television, I'm not sure analysis pieces would be read by even 1/10 of the readers. Grumbles probably got more people reading about union which means he did a good job. We as fans, who look for rugby news daily and dissect and chase knowledge are a minority of minorities, I think that gets forgotten sometimes.

 

[Richo]

There seems to be some revisionism going on here, IMO. Growden didn't just write his gossip columns or give reports on training camps and so on. He wrote a lot of match reports too. For mine, those were rarely good. Perhaps that wasn't his area of expertise and that's fine, but they were still what the SMH put out as their coverage of the game or rugby. We can be sorry to see him go, but let's not pretend he was some sort gift to the game. Years of spiteful, kneejerk criticism of the Waratahs -- some warranted, a lot of it not -- wasn't exactly beneficial, whether people read it or not. If only more of his coverage showed the love of the game and its characters of which his last few columns spoke so eloquently.

Anyway, I'm not trying to shit on the guy. I read his stuff too. It sucks for rugby journalism that he's going and it speaks to an even larger, sadder state of affairs at Fairfax.

 

[I like to watch]

WJ, I think he got lazy at the end. I got sick of reading about an undisclosed official from an undisclosed franchise being in the shit for an undisclosed indiscretion.
It seemed to me that he repeated some of these pars time after time.

 

[wamberal]

Apart from his laziness and sheer lack of insight, the thing that bugged me most about Growfat in the last few years was his constant negativity towards the game, he rarely, if ever, had anything positive to say. His consistent criticism of the Waratahs is a case at point. Contrast his work with that of Michael Cockerill, the SMH soccer writer, who always, but always, was able to present his game in a positive fashion, even when he was making a critical point.