WRW #16: IN DEFENCE OF JOURNALISM
#IStandwithSonja
RUGBY ON TV THIS WEEKEND
Gallagher Premiership:
Friday
TIGERS v London Irish, 7.45pm BT Sport 1
Sale v Newcastle, 8pm, BT Sport Extra
Saturday
Bath v Exeter, 3pm BT Sport 2
Wasps v Gloucester, 3pm, BT Sport Extra
Worcester v Bristol, 5.15pm, BT Sport Extra
Sunday
Harlequins v Northampton, 3pm, BT Sport 1
Pro 14:
Friday
Munster v Connacht, 7.35pm, Premier Sports
Saturday
Zebre v Glasgow, 2.00pm, Premier Sports
Ulster v Leinster, 7.35pm, Premier Sports
Ospreys v Dragons, 7.35pm, Premier Sports
Sunday
Edinburgh v Benetton, 3.15pm, Premier Sports
Super Rugby NZ
Available via Rugbypass.com
TIGERS MOVING FORWARD
Another game, another step forward?
Saturday’s performance at Bristol stirred a lot of the Crumbie warriors into quiet murmurings of approval. Another day of quiet improvement, if not quite attaining the positive result all would have appreciated.
Dogged in the setpiece and especially in defence, the performance had hallmarks of some of last season’s midweek performances with a mite more quality. The players executed a gameplan which while it failed to counteract Bristol’s advantage in possession and especially, territory, had much to show in organisation and endeavour.
While there was some razzle-dazzle dished out by Bristol, this was no bleak thumping along the lines of September’s visit so is the Tigers’ fan’s emotion one of relief or joy? You can now see combinations being developed, balance across selection (Wells, Reffell and Chessum does have a nice look to it) and the game plan becomes more settled. Would this be taking shape without the wild swings of selection last summer? Possibly not.
Tigers are developing into a devilishly hard team to play against. Full of power, you have to be strong upfront to beat them and not many teams score a bucketload of tries. 24 tries conceded is pushing top 6 form.
What’s more is that until last weekend, the tries were starting to come. 13 tries in four games previous to Saturday is up there with the best (this Friday’s visitors, London Irish with 16) in the league. But there is a big but coming here.
But for all the endeavour, all the concentration on firepower up front, where is the inspiration behind? Even allowing for Covid-related cancellations, it’s not a coincidence that Leicester are second bottom for defenders beaten and clean breaks. To learn from the Premiership’s own website that Leicester are rock bottom in passes made is not a shock. To learn they are nearly a hundred behind everybody else, is startling.
Leicester’s game plan is superbly efficient. Kick from inside own half, either box kick for possession or off field for territory. Win the ball inside the opposition 10 metre line and then start to do things with it. Win scrum penalties, kick for the corner to score tries if that can’t be done through open play.
But are the backs seeing enough of the ball?
BATTENING DOWN THE HATCHES
Leicester’s latest accounts produced the latest snapshot of the club’s financial position on Monday.
For highly understandable reasons, these accounts are later than usual and we must bear the usual accountant's warning that these are from just one fixed point in time, up to the end of June 2020. Nonetheless, they are always worth a study among financially qualified friends and so it proves here.
Normally speaking, the profit/loss figure would be the broad reflection of where a business stands. Covid-19 wrecks everything in its path and this is no exception.
So a practical loss of £4.2m is the biggest deficit in Tigers’ history. That includes exceptional costs of over £1m, probably related to the aborted sale process and/or subsequent Covid-19 advice. Yet, when that performance is based on a third of the season being behind closed doors, imagine what the next set of accounts will look like.
A rescue package of around £10.7m has been made available to see Tigers through an extremely challenging 12 months ahead.
There are three elements: HSBC overdraft expanded by £3m (taking it to £10m overall), £4.7m Sport England loans backed by the Treasury at 2% over 10 years and that £3m loan notes offered by Tom Scott and Peter Tom. What we won't know probably until next year’s accounts, is whether those facilities have been drawn upon.
But assuming we stay on course with vaccinations, that very welcome support should see Leicester through the worst of the storm.
EVERY BIT OF CASH HELPS
The CVC money crops up a number of times. While the club continues to defer income from the original CVC investment, that seems even more like the common sense that not every club has followed.
Because the payback to CVC may have now begun. PRL central funds are down by 14%, though any PRL receipts will go down again in next year's accounts because of lockdown preventing RFU funds being raised.
Cashflow being as important as it is, Tigers have cut an impressive number of further commercial deals. We don’t know if the year’s £2.9m in sponsorship money is an increase on the previous year, but it’s damn welcome. The sale of the lease at Stoneygate RFC won't hurt and while at the time of writing, it looks like the Budget will extend furlough until September 2021. £2m came in to cover wages during this accounting period.
Yet overall staff costs rose by 5%. Also, £424,000 was allocated as compensation, most likely to be due to former directors Simon Cohen and Ian Walker.
What really matters are the underlying themes, as we emerge with vaccinations in our arms from this cruellest of winters. You need to look at pre-pandemic performance before looking forward beyond it.
CHARTING THE COURSE
Within the ever-readable Chairman’s statement which sits alongside the legally-binding accounts, there is confirmation of much that we already knew.
The year began with the club’s major shareholders looking to offload the club entirely. If the board “did not feel that any potential investor recognised the true value and potential of the club,” those on the other side of the conversations would argue the club wanted too much money. Whether they get an improved price in a post-pandemic world is another matter.
Much depends on a return to form on the field, backed up by “further focus on developing a range of products and services available to sponsors, corporate clients and supporters to enable these to be more closely aligned to individual requirements.” Putting LTTV behind a paywall would be one long-term option and finding new revenue streams appears vital to getting the club back towards profitability.
“Recurring income” fell by £5.2 million, mostly during the final three months of the year.
But I wonder what factor is given for people moving with their feet, season tickets dropping by 1,500 and average attendances for all competitions falling by 2,000. Since hitting a peak in 2014/15, season ticket sales are down 23% while overall attendances have fallen for five of the last six seasons. Remember this is pre-pandemic.
Look at attendances more closely, split across tournaments. Not unexpectedly, Challenge Cup gates last season were around 3-4,000 down on the previous season’s Champions Cup games, close to 20%.
The bigger worry for me are the Premiership attendances. You can argue lockdown prevented Leicester missing out on big crowds for Northampton, Bath and Harlequins, but average Premiership gates have falled by 3,000 in just two seasons.
Tigers still have the Premiership’s biggest average gate - 19,790 - ahead of Bristol’s 17,916 with Bath 3,000 further back. But it's the first time Leicester’s average Premiership attendance has dipped below 20,000 since redevelopment and the overwhelming advantage that big crowds gave Leicester in their pomp is shrinking year by year. Why?
Is it a Leicester-specific problem?
Poor performances?
City packing out 32,000 every week at the King Power?
A self-fulfilling prophecy with more seats becoming available at Tigers, which makes season tickets less important, especially given the frequency of TV kick-off times.
Or is it a rugby problem? Does the sport appeal to kids as it once did?
STORMY SEAS STILL AHEAD
So how do Leicester and every other club gets out of this situation? Naturally, next year’s accounts (up to June 2021) may make the Texas Chainsaw Massacre resemble the Sound of Music.
Loan repayments will soon begin. The loan notes issued by Tom Scott and Peter Tom will need to be repaid soonest, though it may be considered prudent to pay off Sport England first, for greater freedom of action. While in revenue terms, you hope for 20,000+ crowds eventually, while the promised new income streams will become ever more important because, eventually the CVC income will run out.
Look for how these link together and sequence in time over the coming months.
By 2024, salary cap levels are due to return to its previous level of £6.4m, up from £5m - is it really going to go back up? Leicester and others will hope not.
At the same time. a new TV deal will be negotiated and there will be considerable pressure on CVC to deliver an increase similar to the Top 14…
LNR have secured a 14% rise in fees. CVC are going to need something similar.
FALLOW TO FALLOUT
I’m not going to dwell too much on events in Cardiff, even less on Rome.
First there’s this cock-up of communication, which is hilarious for imagining how completely insane Johnno would have become had he been England captain at the time:
But after Saturday, do we actually know what the knock-on law is, now?
There was some debate about the knock-on 4-5 years ago within the Southern Hemisphere. This entry on a South African site shows how the law has been interpreted. Essentially, if you drop it but it still goes backwards off yourself, it’s still a knock-on? I’m really confused…
Using two examples in the 2016 Rugby Championship season, the issue of “control” comes up.
The word "control" does not appear in the law book when it comes to knock-ons or scoring a try. It is a pity that match officials use the word. They should instead use the simple rugby term "knock on". The question then would be: "Does he knock on?"
This is the forward pass law all over again? Or if I’ve got it wrong, tell me.
Leave a comment especially if you are involved in refereeing..
BREAKING Quick bit of news…
I wonder what that means for George Martin. Nonetheless, those players who haven’t played much, will be released back to their clubs this weekend. Expect a few Saracens and possibly Martin to do that.
IN DEFENCE OF JOURNALISM
The case of Sonja McLaughlan this weekend leaves me angry. Really angry.
For full disclosure, I don’t know her that well but we have worked alongside each other in many a pressbox and occasionally on the same broadcast. I admire her tenacity and toughness a very great deal.
Asking questions after a game in a TV context is tough, tougher than radio and especially in my sphere, where within reason, you get any time you like. Answering them afterwards should be just as straightforward. You’ve been in the game, you know your feelings, you should be able to talk about them without crossing any disciplinary lines. Eddie Jones should know after all.
The value of the interview is often overplayed these days. There is so much time you can hear from “players” that it becomes a little routine. But hearing from the big names - your Manus, your George Fords, your Owen Farrells, your Maro Itojes - remains quite rare.
Also, the PR training these days (and I’ve worked on the other side of the fence) makes it so difficult to find the right question and this is especially true immediately after a game, which is where we come to Saturday night.
I’m not going to analyse what happened. Both sides are doing their job and actually doing it very professionally. Sonja is trying to open up some light, all four men are trying to shut it down and these are not random thoughts they’re expressing.
You get 90 seconds to cover the key point. Each answer takes 20 seconds on average…but you’ll do well to get more than 3/ or 4 questions in, which the media managers and interviewers know. That means…
There is a reason why Rob Baxter replies to all the questions he can think of, before he’s asked them, in his very first answer…
“But. But. BUT….if you know you’re not going to get an answer, why ask the bloody question?? And why ask it twice?”
Because if you don’t ask, you don’t know.
….and if you don’t follow up, you miss out on what is generally the better answer. If you’re going to take the PR bullshit for one answer, you don’t deserve to do the job anyway.
In those circumstances, things often don’t go right.
You think you’re funny.. (Brendan Venter?)
You can attack the media..but only for so long until people think you might have something to hide. (Eddie Jones?)
Or you can just lose it for a minute because you react to a poorly-phrased question. (Plenty but the one I’m thinking of, is Ben Youngs.)
What is out of order? Asking a losing captain about two highly debatable tries that went against his side…hardly? Asking an opposition coach if he has any sympathy for the losers? (Pivac had very little which made it the most interesting answer of the lot.)
A good, revealing interview depends on the answers you get. You can scream all you like at the questions but if no bugger wants to answer, maybe you should address that to someone on the other side of the microphone. And the truth eventually dribbles out anyway.
But you should never ever have to take abuse when you’re doing your job. No qualifications. No ifs. No buts. Unlike any other fixture, Wales v England seems to draw the most partisan, one-eyed bottom feeders out of the woodwork.
Would Graham Simmons - Sky’s long-time interviewer and the best in the business - have been treated like this? Of course not..I can remember him stepping to physically block the way of Andy Robinson after defeat to Argentina, before asking his question again. They’re good friends too. Did he get any criticism at all?
#IstandwithSonja
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RUNNING FROM DEEP
The repercussions from postponing Scotland v France grow.
On Sunday, the French Sports Minister expressed outrage about the Covid breach at the French team’s camp. Speaking to L’Equipe and quoted in the Sunday Times, she said:
“We asked for an investigation from the FFR and Bernard Laporte [the president], who himself came to see us before the tournament to present the protocol and tell us that the bubble was going to be strictly respected with controlled entries and exits,” Maracineanu told L’Equipe TV.
“Now that we can see this is not the case, I am waiting for him to come and explain to us what has happened. If nothing happens, if we don’t look into this chain of contaminations and they don’t explain to us how it could happen, then the authorisation that has been given can be withdrawn.”
Strong words then, especially now that it’s been confirmed that Head Coach Fabien Galthie left the French team’s bubble. Talk of going out for waffles in Italy just adds tabloid fuel to the fire. While we know now, patient zero - the cause of the outbreak - was a France 7s player, Laporte’s reaction defies belief:
“For me, he (Galthie) has the right to leave from the moment he is masked. He was outside. He watched the match alongside Thomas Lombard [the director general of the Stade Francais team], who himself is tested every three days and also wore a mask. I don’t see where the problem could be, but then again I am not a doctor.”
Really???
Florian Grill, an FFR board member who lost to Laporte in last year’s presidential election, believes the investigation should be independent.
“The governance of French rugby had signed a protocol with the government, which is no small responsibility. We need to get to the truth of this, we need precision and transparency,” he said.
Now - stands back in amazement - that FFR investigation has cleared Galthie of wrongdoing.
'In my report, I mention it at the start, it is perfectly clear that what he has done and whatever one might think, he had the right to do what he did, and there was no particular risk,' committee head Roger Salamon told French radio RTL.
A FFR spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday that the investigation report would not be made public.
The Champions Cup and Challenge Cup knockout stages are under a cloud, for sure ahead of next week’s draw. Even more immediately, France’s Six Nations participation in the rest of this Six Nations is in doubt.
And so too, the future of two men who are under pressure for their jobs. Suppose the French Government step in and demand heads to roll- considering their deep anger, it’s not inconceivable.
Would Bernard Laporte try to save himself at the top of the FFR and sack Galthie, who it is rumoured tried to blame a physio for the outbreak? Given France’s improvement these last 12 months, imagine how sacking Galthie would go down.
Or does he fall on his own sword, ending his chance of becoming top dog in the world game when Bill Beaumont retires at World Rugby? More chance of me being Pope.
Or does he try and hold the fort? Looks like this is the angle. Honest Bernie is under *all kinds of pressure*.
There will be no Women’s World Cup in 2021. The event in New Zealand will be put back in 12 months’ time. Former Wales full back Dyddgu Hywel , talking to the BBC, makes a very fair point:
Hywel told BBC Radio Wales: "What's really disappointing in my opinion is how do the men get an autumn series last year?”
"They've got a normal Six Nations this year, which is also great news, but why is the women's game different or treated differently?”
"We're still talking about equality in sports and it's 2021. We shouldn't be having this conversation any more and I truly understand the Covid situation.”
"But that's the same for everyone. How can the men's game carry on and the women's had delays or cancellations or even a shortened Six Nations, which is happening next month.”
Unarguable.
Very busy edition this week. More mutterings and musings to come on Friday.
Thanks for your company..and do send on your thoughts. welfordroadweekly@substack.com
Chris
Thanks for the headline Chris. I had a pop at Stephen Jones on The Sunday Times comments section of his Wales v England match report. Naturally decorum dictated good manners in my explanation of his standard of journalism. I'd say he bit quite nicely in his response. Typo's suggest angry fingers, or maybe he was too relaxed to care.