Thoughts on the autumn internationals
I watched both games yesterday – Ireland beating the All Blacks and England overcoming Australia.
The first game was covered on Channel 4.
The commentator was Miles Harrison but I missed his normal sidekick Stuart Barnes.
The All Blacks were ring-rusty and short of the high standards that one had come to expect: their passing and handling were sloppy.
Enjoyment of the game was tarnished by a referee who was too full of himself and the disallowing of two New Zealand tries which resulted in the same problem as soccer – the drama of scoring evaporates.
The England v Australia game was on Amazon Prime.
They had roped in experienced presenter Gabby Logan and Nick Mullins as commentator.
Both did a good job but David Flatman, as an analyst, came over as an assertive know-all.
The jury remains out on playing two fly halves in Marcus Smith and Owen Farrell but England did rely on Farrell’s kicking as the Wallabies, with their rugged play, gave away too many penalties.
Aside from Michael Hooper and Nick White I thought they lacked quality.
The refereeing was less obtrusive.
One weakness on the England side is Ben Youngs – I would choose Danny Care as Young’s pairing with Smith lacked chemistry.
It would be even better to start with Alex Dombrandt of Harlequins but I can’t see Eddie Jones breaking up his back row of Courtney Lawes, Tom Curry and Sam Underhill.
As regards the coverage I was also irritated by subtitles – which referred to “Ferrell” instead of Farrell and “have” instead of half.
Finally a word on Matt Dickinson, the Times football reporter who broke the Hoddle disability story.
Dickinson’s wife worked for the FA and the feeling amongst the coven of football hacks, who move around in a tight group whilst stabbing each other in the back, was that he had an unfair advantage.
My own view is that at the time Glen Hoddle was not that articulate and could easily be manipulated to say something he did not mean.
The draw at Rome over Italy was tactically as astute as Terry Venables’ 4-1 destruction of Holland in the 1995 Euros but Terry always had the support of powerful London-based reporters and so would never get ‘done’ the same way.
