Rugby in recovery as a media spectacle

Anger about rules and referees ruining rugby matches ran for days in the media after last weekend's Rugby World Cup final. Players, pundits and even current national coaches have said the game is 'broken' and bad to watch. But billions ofdollars of media companies' money keep rugby going - so will the media fix it for fans?Anger about rules and referees ruining rugby matches ran for days in the media after last weekend's Rugby World Cup final. Players, pundits and even current national coaches have said the game is 'broken' and bad to watch. But billions of dollars of media companies' money keep rugby going - so will the media fix it for fans? Most fans hoping international rugby's biggest showpiece would be a spectacle didn't get what they hoped for from last weekend's Rugby World Cup final. But some could see that coming. Two days before the final, on the academic website The Conversation, University of Cape Town academic Clive Thompson crunched the numbers and concluded an early red card could ruin the final. "The spectacle is lost whenever there is a mismatch in numbers," he wrote presciently. TVNZ's rugby presenter Scotty Stevenson told Seven Sharp the day after the All Blacks lost by one point that World Rugby's rules had turned top rugby games into "a crime scene".Plenty of others thought so too -- though few fans here were saying that when New Zealand ended up one point ahead after an even lower scoring one-try slugfest final in Auckland back in 2011.Israel Dagg was one of the winners that day, but on Sky Sports' live coverage last Sunday he condemned the game as a "snore fest" not good enough for a final and he reckoned the refereeing had ruined it. "This is our showpiece event being overshadowed by a couple of people . . . taking the glory and gloss away from the players that have worked their absolute butts off. There's people out there absolutely spitting tacks, he said. And was at half-time with the result still in doubt. Having paid millions for exclusive live rights to rugby, it was hardly what Sky TV bosses wanted subscribers to hear. Later on his own radio station SENZ Dagg said: "You can see why people switch the game. It's boring as hell." TVNZ's Andrew Savile told Newstalk ZB, "it wasn't a great advertisement for rugby." ZB's own Mike Hosking was even more scathing. "Rugby isn't cool. It can still be played well, but too often it isn't. Yes, the All Blacks lost - but not as badly as rugby did," he told ZB listeners last Monday. …Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details