Please Sir, may I have some more?

By Benji Crossley

Rugby World Cup time is Christmas for code heads. Give me all the content and I will consume it. But unless I am missing something, content in a New Zealand context is reasonably hard to come by.

The biggest culprit are the rights holding broadcaster, Sky TV. For the opening game Sky pulled out all the bells and whistles; studio, pundits, pre- and post-match analysis, awkward live crosses. They did the lot. But of course they did, it was the All Blacks. For every other game of the tournament so far, we get world feed commentary with the world feed analysis and build-up pre and post-match. World feed coverage is provided by World Rugby, it has a slant. Most of the team are the same group that do the World Sevens Series for World Rugby. This isn’t criticism of the commentary team or their quality, but it’s the same coverage they’ll be getting in the US or Canada. Surely the New Zealand rugby market deserves better?

Where is the studio coverage in New Zealand? Where are the New Zealand pundits? Where is the referee in the studio to discuss any contentious refereeing decisions? Imagine if after the conclusion of Wales v Fiji yesterday we could have heard from former Fiji captain Greg Smith or any other of the ex-Fiji internationals living in New Zealand, Shane Howarth or other former Welsh internationals might have had interesting stuff to say as well. It strikes me that for the Samoa and Tonga games definitely, and probably Fiji as well, that those teams and those supporter bases in New Zealand deserve more than the bare minimum. Sky has the talent to make it work, but it doesn’t seem like they’ll do it (though at the time of writing Samoa and Tonga haven’t played).

The answer as to why we don’t get the bells and whistles for games other than New Zealand is probably cost and timing. The games aren’t a great kick off time and to roll out a full slate of pundits in a studio with all that goes with it is probably pretty challenging. That’s fine. But what about last night? Where was the highlights show with pundits analysing the weekends games? Sky has a whole slate of pundits who are in the middle of an NPC season, surely during the World Cup you could run a Match of the Day show at the end of the round of games with decent analysis and punditry (use Kane Hames more!!!). I can’t be the only person who would be genuinely interested in a forensic analysis of what has happened to Ethan de Groot at scrum time?

Give me 20 minutes of that, 20 minutes of the virtues of the South African rush and then 20 minutes on Irish strike plays. Hook it to my veins!

Instead, we get the same old same old. The Breakdown (have a look at South African rugby Twitter/X to see what the rest of the world makes of that) and the Aotearoa Rugby Pod (easily the best rugby content in New Zealand) will run and they’ll do a job. CGW will offer a lighter view. But surely, during a World Cup we can justify more?

Ironically, it’s probably New Zealand Rugby themselves producing the best visual stuff themselves. They’ve gone to a tried-and-true recipe, ask Ric Salizzo to make something a bit light hearted. That’s what they’ve got every day on NZR+. It’s good stuff, but it isn’t an analysis of Argentina’s mental collapse against England or the Fijian attacking shape that appeared sporadically against Wales.

It is a quirk in our rugby media ecosystem that truly independent “content creators” haven’t really emerged in the same way they have in South Africa, Europe and even Australia. We don’t have a Squidge Rugby making in-depth preview videos for YouTube. We don’t have the type of journalists you get in the UK who are clipping GIFs together on social media to do deep dive on attacking shape or defensive structures. The fact that we really only have 2 rugby podcasts (Rugby Direct and Champagne Rugby) as well as a couple of TV shows that are released as pods says something about the environment. Surely there is a market for it?

If it turns out I am wrong and there are people out there pumping out really good in-depth content, I’d love to see it, but I feel like I have had a pretty good look.

I’ve long had a theory that New Zealand Rugby fans have an aversion to punditry on the game because we don’t like being told what to think about rugby because we all feel like we know the game. Maybe that’s the case? Maybe that’s why we are dished up what we are dished up? But surely, during a Rugby World Cup we could just get a little bit more?

Follow Benji on Twitter