TwoCents talks a lot of sense about pundits

This isn’t unique to NZ by any stretch, hell I can count good and unbiased Irish pundits on one hand after playing with fireworks, but the state of punditry is a blight on the game with the “look at league” narrative in Aussie and Kiwi punditry fueling the disquiet down under.

I think a lot of this is excuse making from two teams at historic nadirs (not their lowest mind) who are unintentionally looking for excuses (every team and nation does this, see EJ “it’s not rugby mate” or the latest ‘Johnny foreigner’ rant from the Torygraph). But we see this trend of blaming the laws, the ref, or the state of the game from any team who’s struggling or frustrated (see Rassie during the Lions or Toonie post France).

This is all a long winded way of saying, the state of punditry is shit and I’d love to see commentary focus on educating people on the laws and the shape of the game (Austin Healy is actually great for this) and avoid the cheaper “ah ref/state of the game” nonsense that is undermining the game.