The Ruck is a podcast of The Times- a newspaper group that aspires to write for all of the UK: that’s England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland- right? Just checking- because unless you are only interested in English rugby, it’s largely irrelevant to the sports fans in other parts of the UK. Oh- and by the way, the same newspaper group publishes an Irish version- tilted to the news and sports interests of the rest of Ireland… But let’s not even go there, and merely state that the podcast has an ridiculously slanted focus on the Premiership and to the English men’s and women’s national teams.
Anyway, it does a good fan-boy job on puffing up the sacred cow of the English Premiership, while never really looking into why it is ailing. No analysis of the sustainability of the ‘Oligarch-Club’ model which The Times Rugby Correspondent has so long championed. The podcast obviously envies the French Top 14 model, and has borderline contempt (only that when Stephen Jones isn’t braying) for the URC and its owner Unions. There’s never an opportunity lost to pick up on a supposed weakness in the URC- mismatches, etc. even when that incidence may clearly be an anomaly, or is an instance directly comparable to the regular one-sided fixtures in their beloved “Prem.”.
When they announce at the top of the programme that they will “touch briefly on the URC…” , you know it will be one of two things: a patented Jones one-eyed diatribe on the competition- very often on the non-Welsh and Scots teams; or the very briefest passing reference to a good result or performance by one of the “Home Nations” toiling in exile.
Owen Slot is just contemptuous and uninterested outside English interests. The other regular presenters (Kelleher, Reynolds, etc.) are shades of beige, facilitators of Jones, but equally lacking knowledge and/ or interest outside… guess what- English rugby.
On a positive note- Stuart Barnes is very good: well informed and balanced- notably in comparison to the rest of the team. The current players and ex-players usually add insight. It does cover English womens rugby very fully. And finally- it is generally more bearable in featuring just “sins of omission” on the URC and particularly Ireland, when Stephen Jones is not there to pour malice and calumny on ignorance.
