Is it just me who is sick of seeing:-

(Insert player's name) says that we should toughen up
(Insert player's name) says we let the fans down
(Insert player's name) says we need to be better next week
(Insert player's name) says we let the fans down this week
(Insert player's name) says we need a wake up call

Mick Potter - Confidence is high going into this week's game
Mick Potter - Confidence was to balme for this week's performance

Lazy journalism for me I am afraid........................

If those are the quotes he gets given then what is he to do? Make up some more interesting ones?

Can't help but write what the players/coaches are saying. Time for them to man up and hopfully make some good headlines

Potter isn't the greatest to interview at the best of times

The T&A reporter is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he starts cutting the crap and asking tough questions you can bet he won't get a warm welcome up there. Generally a lot of RL reporters get sucked into the "if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" way of dealing with the clubs so what's reported is usually a verbatim press release. I'm not saying he should slag people off every 5 mins but a bit more "holding to account" would be welcome. Potter and Hood have come out with plenty of contradictory stuff over the past weeks and months and nobody in the media with regular access has pulled them up over it.

Reporter. Clue's in the job description.

What else might he ask them? There is a very limited range of things any coach or player can actually say, because there's such a limited range of things that can happen. You can play great/good/average/pishpoor. If the latter, whilst the pro forma responses are irritating, to say the least, that's what will be said. Just like 90% of players on TV getting the MOM award are "over the moon".

Like Sammutt saying the Wigan performance was not acceptable. Well, yes, but what does that actually mean? I mean, in what way will it not be accepted? Will those responsible for it all be sacked or dropped? No. Will the fans get their money back? Nope. So it is "unacceptable" in a way which actually has no meaning, as de facto fans have to "accept" it; it's not like a pair of shoes that you can reject and return.

Is there a meaningful way in which the club is "not accepting" these unacceptable performances? Answers on a postcard please.

He has to put [isomething[/i in the T&A. This stuff really doesn't matter, after all the abysmal performances served up since the last couple of years the self-criticism and brave forecasts are just so much hot air and space filler. You already know what they will say before they say it. All that matters to me is whether they mean it, and whether they do anything about it. On which basis I basically skim over such comments as I ain't really interested. Action is what I'm interested in, not words.

Read Flat Earth News by Nick Davies and watch Series 5 of The Wire. Newspapers the world over are trying to do more with less and the result is a drop in quality.

The turnover on the T&A Bulls job has been crazy. How long did Brian Smoth do it for, decades? Since him, we've had Askham, Deane, Craven, Murphy, this new lad Ross, that kiwi fella off the top of my head...

I don't know whether that says more about the culture at the T&A or newspapers generally. I can't have bought 5 T&As in 20 years I've been in the region, just not my bag.

A good few years back, probably a bit more than 20, the T&A used to be a decent local evening paper but, leaving the sport out of the criticism, it's descended into a local version of the Sun or Star(ie, assuming the reader has a reading age of about eight) but without the page three piccies.

If the team plays well, then maybe the articles on RL would be more to taste, with some different, more expansive subject matter, but as it is the "we should have played better" mea culpa articles are what we're likely to see more of I'm afraid.

Ross has put in a good report on the Wakey game, looks like hes warming to the task, it actually reads as if he was at the game. Constructive criticism too (slow starts and penalty count needs remedying). COYRoss!

I may be becoming more pedantic as I get older but this headline fro m the T&A

Talk about a non story!
I mean, I'm close to possibly going for a pint or two before the game on Saturday

Is it not news that Elima is close to a return?

Great news, that he's close to possibly making a return ?

It's not the news / non-news that wound me up, but the semantics of the headline

I guess Ross could just submit nothing and let Parker fill the T&A with pretentious crap.

Edited.

absolutely edit: delete mickckthegled replace with Steam the Pig end edit, awful semantics, it says against Saints which puts a timescale on it thereby making "close" redundant. Or alternatively against Saints could be eliminated as that is referred to in the third paragraph of the article which also makes it apparent that it is not the away fixture. On the other hand I thought that he should have inserted the word "other" in front of "non-impact" as exercise bikes are non impact but the article reads as if they are not.

To liven it up couldn't the articles be embellished slightly so that:

"Elliot Whitehad acknowledges he still needs to improve" becomes

"Elliot Whitehead turned slowly toward me, his face half-concealed by shadow. His eyebrows arched into furrowed tents as he spat out the words 'I know I still need to improve' like a rattle-snake".

A headline is a headline, but having now read Ross's article, I actually think it's a good article. It says that Elima may be fit enough to play against Saints, the medical advice being 2 to 3 weeks, and it depends how the knee reacts to increased training. In fact it tells me pretty much everything I might want to know about Elima's fitness situation.

Oh and I presumed everyone knows reporters aren't responsible for any headlines?

Aaron, both you and Mick have made this claim about Craven lately. Is there any evidence to support this?

The T&A were forced to retract/apologise for one of his reports, weren't they?
Something about some members of our coaching staff being let go if I remember correctly.

I remember that, but would be interested why people claim he "lied" - as opposed to having got information which proved to be unreliable and which perhaps he hadn't sufficiently tried to check?

To me, it would've read better as " Elima will possibly return against Saints" or "Elima, close to making a return" instead we got a conglomeration of both

But Heppenstall didn't write the headline

from memory it was about clawson and richards being let go, but quite a while before it was actually announced.

My mistake, I didn't realise this was a Ross Heppenstall thread. I thought it was a thread about how poor the T&A was in general