In the Sydney Morning Herald Spiro Zavos attacks fellow hack and Sunday Times rugby writer Stephen Jones for his "damaging" reporting on the game.
The Basil Fawlty of British rugby writing, Stephen Jones, has blundered into the row between the New Zealand Rugby Union and the International Rugby Board with a typical silly-walks piece of writing. According to Jones, the chief executive of the NZRU, Steve Tew, is "barking up the wrong tree" in suggesting that the business model of the World Cup tournament penalises New Zealand and Australian rugby by more than $30 million each cup year, and that the model must be changed....
Jones is influential because he is the rugby correspondent of The Sunday Times. For decades this splendid newspaper has featured intelligent writing by giants of the rugby press benches such as Vivian Jenkins. Jones has consistently demeaned this bully pulpit with his attacks on New Zealand and Australian rugby. His fellow rugby writers around the world have explained away this perpetual ranting by saying that he doesn't really mean what he says, that he is just "revving up" the New Zealand and Australian rugby public. This does not wash with me. The rants cannot be justified. He is damaging the world game.
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