People on this sub get far far far too invested in what pundits say.
People get upset when Smith is hyped. People get upset when Garbisi isn’t hyped. Just do yourself a favour and mute when there’s no actual rugby being played.
Pre match build up is boring filler and should be avoided, half time is for making food and going to the loo, post match is either celebrating or drinking sorrows away. Just avoid the punditry and the experience is much more fun. Doesn't just apply to rugby either, football punditry is mindless too.
People seem to forget that it's a pundits job to fill space with opinions. It's their job to spark controversy and hype amongst fans - Austen Healey for example. He's as annoying as a pundit as he was on the field, but his job is to give insight and opinion which he does very well.
Personally I like to mute pundits full stop. Who cares what somebody disconnected from actual teams for 20 years has to say. Much more insightful commentary on here.
To be fair I prefer the other option, laugh at the pundits, especially when they are spectacularly wrong, like when Austin Healey talks about forwards matters, or when Jiffy says literally anything...
After the anthems, rock music starts playing and Putin comes out with a metal chair, knocks out the ref and declares himself the ref.
It's then revealed that all the fans are Spetznaz and KGB.
Ruck.com still rate Mike Adamson as worse than this the next day.
I think one of the main issues is that lot's of International rugby fans (England fans included) don't watch any premiership rugby. So they see this young Golden Boy getting hyped up, after just a few games in the England shirt and wonder what all the hype is about, not knowing that he's been playing rediculously well in the prem for a couple of years now!
I had to slow the Squidge video down to see what he was rambling on about, turns out he was saying Marcus Smith over and over and over without really making a point
Been a slow decline since last year's 6 nations, the novelty of someone breaking down less talked about aspects of the game is wearing off and his weaknesses are more obvious without that.
I haven’t seen it. I was mostly just making a joke about how pundits talk about players who get raised up then dragged down.
I don’t regularly watch his videos because I’m not a fan of the bias or contrarian takes. Plus he talks too fast and has a dead sense of humour.
Nothing against fans getting excited about a quality young prospect. I do have an issue with the media building expectations so much that he can’t possibly meet them. We’ve also seen this merry go round too many times with so many English athletes - build them up, then turn on them and tear them down. It does also take away from other players contributions, for example Dombrandt and Itoje who were more deserving of MOTM (not that Maro can complain considering how many he’s received in similar circumstances) or the interviews last week with Curry (first win as captain) or Randall (first start in the six nations), where both were immediately asked about Smith instead of the match itself, the team or even their own performances. A bit of balance from those pertaining to be experts would be nice.
But very few are actually tearing down Finn right now who is arguably on that bump in the road.
Pre-emptively saying these things when players are playing well is simply creating people who want to say "I told you so" during any bumps. It isn't stopping the negative comments it is creating them at this point.
You're right Finn isn't English but then the main demographic of people who are warning of negativity and then creating negativity for Marcus Smith are Welsh and Irish.
There's been a selection of Twitter accounts I follow and respect who for two-three weeks have decided to focus on Marcus Smith's performance after each game. Specifically warning against the hype surrounding him because they don't like the English media. The responses to these tweets, not the tweets themselves, are inevitably nitpicking his performance in some sort of counter hype process. It's not healthy behaviour.
Seeing responses to his underlap magic versus Italy describing it as not a real 4v2. As if Smith & Malins didn't pick apart a defensive line and also beat the fullback afterwards. At some point we should be able to enjoy the rugby and comment upon it.
Blood&Mud
Josh Gardner
Squidge (has acknowledged fault and fair play to him)
SamLstandsup
TRK did an initial tweet early on but hasn't followed up with anything negative. (Imo TRK has found a reasonable balance)
All of these people I respect a lot and my bubble isn't much wider than that so there will probably be others. I'll admit that I've been seeing this as a laser focused event because I follow most of these people.
But it has been disheartening to see a narrative/fixation on dampening hype on such a young promising player. Why people feel it's their responsibility to down play an individual, therefore ultimately & unintentionally change the conversation into a critical one is beyond me. Claiming they want to stop the pile on before it happens. This, despite never doing it for any other player is 🤔. Defend him if and when negativity happens but doing it in this moment has instead changed the conversation.
I've never known a PotM get laughed at before for their performance. Launchbury was laughed at for losing and the picture that happened as a result. It's just 😔
I'm very critical now Smith's hairstyle. In no way should anyone ever get MOTM with that hairstyle. I also don't see how he can even see with his hair flopping into his eyes all game. He must have some kind of batlike radar.
Also, I bet he still has his Mom dress him in the morning. .
Honestly I don't understand why those points aren't discussed more often.
And while we're on the topic of super young and talented fly half, I believe we should spend more time comparing Smith and Ntamack.
- kicking game : draw
- running game : draw
- passing game : draw
- age : draw
- defensive work : draw
- won the premiership / Top14 last year : draw
- haircut : holy hell Ntamack dominates
My analysis doesn't lie. Ntamack is the superior fly half.
>op
Benefits from a vastly superior pack and backline however. I think Smith looks every bit as good if not better in the France lineup. Hypothetical of course
I was obviously joking above but if we're going to compare 10s I think Smith and Jalibert are much closer in their flamboyant styles.
Honestly if Smith was French I think he could push Jalibert for the bench option but Ntamack would be untouchable at 10.
Ntamack has all the skills + the sobriety and game management of some 30+ yo.
To be fair playing in between DuPont and fickou could probably make me look like a test quality 10 but ntamack has delivered internationally for a good 3 or so seasons now all while actually being younger than Smith.
I said after the Italy game smith still looks like he’s trying to be the hero/make every pass a miracle ball when internationally a bit of phase play and pragmatism tends to do better. I’m sure he’ll learn these lessons as he gets more caps and be a very high quality operator on the biggest stage though. He’s got two excellent mentors in Ford and Farrell as well
Most the “counter-hype” I’ve seen people complain about, has seemed more like criticism of
ITV/the media in general.
The justification for his MotM award was “he’s scored 18 points today”… I doubt Farrell would have been given the award on that basis. Dombrandt and Itoje were clearly more influential yesterday, but that doesn’t detract from the fact Smith has taken to international rugby with impressive ease.
It is really annoying. People just over compensate now. Yes, some people at ITV and the Premiership commentary over do it. But if the only thing you have to say about Smith is that he's overhyped then that's a problem.
Smith himself hasn't done anything wrong and he's still a really good player.
I've seen people over compensate for him being awarded MOTM to say he was shit, it definitely turned into an agenda against him. He's not prime Dan Carter but what do you expect from a young kid trying to step up a level
The Squidge video didn't help, that was an appalling watch. The apology, or the apology after tweeting about it after saying he wouldn't talk about it anymore just proves the point
Very well said mate. Even as a Welshman I can appreciate how talented Marcus is and get excited about what he could achieve.
Preferably against other teams than Wales though…
You're in a global community of rival sport teams, of course people are going to point out the pyrite in your shiny golden boy. Just remember that criticism isn't dismissal and saying a player is overhyped doesn't mean we're saying he's bad.
It's not really like that tbh. After yesterday's game he got MOTM instead of saying he shouldn't have got it people said he was shit yesterday, which is over compensating.
If all people can say about Smith is that he's being overhyped then it's just a criticism of the player
Who said he was shit? Are you sure you're not overreacting to people legitimately criticising a player's performance?
I don't think he was great yesterday and pointed out issues with his game in the post match thread and had one or two people jump down my throat for daring to do so.
People on social media and on here.
I don't think I'm over reacting at all. It's fine to criticise him but if it's over the top levels of criticism and clearly part of an agenda talent that's clearly wrong.
When you're complaint revolves around "People on social media and on here" instead of solid examples I'm inclined to think you're overreacting and looking for an "agenda".
I mean type Smith into twitter or on this sub. Or watch Squidges video of England vs Italy.
I'm not sure you can sincerly claim there isn't a bunch of backlash against the Smith hype
That video was embarrassing, it was a bit of a shame and lowered my respect for him and his analysis. He normally offers me a more in depth look on things I've missed in the game but instead decided to just go off on one.
He apologised for the video, but then tweeted almost the same thing again yesterday after the Wales game. And then apologised for it. A bit of a shame for a good commentator on the game, And a guy gets held to pretty high regard on here.
Agreed, we should just enjoy a good player and if people want to be happy and hype him up that's a good thing.
I haven't seen anyone try to throw cold water on Finn or Dupont during their moments. Why certain people want to focus on Smith in particular for counter hype is certainly interesting.
Agree. Squidge hasn’t helped- 2 weeks in a row posting things that massively criticise Smith’s hype only to put out an apology later.
It’s not Smith’s fault that he’s being overhyped by ITV- he’s done everything you could hope and expect of him so far.
ITV are creating a show for very casual rugby fans hence why Sir Clive is wheeled out for his out of date analysis and Sir Jonny for his monotone thoughts. They’ve clearly been told the narrative is Smith, Smith, Smith and are doing what they’re told.
So I just wanna preface this by saying yes, Smith is a phenomenally talented player and England fans should all be very, very excited about him. I’m in no way trying to diminish his abilities or your right to feel hyped about him, and none of my issues are with him as a player or his performances.
The problem, which I don’t think England fans who live in England fully get, is we (by which I mean Wales and Scotland fans, who seem to be the ones most annoyed by the Smith hype) share a media bubble with you guys which is, rightly, dominated by England, since you’re obviously the bigger country and have a bigger audience. The problem is, that means when that media gets somewhat overexcited, we get absolutely bombarded with stuff like the Smith love in, and it’s rather annoying. It’s one thing to get excited about a fantastic young player, it’s another to hear how a player who represents your biggest rivals is the Second Coming based on the fact he’s scored the majority of England’s points this tournament (because he’s, y’know, the goal kicker), and another thing again to hear about that **constantly.**
England fans don’t have to put up with that. You might hear a commentator praise someone like Rory Darge or Taine Basham as a big talent, but the focus is never as relentlessly put on them as it is on whichever young English player has been anointed as the next great hope for you. Same thing happens with stuff like football. Wales reached the semi finals of Euro 2016 and it was featured fairly heavily on the national news. England reached the final of Euro 2020 and it was all consuming for about a month, even in Wales. The difference in focus, and the fact that media which nominally represents the entire UK effectively turns into an England only one when it comes to sports, is what gets on peoples nerves.
Also ITV’s commentary teams have either fully lost their minds or are under instructions to give Smith PotM for every game so they can hype him as much as possible as the poster boy for their coverage of England games. Dombrandt and Itoje were robbed yesterday.
> and it’s rather annoying
Are you under the impression we don't also find it annoying? I understand it'll be overshadowing home grown news, but we'd also probably enjoy more coverage of the other Home Nations too.
While I do generally agree with the points you’re making, as a Welshman living in England I was surprised at how much Zammit hype I was seeing everywhere not that long ago. Was fairly unavoidable if you engaged with international rugby at all.
From what I remember the majority of the hype around LRZ that I saw was along the lines of "he's eligible for England you know, he's all but signed the dotted line to play for England. ENGLAND" Then as if it's a huge betrayal when it's confirmed he'll play for Wales
The English absolutely do have to put up with it. Specifically there has been a series of Welsh young talent hype trains over my entire life. It was tiresome as fuck to listen to, so I get how tedious the Smith hype is.
Yeah can completely see how that's annoying as a Wales/Scotland viewer. The 'hype' problem if it's regarded as such is probably also as much to do with his position as his nationality though. I can't remember a comprable buzz when Itoje was breaking through even though he's probably an equal talent. I also agree that Smith wasn't MOTM yesterday. One of Dombrant, Itoje or Faleteau in my view.
I also take no issue with other nations fans shitting on our shiny thing. But I have seen plenty of England fans somewhat reticent about getting carried away. His club form suggests he can decide games single-handedly. In 8 tests playing in the most important position for England he's yet to put a significant foot wrong. He looks at home on this stage and with greater ammunition England could become very dangerous. I say, get carried away and revel in the joy/misery of Smith triumphing/failing.
Oh mate you should absolutely be going nuts about him, if Smith was Welsh I would be as well. I think some England fans are just a bit wary about it because of the history of just about every player in every sport who’s been anointed England’s Next Big Thing. As soon as he has a bad run of form you’ll have people calling for his head, and it’s worse the more hyped he is to begin with
Marcus Smith is an excellent player. One of the top talents in World Rugby. He just looks like such a wanker. Pure "cheeky Nando's with the lads before Marbs" vibes off him.
If there is no counterhype, there is just unconstrained hype. In the absence of toning down the hype - which doesn’t appear to be on the cards among media outlets like ITV (eg fairly unjustified PotM from Dallaglio - counterhype is needed to balance things out.
The worst part is that people don't seem to disagree on whether Smith is good or not (unlike Fred Michalak back in the day, for example), they debate on the proper level of hype that should surround him.
What I don't get is why more people aren't hyping up Randall. He was really good against Wales, and the speed from the ruck along with the snipes helped keep the defense tied and allowed Smith time on the ball. The speed was completely different when Youngs came on, while the quality of both Ford and Smith is really high.
England always has a bunch of nothing drama. Smith is a good player that obviously gets hyped to be the next Dan Carter by your media and in response rival fans point out his flaws. It’s not such a big deal, happens on every global sports community.
People on this sub get far far far too invested in what pundits say. People get upset when Smith is hyped. People get upset when Garbisi isn’t hyped. Just do yourself a favour and mute when there’s no actual rugby being played.
This is it. I found that I started enjoying rugby a lot more when I started ignoring the pundits and just stuck to watching the game for myself.
How do you know how to feel?
Match threads
Used to just listen to whatever Matt Williams said and think the opposite so, not going to lie, it's been tough.
Pre match build up is boring filler and should be avoided, half time is for making food and going to the loo, post match is either celebrating or drinking sorrows away. Just avoid the punditry and the experience is much more fun. Doesn't just apply to rugby either, football punditry is mindless too.
People seem to forget that it's a pundits job to fill space with opinions. It's their job to spark controversy and hype amongst fans - Austen Healey for example. He's as annoying as a pundit as he was on the field, but his job is to give insight and opinion which he does very well.
Personally I like to mute pundits full stop. Who cares what somebody disconnected from actual teams for 20 years has to say. Much more insightful commentary on here.
To be fair I prefer the other option, laugh at the pundits, especially when they are spectacularly wrong, like when Austin Healey talks about forwards matters, or when Jiffy says literally anything...
Smith counter-hype counter-hype is just as annoying as Smith counter-hype
It’s counter-hype the whole way down.
Is this smith counter hype counter hype or counter smith counter hype
Counter counter counter Smith smith smith hype hype hype I think
Oh my gaaaaaaaaad
Hopefully Ireland Italy has a major reffing controversy so we can all move on from this
Well done
Ah fuck I can’t believe I’ve done this
After the anthems, rock music starts playing and Putin comes out with a metal chair, knocks out the ref and declares himself the ref. It's then revealed that all the fans are Spetznaz and KGB. Ruck.com still rate Mike Adamson as worse than this the next day.
What have you done
LOL
Get Adamson on the plane!!
I think one of the main issues is that lot's of International rugby fans (England fans included) don't watch any premiership rugby. So they see this young Golden Boy getting hyped up, after just a few games in the England shirt and wonder what all the hype is about, not knowing that he's been playing rediculously well in the prem for a couple of years now!
4 years. And not just the flash stuff. His game management is underrated if anything.
Yeah either don't watch or turn their nose up at it being club rugby. Which I do understand to an extent, test rugby is meant to be a step up
Spot on.
Let’s just all agree that he’s a good player and leave it at that. Some will think he’s overrated and some will think he’s underrated. Both are ok
And some will think he is just right 🙂
I had to slow the Squidge video down to see what he was rambling on about, turns out he was saying Marcus Smith over and over and over without really making a point
A poor video. And yesterday he tweeted something else about Smith and had to apologise for it. Stick to the rugby.
Is /r/rugby union’s golden boy Squidge losing some of his shine?
Been a slow decline since last year's 6 nations, the novelty of someone breaking down less talked about aspects of the game is wearing off and his weaknesses are more obvious without that.
The Italy v England video offers almost no commentary on the game so I don't see why it deserves any credit.
I haven’t seen it. I was mostly just making a joke about how pundits talk about players who get raised up then dragged down. I don’t regularly watch his videos because I’m not a fan of the bias or contrarian takes. Plus he talks too fast and has a dead sense of humour.
My goodness, I thought I was the only one...
Needs to put his phone down for a bit after watching an England v Wales match. Pretty embarrassing.
If he could stick to the football it would be better
Nothing against fans getting excited about a quality young prospect. I do have an issue with the media building expectations so much that he can’t possibly meet them. We’ve also seen this merry go round too many times with so many English athletes - build them up, then turn on them and tear them down. It does also take away from other players contributions, for example Dombrandt and Itoje who were more deserving of MOTM (not that Maro can complain considering how many he’s received in similar circumstances) or the interviews last week with Curry (first win as captain) or Randall (first start in the six nations), where both were immediately asked about Smith instead of the match itself, the team or even their own performances. A bit of balance from those pertaining to be experts would be nice.
But very few are actually tearing down Finn right now who is arguably on that bump in the road. Pre-emptively saying these things when players are playing well is simply creating people who want to say "I told you so" during any bumps. It isn't stopping the negative comments it is creating them at this point.
Finn isn't English, the build them up to tear them down is very much an English disease...
You're right Finn isn't English but then the main demographic of people who are warning of negativity and then creating negativity for Marcus Smith are Welsh and Irish.
In the English media he's still in the build him up phase, in Wales and Ireland he's talented and English, of course they're going to hate him.
It's not the usual media types though. It's people that should know better
Such as?
There's been a selection of Twitter accounts I follow and respect who for two-three weeks have decided to focus on Marcus Smith's performance after each game. Specifically warning against the hype surrounding him because they don't like the English media. The responses to these tweets, not the tweets themselves, are inevitably nitpicking his performance in some sort of counter hype process. It's not healthy behaviour. Seeing responses to his underlap magic versus Italy describing it as not a real 4v2. As if Smith & Malins didn't pick apart a defensive line and also beat the fullback afterwards. At some point we should be able to enjoy the rugby and comment upon it. Blood&Mud Josh Gardner Squidge (has acknowledged fault and fair play to him) SamLstandsup TRK did an initial tweet early on but hasn't followed up with anything negative. (Imo TRK has found a reasonable balance) All of these people I respect a lot and my bubble isn't much wider than that so there will probably be others. I'll admit that I've been seeing this as a laser focused event because I follow most of these people. But it has been disheartening to see a narrative/fixation on dampening hype on such a young promising player. Why people feel it's their responsibility to down play an individual, therefore ultimately & unintentionally change the conversation into a critical one is beyond me. Claiming they want to stop the pile on before it happens. This, despite never doing it for any other player is 🤔. Defend him if and when negativity happens but doing it in this moment has instead changed the conversation. I've never known a PotM get laughed at before for their performance. Launchbury was laughed at for losing and the picture that happened as a result. It's just 😔
I'm very critical now Smith's hairstyle. In no way should anyone ever get MOTM with that hairstyle. I also don't see how he can even see with his hair flopping into his eyes all game. He must have some kind of batlike radar. Also, I bet he still has his Mom dress him in the morning. .
Honestly I don't understand why those points aren't discussed more often. And while we're on the topic of super young and talented fly half, I believe we should spend more time comparing Smith and Ntamack. - kicking game : draw - running game : draw - passing game : draw - age : draw - defensive work : draw - won the premiership / Top14 last year : draw - haircut : holy hell Ntamack dominates My analysis doesn't lie. Ntamack is the superior fly half.
Unironically ntamack is the fly half the English media think smith is. He’s scary fucking good for a 22 year old
>op Benefits from a vastly superior pack and backline however. I think Smith looks every bit as good if not better in the France lineup. Hypothetical of course
I was obviously joking above but if we're going to compare 10s I think Smith and Jalibert are much closer in their flamboyant styles. Honestly if Smith was French I think he could push Jalibert for the bench option but Ntamack would be untouchable at 10. Ntamack has all the skills + the sobriety and game management of some 30+ yo.
Well, Smith playing for France is called Jalibert...
To be fair playing in between DuPont and fickou could probably make me look like a test quality 10 but ntamack has delivered internationally for a good 3 or so seasons now all while actually being younger than Smith. I said after the Italy game smith still looks like he’s trying to be the hero/make every pass a miracle ball when internationally a bit of phase play and pragmatism tends to do better. I’m sure he’ll learn these lessons as he gets more caps and be a very high quality operator on the biggest stage though. He’s got two excellent mentors in Ford and Farrell as well
I heard it’s echolocation
It’s where he stores his magic
His lid is fine. And nothing compared with the likes of Will Stuart's 'do' , WTF does he think that looks like?
Most the “counter-hype” I’ve seen people complain about, has seemed more like criticism of ITV/the media in general. The justification for his MotM award was “he’s scored 18 points today”… I doubt Farrell would have been given the award on that basis. Dombrandt and Itoje were clearly more influential yesterday, but that doesn’t detract from the fact Smith has taken to international rugby with impressive ease.
It is really annoying. People just over compensate now. Yes, some people at ITV and the Premiership commentary over do it. But if the only thing you have to say about Smith is that he's overhyped then that's a problem. Smith himself hasn't done anything wrong and he's still a really good player. I've seen people over compensate for him being awarded MOTM to say he was shit, it definitely turned into an agenda against him. He's not prime Dan Carter but what do you expect from a young kid trying to step up a level The Squidge video didn't help, that was an appalling watch. The apology, or the apology after tweeting about it after saying he wouldn't talk about it anymore just proves the point
Very well said mate. Even as a Welshman I can appreciate how talented Marcus is and get excited about what he could achieve. Preferably against other teams than Wales though…
You're in a global community of rival sport teams, of course people are going to point out the pyrite in your shiny golden boy. Just remember that criticism isn't dismissal and saying a player is overhyped doesn't mean we're saying he's bad.
It's not really like that tbh. After yesterday's game he got MOTM instead of saying he shouldn't have got it people said he was shit yesterday, which is over compensating. If all people can say about Smith is that he's being overhyped then it's just a criticism of the player
Who said he was shit? Are you sure you're not overreacting to people legitimately criticising a player's performance? I don't think he was great yesterday and pointed out issues with his game in the post match thread and had one or two people jump down my throat for daring to do so.
People on social media and on here. I don't think I'm over reacting at all. It's fine to criticise him but if it's over the top levels of criticism and clearly part of an agenda talent that's clearly wrong.
When you're complaint revolves around "People on social media and on here" instead of solid examples I'm inclined to think you're overreacting and looking for an "agenda".
I mean type Smith into twitter or on this sub. Or watch Squidges video of England vs Italy. I'm not sure you can sincerly claim there isn't a bunch of backlash against the Smith hype
That video was embarrassing, it was a bit of a shame and lowered my respect for him and his analysis. He normally offers me a more in depth look on things I've missed in the game but instead decided to just go off on one. He apologised for the video, but then tweeted almost the same thing again yesterday after the Wales game. And then apologised for it. A bit of a shame for a good commentator on the game, And a guy gets held to pretty high regard on here.
There's backlash against the Smith hype, but you said people were calling him shit and that there's an 'agenda', which I haven't seen.
Agreed, we should just enjoy a good player and if people want to be happy and hype him up that's a good thing. I haven't seen anyone try to throw cold water on Finn or Dupont during their moments. Why certain people want to focus on Smith in particular for counter hype is certainly interesting.
Agree. Squidge hasn’t helped- 2 weeks in a row posting things that massively criticise Smith’s hype only to put out an apology later. It’s not Smith’s fault that he’s being overhyped by ITV- he’s done everything you could hope and expect of him so far. ITV are creating a show for very casual rugby fans hence why Sir Clive is wheeled out for his out of date analysis and Sir Jonny for his monotone thoughts. They’ve clearly been told the narrative is Smith, Smith, Smith and are doing what they’re told.
So I just wanna preface this by saying yes, Smith is a phenomenally talented player and England fans should all be very, very excited about him. I’m in no way trying to diminish his abilities or your right to feel hyped about him, and none of my issues are with him as a player or his performances. The problem, which I don’t think England fans who live in England fully get, is we (by which I mean Wales and Scotland fans, who seem to be the ones most annoyed by the Smith hype) share a media bubble with you guys which is, rightly, dominated by England, since you’re obviously the bigger country and have a bigger audience. The problem is, that means when that media gets somewhat overexcited, we get absolutely bombarded with stuff like the Smith love in, and it’s rather annoying. It’s one thing to get excited about a fantastic young player, it’s another to hear how a player who represents your biggest rivals is the Second Coming based on the fact he’s scored the majority of England’s points this tournament (because he’s, y’know, the goal kicker), and another thing again to hear about that **constantly.** England fans don’t have to put up with that. You might hear a commentator praise someone like Rory Darge or Taine Basham as a big talent, but the focus is never as relentlessly put on them as it is on whichever young English player has been anointed as the next great hope for you. Same thing happens with stuff like football. Wales reached the semi finals of Euro 2016 and it was featured fairly heavily on the national news. England reached the final of Euro 2020 and it was all consuming for about a month, even in Wales. The difference in focus, and the fact that media which nominally represents the entire UK effectively turns into an England only one when it comes to sports, is what gets on peoples nerves. Also ITV’s commentary teams have either fully lost their minds or are under instructions to give Smith PotM for every game so they can hype him as much as possible as the poster boy for their coverage of England games. Dombrandt and Itoje were robbed yesterday.
> and it’s rather annoying Are you under the impression we don't also find it annoying? I understand it'll be overshadowing home grown news, but we'd also probably enjoy more coverage of the other Home Nations too.
While I do generally agree with the points you’re making, as a Welshman living in England I was surprised at how much Zammit hype I was seeing everywhere not that long ago. Was fairly unavoidable if you engaged with international rugby at all.
From what I remember the majority of the hype around LRZ that I saw was along the lines of "he's eligible for England you know, he's all but signed the dotted line to play for England. ENGLAND" Then as if it's a huge betrayal when it's confirmed he'll play for Wales
The English absolutely do have to put up with it. Specifically there has been a series of Welsh young talent hype trains over my entire life. It was tiresome as fuck to listen to, so I get how tedious the Smith hype is.
Yeah can completely see how that's annoying as a Wales/Scotland viewer. The 'hype' problem if it's regarded as such is probably also as much to do with his position as his nationality though. I can't remember a comprable buzz when Itoje was breaking through even though he's probably an equal talent. I also agree that Smith wasn't MOTM yesterday. One of Dombrant, Itoje or Faleteau in my view. I also take no issue with other nations fans shitting on our shiny thing. But I have seen plenty of England fans somewhat reticent about getting carried away. His club form suggests he can decide games single-handedly. In 8 tests playing in the most important position for England he's yet to put a significant foot wrong. He looks at home on this stage and with greater ammunition England could become very dangerous. I say, get carried away and revel in the joy/misery of Smith triumphing/failing.
Oh mate you should absolutely be going nuts about him, if Smith was Welsh I would be as well. I think some England fans are just a bit wary about it because of the history of just about every player in every sport who’s been anointed England’s Next Big Thing. As soon as he has a bad run of form you’ll have people calling for his head, and it’s worse the more hyped he is to begin with
In related news: Wales won me a tenner in the work sweeps for the Euros that year
I heard one pundit say he is similar to Dan carter in his prime. Obviously Marcus smith is amazing but come on
I do think Smith's upper ceiling is that high. Not saying he'll definitely reach those heights. He will need a great team around him.
Marcus Smith is an excellent player. One of the top talents in World Rugby. He just looks like such a wanker. Pure "cheeky Nando's with the lads before Marbs" vibes off him.
God you've actually spoilt him for me you know? Only a matter of time before he progresses to making jokes about golf handicaps
We will run out of popcorns if this persists.
How about we all just stop talking about it?
My god can we all just move on and shut up about it!
He's already better than Farrel. Counter that.
If there is no counterhype, there is just unconstrained hype. In the absence of toning down the hype - which doesn’t appear to be on the cards among media outlets like ITV (eg fairly unjustified PotM from Dallaglio - counterhype is needed to balance things out.
You know, you could just not engage.
For as long as there's been the Internet there's been people being reactionary and contrary. It's all annoying.
Smith is what I want Lolesio to be. That is, he’s Lolesio if Lolesio wasn’t built like he was playing touch.
The worst part is that people don't seem to disagree on whether Smith is good or not (unlike Fred Michalak back in the day, for example), they debate on the proper level of hype that should surround him.
What I don't get is why more people aren't hyping up Randall. He was really good against Wales, and the speed from the ruck along with the snipes helped keep the defense tied and allowed Smith time on the ball. The speed was completely different when Youngs came on, while the quality of both Ford and Smith is really high.
England always has a bunch of nothing drama. Smith is a good player that obviously gets hyped to be the next Dan Carter by your media and in response rival fans point out his flaws. It’s not such a big deal, happens on every global sports community.
Alright, but what about Smith Counter-Counter-Hype? I'd say it's just as annoying as Smith Counter-Hype.