DESPERATE ABOUT DAN

The specialist rugby writers are like the long-serving cast of Coro, Eastenders or Neighbours. They are the journalistic equivalents of the actor who plays Ken Barlow, smug and content in their own little world and without the ability, or the ambition, to move on to new challenges. Most of them have been around as long as William Webb Ellis.
When someone like Stephen Jones of the Sunday Times quotes a CV that includes something like five World Cups, 20 Five/Six Nations and six Lions tours my reaction is not to admire his staying power but simply to think: "You sad bastard."
Unlike football, there is little or no competition among the national rugby union press.
For years they had been staying in the same hotels, attending the same press conferences, interviewing the same players . . . and producing the same stories. They all sing from a universal hymn sheet written and supplied by the various clubs or unions. They are corralled and shepherded like tourists in the Kremlin.
For proof of this, we had only to listen on Saturday to Robert Kitson, of the Guardian, who made a rare TV appearance to give his views on the Danny Cipriani affair from Murrayfield where a Cipriani-less England were taking on Scotland.
Asked for some insight into the dropping of the Wasps wunderkind, the best Kitson could offer was: "Well, we'll have to wait for the facts to emerge."
Excuse me, Mr Kitson, but isn't that your job? Aren't journalists employed to uncover the truth and inform readers? Or are you paid simply to swan around from Rome to Paris to Edinburgh every 12 months, with the odd tour to sunny climes in between?
So far, all we have had from rugby journos - and ex-players playing at journos - is ill-informed comment about the rights and wrongs of dropping Cipriani, without a single fact.
Kitson's presence in Edinburgh - and that of every other "chief rugby writer" - also begged the question: Why? The Scotland-England match was between two also-rans and Wales were playing for the Triple Crown in Dublin on the same day.
Still, the Calcutta Cup clash did yield one of sports broadcasting's greatest faux pas, relayed live to millions of viewers.
"And over to Jill, down there where it's wet and sticky," said Eddie Butler.
Touchline interviewer Jill Douglas's husband, I am delighted to point out, played for Scotland and is somewhat younger, and bigger, than Butler.

A BEEF ABOUT ANGUS

Can someone at the Independent - preferably with more than a couple of years in journalism - PLEASE take Angus Fraser to one side and demonstrate how to compose an intro? And while you are at it, Simon Kelner, can you also tell him that any half decent writer should be aware that adjectives are the curse of modern sportswriting?
Here's the former England trundler on Ryan Sidebottom's Hamilton hat-trick:
"Ryan Sidebottom became the eleventh England bowler to take a Test hat-trick in a remarkable spell of bowling that produced a sensational turnaround in the first Test."
Eleventh? Hardly unique, nor even particularly remarkable.
Like many of his ilk - and cricket's press boxes are full of them - Fraser attempts to mask poor writing with useless statistics, none of which belong in an opening paragraph.

WAGERS OF SIN

Saturday's "guest predictor" in the Guardian (if you haven't caught this it's a bit of typical Guardian furniture in which notables are paid to make fools of themselves with some sporting soothsaying) was Krishnan Guru-Murthy who, as it turned out, was not a Guru at all.
He had Chelsea to win 5-1 at Barnsley, Manchester United to beat Portsmouth 2-0, Liverpool to beat Newcastle 1-0 and Blackburn to beat Fulham 2-0.
Now you know why the Guru is still slaving away as a humble newsreader on Channel 4, rather than sunning himself in happy retirement in the Seychelles.