David Flatman Column: Media training? Moi, says Castrogiovanni

This column appears in the current edition of Sport magazine. and

There are various traditions that surround sports broadcasting. Plenty are worthwhile, but others are a total waste of time. We want results and we want expert opinion on how any given match unfolded. What we don’t need in our lives - and I boldly dare to speak for us all here - are the inane interviews with players and coaches who seem to be media-trained until their eyes turn to golf balls, and utterly blinkered when it comes to critiquing their respective teams.

Even Match of the Day, the world’s best highlights programme, insists on dedicating invaluable time to Mark Hughes regurgitating the same uninsightful and acutely unreflective lines he has trawled out for the past decade.

I want someone to be brave enough to bin this guff off. In France, interviews with players as they run in at half-time are common. While it looks great to have a sweating, heaving beast talk just seconds after he was in the mixer, they never say anything new and are too knackered to speak anyway. So let’s sack that off, too.

What I do like is to watch and listen to coaches and players who seem either not to give a monkey’s what their hovering, panicky press officers might say, or who are in possession of at least a modicum of charisma.

Jose Mourinho is the obvious example, primarily because he is the best. I also find Vincent Kompany very engaging. As for English sportspeople, Jenson Button always seems a top bloke - and at least Joey Barton appears, when questioned, to have thought about something other than ‘getting a result’ in the decade preceding the interview.

Rugby union, despite being regarded as a game played by generally intelligent types, is suffering from the disease of media training. There are still some brilliant interviewees - Conor O’Shea, Nick Easter and Dave Attwood among them - but the number is declining.

And this is why Martin Castrogiovanni’s vicious, sweary attack on Leicester boss Richard Cockerill last Sunday night was so fascinating. Hit the internet if you haven’t read about it, but to call it an interesting read is to understate.

I feel for Cockerill. He is perhaps the most honest and engaging interviewee of the lot, but Castro cut loose in real style. It seems media training isn’t yet a ‘thing’ in France, where Castro plays his rugby. That makes me both relieved and extremely happy.