Thank you Hardy, I appreciate your views. As a writer I learned a long time ago the golden rule of the written word is to attack the argument, not the writer. From the moment you make your responses personal, any point of view is immediately lost.
I have tried to raise one point: with our large numbers, we as anglers deserve much better quality television coverage than we get at present. Nothing more, nothing less.
If anglers on this forum are happy with what they get then that is fine by me, but I feel they are missing a very valid issue much to their detriment.
In New Zealand we have some very talented anglers, both in fresh and salt water. We have champions, people who have represented our country overseas and have performed admirably. All I ask is for those people to be invited onto angling shows so they can show lesser mortals their skill and pass on their successful methods to us.
Like it or not, neither Thomas or Sinclair, by any stretch of imagination, are good anglers. This leads me to ask why they don't host those that are, not All Blacks, and allow the guest to be the star of the episode, a move that we can all learn from? Oddly this was an approach used by Thomas in his early 'Secrets' videos. Now he has fallen into the all too familiar trap of making himself the star of the show, sadly a role that he doesn't fit.
My critique didn't come without a suggestion or two, but they have been conveniently ignored. Possibly the most feasible idea is the NZACA should show a few teeth and bring some pressure to bear on the producers and the television companies. This idea is not as far fetched as you may believe: television's success is judged by ratings, put on good shows that are entertaining and informative, and viewing figures rise enabling advertising revenue to be increased.
Hardy, I trust you did well in the schoolboy competition, for myself, sadly, I could never have measured up.