Wires71:
Re Sam the press have picked up on his new prickly nature now. Being surly in the post match press conference when your team has been dirge never ends well.
It's not a good look because you can tell he's struggling to handle the pressure.
I have some sympathy with coaches because in these media conferences some people ask the most banal questions. No preparation or real thought before going in, they just say whatever comes off the top of their heads and often reveal a lack of knowledge of the game. Other times a journo is trying to set up a 'gotcha' question. And when the coach is coming in off a loss and emotions are running high its easy to get exasperated.
Still, there's an art in diffusing the questions and giving a politicians answer. It seems from that interview that the questioner was banging on about Danny Walker at halfback. Sam could have just said "Danny wasn't the reason we lost the game today...." then go on to give a few reasons giving praise to Leigh. If he thought the journos were talking crap he could just fill up the time by talking himself. In the end the journalists just want to get some quotes and then they're happy so a coach can take charge of the agenda. Don't get into a back and forth with them. Worst of all don't go down the road of "what do you think", it just makes the coach look like he's got rattled.
You sometimes get a coach who likes to chat to the media when things are going well, then when he gets surly it's a sign that the end is looming. In football Ange Postegoglu at Spurs is a good example. Cullen was a bit grumpy sometimes but he managed to keep things under control. When he was in a bad mood, he would just sit in press conferences and give very short, clipped answers and then wait until the journos ran out of questions. He didn't give tetchy responses.
Tony Smith was good at keeping it together and not looking rattled in a press conference but sometimes that can annoy fans too. They think the coach doesn't care. The best I've ever seen at handling the media in a classy way was Mike Gregory. He was on another level. No matter what the question he was generous, charming and funny. I once saw a novice camera woman at a Wigan game wander up to him after he'd had a defeat and ask him who the players were in some of the photos she'd taken so she could get the names right when she filed it. 99% of coaches would have lost their rag at that, Mike G stayed with her and went through all her pictures telling her which players were in them.
At the other end you get the obnoxious types who view journalists as beneath them and delight in being sarcastic and mocking them, thinking it makes them look clever. James Lowes was like this. In football, Tim Sherwood. And in politics, Kemi Badenoch.
