Match reports, I have to admit, are my favourite thing about this whole freelance sports journalists lark.
If you’re lucky and there’s no pandemic (for example), you get to go to a match, given a pass that gets you into all sorts of ungettable places, are fed, watered and generally looked after, and talk to players and coaches after the game.
There’s the small matter of writing it all up under massive time-pressure. But that’s the bit. Trying to distill the excitement of an 80-minute spectacle into a few hundred words. Don’t know if I’ve ever got it exactly, but I love the thrill of trying.
Here’s my latest – actually done in front of a TV screen – for The Rugby Paper.
How good is Antoine Dupont? France counted the ways at least three times in the opening half-hour.
James Harrington: Freelance sports journalist 