General League Lounge with Shaun Johnson

He has a bit of the extrovert style that Laura McGoldrick has, in that it engages you and draws you in. Throws out some unexpected left field stuff that works.

Different from the traditional ‘league’ media which is a lot more structured.
Might be just me but I thought Laura was pretty good originally but I'm having second thoughts about her style and input now.
 

NZWarriors.com

NZWarriors.com

What i like with SJ interviewing wether its this show or the podcast, being so current himself is not only the access he has to current players and up to date knowledge of plays and tactics, but the respect he gets across the board and rapport he's able to create means they let their guard down and divulge more as opposed to if they were doing a standard interview,
 
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A lot of TV personalities or TV shows years later you look back at clips of the older shows and they seem awkward. Johnson has looked good in the studio setting on match day. He should settle into this setting as well.

It would be good if it was a bit longer. At the moment they will be reviewing things. They could be something they look at in the future.

He said on the radio before the first episode that he wouldn't hold back on criticising the Warriors after a loss or if things aren't going well. He said his credibility would depend on it. That will be the big test. I'd prefer we keep winning and look good year after year so we don't see that. But realistically we will have down periods.

The sport is going well at the moment with the club going well on the field, big crowds. Can see why SKY wanted a show. This might be what everyone was expecting but if it works out we make get a show catered for that (more breakdowns or something else).
 
He has brought his podcast mindset and experience (the energy, the slang, the nicnames) to a tv show.

Therein lies the clash of styles.

A TV show needs a show host, bear in mind TV shows have writers - SJ trying to run before he can walk (I imagine it is because this thing has been thrown together at short notice).

If I was the show producer I would get him a writer to train him to be more structured (Matty Johns, Monty Betham) these people have help.

Once he has the structure down, get used to sticking to it, add his personality the way the professionals do (Andrew Voss talks to players about their highlights.).

I imagine he has a producer etc now and probably help with writing? but these are learned skills I am talking about.

I like the show, I like what Shaun is doing, I give him four stars, five will come.
From the interview pre the first show that popped up on YT that I saw. I'm sure he mentioned it had all come together in the past few weeks to a month.

My take was they saw the great feedback he was getting in Aus from being on the Fox panel and jumped at the chance to give him a show.

Really gutted it's Geo blocked in Aus and I'm too tech illiterate to figure out a way around it 😅
 

NZWarriors.com

From the interview pre the first show that popped up on YT that I saw. I'm sure he mentioned it had all come together in the past few weeks to a month.

My take was they saw the great feedback he was getting in Aus from being on the Fox panel and jumped at the chance to give him a show.

Really gutted it's Geo blocked in Aus and I'm too tech illiterate to figure out a way around it 😅
Try installing Windscribe free VPN and set it to Auckland to see if that works, someone else will have better suggestions for VPNs.
If not, you're not missing much so far tbh, 20 minutes of vaguely awkward banter and a 2 minute play breakdown segment that's over just as it gets interesting. Not appointnemt viewing yet. First episode was better, Shaun looked pretty nervous and Tohu just laughed at him, thought they had some chemistry to work with there.
 
Really impressed with the first two episodes.

I think he's going with the Current Warrior Guest 1/Former Warrior Guest 2 format.

Wayde's observation about how the 6 Again rule is affecting how hookers are playing ie more running less kicking was very interesting.

Since he wasn't part of it - as he was with the Sharks at the time - I'd really like to hear him interview a former/current Warrior about how COVID really affected the team...
 
Really impressed with the first two episodes.

I think he's going with the Current Warrior Guest 1/Former Warrior Guest 2 format.

Wayde's observation about how the 6 Again rule is affecting how hookers are playing ie more running less kicking was very interesting.

Since he wasn't part of it - as he was with the Sharks at the time - I'd really like to hear him interview a former/current Warrior about how COVID really affected the team...
His interview with RTS from the past month gave an insight into that period.
 

NZWarriors.com

Watching the second episode I really enjoyed it again, but it felt like they were covering things so quickly and it caught me by surprise when it was over. I understand that they either have to go for the 30 minute timeslot with ads or 1 hour to make it TV friendly and can't go somewhere in between, even though that would be perfect from a viewing perspective.
 

NZWarriors.com

NZWarriors.com

It's nice to see a tiny crowd in the studio now hopefully it keeps growing, get some kids there in the future please, they groaned when the show was over, probably only 25 minutes of content?

I'm fine with him bringing the podcast style, many like me just watch Youtube these days, and you see all the league pundits doing day time podcasts in their shorts and actually bring more insight/info without having to follow the script and argue with Buzz 🤣 The show feels like everything is condensed and they don't have time to explore anything deeper, this can easily be a 45min+ show without having the non-footy shenanigans like Matty Johns. IMO he had the podcast energy at Fox and his podcast analysis went viral, if he molds into a CNN anchor he's in trouble.

I think they had a quick chat with Boyd, analyzed a few plays, went over the Panthers game, team list, a fan question and that was 25min gone.

SJ doesn't have to just analyze tries btw, there are a lot of effort areas or great plays that don't lead immediately to tries that are worth discussing.
 
Interesting that Boyd said last night how inclusive it was at the Warriors and he'd never experienced anything like that before.
Hopefully it makes staying around that much easier for the expats.
I think we're extremely fortunate having Boyd's experience in the cup side, he's learning a lot too by the sound of it. Full confidence in him stepping into nrl when needed.
SJ's show's found it's groove, appointment viewing now.
 

NZWarriors.com


Finally figured out the VPN thing to start watching these clips. Love SJ's considered take on the Penrith game. Penrith are the OG team when it comes to the gameplan we have perfected this year. So we needed to be perfect to beat them at their own game. We weren't last week and neither were the dogs tonight. No need to get our knickers in a twist over the loss as some have (ie Warriors Fanatics). The boys are still on track for a successful year. Expect a bounce back this week in Brisbane.
 

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