Rugby Union

[GAD]

5 hours ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Seems like an exercise in nose-cutting to spite face. Moving to a channel that has fewer viewers than a Lost Prophets reunion tour can't be good for the promotion of the sport.

Yeah, I agree. To be honest, I'll probably ditch Sky sports now and go with BT and Premier as I'm with Virgin, but I expect I will be in a massive minority.

For Glasgow at least it seems a really bad move. With such a small ground I think the fact games were pretty easily accessible on tv through BBC and to a lesser extent Sky was actually pretty important in growing the fanbase, especially amongst people who are traditionally football fans. I just can't see many of these folk paying the extra tenner a month to carry on watching. 

[Mark Connolly]

Premier Sports surely won't have the capacity to show as many live games as the previous deal either. On a good night, you could have had games on BBC NI, BBC Wales, Alba and Sky.

I would hope they could come to a similar arrangement to the English League and have a FTA highlights package available, but I won't hold my breath.

[same_ol_g35]

Scotland team for Ireland. Only one change to the XV Seymour misses out and is replaced by Kinghorn.

[come on shire]

A Pro14 statement on their website said that discussions were still continuing and hadn't yet been finalised.  It's BBC English language channels that are getting cut aswell as BBC Alba.  The free-to-air Welsh language channel S4C (BBC owned I believe) may still be ok.  Even in ROI they're getting it taken off TG4 (we don't get that anyway as it's an Irish channel) and put onto Eir Sport which is PPV.  Also, when it goes to Premier Sports we may still see cover age on Freesports as that's a sister channel to Premier Sports I believe. 

In my last post I was possibly a bit flippant as I hadn't yet read the Pro14's statement.  It's disappointing but maybe not a complete disaster.  Yet.

I think we'll get Premier Sports as we all watch the Pro14 in the house.  They may have additional games via the red button or stagger kick-off times maybe?  My dad watches rugby league and watches the Super League on Sky.  Since Premier Sports shows the NRL in Oz this may be an additional incentive lol. 

15 hours ago, ddfg said:

playing the final two years in a row in Ireland

 

 

 The Pro14's HQ is in Dublin so having the last ever Pro12 final and the first ever Pro14 final was always a strong possibility imho.

10 hours ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

Seems like an exercise in nose-cutting to spite face. Moving to a channel that has fewer viewers than a Lost Prophets reunion tour can't be good for the promotion of the sport.

Well, we'll have to wait and see on that comparison lol.  Lostprophets have reformed with a new singer (Thursday's Geoff Rickley) and call themselves No Devotion. 

[Bully Wee Villa]

Ha! I should have checked that before posting!

[GAD]

Blair Kinghorn starts? Ooofft, that is a massive shout from Townsend, especially if the weather is due to be as bad as expected. Murray's going to be dropping the ball down his throat all afternoon.

[Savage Henry]

Blair Kinghorn starts? Ooofft, that is a massive shout from Townsend, especially if the weather is due to be as bad as expected. Murray's going to be dropping the ball down his throat all afternoon.

I was just thinking about how ineffectual Seymour has been for a while. Partly that’s because of Jones taking such good lines, but I don’t think it’s a massive loss. Certainly less of miss than Maitland would have been.

[Snobot]

 

9 hours ago, GAD said:

Yeah, I agree. To be honest, I'll probably ditch Sky sports now and go with BT and Premier as I'm with Virgin, but I expect I will be in a massive minority.

For Glasgow at least it seems a really bad move. With such a small ground I think the fact games were pretty easily accessible or n tv through BBC and to a lesser extent Sky was actually pretty important in growing the fanbase, especially amongst people who are traditionally football fans. I just can't see many of these folk paying the extra tenner a month to carry on watching. 

 Totally agree. Plus Alba / Hugh Dan’s heart on sleeve bias, coinciding with growth of a brilliant Glasgow team really gave pro rugby a heart in Scotland which had been absent in the professional era up to that point. Now you’re severely limited in getting a ticket due to the capacity constraints with the prospect of much less coverage.

I’ve spent more than the equivalent of £10 / month in the last year on Now TV with some Pro14, Euro Cup and Scotland Football away games. I’d consider getting Premier if we were guaranteed a decent number of live games but not once every 6 weeks between a Leinster / Munster w*nk fest.

It would obviously be in their interest to broadcast as much as they can but who knows if they have the capacity / inclination beyond Ireland.

[honestly united]

Haven't eir got rights to all of Leinster, Munster and Connaught h&a games so premier may not want to cover them and focus on the Scottish and Welsh teams. Or they may do it on the cheap and just buy in coverage from eir / SA tv. I would be disappointed if s4c keep Welsh language coverage but alba lose theirs.

Friday nights won't be the same without the warriors games on Alba. Although might pay for premier if they cover a decent amount of games

Sent from my Redmi 4X using Pie and Bovril mobile app

[Snobot]

1 hour ago, honestly united said:

Haven't eir got rights to all of Leinster, Munster and Connaught h&a games so premier may not want to cover them and focus on the Scottish and Welsh teams. Or they may do it on the cheap and just buy in coverage from eir / SA tv. I would be disappointed if s4c keep Welsh language coverage but alba lose theirs.
 

Good point. That makes me hope that there could be more Scottish games broadcast than first feared, but as you say depends if they try to do it on the cheap or actually invest in OB teams to cover the games. 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

1 hour ago, honestly united said:

Haven't eir got rights to all of Leinster, Munster and Connaught h&a games so premier may not want to cover them and focus on the Scottish and Welsh teams. Or they may do it on the cheap and just buy in coverage from eir / SA tv. I would be disappointed if s4c keep Welsh language coverage but alba lose theirs.

Friday nights won't be the same without the warriors games on Alba. Although might pay for premier if they cover a decent amount of games

Sent from my Redmi 4X using Pie and Bovril mobile app
 

Premier Sports are a two bit operation and might just re-broadcast the Eir stuff as is.

I don't see the business model for Premier Sport where they let anyone show games on Free to Air.  They need something close to 60,000 new subscribers from the rugby just to break even. And that is before you add any costs they incur for delivering the broadcast.

[Mark Connolly]

5 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

 

I was just thinking about how ineffectual Seymour has been for a while. Partly that’s because of Jones taking such good lines, but I don’t think it’s a massive loss. Certainly less of miss than Maitland would have been.
 

I think that's a bit harsh on Seymour.

He hasn't been at his best, but ineffectual is pushing it a bit.

[Northsea80]

Interesting stuff from the Paddy Jackson trial, apparently his hobbies include miming to rap songs and drawing pictures of his dog and super heroes! He’s also a good babysitter.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/i-wouldn-t-do-that-paddy-jackson-takes-stand-to-deny-raping-woman-1.3418015?mode=amp

[Savage Henry]

I think that's a bit harsh on Seymour.
He hasn't been at his best, but ineffectual is pushing it a bit.

Fair. But he hasn’t really looked like scoring too often of late. Done the defensive work well enough, though.

[Mark Connolly]

6 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

Fair. But he hasn’t really looked like scoring too often of late. Done the defensive work well enough, though.

His try scoring has slowed down, but he still has a huge influence on the attack, and is a threat.

To be honest, he looks as if he's still lacking a bit of confidence after the Lions Tour, which is a shame, especially given he was the top try scorer on tour! He might also just be in need of a proper rest. I'm in favour of him getting it now so he's firing on all cylinders for Glasgow's run-in!

[Savage Henry]

I think his try scoring has scored down because Jones is taking the same lines as he used to. But I agree, he looks a bit, shall we say, Simon Danielli at the moment.

[ajwffc]

Haven't eir got rights to all of Leinster, Munster and Connaught h&a games so premier may not want to cover them and focus on the Scottish and Welsh teams. Or they may do it on the cheap and just buy in coverage from eir / SA tv. I would be disappointed if s4c keep Welsh language coverage but alba lose theirs.

Friday nights won't be the same without the warriors games on Alba. Although might pay for premier if they cover a decent amount of games

Sent from my Redmi 4X using Pie and Bovril mobile app

So it will be the Ulster games they will manly cover then

[come on shire]

In other news, The Scotsman is reporting that DTH van der Merwe could be coming back to Glasgow

[ajwffc]

In other news, The Scotsman is reporting that DTH van der Merwe could be coming back to Glasgow [emoji4]

A replacement for Sarto no doubt

[come on shire]

On ‎08‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 01:34, ajwffc said:

On ‎08‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 01:14, come on shire said:

In other news, The Scotsman is reporting that DTH van der Merwe could be coming back to Glasgow

A replacement for Sarto no doubt

DTH also had the odd injury too though.  However, he's not made of glass like Sarto.  Rumour is that Sarto's away to Bath.  They'd better get a "FRAGILE: DO NOT TOUCH" sign for him...