Crazy schedules: Let's do something about them

Now I have never been an uncritical admirer of Paul Ackford, former English lock and now Telegraph columnist, but his piece this week is bang on the head. He points out that the travelling support of English fans to Paris for their great win over France was down because of:

"their understandable reluctance to come to Paris for a kick-off closer to bedtime than lunchtime.

"The Stade de France, stuck in the middle of nowhere, is not the kind of place you want to be coming out of at (local time) 11 o'clock at night, battling to get on a train back into Paris, and all those supporters wanting to celebrate their team's victory wouldn't have been starting their mission until close on midnight.

"Who, under the circumstances, would want to spend a lot of money on flights, hotels and tickets when you can watch it down at the local rugby club bar, have a hearty celebration, and still be home for dinner?

"This fixture is rapidly changing from crossing the Channel to flicking the channel. The kick-off times might be good for television, but they are an insult to the travelling supporter, and have altered the traditional craic of Six Nations weekends. Although where England is concerned it may simply be a case of television being reluctant to screen their rugby before the 9pm watershed."

Note the wise crack at the end was some self critical analysis from a former English player and not some Paddy jibe at England's less than attractive game plan.

But he's dead right. Kicking off a match in Paris' equivalent of Tallaght at 9pm is a downright disgrace. Almost as bad as the Ireland Wales match next week kicking off at 1:15pm. What's that about, FFS?

It's all for television, they say. The armchair supporter wants to watch all three 6N match with just enough time in between to get another beer out of the fridge and perhaps "ease springs" in the jacks.

But what about those of us who are willing, with only a few grumbles to shell out 70-odd yo yos to go and watch our team in Croker, not to mention the Welsh who will be arriving over in droves on the morning ferry and won't have time to catch a meaningful nap before they have to hike on up to the ground from which they will be disgorged shortly after 3pm?

What kills me is this is so avoidable, but the scheduling makes a cock up of it.

The continental mainland is an hour ahead of us. If we want a 2pm kick off, then we should arrange for such games to be played in Italy or France where they could kick off at 3pm Local time. Or even 2:45 to allow for a reasonable gap between fixtures. Then we could have one match in these islands kicking off at 4PM local time and another, if we insist on playing all three on one day at 6 or 6:30.

OK so the latter would cut down a little on drinking time but hey, soccer internationals all start at that time or later and people don't seem to mind too much.

Furthermore, the Irish, Scottish and Welsh stadia are all in the centre of the capital cities so people have less far to go to find a nice hostelry in which to celebrate their victory or drown their sorrows.

Sadly the 6N organisers have agreed a schedule in which France and Italy are each at home or away on two out of the five weekends. How difficult would it have been to ensure that one of the continental countries was always at home and therefore able to start an earlier match without inconveniencing everybody too much?

So can we use purchasing power to do something about it? Anybody got any ideas?