Good To Know General Info

LeeroyJones

I thought I might start a thread for all stories that may not merit their own thread but still could be of interest to The Rugby Forum users.
It may well fall down by the wayside, but sure let's see how it goes!


This story has made it's way to Satellites and Soccer already, but I thought many of you would be interested to know that ESPN will be added to the general Sky Sports package! Meaning Premiership and Top14 viewing. ESPN will become available on the 22nd July!

http://www.sky.com/ireland/tv/standalone-channels/espn/

PhatPiggins

Excellent €12 a month saved. Their coverage of the AP is pretty decent

GiftofGab

Nice, anyone know if there will be any world cup build up shows on any of the channels? So excited about this world cup yet there's no hype on tv about it

thomond2006

I think once the warm up starts the hype will quickly build. Sky Sports are showing some of the warm ups so the Rugby Club will be back by august I imagine.

MungBean

I suppose I'll have to get sky sports again so. Am I right in thinking RTE wont have HEC highlights this season? They will be on TG4 as gailge same as magners ?

Morf

Any word if Matt Williams has signed on the dotted line for Narbonne? My plans to get Setanta 1 in for two months might be in doubt if Setanta are sans Williams.

PhatPiggins

Morf wrote: »

Any word if Matt Williams has signed on the dotted line for Narbonne? My plans to get Setanta 1 in for two months might be in doubt if Setanta are sans Williams.

He's a top class pundit, easily the best of anything being offered in Europe.

jolley123

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbKFTJdYCDI

Just thought I'd put this up to get people's opinions. I thought the commentators were very harsh on the calls. Stating at the end that they should be playing with a round ball. Fair enough both reds were controversial. I can see how the first red was a red though. He maliciously swung his arm at the throat area. The second red just seemed like the ref was fed up with all the dangerous tackles. In total there were 2 red cards, and 3 yellows. I see no problem with the yellows, especially the obvious spear tackles.

vinny chase

jolley123 wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbKFTJdYCDI

Just thought I'd put this up to get people's opinions. I thought the commentators were very harsh on the calls. Stating at the end that they should be playing with a round ball. Fair enough both reds were controversial. I can see how the first red was a red though. He maliciously swung his arm at the throat area. The second red just seemed like the ref was fed up with all the dangerous tackles. In total there were 2 red cards, and 3 yellows. I see no problem with the yellows, especially the obvious spear tackles.

Yeah I agree with your analysis of it. Two reds are a little controversial, and if it wasn't a South Sea island nation committing those infringements its hard to say if it would be a red in every case. I don't have a problem with the latter two yellows for the spear tackles, and couldn't really see the first one to comment on it.

The commentators are annoying though, just prepared to absolutely gloss over ridiculous tackles. You'd wonder if those swinging arm tackles were being inflicted on Dan Carter, Conrad Smith or Quade Cooper would their opinions be the same?

trippyrez

RTÉ will definitely not be showing deffered coverage of the HEC. I don't really have an issue with TG4 showing it except for they will probably broadcast as gaelige and to be honest that ruins it for me. It's bad enough having Ryle Nugent commentating but it'll just get worse when you understand every 10th word being said. Hopefully the introduction of SaorView will mean that they will be able to broadcast dual language and you'll be able to chose which language you want to listen to.

Speaking of Sky Sports etc though there is a great new app for iOS devices that is called Sky Go. Basically it offers live streaming of Sky Sports channels to your iOS device if you have a subscription to the channels via Sky (not UPC).

I installed it on my iPad and I have to say it looks great. Obviously it's not high definition etc but it is very good indeed. The app only works in Ireland and the UK at the moment and I don't know if they have plans to roll it out further but for those of us lucky enough to have Sky Sports it does mean that you can catch the action even when you're not at home!

MungBean

jolley123 wrote: »

Just thought I'd put this up to get people's opinions. I thought the commentators were very harsh on the calls. Stating at the end that they should be playing with a round ball. Fair enough both reds were controversial. I can see how the first red was a red though. He maliciously swung his arm at the throat area. The second red just seemed like the ref was fed up with all the dangerous tackles. In total there were 2 red cards, and 3 yellows. I see no problem with the yellows, especially the obvious spear tackles.

I agree the commentators were pretty harsh but thats SH commentators for ya, they love the big hits and hate ref's penalising them. No need for the comment at the end either. The laws aint in place to ruin the game they are in place to protect players from serious injury. The Fijians should have learnt their lesson from the first red and subsequent yellows, seems they didnt and kept up with the dangerous tackling. No pity for them.

Shelflife

Being honest the spear tackles were very bad and could easily have been red in themselves. from the linemans view the first one was straight in the throat area and once that was red the next one had to be red as well.
again from the refs line of vision is would have looked alot worse then it was.

At the end of the day the commentators would want to cop themselves on, if my son or brother was at the recieving end of a tackle like that i would be raging.

bottom line is that its poor technique and intimadation by the fijians, the sooner that "tackling" like that is eradicated the better.

cython

jolley123 wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbKFTJdYCDI

Just thought I'd put this up to get people's opinions. I thought the commentators were very harsh on the calls. Stating at the end that they should be playing with a round ball.

I think that was less them commenting on the calls themselves, and more remarking on the fact that if Fiji went down another player, they would be down to wendyball numbers ("One more and we could put a round ball out there"), so I wouldn't read too much into that comment

jolley123 wrote: »

Fair enough both reds were controversial. I can see how the first red was a red though. He maliciously swung his arm at the throat area. The second red just seemed like the ref was fed up with all the dangerous tackles. In total there were 2 red cards, and 3 yellows. I see no problem with the yellows, especially the obvious spear tackles.

I wouldn't have much issue with the cards myself, and while I feel one or 2 of the spear tackles may not have had malice in them (e.g. the Fijian 10 on the Japan 8, I think, it looked like momentum played a part in carrying up and over) they were still very careless in lifting the player and not ensuring a safe return to ground, and deserved a card. I also think that had the 5 cards been given in a different order (e.g. 3 yellows and reds from there out) it might draw less comment, as if the players aren't responding to yellows to improve their discipline, there's an argument in favour of escalating the punishment.

jolley123

cython wrote: »

I think that was less them commenting on the calls themselves, and more remarking on the fact that if Fiji went down another player, they would be down to wendyball numbers ("One more and we could put a round ball out there"), so I wouldn't read too much into that comment

Ah yeah, didn't pick up on that.

SH commentators seem to be much more laid back. It's like listening to 3 mates in a pub commentate. I actually like it, and it's a change from the more serious commentating up here. But when it comes to incidents like punch ups, shoulder hits and spears; they seem to be more concerned with protecting their macho image rather than supporting the fact that such incidents have no place in rugby.

CatFromHue

that tackle at the end was just thick! it could also have been extremely dangerous.
the first yellow when you see it at 2.11 its pretty dangerous.
i dont have any problem with any of those cards or tackles. fair'd used to the ref if you ask me.

That's terrible tackling.

Why even give the referee a chance to give you a card? All of those situations the player could've just put in a simple tackle and brought the opposition to ground.

Brainless aggression is the most dangerous thing on a pitch. Not a Fitzgibbon fan but I can't believe how ridiculous the Fijians were once they saw he wasn't having any of it and they continued!

icdg

LeeroyJones wrote: »

This story has made it's way to Satellites and Soccer already, but I thought many of you would be interested to know that ESPN will be added to the general Sky Sports package! Meaning Premiership and Top14 viewing. ESPN will become available on the 22nd July!

http://www.sky.com/ireland/tv/standalone-channels/espn/

Should point out that this is only for direct-to-home Sky customers in the Republic (apparently not the UK). Most UPC digital customers (except for those on the basic Digital Value package) will have ESPN (along with ESPN America) included in their packages as a basic tier channel anyway.

theboss80

Just saw this on RTE website and said I'd throw it up and see what people make of it.

Honorary Treasurer Tom Grace presented the final accounts for the season.

Grace reported that the IRFU made a surplus of €6.8m for the year 2010-11 in line with its budgeted outcome.

This surplus arises from revenues of €69.3m and expenditure of €62.5m.

Despite the difficult operating circumstances the IRFU again invested over €10m in domestic and community rugby support and development.

However, while reporting a surplus, Grace sounded a cautionary note to this and said: "In arriving at this net surplus it is important to note that some €14m of revenues and €7m of costs are non-cash items.

"This effectively means that the IRFU generated no net cash from its operations during the year."

What could the €7m non cash items costs be?

MungBean

theboss80 wrote: »

Just saw this on RTE website and said I'd throw it up and see what people make of it.

Financial mumbo jumbo

What could the €7m non cash items costs be?

I dont understand the question. Can you simplify it for the thicko's ?

csm

I'm no businessman but wouldn't things like depreciation be down as non-cash costs?

They're doing well to essentially break even for the year and still invest 10m in grassroots rugby. Obviously it'd be better to have a consistent surplus but given we're in a recession and spending on rugby is discretionary, break even is a good result.

Phonehead

theboss80 wrote: »

Just saw this on RTE website and said I'd throw it up and see what people make of it.





What could the €7m non cash items costs be?

Depreciation and Amortization.

icdg

Good news on TV coverage of the World Cup warm-up internationals - Scotland v Ireland and Ireland v France (the home game) have both got BBC coverage. I believe RTÉ is covering both France games too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/4797831.stm

Means three of the four August internationals will be on FTA or basic cable. Unfortunately Ireland v England is a Sky Sports affair.

GiftofGab

Still no sign of espn with the sky sports package? Anybody else getting coverage?

bamboozle

GiftofGab wrote: »

Still no sign of espn with the sky sports package? Anybody else getting coverage?

i'm not getting coverage today either, very disappointing as there was a game i wanted to see.

LeeroyJones

bamboozle wrote: »

i'm not getting coverage today either, very disappointing as there was a game i wanted to see.

That's annoying! I haven't had an opportunity to check yet. There's another thread on the Soccer Forum about it and it was mentioned that some people had to ring up sky and once they did they were given it

LeeroyJones

I just got home and saw there was no ESPN, gave them a ring and they had it up within 2 minutes