Should ITV hold on to the RWC rights...

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ITV showed how completly inept they where today.

The biggest event in Rugby, they have continued to maintain the rights over broadcasting the RWC.

So why didn't they show the Opening Ceremony, like their advertised show implied.

Absolutley DREADFUL.

NO coveregae of the opening ceremony, they just showed the speaches with a few seconds of the ceremony.... and then straight after "over to Dunedin" to hear from the English camp..... FFS, this was the opening ceremony. England arent playing, give some credit to those who are, and credit to all those who worked hard to put on a ceremony, BY SHOWING IT....

I'm glad that S4C had the grace to realise that the opening ceremnony of a World Cup is important and showed it.... Well done S4C...

Can you imagine the outrage next year if the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics is not shown, just some muppets in the studio performing some pointless player analysis and news....

Bet they wont do that come 2015 when England hold the cup.

So on this basis, who do you think should hold broadcasting rights for future Rugby World Cups. And any rational to debate would be good.

"Sum it up from a Welsh perspective then...Phil Vickery"

This I can understand Welsh people being annoyed by.

Messymesina wrote:

Great White wrote:You'll get used to sirBiggles and his pointless articles. Best thing is to simply ignore them.

Sir Biggles has made more interesting points about rugby than you ever have.

I sincerely doubt that. But that is of course you're pretty dull opinion.

I have noticed people have been ranting about the likes of Dallaglio and Vickery but seemed to have missed the biggest imbecile of the lot.

Steve Rider the lead presenter evidently knows nothing about rugby. He has never presented a rugby match or tournament so what do we expect?

He can't even get the score right. Twice he said England beat Argentina by 1 point. The score was 13-9 you numpty. To get it wrong once is bad enough but twice in a row?! Surprised no one else has pointed it out.

At least Inverdale does the BBC rugby each year.

My ideal ITV team for the world cup would be

Richard Hill for England (really knowledgeable, good talker but not arrogant)
Tom Shanklin for Wales (I know he is probably still playing, so?)
Scott Murray for Scotland
Justin Marshall for New Zealand
Thomas Casteignede for France
Francois Pienaar for South Africa (he said some pretty good stuff actually), Michael Lynagh for Australia
Paul Wallace for Ireland.

See a pattern?

All well respected ex players - most have experience punditry already.

beshocked wrote: Twice he said England beat Argentina by 1 point.

He uses the Welsh "moral voctiory" scoring method, England won 1-0

I don't think there is a problem with the punditry per ce, but I agree that Rider appears clueless, the repeated reference to the 1 point victory threw me too. I actually checked the BBC on line scores to make sure it was ME who hadn't read the on screen score wrong!

The match commentary has left much to be desired, and in the main it sounds like two blokes watching the match in the pub and merely chatting about what they see. I understand that actually, that's what match commentary is, but there doesn't really appear to be any 'expert' bent to it, its just rambling, or in the case of the Scotland v Romania game the other night, outright bias.

I couldn't believe how much they kept mentioning Wales in the Wales v SA game yesterday. Talk about bias. I think they mentioned the 2005 and 2008 grand slams too. Oooh, I got so angry.

beshocked, Shanklin retired due to injury. He's been a pundit on scrum v live matches a couple of times now I think

The only two that are worth listening to are Will Greenwood and Scott Quinnell everybody else are just full of themselves.

beshocked - steve ryder used to present the rugby on grandstand on the BBC

The reason I remember?

He was covering a Llanelli match at Stradey Park. The scoreboard there was always all in Welsh and he made a snide aside about the Welsh not being able to spell.

I don't think he covered much rugby after that.

rugbydreamer I apologise for getting that wrong about Steve Rider. He still knows nothing about rugby.

The Great White I have to agree with you. Schoolboy error to get the score wrong twice.

True you could have got more analysis from a pint of lager than the commentators.

It is very worrying when the ITV commentary team makes the BBC team look world class.

What would be your dream team? Who would be your representatives for each of the top nations?

I've actually quite enjoyed the ITV coverage, nice to have some different voices on TV.

Ryder is by a country mile better than Inverdale or Lazenby, the only two black marks so far are the involvement of Craig Doyle, and Phil Vickery in the commentator box. Doyle is just a silly man. Vickery sadly, despite being a wonderful player, just isn't a bright enough man to say anything insightful about anything. He was a bad choice.

I like the studio set-up and I like the simple presentations they do before the matches. I like the fact that Dewi Morris isn't involved, and I like the fact that Guscott isn't involved. Yes, Greenwood is missed, but Dallaglio is pretty decent and it's been good having Danny Care and Thom Evans in the studio to talk about their respective sides.

It's not been a bad effort. As for the openning ceremony, it's obviously a personal thing. I'm not interested in dancing.

My favoruite coverage is ESPN, but I wouldnt want a channel that most people dont have access to to have the world cup. Maybe ITV/BBC could hire their staff in next time.
Of course theyd still have to find some non English experts/presenters as well.

As I've said, I don't think there is much wrong with the studio punditry, that's been fine really, apart from Ryder who's dropped a handful of clangers thus far and while its debateable that he has (or hasn't) got much rugby knowledge, you don't need to be that bright to remember the score of a match that finished 5 minutes previously. Blotted his copybook IMO.

funnyExiledScot wrote: Thom Evans .

Welsh name, English by birth an upbringing, plays for Scotland.

Once again the Irish are left out

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

funnyExiledScot wrote: Thom Evans .

Welsh name, English by birth an upbringing, plays for Scotland.

Once again the Irish are left out

I wish it were so.

My biggest problem is impartiality has gone right out the window in the commentary box. When England were playing the Pumas the commentator made a remark something along the line of "this game will decide who finishes 1st and who finishes 2nd in this pool"

He was probably right though.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:My biggest problem is impartiality has gone right out the window in the commentary box. When England were playing the Pumas the commentator made a remark something along the line of "this game will decide who finishes 1st and who finishes 2nd in this pool"

I remember the comment but took it to mean the winner can come 1st but loser could only get 2nd. Not quite the same unless you're looking at in a different light. Still not true as each could lose a game but probably right.

One good thing about the ITV coverage - Alan Quinlan's deeply sensual voice...jeebz, that's worth a fee on its own. It's like aural butter...could talk the knickers off a nun that man.

Oh and he knew a bit about the Irish squad when he was commentating on their match yesterday

RTE viewers apparently had the pleasure of a momentarily injured David Wallace on their studio panel. We had Alfie Thomas No consideration for aesthetics on TV...

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:My favoruite coverage is ESPN, but I wouldnt want a channel that most people dont have access to to have the world cup. Maybe ITV/BBC could hire their staff in next time.
Of course theyd still have to find some non English experts/presenters as well.

They already have: Nick Mullins does work for ESPN.

I voted BBC but then thought about John 'Lord Farquahar' Inverdale licking Saint Johnnie's bottom - hypothetically speaking - and thicko Butler and slimy Guscott. Still better that Rider who knows hee-haw about rugby and is a Holly Wilaboobie and even thicker Bayfield and Vickery.

As opposed to Nichol, who is not only a biased and one-eyed muppet, incapable of objectivity, he is also thicker than a whale omelete.

Of course, he might not be thick, I could be just making up, as you've supposed to do with the others you mention. Which kind of makes you thicker than all of them put together doesn't it.

Thicko Butler the Cambridge Blue ?

Precisely.

I thought I remembered the ITV commentary team saying during the England match that England will have to improve by the time they get to the semi's - as if they're already guarenteed to get there and there's no chance Scotland will beat them.

Also noticed them talking about England quite a lot during the Wales game - it's one of the reasons (the other was the awful punditry) that I watched the Wales game on S4C where the commentary (although obviously biased) was much better, and made some much better points.

I don't remember them talking about the England game at all during the Wales game. You must just be paranoid.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:Also noticed them talking about England quite a lot during the Wales game - it's one of the reasons (the other was the awful punditry) that I watched the Wales game on S4C where the commentary (although obviously biased) was much better, and made some much better points.

I also watched on S4C and agree. However I don't speak Welsh

Hammer of Thor - I think that says a lot - where commentary/punditry in a language you don't understand is preferrable to ITV's show really says something about ITV!

And Great White - that's your problem if you don't remember

I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but an advert break between the anthems and kick off??? Grrrr.....

Steve Ryder.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:Hammer of Thor - I think that says a lot - where commentary/punditry in a language you don't understand is preferrable to ITV's show really says something about ITV!

And Great White - that's your problem if you don't remember

Its also your fault if you're paranoid that it bothers you so much. Comparison is quite often made between unrelated matches whilst commentating on another.

I was saying that the match commentary IMO was at a very low standard and that they go off subject quite often and have very little expert analysis/commentary. I did say that I didn't see why Englands chances had to be mentioned so much - but I don't see how that is paranoia.

Not sure why you have to be so aggresive or needlessly 'wumming' Great White.

Paranoid you say? Being English we think people are talking about us all the time

Ok cheers Dreamer

Just because your paranoid Wheeler doesn't mean we're not talking about you ...

Smirnoffpriest, to be honest I choose the 'no commentry' option on the BBC during the 6 nations and would happily turn off the commentry on sky if there was an option. The only ones that don't annoy me are ESPN (and S4C Welsh)

I have often watched rugby on TV but listened to the commentary off a radio. Radio commentators are far better Ian Robertson is one name that springs to mind.

Links to radio rugby
http://tunein.com/radio/Rugby-g2750/

Radio commentatory HAVE to be good. If they're not people don't listen. With TV you don't really need commentators. I've don't think they can haddle the fact there's nothing they NEED to say. So instead they just make stuff up (common when a penalty has been given but they don't know why, just make it up. Barnes and Butler are the worst for this). Since they're not really needed it also means any old ex-player can be shoved in even if totally unsuitable (e.g. Vickery).

Thats a good point Hammer - I've never really thought about Radio commentary as I always thought it would spend a lot of time describing in detail what was going on (which you don't need on TV as you can see it) instead of talking about the way the game was flowing and who was looking dangerous, or what option should have been taken.

I may give it a go next game...

Well worth having a go gives you a different view of the game.

Apparently they do sometimes mention England on the wireless too, so it's not ideal for everybody

Seriously though, as long as they're synched it's often worthwhile having the radio commentary with the TV images. I've often done that with the cricket. It can be much better.

I don't have a radio other than the computer or the tele. The computer is upstairs and I'm watching the tele.

The only reason I don't watch every game on mute is that I like having the crowd noises and hearing the players/ref. Hearing someone go on and on about what the players should have done or what the ref should(n't) have penalised is very dull.

Kay and Healey are good on ESPN because they keep it simple and don't go on and on about the same thing. Generaly talk about why something was good or not and fix on the more subtler aspects rather than the obvious 'numbers' or 'boring in'.

HammerofThunor wrote:

Thespacedragon wrote:ITV are a national broadcaster delivering to the whole of the UK. Their coverage should be unbiased regardless of the fact that there are more English fans or not. It's the same with the national newspapers - 'Bring home the cup boys' etc. with a mere snippet of the Celtic countries mentioned.

Surely ITV is a commercial organisation and can act as they like. They have the broadcasters licence and have to show certain programming but don't have to be impartial. Same with the national newspapers. If you don't like them don't buy them. If you don't like the coverage on ITV complain. Run a vocal boycott of the adverts and they'll soon change (if enough people do it).

And if you dislike a team because of an unconnected media then I feel sorry for you. It's generally the excuse given for not liking the English teams but don't you think it's a bit childish?

I don't watch the adverts and I am only watching the games on ITV as there isn't any other feasibile option. In fact I'm not watching as much as I would like to due to the poor coverage.
I don't buy newspapers either due to their poor coverage and unbiased views but I would prefer to have an option of buying a well balanced newspaper that reports facts and not scandel.
Where did I say I disliked a team because of the media? And personally I don't think it is childish if someone wanted to see a team lose if they are fed up of the constant biased views of the presenters and producers - if England get knocked out and another UK team made the final, it wouldn't surprise me if the prematch discussion would be about the what ifs and the failings before spending a few minutes discussing the match!

Thespacedragon wrote:Where did I say I disliked a team because of the media? And personally I don't think it is childish if someone wanted to see a team lose if they are fed up of the constant biased views of the presenters and producers - if England get knocked out and another UK team made the final, it wouldn't surprise me if the prematch discussion would be about the what ifs and the failings before spending a few minutes discussing the match!

Possibly the second part was aimed to someone else.

We're all entitled to our opinions. I personally think it's childish to want one group to fail because you don't like the way another independent group talks about them. Each to their own.

And you're probably right about the prematch discussion. But since it'll be rubbish whatever they talk about why does it matter. I'd take 100% good rugby coverage talking about nothing but Italian rugby over the twaddle they talk about English rugby.

I just want the prematch discussions to focus on the game in hand. Highlight shows and roundups are for discussing a main team.
Then 100% good rugby coverage!!!
A little disappointed at the lack of camera angles not being shown by the broadcasters who are responsible for supplying the feed so far!