Rugby Union: Beeb must try harder with rugby coverage

Mar 26 2008 by Geoff Lightfoot, Liverpool Daily Post

WERE you as infuriated with the BBC coverage of the Six Nations as I was?

Cameras suspended over the pitch for the England v Wales game at Twickenham on the opening Saturday and used like a new toy at Christmas, changing the angle of coverage so it was at times difficult to know what was going on and replays which either overlapped actual play or failed to appear at all such as Balshaw’s charged down clearance which appeared so late after the event that it might as well have come from a different match!

And then to add insult to injury why did we have to have constant close-ups of Charlotte Church in the final game at the Millennium Stadium where I thought the object of the exercise was to focus on the triumph of Wales taking the Grand Slam and not the ‘Welsh Warbler’ whom to my knowledge has not gained a single cap for the Principality! If this is the best the ‘Beeb’ can do, and I have not started on the commentary team yet, then thank God for Sky.

Eddie Butler may well know the game and be an adequate summeriser but he is no commentator. Brian Moore does know the game but gets so carried away with detail that the bigger picture is all too often lost.

However off the field top marks to John Inverdale who in his other life is chairman of rugby at National One outfit Esher does try look at the game from the fans’ perspective, invariably poses the panel the questions they would like to ask, which in Jonathan Davies has probably one of the best ‘readers’ of a game in the business although I confess at being irritated by Jeremy Guscott’s supercilious attitude that comes over as ‘none of these players is as good as me’.

Yet for coverage the BBC comes nowhere near the quality of Sky both for the professionalism of its commentary team, and in Miles Harrison they have the best commentator since Bill McClaren with Stuart Barnes’ interjections, despite pushing his favoured players, always clear and concise.

The camera work is superb, obviously developed through their massive coverage of the game over the last few years.

Off the field Simon Lazenby is relaxed yet assured and although Dewi Morris can be a little ‘stiff’, in Will Greenwood, well known of course to all at Waterloo, they have uncovered a real ‘gem’. Is it not surprising that when ITV was praised for its coverage of the last World Cup they had the wisdom to ‘borrow’ the Sky team almost ‘lock, stock and barrel’!

Despite the quality of Sky, viewing figures throughout the World Cup did show that the game would benefit from the increased exposure that only a terrestrial channel can give.

Unfortunately I doubt that the BBC is up to it and I do have doubts that beyond the Six Nations they have any real interest.

Last time they held the contract for the Heineken Cup they showed one, at the most two matches, over the weekend and although they said they would cover every game involving a British club you would have had to pick up BBC Wales if you wanted to watch Northampton v Cardiff!

A further point is the EDF Energy finals day on Saturday, April 12. This year of course we have two local clubs, Chester and Birkenhead Park, in the final of the Intermediate Cup. The game kicks off at 10am but when Sky had the contract every game that day was shown live, now that the BBC have taken over only the EDF Energy Cup final between Leicester and Ospreys is scheduled live.

That leaves ITV, Channels Four and Five. They like the BBC do not have the capacity unless they use their freeview or satellite channels and that would of course defeat the object.

When the country eventually switches from analogue to digital they might well come into the reckoning.

The present TV agreement is up at the end of the 2008-09 season and the rugby authorities and the RFU in particular will be out to negotiate a deal which while increasing exposure will also increase revenue. At the moment that looks like a joint arrangement between a satellite and a terrestrial broadcaster, as in football, but why not write to the RFU and state your own views as there is long way to go or as Bill McClaren would say: “There is still plenty of jiggery pokery to go on before this is settled.”