TV clashes, graphics, and basically anything I can think of that's NOT to do with Leinster's opener
My Saturday morning "Broken Play" rugby ramble returns
Welcome to my Saturday morning scribble which returns after a summer hiatus. Basically I set the timer for an hour and keep harpin’ until it’s done. Since I’m VERY easily distracted that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be constantly typing the entire time but for sure I will finish when my phone tells me to.
I’ve just finished watching the Bledisloe Cup/Rugby Champions match, a win for the All Blacks which retains the Cup for yet another year but hardly a convincing one. They really needed the BP to put pressure on the Springboks but some resilient Wallaby defence at the end kept them out.
As you can see I’m taking my time making reference to another rugby match I watched this weekend, that being Friday evening’s URC season opener between Stormers and Leinster from Cape Town.
Here’s what I said on TikTok after the FT whistle; I’m hoping to do this regularly throughout the season, though perhaps not if they all go this way!
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And can see what the sentiment was in the Harpin Whatsapp chat at full time.
But it’s not like I get to ignore the result altogether just yet, having committed to another season of producing a wrap pod for EVERY match so on Sunday evening myself and David Cordial will do our best to make sense of what went down at the DHL Stadium.
For now, I get to harp on literally anything else so I think I’ll have a go at the subject of television coverage.
As you probably know, the Women’s Rugby World Cup has been taking place over in England for the past while, and even though I technically took time off the the content creation, I still haven’t been shy in letting it be known how proud I was of the Irish squad’s story arc over the past five years or so from a team that couldn’t qualify for the World Cup to one which rose to 5th in the World behind the elite top four of ENG NZL FRA & CAN.
On Saturday afternoon at Twickenham, a record crowd of over 80+ will watch the final take place between the heavily-fancied host England, aka Red Roses, and Canada, who took down the reigning champion Black Ferns last week in clinical fashion.
But unfortunately, not ten minutes after things get underway in London, there will be another consequential test match kicking off down in Durban, where as I said earlier the Springboks will be looking to gain more ground on the All Blacks in the Men’s Rugby Championship as they host Dr Phil’s Pumas.
Am I the only one who thinks this clash is an absolute disgrace?
I asked ChatGPT if anything like this happened for the 2023 men’s final and the response was interesting…
When the 2023 Rugby World Cup final was taking place, were there any other senior level rugby matches taking place at the same time, be it men’s or women’s?
Great question, Jeff—and the answer is surprisingly clean: no other senior-level international rugby matches (men’s or women’s) were scheduled during the 2023 Rugby World Cup final on Saturday, 28 October 2023.
🏆 Why the Clean Slate?
The final between South Africa and New Zealand was the pinnacle event of the global rugby calendar, held at Stade de France.
World Rugby and national unions typically avoid scheduling any competing senior fixtures to ensure full attention on the final.
Even domestic leagues like the URC, Top 14, and Premiership Rugby paused or adjusted their schedules around the knockout stages.
I guess that word “typically” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. We can only assume that the whole reason RWC2025 was scheduled in August/September was specifically to AVOID clashes with the men’s, yet to have the actual final itself (also a “pinnacle”, no?”) directly up against a critical match involving the No 1 ranked men’s team is absolutely batshit crazy at best, and downright disrespectful to the women’s game at worst.
FWIW, I’ll be watching what unfolds at Twickenham.
Now to move on to another gripe with TV that is way, WAY more “in the weeds”.
Maybe this frustration was borne mostly out of my grumpiness over Leinster’s performance in Cape Town, but the URC’s in-play graphics were driving me absolutely mental, which probably means they will for the entire season up to next June.
I remember a time when live sport on TV came with absolutely no on-screen graphics at all, at least not for the duration. They’d occasionally flash info, but if you joined the action after the match kicked off, you’d generally have to wait to find out the state of play.
Nowadays, we rarely watch sport without information on the screen, but obviously the most basic data we need are (a) the latest score and (b) the time elapsed. More often than not, this appears at the top left hand corner, but in the case of the URC they have it dead center at the bottom.
This bugbear I’m about to relate is probably unique to me since I tend to take notes while I’m watching to establish a timeline of the action for later reference, but for some reason when they broadcasters go to put any other information on the screen, they remove both the score and time. And last night in particular, they KEPT doing it not for stats that related to the match itself, rather than to display a QR code so viewers could vote for Player of the Match!
Maybe if you let me watch the damn match as nature intended I could form a better opinion over who I think played the best?
Yes, yes, I know this is VERY much a “first world problem”. Obviously there are much more important things going on in the world to be complaining about. But then again, nitpicky things like that are pretty much what this particular column is for.
All I’m asking is that they simply find a way to keep the score/time visible from kickoff to full-time, and find room on the screen elsewhere for all the other stuff. Can’t be that difficult?
In previous years, the French network broadcasting the 🔝🐱🐴 had the annoying habit of replacing the clock with the word “STOP” every time the referee stopped the clock, which annoyed me because surely keeping the non-ticking clock on the screen was enough for us to work out that time had stopped. But this URC thing is next level.
To be clear, I do like most of what the URC is doing. This is its fifth season, TV figures are increasing, attendances are increasing, and engagement is increasing. Well, that’s all when you don’t count the Welsh of course, but it still seems to be a net gain every year throughout the five nations.
And the URC.tv product itself seems to have improved, even lowering its price to an extremely reasonable €40 for the season, and on what seems to be a better platform too although I’ll reserve judgement for my rewatch of Stormers v Leinster ahead of the pod. I’m equally nitpicky when it comes to streaming platform functionality, and don’t even get me started on RTÉ fucking Player, which should be its full name.
But if I could ask for just one mor tweak it would definitely be the in-match graphics. By all means remind me of the QR codes often. And definitely inform us about pack weights, territory/possession percentages and phase counters. Just leave the score and time up there when you do it and I’m a happy camper. Well, in the case of Friday evening’s match, I’m more of a less-grumpy camper, but you get the idea.
That’s my scribble for now, thanks for hanging on this long, will be back next week for more, but obvs loads of other content in the meantime across the Harpin spectrum, starting with the wrap rage pod recording with David Cordial on Sunday evening, stay tuned. JLP
PS : Almost forgot…I’m back to doing my Friday Harpin’ slot after the 5pm news on Dublin South FM with David Nolan. This season I plan to post them on TikTok but this one was too close to the actual kickoff, so it wasn’t long before my optimistic prediction was shown up. Anyway, I’ll post it here for the craic, do tune in to the actual segment in future…
