The Nations Cup. My goodness, savour that. The Nations Cup. Mmm. The very name is redolent of a crackling log fire on an autumn afternoon. But wait, there’s more! Amazon Prime. That tingling feeling? That’s the realisation that a major re-structuring of European rugby broadcasting is upon us. Who says 2020’s been a miserable year?
Amazon Prime – not sure how much tax they pay – have put together a crack team of broadcasters and ex-player pundits who have only ever appeared on the BBC or ITV or Channel 4 or Channel 5 or BTSport or Sky before. As industry insider Phelam Hill put it, “[Amazon] will want to do something that is wholly different, not a vanilla broadcast”. More pertinently, they’ll be getting some good advertising bucks in the run-up to Christmas, and they’ll synergistically allow customers to make an impulse purchase of a replica England shirt (size XXXL) with “George 2“ on the back when the Saracens hooker (size XXXL) flops over the line after a drive from a five-metre line-out. Win-win for Bezos’s boys and girls.
To the games, then.
Ireland v Wales (an empty Aviva stadium)
It’s only been a few months since Ireland sent Wales packing with a comfortable win in front of 50,000 fans. It seems likely that Friday night’s game will see a similar result. Yet there are crumbs of comfort for Wales. Jacob Stockdale has gone from free-scoring winger to defensively awkward full-back this Autumn and this could be something Wales will look to exploit with an effective kicking game.
First task: find an effective kicking game.
Second, increasingly tetchy short-distance kicker Jonny Sexton has been underwhelming since the great re-start, and his replacement is Ulster’s own (import from Gloucester) Mr Billy Burns. Can two men lose a game on their own?
Nah. Ireland should have too much for Wales, and if their line-out functions, expect a couple of tries from short drives followed by a series of pick-and-goes. Plus, they have Leinster’s Jimmy Lowe on debut and he’ll pick up at least one score. Wales’ll get a consolation or two.
Italy v Scotland (an empty Stadio Artemio Franchi, Florence)
It’s only a few months since these two met in a match that has been ruled an instrument of torture by a recent European Court of Human Rights ruling. Scotland had the boy Adam Hastings standing in at 10 that day, as stand-out stand-off Finn Russell had been stood down after standing a couple too many beers. Finn returned, but both he and Hastings got crocked against Wales, so the call came for the Worcester Wizard, Wee Duncan Weir, to step up in the key position.
And … Wee Duncy has grown his hair! People often ask me, “What’s NOT vanilla broadcasting?“ and I always say, “Talking about Duncan Weir’s hair and making rather unfunny jokes about it“. Trust me, there’ll be no vanilla broadcasting on Amazon Prime.
Italy are not good. They have some okay players: Polledri is a fine runner/smasher and the young outside half Paolo Garbisi has something about him, but they’re not going to be doing much against what’s turning into a pretty effective Scottish side.
England v Georgia (an empty Twickenham stadium)
There’re certain things that one’s duty bound to mention when you talk about Georgia:
- props;
- scrummaging;
- the ancient game of Lelos;
- their nickname, the Lelos, which comes from the ancient game of Lelos;
- scrummaging;
- Gorgadze;
- scrummaging;
- some platitude from some coach of some other team about how good their scrummaging is;
- props;
- and, scrummaging.
What you won’t hear much about are their backs. Which means I’m rather lost, though I like the young half-backs. Sadly, after a very so-so performance v Scotland, full-back Soso Matiashvili misses out.
Anyway, Georgia have got a great record in the 6 Nations B competition: two losses in ten years, and this is the shop window for them, scrummaging etc.
England will crush them.
France v Fiji (an empty Stade de la Rabine, Vannes)
This is the one to get the old mouth watering. Is it a coincidence that the two sides that play with the most flair both have a name that also begins with F? It is, really, but coincidences are vanilla. Expect fireworks (also begins with F) and some frantic, frenzied play from both sides.
But what those two sides look like is not exactly what you’d hope for. Semi Radrada has tested positive for the Rona so misses out, and Peceli Yato dropped out of the Fiji squad earlier. On top of that, a good number of the squad tested positive for the Rona a couple of weeks ago and a scheduled warm-up game v Portugal got canned as a result.
Still, they’ve got the marvellous Tuisova on the wing, and he’s turning out alongside eight other players who earn a baguette in France.
The hosts, meanwhile, look set to name a fairly strong side, surprising to me as there’s a reported agreement between the FFR and the clubs limiting how many games players can appear in this autumn. You’ve got to trust Foxy Fabien Galthie, a coach who, it seems, has worked out a plan for the great under-achievers of the 2010s. What will double definitely happen: The commentators will spend a lot of time talking about how great Antoine Dupoint is.
As foretold by TomPirracas
Onna telly this week
Friday 13th November
| Griquas v Sharks | 16:55 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Ireland v Wales | 19:00 | Channel 4 / S4C |
Saturday 14th November
| New Zealand v Argentina | 06:10 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Italy v Scotland | 12:45 | Amazon Prime |
| France v England (women) | 13:15 | BBC Two |
| Lions v Pumas | 14:25 | Sky Sports Arena |
| England v Georgia | 15:00 | Amazon Prime |
| Stormers v Cheetahs | 16:55 | Sky Sports Arena |
| Connacht v Scarlets | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 15th November
| Munster v Ospreys | 14:45 | S4C / FreeSports |
| Glasgow v Dragons | 18:30 | Premier Sports 2 |
Monday 16th November
| Zebre v Ulster | 18:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Leinster v Edinburgh | 20:15 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Cardiff v Treviso | 20:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
Ovally Balls 
Even May getting into it now.
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VIP goes to rugby and ENglish commentary.
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Surely that was a penalty try for in at the side? Real scrum fest here.
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Try for the debutant Willis.
Hopefully having demonstrated their scrum superiority they will show off some different skills now.
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Thanks Refit. Watched the last quarter of It/Scot and now the men in blue vs Georgia. Looks like it’s going to be a pasting if the Georgians can get parity even at the scrum.
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One from the Glaws playbook.
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Give Robson 25 minutes you prick.
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40 is what I thought the difference would be. Just couldn’t be arsed scrolling that far on Superbru. Think I’ll send a note to them to that effect.
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Well, didn’t think much of that game England look a bit clueless, tbh.
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That was extremely tedious.
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Let’s see what Georgia do against other sides first. Only saw bits and bobs but England seemed in complete control.
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“That was extremely tedious.”
I fell asleep at ht and missed the entire second half
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Deebee, see my preview above.
Any thoughts on the new coverage from people who watched it? That vanilla nonsense that I talked about in the ATL came from a load of bollocks published at something called cityam (https://www.cityam.com/explained-why-amazon-prime-video-is-showing-the-autumn-nations-cup-and-what-it-means-for-rugby/). Paul Rees gutted it for a load of quotes the other day. My absolute favourite was this appalling piece of writing:
“The Autumn Nations Cup is unique and innovative and aligns with Amazon’s business DNA which is all about invention and innovation.”
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Ticht – you didn’t miss a thing.
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TomP – gag. It was much like any other coverage, but more vanilla, imo.
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TomP – as I said earlier, here’s the ‘new’ coverage, same as the ‘old’ coverage. It started with Gabby, Brian Habana, Hartley and Flats talking about England for half an hour before realising there was another game. The Scotland game had Jill, Johnnie Beattie (The Younger) with Jamie Lang (I think?), Rory Lawson and John Barclay co-commentating. Can’t remember who did the commentary on the English game as I turned it off after the second try. Apparently their great innovation was ‘post cam’ at Twickers.
I suppose the pastries might be that there was no Jiffy, Gustcott, Nicol, Lol or Sir Clive. But no Cotter, Real Eddie of Wilkinson either.
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TomP, saw the preview – excellent by the way, other than not predicting the Covid Cancelation – but one dimensional sides aren’t always easy to play flowing, enterprising rugby against. Easy to get sucked into a pissing contest around the physicality.
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That said, I probably need to watch the game properly to get an overall perspective.
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True, Deebee, about sides having problems against physical opposition. The Bulls struggled to put their free-flowing game together against the lumbering Lions last week.
Thanks for the kind words. France-Fiji preview is as empty-headed as the other previews but with added nicked from rugbyrama facts to make me look knowledgeable.
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BB, I thought they’d signed Cotter up. He’s definitely not just a BBC guy.
I had Conor McNamara (?), who used to do soccer commentary on 5 Live, and Tom Shanklin on the feed last night.
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Georgia to replace Wales in the 6N. Minnows out, beards in.
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They maybe have TomP. He might do the Scotland home games. I think a lot of commentators move between channels, Channel 4 had Harrison last night and he’s usually Sky I think. Far cry from the days where the BBC had Bill and Nigel on the rugby, Barry and John on the football and Tony Gubba on everything else.
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This was the response to someone in Ballyclare trying to watch rugby on Amazon Prime…. UI delivered by Jeff Bezos it seems
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Trisk – words fail me!
Time for a border poll?
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@bb
Two words – Richie Benaud. Oh and Ron Pickering. And Alan Weeks on ice hockey.
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And Dan Maskell. Oh, I say.
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Yup, and Peter O’Sullivan on the racing. David Coleman on football and athletics. Sadly we had Archie MacPherson commentating on footy up here. More full of his own self-importance than talent in commentating. At least he wasn’t Arthur ‘A disaster for Scotland’ Montford and his sports jackets on STV. Thing is you didn’t really get a lot of commentators switching ‘sides’ in those days.
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Don’t forget Hamilton Bland. Who got the elbow for taking bribes.
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Plus Murray Walker when F1 used to be good (and on BBC).
Wonder how many of the current crop will be remembered in 30/40 years time? A lot of them seem pretty bland, which is perhaps why Cotter stands out (even before Global Superstardom with Olive and Mabel). I like Mullins although I can understand why folk don’t like him. A lot of the football ones sound pretty much the same.
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Cotter is now an official National Treasure. Appreciate the sarcasm in his commentary much more now that I’ve known Olive and Mabel.
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(Not in the Biblical sense, obvs.)
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Thaum – did you know there’s a new film on Billie Holiday coming out? Apparently its out on ‘digital platforms’ now, but the review doesn’t say which ones. Typical.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/12/billie-review-singer-documentary-historical-voice-harassment-exploitation
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I must watch that, BB
Miles Davis is kinder to Billie Holiday than he is to almost everyone else in his autobiography, her life was hard, and she was great.
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Cheers, BB – I’ll keep an eye out!
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Amazon inadvertently doubled down on the NI issue yesterday by sending a tweet apologising for “the troubles” NI people had yesterday watching the match leading to a Twitter storm last night
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Des O’Connor RIP
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Still has me crying with laughter, that routine.
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Ugliest photo in history?:
https://www.exeterchiefs.co.uk/news/hogg-delighted-as-scots-win-in-italy
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Be fair – they’re all Exeter heroes
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I was going to show a picture of the Exeter front row who are FAR uglier, but it was from the D**** M*** and Thaum would probably block me forever if I linked there.
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Too right.
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RIP Ray Clemence. Part of the magnificent Liverpool side that got me into English football. And a courageous battle against cancer.
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BB:
Moon/ Yeandle/Francis
Hepburn/LC-D/Harry Williams
………………pretty boys all
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Ah, Graham Spiers. Not quite an OT level of anecdote but did/does go to the same church that daughter 1 goes to. I have met him, nice guy, doesn’t take himself too seriously.
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I have no Ray Clemence anecdotes but I did used to see ex Man City and Oldham Athletic defender Kenny Clements teaching people to drive on Huddersfield Road.
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“teaching people to drive on Huddersfield Road”
Sounds like a very specific skill.
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There was a lot of bad beef in the Oldham Driving School War of late 2013/early 2014, CMW. Roger Palmer and Andy Richie have got the north and west of the town, think Higginishaw Lane to Rippendon Road and Middleton Road those sort of manors, to themselves now. Southside is still disputed between Paul Warhurst and Nicky Henry, There’s nowhere else for Kenny Clements to go but Huddersfield Road.
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“I’ll catalyze Bob to hard-stop on that momentum-builder for now.”
Why not just say “I’ll ask Bob to delay the marketing.” Why? Why fucker, why?
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