Rugby Union fans protest to Nine
The 2011 Castrol Edge Rugby Test plays live on Sunday in Sydney & Brissy, but interstate sports fans are not happy.
- Published by David Knox
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Rugby Union joins Nine this Sunday afternoon in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup 2011.
Nine will broadcast the 2011 Castrol Edge Rugby Test between Australia and Samoa at ANZ Stadium.
The game will play live from 1.45pm in Sydney and Brisbane.
But viewers in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth will have reruns of The Block instead, with the game not scheduled to play until 11:25pm.
That’s angered sports fans, some of whom have protested at Rugby Union fansite rebel-army.com.
“Everyone should have the right to watch Rugby live on Free to Air (FTA) television. Especially when their national sporting team ‘the Wallabies’ are competing in the toughest international Rugby competition in the world, the Tri-Nations,” they note.
TV Tonight enquired about the programming of the game by Nine but is yet to receive a reply.
Excitement is building for the Rugby World Cup 2011, with fans counting down the weeks until the New Zealand All Blacks open the six-week tournament against Tonga on Friday, September 9. The Nine Network will broadcast the Rugby World Cup and the lead-up campaign of the Australian Qantas Wallabies on free-to-air television.
After the Australia-Samoa match on Sunday, Nine will present the Castrol Edge Tri Nations tournament between Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. This blockbuster series commences on Saturday, July 23, when the Qantas Wallabies take on the South African Springboks live at 7.30pm from ANZ Stadium.
Former Wallabies captain George Gregan joins the Wide World of Sports team as the face of rugby union on Nine in 2011. Joining him for the coverage areKen Sutcliffe and Tim Sheridan, along with Brisbane’s Nine News sports reporter Andrew Slack, who captained the Wallabies in the inaugural 1987 Rugby World Cup.
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- Tagged with Rugby Union, Rugby World Cup, The Block
38 Responses
Springboks Match!!! advertised channel 9 (win) I would have had to drive to Albury.
What did 9 show? Australia’s funniest videos. The match was shown at 12 and I workl Sundays. One of the worlds premier football codes in a World Cup Season and 9 gives melbourne videos so bad they couldn’t make you tube.
I’m a Queenslander born and bred but moved to Adelaide for work and since being down here have been screwed left and right on all sports I enjoy, namely Rugby League, Rugby Union and V8 Supercars. It’s not just the Nine Network but All of them, I admit that I don’t really follow the AFL but I thought as a sporting country we should be able to watch our respective sports live, whether it be on FTA or Pay TV, for god sake each FTA station has 3 channels. To the Nine and Seven networks Stop buying broadcasting rights if you’re not going to show these events live on FTA TV!!!!
Does anyone know what the RWC TV schedule is? I hear that Fox have everything, and Nine have very little due to conflicts with NRl scheduling, and rumour has it that games will be delayed. Any truth in this? Would be bad form for people without Fox if that was the case…
Sooooooo p*ssed about the lack of coverage of union and league in Melbourne… My family and I were born and raised in Victoria and no, we are not the biggest fans of AFL. We are big lovers of NRL and Super rugby and have been frustrated with the appalling coverage of rugby in this state for a very long time .. Its nothing new ! We’ve always been forced to go to the pub or a mate’s house just to watch a game ..We’re not fortunate enough to afford foxtel so it really makes us feel isolated in this city .. Seeing as Melbourne has their own League and Union team now why not broadcast those sports? They are Australian sports, so why aren’t they shown live nationally ?! Extremely disappointed with channel 9 ..
Got it live in Newy, but – and I didn’t expect to say this – Nine does a worse job on rugby than Seven did. The preview had less depth than what Seven ever gave us, the woeful Ken Sutcliffe thought a scrum drill was a ‘huddle’, they’d go to ads and miss what the referee was saying to the captains (Pretty crucial in union – would have been preferable to do what Seven does with ‘never miss a thing’ and make up the delay at half time), and their studio experts were both backs. I know Fox Sports has Tim Horan these days, but Crowley isn’t doing anything in that regard (as far as I know) – could have signed him (He was always a favourite of mine). At least they took Fox’s commentary, as opposed to dubbing their own with the poor studio team they had.
And the Wallabies lost!!
The SD image on nine was terrible compared to FoxSportsHD.
I’m in Albany at the moment and WIN looks like its playing it live. IDK what Nine Perth is doing though.
Its still on FOX Sports people, without ads!!!! Go you Wallabies!!
The Block would probably rate higher in NSW and QLD then the rugby union too!
dont worry about us over here in perth most if not all rugby fans over here have fox so will watch it love on fox.
The government needs to bring in laws that stipulate that if a networks want rights to sports they must provide live coverage either on main channel or a secondary channel. My gripe is channel 9’s contempt regarding NRL fans. Sunday footy is delayed so they can fill it with ads. Friday night 7.30 was delayed seeing it was in NZ.