Filed under: Rugby Union, Media, Rugby World Cup
When London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games back in 2005, everyone danced their little jig of delight, celebrating the announcement with a patriotic soft-shoe shuffle. But there's always one misery, isn't there, and I remained statue-still. Happy for everyone who seemed happy, and all, but personally I couldn't see the attraction. The Olympics are all about windswept glamour, best when unfolding Somewhere Else, on the other side of the planet, coming at you via new-fangled satellite communication techniques, usually at wholly improbable times of the day. The whole event should feel other-worldly, like a Connery Bond movie, or a Joe Meek record, or an episode of Dallas, or the moon landings. (Which actually were other-worldly, but you get the general thrust.)Where's the exotic beauty in an event that's happening at 2.45pm a few stops down the Jubilee Line, 400 yards from the new John Lewis?
Londoners will have a rare old time at their own Games next year, for sure, but it'll be a different sort of engagement: next year's synchronised swimming, handball, and rhythm gymnastics won't feel quite as much fun when the pictures aren't beamed down the line in the middle of the night from Beijing or Los Angeles or Sydney. You should feel intolerably tired after watching them, a strange electric current running through your befuddled brain for the best part of a fortnight. But there goes that international ambience.
See also how the 1994 World Cup in the USA seemed more shiny than the one held in France four years later. And wait for the impossible glamour of Brazil's effort in 2014, plus their Olympics two years on, paying special attention to the beach volleyball event on Copacabana Beach. It'll be like watching 16 Duran Duran videos back to back, the mother of all sugar rushes. By 2017, there's a fair chance we'll all have developed diabetes.
Rugby union isn't a sport normally associated with glamour, either ersatz or real - the cauliflower ear has yet to find its place on the catwalk, the eye gouge still frowned upon in polite society - but this year's Rugby World Cup ticks all the required boxes for a perfect major televised sporting event. It's on the other side of the world in the middle of the night: TICK. And, er, that's it. TICK.
Staying up late, or getting up early, for the games offers that delicious Sense Of Other, that extra layer of excitement. Still, the time frame can significantly changes the way we consume the matches. Scotland's struggles against Romania, for example, were surely looked upon in a kinder light in the early hours of a weekend morning, than had the match been played out at Murrayfield, Twickers or the Stade de France at 2pm. There, snapped into focus by the cold light of day, the plethora of basic handling errors and needless indiscretions in the breakdown would have been too much to bear. But through tired and rheumy eyes in the wee small hours, and having put in some effort ourselves by staying up, Scotland's (admittedly limited) heroes were doing their best on a far-flung foreign field. Small are the margins between braveheart and bampot.
It was harder to work out how to feel in the wake of England's win over Argentina. The English were risibly poor, committing an outrageous number of penalties, yet somehow squeezing out a win. Again, had they performed like that on their own turf, in a tournament held during business hours in Europe, the team would have been driven into the River Thames by a baying mob wielding pointed sticks. But in a game unfolding at breakfast time on a Saturday morning, hangovers blunted any anger. Who can seriously get annoyed when they're watching live international sport in bed at the weekend? Plus the fact England are playing so hilariously badly, they're almost a certainty to reach the final at the very least. It's how they roll at World Cups.
ITV's coverage is meanwhile understated and refreshingly old school, Steve Rider - who in another life would surely have been an easy-listening crooner - chairing some easy-listening chat. The only edge to proceedings comes when watching Francois Pienaar attempting to operate a tactics touchscreen with his big fists, the software constantly on the verge of crashing, the screen itself in perpetual danger of being catapulted through the studio in a fit of impatient pique.
Hats off as well to ITV for waiting nearly half an hour after the Scotland-Georgia game before turning the talk to England. Compared to its approach at football World Cups, when England are crowbarred into conversation every other sentence, this shows admirable restraint. Or maybe everyone's just too tired to bother.
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Source: http://www.fanhouse.co.uk/2011/09/15/itv-rugby-world-cup/
Frank Lampard Frank Ribery Frederic Kanoute Gabriel Milito Gael Monfils
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