France Versus Australia was live on the BBC last Autumn.

I`m sorry decent enough post till I got to bit - the reason that WC was a success had little to do with the BBC who whilst showing several matches live ( mid week ones restricted to BBC Northern channels) did their best to try and hide it away and more or less showed their hand as a RL- hating establishment service they really are ...

wasnt it at the BBC request that the Challenge Cup be moved from May to August?

that was in france not in australia though.

40 million reasons a year would do that to you. 40 million reasons for 15 games over 5 weekends.

And who can forget Steve 'where are you now?' Ryder's opening to the Centenary World Cup, '[iWelcome to a wet, windy and EMPTY Windsor Park[/i'. Gillipollas.

As stated I was refering to show games Live from Australia!




Well thats not the way I saw it. I've never thought the BBC is rugby league hating at all. It's definetly well down the pecking order these days though.

And I know it wasn't full live coverage that year but the point I was making was the quantity of Rugby League the BBC showed in those days in advance of the tournament provided an advert for it at least. Something that didn't happen in 2000.



I can't remember to be honest. It hasn't worked in my view.




I'm not saying the BBC coverage is perfect and I know they wouldn't put league games on in prime time. But if we had given them the four nations exclusively they would have shown all the games.

That was the 2000 World Cup not 1995. Can't excuse Steve Rider's comment but why should the BBC have got enthused about that (it was Ireland v Samoa they were showing) when all the big games were all on Sky? I think they had England v Australia Live later that night on Sky, from bloody twickenham!!

That's because RL never:
1) has three high-profile internationals, all played in front of sold out stadiums, on the same weekend.
2) sells those rights exclusively to the BBC.

It's OK claiming that the BBC is against us but if we aren't providing content of the quality that the BBC wants, it's not the BBC's fault - they aren't there to be the RFL's PR agency.

Remember it being the main event on Grandstand and there had even been a couple of adverts midweek. Whether it was a big game or not, it was unprofessional of him. Steve Ryder later went on to work on ITV's rugby union coverage, make of that what you will.
Do you think many presenters would open say a football FA cup 3rd round tie like that?