Setanta Sports – goodbye
Just tuned in to watch the latest All Blacks v. England rugby international match being shown on Setanta on DirecTV in the USA. The broadcast does not include the anthems or the Haka.
I am sick and tired of the pissant northern hemisphere rugby teams claiming the Haka is an unfair advantage and doing whatever they can to mess with it. Get it straight you morons – you don’t lose because of the Haka, you lose because your whole professional club structure produces crap rugby players and your teams can’t play in the same league as the Tri-nations teams.
Needless to say, I am voting with my dollars and kicking Setanta to the curb – this is the final straw that breaks the camels back with regard to the treatment non-UK rugby coverage recieves on this channel. I’ll be turning to the internet for future games – and it sure as hell will not be Setanta Broadband premium.
November 30, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Interestingly our free-to-air coverage yesterday showed the Haka and then miraculously cut to the kick-off.
We were left wondering whether there had been another stare down.
I also pondered the irony of the English rugby supporters (predominantly well-to-do, white men) loudly singing a negro spiritual in an attempt to drown out the Haka. Is it just me? Or is there something not quite right with that idea?
November 30, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Yeah – I heard that the English crowd had managed to drown out the Haka – it’s just downright rude and shows how desperate they are to find a way to beat the All Blacks.
Ironically – I can almost guarantee it was England that were begging for the ref to crack down on players at the breakdown, as they always claim McCaw is cheating there. Oh what a glorious case of shooting yourself in the foot it was as NZ listened, learned and adjusted their play at the breakdown and England continued to break the rules the ref was clearly enforcing.
December 2, 2008 at 7:32 am
did you watch it on pay Per View or was it a delayed game?
December 2, 2008 at 10:05 am
milkster – it was a delayed broadcast on Setanta in the USA.
That’s the other thing that annoys me about what they do. If it’s a game like Scotland v. Fiji it will be on live, while if it’s All Blacks v. any Top10 team it will likely be delayed in an attempt to make you pay for a PPV or pay for Setanta Premium.
During this tournament I watched some games on a PPV basis on mediazone.com by hooking my laptop up to my TV – and doing that even gave me the New Zealand commentary team. So I am most likely just going to be doing that in the future. If you add Setanta to your DirecTV subscription you pay a monthly fee for it, so if they want to make me pay more on top of that then Setanta can take their extortion attempts elsewhere.