connachtexile wrote: I know the tread used to be on the old site but it still bears saying 'Neil Francis is a massive Wanker.' Good riddance to Setanta.

Ok, apologies for bumping up an old thread, but couldn't find the correct thread to put this in.

But here ye go, enjoy:
en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neil_...n%29&oldid=403518990

I know the tread used to be on the old site but it still bears saying 'Neil Francis is a massive Wanker.' Good riddance to Setanta.

I've looked at away matches to see what kind of draw teams are relative to each other when they travel.

Team	Average away attendance
Munster	9861
Blues	8377
Ospreys	8258
Ulster	8059
Leinster	7815
Connacht	7639
Glasgow	7444
Edinburgh	7429
Dragons	7311
Treviso	6965
Scarlets	6930
Aironi	6592

That's a respectable mid-table result for Connacht. People turn out when we play. From that point of view alone it shows there is interest in watching us play, or at least more interest than, say, Scarlets, who have a very healthy TV schedule when they travel.

Close, it was Blues at home and away to Ulster. Apart from that, nada!

ya it was very very clear during the season that tg4 was the station that was showing us. as far as i remember, rte showed us play cardiff in galway and maybe leinster in the rds.

only problem i have with tg4 is most of the lads speaking have very shit irish.
the presenter maire-treasa and the analyist eoin do have fluent irish to be fair to them.

#tg4 if your reading this, send me a private mail, im free to work, would pay for heineken cup away match's

Had enough of the weekly ref hunt? Can I interest you in a breakdown of TV schedules?

Team	Home matches televised	Away matches televised
Aironi	7	7
Benetton Treviso	6	7
Cardiff Blues	8	8
Connacht Rugby	7	5
Edinburgh	4	8
Glasgow Warriors	7	8
Leinster Rugby	9	9
Munster Rugby	11	9
Dragons	9	7
Ospreys	9	10
Scarlets	8	10
Ulster	11	8

This is a bit harder to interpret compared to the ref stats thread. Unlike the ref allocation, which is done by the league, the TV schedule is made up by Rai, BBC NI, BBC Alba, S4C, RTE & TG4. I think I've even forgotten one.

With all those vested interests it's hard to make out any major patterns, but some stand out.

Edinburgh fans were twice as likely to watch their team play an away match than a home match, with only 4 Edinburgh home games televised all season. Pretty poor from BBC Alba, which concentrated more on Glasgow. Edinburgh and Connacht share the record of the fewest matches televised (12).

Munster and Ulster were the only teams to have all of their home games televised.

Only 5 out of 11 away games televised shows just how bad a draw Connacht are in the eyes of TV execs. 3 of those 5 were obviously interpros (and we know who the TV schedulers were really interested in televising), meaning only Aironi and Glasgow were shown live outside of Ireland. Not one away match against a Welsh region was shown.

All but one Munster away match was piggybacked by TG4 or RTE, meaning more Munster away matches were shown on Irish terrestrial TV than Connacht home matches.

Although to be fair, when Connacht away matches were being televised they were also shown on Irish TV. The problem was there weren't many of them. And most of those were in Ireland.

Of Connachts 12 televised matches 10 were on TG4, one wonders if RTE will ever notice there is rugby in Galway. Compare that to Munster (9 TG4, 9 RTE) and Leinster (7 TG4, 7 RTE) and it's obvious we're not considered much of a TV draw by the little emperors.

I haven't compared Ulster, because they had a better but incomparable deal with BBC NI.

Still, I suppose it's (only just) better than last year, when Setanta showed a repeat of a Munster match instead of a live Connacht match. Can't say I miss those bastards.