Planet Rugby

Trial commentary: It seems RTÉ are looking to cast their net wider as far as rugby commentary is concerned.

At Friday night's Heineken European Cup match between Leinster Lions and Sale Sharks at Lansdowne Road, the national broadcaster had a test run featuring well-known Clare-born GAA commentator Marty Morrissey. Jim Sherwin could be heard by the live television viewers but in an adjoining booth, RTÉ offered a similar set-up for Morrissey, who commentated on the game as if going live.

Development case

It will be interesting to see what sort of squad Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan takes to South Africa this summer for the two-Test series. Irrespective of how Ireland fare in the Six Nations there is a case for bringing a large number of young players with a view not only to next season but the 2007 World Cup.

The demise of the A international championship for financial reasons denies young players a platform to showcase their ability and also to give them the quality of game to test that talent. It could be the IRFU will have to go back down the route of development tours. Otherwise good young players are going to have to jump between European Cup and Parker Pen Challenge Cup and Test rugby. It's great to have the under-19 and under-21 World Cups but the Irish system now has a lot of young players who don't fall into those age groups.

Just an example but you could pick an Irish Development XV from the following young players who are not even first-choice at provincial level.

Ireland Development XV: Gavin Duffy (Harlequins); Keith Matthews (Munster), Kieran Lewis (Leinster), Seamus Mallon (Ulster), James Norton (Leinster); Andy Dunne (Harlequins), Kieron Campbell (Ulster); John Lyne (Leinster), Gavin Hickie (Leinster), Bryan Young (Ulster); Matt McCullough (Ulster), Dave Pusey (Munster); Denis Leamy (Munster), Des Dillon (Leinster), Johnny O'Connor (Wasps). Replacements: Jody Danagher (Munster), Jerry Flannery (Munster), Aidan Kearney (Leinster), Shane Jennings (Leinster), Brian O'Riordan (Leinster), Andrew Trimble (Ulster), Jeremy Staunton (Munster).

Cliché-ridden

Sky certainly have delivered a comprehensive coverage of the European Cup and deserve great credit for not only showing five live games per weekend in the competition but also a three-hour programme on Sunday night. The number of cameras they devote to their live games marks the broadcast as exceptional; they have angles on most incidents.

However, the one area they do fall down, for this column, is commentary. Neither Miles Harrison nor the hugely-irritating Will Chignell can be relied upon to simply relax and call the game in measured, lucid tones instead of shrieking and hyperventilating in the commentary box. Someone should also throw the thesaurus containing all those clichés out of the commentary box window.

In fairness, Harrison has improved in recent seasons but still needs to be told that not everything he witnesses in the game that Sky is covering needs to be smothered in superlatives.

This column's favourite moment of the weekend was Chignell's post-game interview with Leicester coach Dean Richards, whose monosyllabic responses to his interrogator's more trite/asinine questions made for cringe-inducing viewing.

It should be pointed out, though, that Chignell to his credit, stuck in there and refused to be cowed.

Official complaint

While we have the soapbox out, ERC are surely going to have to look at some of the refereeing this weekend. This column is not about to trash individuals, well not this week, but in three of the matches we saw, the official in the middle made some serious howlers. Everyone makes mistakes so that's not the issue but between the three match officials, you'd hope they'd get only the occasional decision wrong. That didn't seem to be the case.

Cup competition

This column's generosity knows no bounds, as it launches into the another great European Cup giveaway. The Irish Times has teamed up with European Rugby Cup Ltd (ERC) to offer our readers the chance to win two tickets to a Heineken Cup Pool match this weekend involving one of the Irish provinces.

To enter this week's competition, answer the following question: who scored two tries for Ulster in their superb 33-0 victory over Leicester at Ravenhill yesterday? E-mail your entries to josullivan@irish-times.ie, no later than 6 p.m. today.

The winner will be able to choose a match of his choice for either a Munster, Leinster or Ulster match.

We're going to run this competition for the remaining games in the pool stages of the Heineken Cup.

The good news doesn't finish there. Log onto www.ercrugby.com to win a pair of tickets to any round three Heineken Cup match; that's any match in any of the participating countries.

So log on or lose out.

Expert opinion

The RTÉ rugby magazine programme Against the Head, returns to our screens tonight. Ryle Nugent is to anchor the AIB-sponsored programme that begins its 13-week run on Network 2 tonight (7.30).

Against the Head will feature a 30-minute round-up of the latest action, news and analysis from the AIB League, Heineken European and the Six Nations Championship.

A panel consisting of former players, such as Ciarán Fitzgerald and Brent Pope, will contribute to the programme on a weekly basis, as will rugby journalists Brendan Fanning and Peter O'Reilly. In addition, interviews and profiles of top players, coaches and referees will feature prominently. The programme will also include local club features and news from the AIB League and schools rugby.

Now this column is neither jealous nor bitter so we'd like to wish the programme all the best in its second season even if it chose not to include any Irish Times journalists, widely respected in the rugby community (eh, we're still available).

In the meantime we're all off to close our AIB bank accounts and tear up our TV licences.