Sky means more for Irish viewers

European Cup season's launch: ERC (European Rugby Cup) chief executive Derek McGrath justifiably pointed to the Heineken European Cup's healthy state of affairs when launching this season's tournament in their head offices on St Stephen's Green yesterday, citing, among other things, the new five-year television deals with Sky Sports and RTÉ.

But a fly in the ointment for Irish terrestrial viewers is that after this season, RTÉ will not be permitted to show games "live".

This invariably means the tournament will be reaching out to a smaller television audience in Ireland, but McGrath doesn't share the view that a tournament has to be on free-to-air television to help its growth, citing the increased profile of the tournament in the Britain and France as evidence of this.

"This year in the first round we'll have 10 games televised of the 12. The difficulty with terrestrial is that you can only get one or two games on each weekend.

"Ultimately we're a commercial organisation and we have to provide the finance for our increasingly hungry clubs," added McGrath, who pointed to a "substantially" increased deal with Sky, which included a pre-condition that they had exclusive rights to live games in Ireland as well.

Pointing out that Sky subscribers in Ireland now number 350,000, similar to NTL, McGrath also said that ERC had a "very mature discussion about Ireland in particular" with Sky, and maintained that "RTÉ have a pretty good position in the context of their competitive position. They're still with the tournament, they're actually getting to show all the home games and also Irish teams playing away, which they've not been able to do before, in complete coverage two hours after the game".

Heineken, synonymous with the competition, are on board as main sponsors for another four years, as are the ball suppliers, Webb Ellis. Squad sizes have increased from 34 to 36 players, including a minimum of 10 frontrow forwards, and there will be independent citing commissioners at live televised games.

In the later part of this season's pool stages the tournament will pass six million spectators, and ERC have moved heaven and earth to implore and help participating clubs or provinces to move games to bigger venues, and this season Leinster have moved to a 13,500 all-seater capacity at the RDS.

"Donnybrook has worked for us in the past and Lansdowne not so much so," admitted captain Brian O'Driscoll and the stats bear him out. Whereas Leinster have lost three of their last nine European Cup games at Lansdowne Road, they were unbeaten in 12 games in the competition at Donnybrook dating back to November 1998 and, indeed, are unbeaten at Donnybrook in the Celtic League since March of last year.

"It's trying to find the balance between the two, accommodating more people than Donnybrook can fit but with the intimacy of a crowd like Donnybrook, so hopefully that's going to be the case in RDS and we'll know on Saturday evening a little bit more. The boys are looking forward to it."

As to his own recuperation from his post-Lions shoulder operation, O'Driscoll saw his specialist again on Wednesday. "I'll see him again in three weeks' time and I think I'll know an awful lot more then. I've been given a bit of leeway to progress further in my training, so that's the goal for the next three weeks."

However, as that will be about a week and a half before Ireland's seasonal opener against the All Blacks, the odds must be hugely against even the durable O'Driscoll returning in time for that, or even the subsequent autumn Tests.

Indeed, Eddie O'Sullivan has intimated that a decision may be made in the next week or two.

"I don't think he wants this hanging over him but I think he'll leave this as long as he possibly can if there's a possibility of me playing."

Munster, as ever, return to their holy grail as the flagbearers for the Irish sides competing on the back of seven consecutive appearances in the knock-out stages. But, as coach Declan Kidney put it, it's getting harder, not easier.

"I don't think the Irish teams have been too far off it in the last few years," said Declan Kidney, "but the French have certainly got their teeth into the competition more and more in the last five or six years and it will be difficult to prize it away from them."

"They've huge resources, they're run on a commercial basis and that's the challenge for us, to try and beat them. But I think if you keep knocking and stay patient, your time does come."

In contrast to Munster, Ulster haven't reached the quarter-finals for the last seven years, since their memorable victory over Colomiers at Lansdowne Road in the 1999 final.

On paper, for once, Ulster don't appear to have been put in the group of death, even with Biarritz amongst their group opponents, along with Treviso (whom they entertain on Friday week) and Saracens.

"It's always hard being the third-ranked Irish province," maintained centre Paul Steinmetz. "You're always put in a pretty tough group. It's to be expected. Obviously, Biarritz are very strong and probably favourites to go through, but in saying that it's probably not as hard, on paper, as what it was."