What a tremendous weekend for contact sport!
While every American I know was glued to the TV (or plugged in to the net) yesterday for the Superbowl – in case you didn’t know, the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-10 – there was some fantsatic rugby going on in Europe throughout the weekend.
Three matches were played between all the participating nations in the Six Nations Championship – England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales – all of which were broadcast live throughout Europe on one TV station or another.
I managed to watch some of the Scotland vs France game on Sunday on the BBC. What a treat! And what an upset! Scotland beat France 20-16 in a nail-biting game that confounded the pundits’ predictions of an easy victory for favourites France.
If you want to get great background into the teams, with interviews and reports, The Six Nations website offers a series of podcasts complete with RSS feeds so you won’t miss any content. And for general news and stories throughout the run of this championship – the highlight of the Rugby Union calendar – you can subscribe to seven RSS feeds: six focused on news about each team plus a catch-all feed that gives you everything.
Thanks for the heads up Neville. Does this have your fingerprints on it per chance? If so well done. Found the first podcast a bit short but a step in the right direction. Looking forward to visiting Kitty O Sheas but not Stade de France next weekend. Unlikely to get as accomodating a ref two weeks in a row!! Your boys look as if they are getting back to their best.
Now where was the pr for the Rugby Tourny? I had no idea! That is way more interesting then the Superbowl! Well maybe not . . . but I definitely will be checking out the website for info! With all the superbowl hype, we fail to see the sports in other parts of the world. I wonder if over there they watched the superbowl at all?
Not so great if you’re Welsh this weekend I have to admit.
But pretty good if you’re English, Matthew 😉 And Declan, Ireland did very well indeed, trashing the Italians the way they did.
Best one to be after the weekend is Scots, of course. My money’s still on France, though.
Carolyn, I think the Superbowl was on one or two cable/satellite channels. Highlights at least on CNN. Crowded out everywhere else, though, by the 6 Nations.