It was last month that Irish rugby, through its sports innovation partnership with Enterprise Ireland, announced that they were launching their first ever streaming service, irishrugby+, having teamed up with Cork-based Wiistream. The chief goal is the promotion of their men’s and women’s All-Ireland League, coverage of which has already started, but other games were promised too, among them those from Emerging Ireland’s tour of South Africa.
All of which meant that those wanting a glimpse of our rugby future could tune into live coverage from Bloemfontein on Wednesday afternoon to watch the meeting with the Pumas, while pretending to be working. Nifty. Best of all, irishrugby+ is free. (GAAGo subscribers: “What?”).
When the live pictures popped up, Ireland were under the cosh, ominously pinned back by the team in high-vis yellow singlets. It came as a relief, then, to learn that they were just warming up against the replacements, the lack of commentary having left some of us none the wiser.
But voices finally emerged, Man One speaking in Afrikaans, which irishrugby+ might not have banked on. But the polyglot switched to English when he was trying to figure out how to pronounce the surname of Irish captain Alex Kendellen, the real pity being that there wasn’t a, say, Feidhlimidh Mac Eochagáin in the team. The craic would have been 90.
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While Man One was working on his pronunciation, Man Two interjected in a somewhat puzzling manner.
Man Two: “Make sure you put that thing in your mouth!”
Man One: “I know you are used to having things in your mouth!”
All: “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
And then the feed cut, possibly while an inquiry was being carried out in to why the prematch bawdy banter was broadcast live to the world. “Carry On Streaming”, as a colleague suggested the coverage be called.
No matter, once the game got under way, Man One and Man Two were professional to the bone, if a touch verbose. But happily, the streaming was flawless, which is always a relief for those of us who spend much of our lives watching spinning beachballs on malfunctioning sporty streams.
For those of us who still marvel at the telephone, it will never not be amazing that Ireland could emerge live from a laptop screen playing in Bloemfontein, allowing folk from Buncrana to Ballyferriter and Barna to Balbriggan to tune in and witness a 36-24 triumph.
A success for irishrugby+, they’ll just trust that future commentators don’t put their feet in their mouths.
