Rugby's oldest championship has a new broadcaster: for the next four years, the Six Nations has followed the Rugby World Cup in migrating from RTE to TV3.
The broadcaster launched their coverage today, which will feature Off The Ball's Joe Molloy in the presenting chair, adjacent to a panel of analysts selected from a pool of Ronan O'Gara, Shane Horgan, Shane Jennings, Alan Quinlan, and Matt Williams.
Sinead Kissane will reprise her role as touchline reporter, while commentary will provided by the hardest-working man in sports broadcasting: Off the Ball's Dave McIntyre.
TV3 heralded the Six Nations as their biggest ever investment in sport at today's launch, with the rights believed to have cost in the region of €10 million. It is a fee that wrangles the tournament away from RTE for the first time in the championship's history, although TV3's coverage will have plenty of vestigial links with the broadcasts from Montrose.
Their coverage will be produced by Niall Cogley, son of the late Fred Cogley, a former Head of Sport at RTE. He stressed at today's launch that they don't plan to "reinvent rugby coverage". In that sense, the recruiting of O'Gara and Horgan makes sense: both were mainstays of RTE's coverage over the last couple of years.
It was announced in October that O'Gara had signed up, before his move to Crusaders in New Zealand cast doubt on his involvement. He will play some part, however, with a couple of appearances at the beginning of the competition most likely, as pre-season at Crusaders offers him a window in which to skip home.
All of those we will see on our screens struck a similar tone to Cogley, including O'Gara.
I think it won’t be very different at all [TV3's coverage versus RTE's]. Shane [Horgan] will be there, I’m used to working with Shane. It’s great that Joe Molloy is on board, he has a magnificent future ahead of him. He is polished, has his prep done, and will ask the questions that need to be asked.
But much of it is determined by how Ireland go. That dictates our mood, and what we say. If you’re lucky to have the career I had in an Irish jersey, you want to see these guys tasting that. But it’s not easy to do that.
So you can hopefully give the viewer an insight into how they do that, into how they are feeling. People presume they turn up with the same emotions all of the time, but that’s not true. They have to get to an emotional pitch and that’s a challenge in itself.
Molloy agrees that there won't be a radical departure from RTE's coverage. "I don’t think very much needs to change. Our predecessors at RTE did a really good job, I enjoyed it and everyone did. Obviously, Shane Horgan has jumped over, and ROG is here too. My job is to listen, and try to create a human environment".
As for those he's working with:
ROG is a kind of philosopher-cum-rugby player, he is endlessly fascinating. I love Shane Horgan’s stuff, I think he is absolutely great. Matt Williams is a great communicator, and it’s great to get an outsiders aspect on things.
Shane Jennings is a kind of pros' pro, in a way the panel would defer to John Giles in the day. I've noticed the other pros will mention, Shane what do you think of that?’
He was a cultural architect at Leinster. His view of the game was well respected, he read the game really well as a player, and he will bring that to this.
Alan Quinlan will be great, and there will be a few more.
Jennings probably does not want to be bestowed with the "senior analyst" moniker just yet, but he shares the same sentiments as the aforementioned. "we’re not going to change the wheel, the Six Nations is the Six Nations, and RTE did a great job. But we’re going to put our own slant on it".
The mechanics and gadgets involved in the broadcast will be worked on in rehearsals over the next few weeks, ahead of kick-off on the first weekend of February.
