The Silver Fern

<p>I'm guessing many of you have seen this, but I coach (not rugby) for a living so it was great to see all that excellence distilled into 15 points!  Maybe it helps answer the question, maybe not.  You guys would know better than me.  But interesting, nonetheless. </p>

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<p>Thanks RC. The problem with accessing from outside US is not so much the VPN; I use a (free) geo-unblocker all the time. It's more about maybe having to give a physical address in the USA if you have to sign up for something or that you may have to use an American credit card etc to pay. Or literally being required to use certain equipment to access tv/video channels.</p>
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<p>(I understand from the USA Eagles twitter that some games are broadcasted delayed on the<strong> CBS Sports network, or isn't that television?</strong>)</p>
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<p>yes it is a CBS tv sports channel.  they finally got around to airing the USA Russia game last night. </p>
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<p>Thanks again Rusty for tipping me off about the ESPN coverage.  I spent the weekend getting caught up, and I'm excited to see some Super Rugby again!</p>

<p>that's terrific...thanks!</p>
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<p>rustycruiser, at the risk of sounding dumb, how did you find out about this?  i never saw any announcement...just saw the channel disappeared and when i called directv, no one knew anything about it. </p>
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<p>i almost never watch anything on espn, so maybe that explains it?</p>

<p>Since Directv did away with their southern hemisphere rugby feed (ch. 490), it seems there's nowhere to watch the games.  I'm 0-3 on the Wales tour and I'm wondering if anyone knows of another option.  It would be terrific if I could watch the SA and AUS games this year on my 46inch screen in hi def, vs. relying on dodgy illegal streams.</p>

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<p>Just 'cos it's a small pet-peeve of mine, and because this is the 21st century, the game is "American Football" and never called grid-iron (certainly not in the past 50 years). (Ratpoo or a Herald sub-editor made same mistake today, made me groan.)</p>
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<p>Sometimes, and then only very rarely, will somebody (a commentator, maybe) refer to the <em>surface</em> or <em>playing field</em> as a "grid-iron," but never the game itself.</p>
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<p>No big deal, shurely, and I would say you are correct. But then I get equally irritated when people up here call <em>my code</em> "rugger." For many years people up here actually believed that's what the sport was called, although that has mostly evaporated the past 20 years as the globe has gotten smaller. Certainly few can probably tell the difference between Union and League, yet most here can now uniformly recognise the game as "rugby" and blessedly it seldom-if-ever gets called "rugger" any longer.</p>
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<p>And thankfully, nobody up here as far as I can tell has ever called the game "paddock" or "pitch" or "field" (although a certain expat Sydney Swans supporter up here always calls it "outdoor wrestling.")</p>
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<p>I love that he called it "gridiron!"</p>
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<p>I was chatting with a guy in NZ 10 years ago (has it really been that long... :morning: ) and he called it that...I though it was very cool.</p>
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<p>You know what my pet peeve is?  People here in the US trying to "Euro-ize" their soccer teams' names to make them sound more important...they call them "F.C. this $ that" and "blah blah Union" and "whatever United."  Total douche move, because no one in the history of organized sports in this country every called a sports team any of those things until we started seeing Euro soccer here in TV. </p>
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<p>Did I mention I'm not really a soccer fan?  World Cup soccer got disturbingly trendy here last time around, while the RWC will once again get no attention whatsoever.  Meanwhile, there is no question which is better to watch.</p>
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<p>Anyway, don't sleep on the Bills.  They've upgraded at coach, rb, wr, ol, from last year's 9-7.  If they can somehow go from the bottom to the top 20 in QB play, they will be a 10-11 win team.</p>
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<p>Unless of course, they get ravaged by injuries, which can certainly happen (didn't last year, which is a big reason they won what they did), and makes this sport so absurdly unpredictable.</p>