AIL 2024/2025

don’t be so defensive, just pointing out a couple of facts

1. It was a 2nd team by con.
2. Nenagh got a couple of million from a land sale two years ago, and nenagh results have improved since .

There's more than you'd think!!

On a totally unrelated subject - see Harlequins have secured another signing - Finn Bamber from Sligo

Well yeah outside them your probably looking at Belvo Shannon (although they have a young ish side this year) naas who have a decent coaching ticket this year and Wesley should be there there abouts come play offs. Trinity I think probably need another season or two before they go back up regroup build again

went up to have a look on friday at that game and then in lakelands today v con. rock very poor all game both attack and in D, bit of a size difference too. Chatting to one of the players parents he was saying they hadn't had much games in the run in to ail, 2 games they were meant to play were conceeded in senior league, played the wanderers game then the final. don't think he was making excuses by any means for that loss just making out a lack of minutes on the pitch.

Injury Findings in the AIL

https://www.irishrugby.ie/2024/09/24/irfu-and-university-of-limerick-release-latest-iris-study-findings-for-2023-24-season/

How specifically do you think this is good? I'll note this doesn't seem to be building upon any of their prior endeavours and it's not dedicated to the AIL, it's also mentioning Emerging Ireland at this point as potential other selected games they will add to it.

They've shown recently enough that they are happy to lock things behind a paywall and there's zero mention of the games being or remaining free. In fact if you click on the FAQ it's very much written for a paid service. They do say already that you have to register to watch so it's not only hidden away on a service few will ever know about and nobody will stumble into but it's also locked behind making an account with them, an account not covered in their privacy policy that's harvesting email addresses for undisclosed purposes.

OK, I only spent about 3 minutes scrolling through the privacy policy and might have missed something but why do they even need accounts at all? If it's because they plan to charge why not be up-front about it? If they don't plan to charge then they must be planning to exploit it in another way they are obfuscating.

They are covering 12 games and unknown semi finals (implying all of them which I find hard to believe) so it's not even a game a week (even ignoring the missed first week).

What are the clubs who do stream themselves meant to do when the IRFU turn up, put out a second stream to their audience or abandon their audience to it?

Why are they putting money into rolling their own solution and maintaining it? It is a whitelabel solution and plus.irishrugby.ie site is just a mask for the provider who actually runs that site but they will be paying for everything directly. Would that money not be better spent supporting those clubs who are streaming so they can improve their streams and helping those who aren't streaming yet start? The email harvesting alone proves it's not some moral position against the dominance of Alphabet's youtube which is the only reason I could think of to go down this route and even then rowing in behind something like peertube would avoid them reinventing wheels and being beholden to an outside company to do anything.

FTR it's not the same company they used previously to charge for AIL semi-finals.

We'll have to see what the service is like also, will it let you do things like pause, rewind, watch later, change playback speed or zoom? Will it work equally well on TVs, phones and computers? The FAQ already highlights some of the issues like limited smart tv support, no chromecast support, a limit of 10 views assuming rewatching/watching later is enabled and one device at a time.

And that's all before we get to the question of what the coverage will be like. They don't tout anything about it so there's no reason to think it will match the best existing streams, though to be fair most streams are so basic I can't imagine they will aim to be any worse than the usual fair.

The only positive I can find is that, based on prior years, there's 5 regular season WAIL games which will be streamed that otherwise wouldn't have been, 2 of which are "big 4" games namely Blackrock Vs Bohs and Railway Vs Blackrock. Of course taking 1 of the 3 prime home games for those clubs discourages them a little from starting up their own streaming.

How many of those games would not have been shown anyway?

Where does it say "free" anywhere? Click on the FAQ and it leads with how to get to the payment page.

I did address numerous other points which aren't just about whether or not they will charge.

Guilty as charged for tending to type too much ;)

mark roch by the way is still involved in one of their teams as far as i know just not their senior side.

It's obviously way too early to call it, but if Ballyclare were to win 2C this year how many years in a row would that be that the promoted Junior club from the previous year goes on to win 2C?

Clogher, Instonians and Enniscorthy, I think, have won the last three 2C titles following promotion. Does the run go back further than that?

They were promoted in 2019, were 2nd in 2C when the league was suspended in 2020, 2020/21 didn't happen and then they won 2C in 2021/22. All a bit messy to be sure but they won the first fully completed 2C after their promotion.

interesting pick from Lansdowne to give Todd Lawlor a run out on the wing for 1st ail cap. They must see something they like in him. If I’m not mistaken he’s only just out of school or maybe the year before? Great to see young lads getting chances though

Ah fair i remember seeing him in a game alright just couldnt remember off the top of my head if it was 2023 or 2024 season year. I agree with you on that it isn't the norm just didn't see it coming this early, even to start. But its good for there getting there chances either way.

Im planning on going over to lakelands myself i think its pissing rain all day which probably suit nure more so than lansdowne who love the free flow heads up rugby passing i guess. my memories of nure over the years love the dog fight games and tuck up the jumper carry style i guess but they can mix and match.

Heading to Lakelands too. The weather is to be dry and windy.