Free Rugby on TV

[IanD]

For anyone looking to save money on TV Subscriptions or for anyone wanting to get free access to more Rugby on TV I thought I would put this out there. I have a Humax Freesat Settop Box which gives me all the BBC Channels, all the ITV Channels all the Channel 4 and Channel 5 Channels. These are all fully recordable and the following are in High Definition.

BBC 1 HD
BBC 2 HD
ITV HD
Channel 4 HD
Channel 5 HD
S4C HD
BBC News HD
CBBC HD
CBeebies HD

Once purchased there are no subscriptions charges for FreeSat and there are no extra charges for High Definition Channels.


This is the newer version of the box I have

https://www.freesat.ie/product-info.php?pid215.html

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Home-Cinema- ... 550&sr=1-9


And a full list of Channels
http://cdn.freesat.co.uk/freesat/freesa ... 7%20v3.pdf


The FreeSat box gives you access to quite a bit of Rugby. You get all the BBC Regional variations as well as ITV 1 and 4 and S4C. More importantly you can record all the Regional stations and ITV as well as on the Red Button.

On a regular PRO 12 weekend you can have matches on the following stations.

BBC 2 NI Friday Night / Saturday
BBC 2 Wales - Friday Night
BBC Alba - Friday Night / Saturday
BBC Red Button
S4C HD - Saturday
BBC Alba and S4C both do an English Commentry.

So from a Leinster point of view say if we are away to Cardiff on a Friday it will be on BBC 2 Wales or away to Scarlets on a Saturday we would be on S4C. Same applies to Glasgow and Edinburgh on BBC Alba and occasionally on BBC 2 Scotland.


For example tonight you can watch/record
BBC 2 NI - Ulster v Edinburgh
BBC 2 Wales - Wales U20 v England U20
BBC Red Button - Munster v Dragons
BBC Alba – Ulster v Edinburgh

And on Sunday
S4C Cardiff v Connacht


On an international level I get all the matches in the 6 Nations on either BBC or ITV both in Full HD – this again is at no extra cost and is fully recordable. There are also highlight shows on both stations.


This weekend works out as

Saturday
BBC1 HD – Wales v England
ITV HD – Italy v Ireland
Sunday
BBC 1 HD – France v Scotland

For the World Cup I got all the main matches in High Definition on ITV 1 HD and the majority of the rest were shown on ITV 4.

Other Rugby shows -

BBC 2 Wales put out a show called Scrum 5 on a Sunday evening which obviously has a Welsh bias but shows highlights of PRO 12 or International matches.

BBC 2 have a Womens 6 Nations Highlights show on Sunday night showing bits of the 3 games.

ITV 4 and ITV 1 do a highlights package of the English Premiership (if that is your thing).

To work correctly the box needs 2 cables from your satellite dish meaning you can record 2 stations at the same time. So if you say cancel SKY it will plug into the same cabling. If you have space on your LMB you can run in extra cables. A quad LMB costs around €23 and are easy to install.

I should point out you do not get RTE TV3 or TG4 on this box but with most televisions having Saorview you can install an aerial and view them that way as I have done.