Blood and Mud

How much are rugby fans in the UK going to have to pay watch rugby in 2011?

Mudster Karl Peters has been in touch in the wake of ESPN grabbing themselves some rights to show Guinness Premiership matches from 2010-11, asking us to investigate the whole subscription scenario for watching rugby next season.  Or to put it another way: to what extent are British and Irish fans expected to bend over and take it up the fundament from those bastard TV companies in the immediate future? 

The deal means that the ESPN TV channel, and its digital outlets such as scrum.com, will have rights to show 43 live Premiership matches from next season, this will include one of the two play-off semi-finals.

Sky continue to have 26 live matches (including one semi and the final), the Heineken Cup and European Shield, and all the non-World Cup and non-6 nations England games.

In terms of free-to-air, the BBC continues to cover the 6 Nations, Magners League on BBC Wales, and the Anglo-Welsh Cup, plus the Welsh language S4C has live Magners matches every Saturday.  Also, much to fans' abject horror, ITV will once again bring their particularly brand of uselessness to covering the World Cup in 2011.

So, in short, if you want to see all the rugby on telly next year you will have to pay at least £36 for a Sky Sports subscription, plus £9 for ESPN per month.  If you only want want the ESPN Premiership offering then a subscription without Sky Sports costs £12. 

Frankly, given what it will cost to watch next year, the Guiness Prem would be wise to consider how to improve its overall quality as many could argue that this season it has not really been worth the money.  And England should be paying people to watch them at present, not the other way round.

News Maul: Lions tips, Wales masochism, Zinzan gets nasty

The News Maul brings you snippets of the latest titbits from the world of rugby, before it's brutally pulled down by a forward.

- Scotland and Northampton prop Euan Murray has played down talk of a Lions Test berth after some impressive games recently, saying, "I can't listen to that stuff."  Whether he says this because the tour is still eight months away and, unlike journalists, he has some sense or he is actually deaf is unclear. 

Rumours about the cloning of Lee Byrne and Shane Williams for the backs are still being denied by the tour management

- Warren Gatland has revealed a cruel and unusual streak by scheduling more games for his Wales team against Southern Hemisphere teams.  Gatland insists it is to increase the competition for his team in order to prepare them fully for an brutal assault on the World Cup in 2011.  We think he's done it because he get some sick pleasure from inflicting suffering on his players, the pervert.

- Not that any of this will worry Zinzan Brooke, who has used his BBCi column to tell the Northern Hemisphere they are all shit and have about as much chance in the next World Cup as Ugo Monye getting a membership at Augusta National.  "The gap is just too wide" said the former drop-kicking show off, "and you have to remember that Australia, New Zealand and South Africa came to the UK off the back of a long hard season. They'll be better prepared come the 2011 World Cup." 

2011 World Cup Draw: England are unbelievably jammy

England have landed right on their feet here.  Now, I'm not saying for certain that they will even get out of this group - and if the World Cup was on next week then I would doubt it - but they could not have got a better draw than this. 

Argentina: of the top seeds that you could get in your group, even a mad tramp with a belly full of cheap cider, head full of dangerous musings and trousers full of questionable excretion could reason that they are the weakest.   Okay, three years until the tournament is a long time, but we'd bet an HBOS expenses account to a penny that the Pumas will be no better then than they are now - which isn't great.  Added to this, England also have Scotland, who look on the verge of getting a bit good again, but if history has taught us anything it is that this won't actually happen.

For being the only European side to beat come close to beating and then actually beating SH opposition, Wales's reward is to be in a group with the Springboks and their slayers last time around, Fiji.

Interestingly, New Zealand have France in their group - which means the All Blacks can get their humiliation out of the way in the group stages this time, before losing to Australia in the semis again.  Full draw after the jump..

2011 Rugby World Cup draw:

Pool A - New Zealand, France, Tonga, Americas 1, Asia 1

Pool B - Argentina, England, Scotland, Europe 1, play-off winner

Pool C - Australia, Ireland, Italy, Europe 2, Americas 2

Pool D - South Africa, Wales, Fiji, Oceania 1, Africa 1